Flesh and Spirit

In dimensions beyond our here (space) and now (time), according to God, we will be changeless LIGHT BEINGS.

The Bible was written by men
who were entirely inspired by God.
(2nd Timothy 3:16-17)
Spiritual life will begin
When one drops their self righteous facade.

This truth has changed my life
Which, itself, verifies it's truth.
The Bible says in afterlife
We’ll be Spirit bodies, - ageless youth.

Paul gives spirit the nod,
In Heaven, spirit we'll be.
"Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."
(1st Corinthians, 15:50 NIV)

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The Bible says it was written by men who were entirely inspired by God.
(2nd Timothy 3:16-17) Since I have come to realize the truth of this it has changed my life, and the fact that it does this for people is one indication of its truth. The truth according to the Bible is that after death we will be resurrected with Spiritual bodies.

In the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, verse 50, the apostle Paul wrote, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." (NIV) The kingdom of God is a Spiritual kingdom that begins here on Earth (within us) when we are saved and born of the Spirit, and it continues on into the glory of Heaven. I am born again, and that makes me a child of God. What joy to realize what this means! God was the Father of the man, Jesus, who had God living in Him. Now I am a child of God also, and that also makes God my Father, with a small portion of His Spirit living in me. This is nothing like what Jesus possessed as He was fully God and fully man (Colossians 1:19; 2:9), but I have a share of God's Spirit!

In verses 42 and 44 of 1st Corinthians, chapter 15, Paul writes "with
the resurrection of the dead....it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." (NIV) You can't get any plainer than that. In addition, Jesus Himself told us the same thing in Luke chapter 20, verses 35 and
36, where He said, "those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead....can no longer die; for they are like the angels." (NIV)

Angels are spiritual beings. They don't really have wings. We may think they need them to get around in Heaven, but it is not a physical place
where anything is held down by gravity.

Luke writes that Jesus said, "Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Luke 21:33 NIV) Jesus said, "A time is coming and is now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23, 24 NIV) Truth is expressed in language, and Jesus said His words shall never pass away. The physical world will pass away, as described by Peter in 2nd Peter, chapter 3, verse 7, "By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction of ungodly men."(NIV) We don't know if the entire physical universe will pass away or just this tired old earth. It is certain that this earth, once covered with water will be consumed by the ancient element, fire ("earth, air, fire, and water" -- fire not being covered by the promise of the rainbow. Our prayer to God, and the Word (Jesus and the Bible) from Him, are an exchange through language between our present physical forms of existence and Heaven's Spiritual forms of existence. When Jesus said His words shall never pass away, this is true because they transcend this world already and are the bridge now between our world and God's world; so Jesus' Words, God's message to us, were and will always be a part of God's eternal world of Spirit and Light.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away." (Rev. 21:1 NIV) This was revealed to Jesus' apostle, John, near the end of his life and is found at the end of the Bible. This is followed by a description of heaven in material terms using material illustrations. If you read chapter 21 of Revelation, you find a physical description of spiritual realities. There is honor for the twelve tribes of Israel and Jesus twelve apostles. The structure of heaven is described as clear gold, and clear as crystal jewels, with the light of it all supplied by God, who is Spirit, and by His manifestation as His earth-born son, Jesus. Verse 11 says that in John's vision heaven "shown with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal." Verse 18: "The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass." John is describing transparent walls and an entirely transparent city: "pure as glass" and "clear as crystal." (all NIV)

This passage is John's effort to describe with our words (and in material
terms) what is immaterial, spiritual, and discernible only in a spiritual body. This is something we cannot understand in our flesh because we cannot now experience it. "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12 NIV) Heaven is not a physical place as is this world. It is a spiritual place permeated with God's Spirit. As best we can comprehend it on Earth, Heaven may be formed by and of light.

Light and the whole electromagnetic spectrum of which light is a part is formed of pure energy. It is through the electromagnetic spectrum that radio and television broadcasting is possible on earth. Included in the electromagnetic spectrum in addition to what we can see, all the colors of the rainbow, there are those colors we can't see, infrared and ultra violent, as well as all the bands of energy waves which carry all that data for radio, TV, and the digital "Information Superhighway." We do not directly experience the invisible broadcast signals which convey the picture and sound to our TVs where only there we see them. Except through language, we see nothing of Heaven now, because our earthly bodies so limit us to within a narrow range of possible perceptions and experience. We can see through our skin into the inside of us with x-rays, but not with our naked eyes, because we are not Super Men and Women! When we get to Heaven in our glorified (means glorious, glowing) Light Bodies, we will be in a fantastic frame of reference which is so vast and magnificent compared to the limit of our experience in our old bodies in our old world here on earth.

In order to enter this Kingdom of Heaven you must be born (again) of the Spirit. Jesus said, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (John 3:6-8 NIV) This is the clearest illustration of spirit Jesus could have given for the understanding of the people at that time. He illustrated with the blowing wind with people who did not have radio and television. And yet He came at EXACTLY THE RIGHT TIME, proven by the subsequent successful history of the spread of Christianity.

There is a time for all things in God's plan for His natural Creation. The advances in technology through human history make perfect sense when you think about how the sweep of technological development broadens the experience of mankind, how the changes in the structure of artifacts supporting people create varieties of circumstances in which God can test His children. Think of this life here on earth as just a preparatory school for a much higher-order-existence for those who choose to enroll in it. The technology of today's richest countries, always a potential reality through time, has been revealed by God on His timetable for reasons that are way over our heads! All I know from my own personal experience in Vietnam, is that in third world countries one may find people with more integrity and warmer hearts than one finds in rich countries. We are born self-centered as babies. How we grow out of it, or don't, is critical to our eternal destiny. What everyone needs is Jesus for our teacher! We need Jesus for our teacher and The Holy Bible for our textbook!!

As far as the development of technology is concerned, it is a constant revelation of God as to what is possible. I believe we are near the end of time now with the development of the electromagnetic spectrum with the invention of radio, television, and satellite communications. God is letting us develop and use natural conditions in ways that are as sophisticated as we will ever be capable of in this world. Consider how broadcasting today conveys words and even images unseen by us through the air. In a world with more dimensions than the known four, think what will be possible!

Aristotle said God is "the unmoved mover." Spiritual activity does not require motion through physical dimensions, but on earth in this physical universe, God created for us dimensions that require the physical. This life is a test of us to see who wants to be with God when He draws us toward Him. Do you want to spend eternity as a being of light with God enough to completely trust Him and obey Him?

God created us because He is love. (1 John 4:8 and 16) We know from our own experience that love is creative. God created us because He is love, and love gives and creates. When we reproduce ourselves we are in our tiny way helping God within nature to fulfill His will for increasing and expanding love. Love exists only when there are others to love and be loved by. The more others there are the more love is possible. Love only exists through relationships between and among different individual beings.

"In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth." (Ephesians 1:8-10 NIV) When God created the heavens and the earth He was preparing the perfect environment for the creation of other beings with whom to have a relationship, making possible the giving and receiving of more love. God created human beings so that He could have a relationship with us. Paul tells us what the purpose of a saved Christian life is in Ephesians 2:10...."we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (NIV)

In order for pure love to be possible between and among us new beings, God created human beings as He did other beings (i.e., the angels) with freedom of choice. If we were not able to love God and each other volitionally, because we choose to do so, we could not love at all. God not only by creating us brought us into existence; but at Creation God gave the creatures He made in His image the freedom through language to love Him or not to love Him. We know of God through language as to His name and attributes. We see the results of His work in nature, but we may have a personal relationship with God through language, prayer and His Word. This is how we are made in God's image, not that God is male or female or has two arms or two legs, but that we both express ourselves, think, and plan through language. We also have a personal relationship with God through what we do for others in His name. These acts Jesus said you have done unto Me. (Mark 9:41) We serve God here in the flesh when we serve each other. We don't know the opportunities that will be available to us in Heaven with the power and majesty we will then have, but with the love of God in our hearts and the character we have developed during the sanctification of our spirits on earth, we will be prepared for all those opportunities and the blessings that will be going with them.

God made light first, more of what He Himself is already. God put light into nature before He made the stuff of which we are made, bodies of material animated by energy. The glorious new bodies we receive at the Rapture, or when we are resurrected, will be of a kind that we have not and could not have used in this world. We will not be confined to the kind of world which we only know now. Jesus said, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." (John 3:19-21 NIV) Jesus said that. Now please go back and read it again; and then think about this: there will be no privacy in heaven, because there will be nothing at all to be ashamed of and there will be no sin, no shame, nothing to hide, and there will be nothing hidden in heaven. Jesus said, "There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known." (Matthew 10:26 NIV) Can you imagine the relief to have nothing to be ashamed of? Actually, that is what we have already right now if we are saved and our sins forgiven. I'm not sure why, when forgiven, we still draw back from complete openness here on earth. It may be that we should practice being less secretive now in preparation for Heaven!

This is the kind of place God's Spirit is preparing the saved people for. If you are unsaved, you undoubtedly do not want to go there. You'll never know the joy you are missing, because when you are saved you then know you do want to go there, and you have found out why.


--Ellis