In my last post I mentioned the New Jerusalem being in Orbit around the New Earth.  Here is why I believe that is the case.  3 times Revelation 3:12, 21:2 & 10 describes it as coming down out of Heaven.  In Revelation 21:24 it says the Nations of the earth will walk in its light.  If the New Jerusalem sits on the earth its light would not shine on one side of the planet.  Another relevant detail in Revelation 21:10 is John could see the New Jerusalem from the top of a mountain and it was moving, “descending out of heaven from God.”  He could see it because it is huge, a cube some 1,400 miles wide, deep and high. 

Another key observation is the Eternal Kingdom (Heaven) has a growing population.  That was first revealed in Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.  All the resurrected believers from this universe will be living in the New Jerusalem (John 14:1-4).  According to Jesus Christ resurrected saints do not marry which would indicate we won’t be making babies (Matthew 22:30).  And since that resurrection is completed before the 1,000-year Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:4-5) these nations of corporal humans are likely the believing survivors of the Millennial Kingdom. 

Ok, that is my opinion and just to be fair, there are a lot of people who don’t agree with me on that.  I believe I have some support from the Apostle Paul’s discussion of resurrection in 1 Corinthians.  He lays out the order of the 1st resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:22-24 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. 24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.  “Those who are Christ’s at His coming” matches the timing of Revelation 20:4-5 as the completion of this 1st resurrection.  Nothing is said about what happens to the believers who live through the Millennial Kingdom.  We therefore have some freedom here to speculate as to their future.  My opinion is they enter the Eternal Kingdom as these nations mentioned in Revelation 21:24. 

Revelation 22:1-2 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.  The Tree of life, the one Adam could have eaten from and lived forever, is in the New Jerusalem.  And its leaves are for the healing of the Nations.  It just could be that those people living on the New Earth will live forever.  And that is why the Universe is so big.  A Kingdom that grows forever will need a lot of space to settle its eternal growing population. 
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Hope you will be there with us!  You can be if you believe in Jesus Christ as the redeemer and giver of life.    

As promised, I do want to lay out what I’ve come to understand about God’s eternal Kingdom He will establish once this reality has completed its usefulness.  Most people call it heaven, but the Lord God calls it the New Heaven and Earth.  It is the replacement for the current Heaven and Earth God created in the beginning.  Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Because He uses the same terminology for the New as He used for the present one, I assume the words mean the same things.  As I pointed out before, the charter to Adam and Eve was to rule over the original creation which strongly implies that it will be what will be recreated in the new one. 

While the new universe will look similar to what we see now the physics and chemistry will be very different.  They will have to be since the new universe will last for eternity.  So, there will have to be some mechanism to overcome or offset entropy and compensate for energy losses.  The same for aging.  We’ll need something to continuously regenerate our bodies.  Of course, God has all that covered.  The original universe in which we live once had all those features.  I can’t give you a chapter and verse in the Bible for that, but it is implied in God’s statements in Genesis 1. 

The earth will look different because there will be no seas.  Death will have been eliminated so we’ll need the space for the growing population.  Presently, we’re running about 130 million births a year.  That’s offset by around 70 million deaths per year.  That birth rate would add another billion people in less that 8 years if not for the number of deaths.  While the new earth will start with a lower base population, we’ll still need a lot of space to handle population growth.  And eventually that will mean expanding out into the rest of the Universe!  Intergalactic space travel will become a necessity.        

The Bible does indicate space travel will be a common thing in the new universe.  Jesus Christ said believers from this universe will have their homes in God’s house.  John 14:2-3 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

In Revelation we learn God’s house is the New Jerusalem that is described as coming down out of Heaven (Rev. 3:12, 21:2 & 10). 3 times the new Jerusalem is said to be descending out of heaven.  It doesn’t ever say it lands on the earth.  Instead, we have this in Revelation 21:34 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.  There will be nations of saved people living on the new earth and they will have the light of the New Jerusalem shine on them.  That sounds to me like the New Jerusalem will be orbiting the earth.  It will be a second moon, occupied by the Resurrected believers from this Universe. The light that shines from it is the manifestation of God’s presence in the New Jerusalem. 

Why don’t you read Revelation 20-22 for yourself.  Check it out before my next post where I’ll share more of what I believe it is saying. 

When considering where life is taking you there are only 2 big picture outcomes available.  Our existence either ends when our body dies or we continue to live on in whatever lies beyond.  Option one means there really isn’t any purpose to life, so make of it what you will.  Option two means that what we do with our lives just might matter.  Looking at it from a non-religious point of view, the degree of order plus the appearance of an engineered structure to the universe is enough for me to go with option 2.  Our existence does extent beyond the Grave. 

That was my personal position long before I became a believer in Jesus Christ.  I believed there was a divine intelligence behind the creation.  I bought into the improbability of an infinite regression, so yes, I believed the universe was created by God.  I just didn’t know who God is.  So, I admit I had a bias against the first option of no after life.  Having gone that far in trying to make sense of life, you’re more or less forced into a monotheistic view of God since there can only be one eternal infinite being.  So, polytheism was never a serious consideration for me.   Nor did I believe it possible that an impersonal mindless force was behind existence.  

I don’t mean to imply I spent long nights pondering the deep things of existence.  I wasn’t even a very good student in school.  I was actually bored with most of it.  I did have an interest in knowing stuff so I spent a lot of time reading books.  I still do.  It was while I was on active duty with the Naval Air Reserves that I ran into a group of people my age who explained what Christmas and Easter were all about.  They walked me through the Biblical narrative of what Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection accomplished.  They showed me the Old Testament prophesies that predicted the timing of His birth and execution by the Romans.  The evidence supporting the resurrection and much more.  I spent most of a day reading and discussing those things before I was convinced it was all true.  I believed and Jesus Christ gave me everlasting life. 
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That is why I’m posting these short essays on this blog.  I’m praying those of you who read this will serious consider what your own future could be.  Life is not meaningless.  There is a wonderful future in a world yet to come for those who seek it.  In my next posts I’ll share my understanding of what the Bible says about that new world we call Heaven.  

In the previous post I said God had a purpose for the creation.  I should have said He has a purpose because He hasn’t changed His mind.  He will achieve His original intent which was revealed in Genesis 1:26. 
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  

Genesis 1:28 records God’s actual commission to Adam and Eve.  Genesis 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  This is the first description of God’s intention to create a Kingdom in which He would delegate some authority to rule with Him to mankind.  Initially, it was limited to having dominion over this planet.  However, I assume that when the fill the earth part was completed the Lord would have expanded the scope of our management to include other worlds.  The massive size of the universe He created suggests He planned for us to move out into it someday.  

We’re actually taking the first baby steps in doing just that.  My guess is we would be a lot further along on space exploration if Adam had not chosen to listen to Satan’s lie and broke faith with God.  His disobedience changed something in his fundamental make up.  Adam was created with something of God’s likeness in him.  God never explained exactly what “in Our image” was, but something of what it was did die when Adam sinned. 

We have this in Genesis 5:3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.  I believe it is significant that it says Seth was born in the likeness of Adam after his (Adam’s) image. The human race was no longer what God had originally created, something in us had changed.  The conflict between Cain and Abel points to a weakness in our sense of morality.  And it was accompanied by aging and physical death.  Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. 

That verse implies God had intended Adam and Eve to live forever.  He had put the tree of life in the Garden to sustain them.  It also indicates the capacity for everlasting life was lost to the whole creation.  We humans would die, but death had permeated the entire creation.  That is why God speaks of one day creating a New Heaven and Earth, a new universe free of the death curse we live under.  He does not; however, intend to create a new human race.  God said this to Satan in Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.  Her Seed being a descendent of Eve and your seed being the entity behind the serpent – Satan.   
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That was the first Messianic prophecy.  God would send us a Redeemer who would open the way to recover what was lost when Adam sinned.  Everlasting life and a future fulfilling the Kingdom heritage given us through Adam in Genesis 1:28. It is open to all who will believe Jesus Christ for it.  

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God, John 1:1-2 (Most Scripture references are from NKJV, Thomas Nelson, 1982 ed.)

That is how the Apostle John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, decided to open his account of Jesus Christ’s incarnation.  It all started with the Word.  Word, the means by which communication takes place.  But John had more in mind than a verbal expression because the Word is both with God and was God.  And John knew the Word is more than an idea He is a person. 

In John 1:14 he went on to say: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  We just celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ a few weeks ago.  Grace and Truth are what we need.  John 1:16-18 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

God is not some mindless force or gestalt; He is a person.  In fact, He is 3 persons sharing the same essence of being or existence.  We know God as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  John told us that in the beginning of creation God had a purpose which has been communicated to us by Jesus Christ, the Word.  That purpose is the future eternal kingdom the Lord calls the new heaven and earth, Isaiah 65:17 & Revelation 21:1. It will replace this one which has been tainted by our bad choices.  Those bad choices are what has separated so many of us from God.  The reason Jesus Christ became a man and dwelt among us was to do away with what has held us apart. 

The new heaven and earth are briefly described in the Bible.  Isaiah 9:6 & 7 tell us it will be an ever-expanding reality of untold possibilities.  Revelation 21 & 22 gives us a snap shot of what it will be like which should excite every sci-fi fan who takes the time to read it.  That is where the story of Nicodemus comes in to play.  You must have everlasting life to live in the Kingdom.  And to receive everlasting life requires you believe in Jesus Christ.  He became a man in order to die for your bad choices, you sin.  Sin is the bringer of death to God.  Jesus Christ brings life.   
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John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  

The understanding I have from Scripture is believing is simply being convinced or persuaded a proposition is true.  You either believe it or you don’t.  Consider James 1:5-7 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.

Faith and doubt are opposites.  If one has doubt then we can say he doesn’t have faith, he doesn’t believe.  There are not degrees of faith nor can one almost believe something.  Again, you either believe something or you don’t.  I have looked up every use of the word believe in the New Testament and not once does it appear with a modifying adverb.  Jesus Christ never spoke of truly believing or really believing, He only said believe.  The concept of a saving belief vs. a non-saving faith is not Biblical. 

Is it possible to believe something for a period of time and then change your mind and not believe it?  Absolutely, believe does not rule out a change of mind.   That is the beauty of God’s promise of everlasting life.  I point you again to what Jesus Christ said in John 5:24 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.  The person who believes in Jesus Christ for everlasting life receives it immediately.  The moment they believe they pass from death to life.  They will never come under judgement for their sin.  So, what happens if the next day they have doubt?  Well, they no longer believe but since everlasting life is everlasting, they still have it.  This is what we call assurance of salvation.  Once you have it you can’t get rid of it. 

God knew what He was doing in providing salvation.  He knows our weaknesses.  Afterall, he made us.  Look at what He said in Psalms 103:12-14 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. 14 For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.

He knows us and would never entrust the guarantee of His gift of everlasting life to us alone.  So, He removed our sin.  It is also why the covenant He made with Abraham was an unconditional or unilateral one.  He secured that in the immutable nature of His promise.   Hebrews 6:17-18 Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, 18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
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When God wants something done, He takes the responsibility to make happen.  Israel’s exodus from Egypt to the promised land is a good example.  He kept His promise even though He had to drag Israel kicking and screaming across the Sinai Wilderness.  And He will do the same for everyone who will believe in Jesus Christ for the gift of everlasting life.    

Since everlasting life is given to all who believe in Jesus Christ’s offer of life, I suppose we should discuss what it means to believe.  Which I admit seems like a simple concept until you hear how people talk about belief, believe and faith.   Just to be clear on the terms we have two nouns, belief and faith, and one verb believe.  Pistis is the Greek noun translated as faith as in Ephesians 2:8 and belief in 2 Thessalonians 2:13.    Pisteuo is the Greek verb translated as believe as in John 3:16 and 1 Thessalonians 2:13. 

Nouns are used to identify classes of people, places or things.  So, pistis and its English translations of faith and belief deal with what is believed.  A verb expresses an action, mode of being or an occurrence.  Therefore, the Greek word pisteuo and its English translation of believe refer to being in a state or mode of belief.   I don’t apologize for the grammar lesson for 3 reasons.  I’m not sure everyone knows what nouns and verbs are.  Secondly is that God is who invented language and He uses it with precision.  And thirdly, correctly understanding the word of God is too important to risk any misunderstandings.   

Let me give you an example of how big a difference confusing these words can make.  Matthew 8 recounts Jesus and the disciples crossing the sea of Galilee in a boat.  V. 18 says Jesus commanded that they cross to the other side of the lake.  While in transit the Lord took a nap and a wind storm blew up.  The disciples were fearful the boat would sink so they woke Jesus up saying “Lord save us. We are perishing!”  To which Christ replied “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?”  The question is what did Jesus Christ mean by “O you of little faith.”

One view I’ve heard is that their faith was weak.  It lacked the intensity of genuine faith.  I have two issues with that view.  1) that makes a successful crossing dependent on the disciple’s faith and 2) it doesn’t fit the context or the grammar.  Context because they obviously believed Jesus Christ could protect them since that is why they woke Him up.  Grammatically because little is an adjective which described what they believed not how hard they believed it.  The better view of what Jesus said here is that the content of their belief was small.  It was deficient in that they had not believed everything Jesus Christ had said to them.

In V. 18 Jesus had commanded they were to cross the lake.  God means what He says.  They were going to cross the Lake.  So, no matter what the condition of the sea, if they were not yet to the other side that boat was not going to sink.  They needed to learn the same lesson Israel failed to grasp in the wilderness wanderings.  We are to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4).   

As I said above God is precise in His use of language.  Therefore, we should read and interpret what the Bible says with equal precision.   The stakes are too high if we get it wrong. 
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2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.