What is the most well known Bible verse in all of Christianity?
People who grew up through the Seventies and Eighties might reply with John 3:16 – especially if you went to or watched any televised football games during that time period. I fondly recall seeing signs and banners like the photo above being displayed by people in the end zone sections of games for years and years. Plus it was always a staple verse of instruction/memorization in Sunday School, Vacation Bible School and summer church camp classes everywhere. I imagine if you took a poll of mainstream Christianity and asked about John 3:16, a great many people could quote it back to you verbatim.
This is something that has popped into my head here and there for some time now. And I’ve read other answers to this kind of question out on the web (see links below). But I wanted to ask it in more of a theological setting to see what others here could add to the subject. Please note that I’m not trying to be callous regarding death and the intense emotions it brings. As an only child who lost both parents at a young age, that vile enemy death has had a far-reaching and deeply emotional effect on my own life.
So here is the question: Why are people who believe death leads immediately to immortality so sad for those who “pass-on”?
Every Halloween when I see all the faux tombstones in stores and yard scenes that have “R.I.P.” on them, it causes me to ponder the irony of them.
The dominant religion of the U.S. is Christianity. And Christianity as we all know has the dominant belief that man is inherently immortal and goes off to either the good place (i.e. Heaven), or the bad place (i.e. Hell).
Those who believe in a literal burning hell as a place of torment (where the bad folk get sent at death), often use the NT references to God not leaving Jesus’ “soul” in hell and Jesus descending to “the lower parts of the earth” to support such beliefs. But is there validity to that? Did Jesus really go down and get tormented for the three days and three nights he was in “the belly of the earth”?
Posted in Obedience to Christ, Doctrine, Resurrection, Death is Sleep, Age to Come, hell, truth, Ron's Articles, Satan, Parousia on August 1st, 2009 17 Comments »
I love a good sermon on the biblical truth about death and what our future hope SHOULD be. Maybe it is just my Adventist roots showing, but I do so enjoy hearing this kind of message. It really gives purpose to WHY Jesus is coming back and better yet why we should EARNESTLY DESIRE it to happen! I found this looking through some E.W. Bullinger materials. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.
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Death No Gateway To Heaven
By: Willard Smith
In the Christian realm today there is unscriptural teaching concerning the death of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are constantly being told by well-meaning Christians that at death, “We go to be with the Lord.” This phrase is used especially at funerals where preachers misquote or take the Scriptures out of context to reassure the sorrowing that their loved ones are not really dead, but are really enjoying Heaven in God’s presence. This teaching promotes belief in the lie of Satan, rather than what God told Adam and Eve when He placed them in the Garden.In Gen. 2:17 God said,
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die.” In the Hebrew could read “Dying thou shalt die.”
This was a certainty.
In Gen. 3:1, Satan speaks for the first time in the scriptures. He asks Eve (by the Figure Erotesis for emphasis), “Yea, hath God said,” or “Can it be that God hath said…?” In Gen. 3:4, Satan’s second utterance, we read, “And the serpent said unto the woman, ‘Ye shall not surely die’… “ This is a plain contradiction of God’s Word in Gen. 2:17. As one has said long ago, “This has become the foundation of spiritism and traditional belief as to death.”
And at long last (sorry for the delay), here’s the conclusion of Homer D. Baxter’s - The Two Adams.
FYI - Here’s direct links to the other three:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
CHRIST WILL RETURN
While the first Adam died and returned to dust because of his disobedience (Gen 3:19), the second Adam sits on the right hand of God fulfilling his official capacity as High Priest and Mediator. He is the link between a righteous God and sinful mankind; mediating in man’s behalf; settling the differences between man and his Creator. When this priestly reign ends, which is better know as the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus will deliver it up to God (1 Cor. 15:24) and will assume his right to become King of Kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16).
In the Old Testament, tucked away in first Samuel, lies the incident in which Saul (the first king of Israel) asked a witch to bring up the prophet Samuel from the dead in order to get advice on what to do. This account is sometimes used to teach that dead people are really conscious in the grave. What follows is Dr. John Roller’s response to this objection. Dr. Roller is an expert on the doctrine of Conditional Immortality (also called “the sleep of the dead” or “soul sleep”). His impassioned defense of the importance of this doctrine can be watched or listened to on our Death is Sleep resource site. More information about Dr. John Roller, including some articles, may be found on his website.
I don’t know if any of you receive the emails that Dr. John Roller sends out, but I really enjoyed this last one. Dr. Roller is an expert on the doctrine of Conditional Immortality (also called “the sleep of the dead” or “soul sleep”). His impassioned defense of the importance of this doctrine can be watched or listened to on our Death is Sleep resource site. More information about Dr. John Roller, including some articles, may be found on his website. What follows is his explanation of the meaning of Mark 9.48. Before quoting his exposition, it may be helpful to remind you of what the verse says in its context.
I thought I’d take a little break from my “False View of Hell” series this week and post something a little different - though certainly on topic. In fact, it covers many of the topics I’ve already covered and some to come up next. But for now I thought I would share this nice little “visual” resource I ran across a few years ago concerning the proper Biblical view of death (and Hell). This is a comic style booklet by Jim Pinkoski that has been published for years by the “Amazing Facts” people (amazingfacts.org). And except for once little part throwing in the traditional error of the trinity (in Part 7), it does a pretty good job in both its broad coverage of scripture, common sense reasoning, and entertaining pictorials/graphics. It use to be available on the Amazing Facts site for full web viewing, but it seems to be only available for purchase there now. However I did find a viewable/download-able PDF version of the same book at helltruth.com.
This week I’m continuing my little paper - “The False View of Hell”. My goal with this piece is to try and show to both our Christian and non-Christian visitors, that the typical, predominant view that good people go to “Heaven” and bad people (or people just not believing in Jesus - a.k.a. “becoming a Christian”) go the “Hell” when they die, is NOT what the Bible actually says. Such a belief can only be seen in the bible when the presuppositions of that idea are read into certain Bible passages. And even then, they come into direct conflict with other parts of Scripture that point to different “afterlife” views. However, if (as I mentioned in Part 1) one looks at Scripture as a whole and doesn’t read Plato’s dualistic concepts into the Hebrew texts, it can be seen that man doesn’t automatically continue to live on past death in the “good place” or the “bad place”. Let’s dig deeper into this here in Part 2!