Where are the dear departed? (was Re: [asa] Sin, animals, and salvation)

Hi Bernie,

You wrote;
> How about this as an NT example of "going to heaven?":
>
> Phil 1
> 21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
>
> Feel free to answer that by starting a new thread, as it is off-topic. If Paul departs and is with Christ- where are they right now? Certainly they aren't on the new Earth, because it wasn't made new yet.

Good question! My best guess is that the answer depends on whose perspective (Christ's or Paul's) you're appealing to.

Christ I take to be alive and well and living in heaven right "now" whilst Paul I take to be alive and well and living with Christ "then". The major distinction between them is that Christ has been raised, but Paul has not.

So from our (and Christ's) perspective Paul simply isn't anywhere at present. But from Paul's perspective our present simply isn't part of his experience. From his perspective (and I'd suggest this of all the departed) I'd hypothesise a "seamless" experience of transition from the end of this life to the beginning of the next.

What's critical to all this is that I simply don't think a "container" notion of "linear" time works here. In other words time isn't something we are "in" nor does it flow are a "regular rate" - so it isn't to me obvious that one even has to account for an interim period between death and resurrection.

In this regard it's interesting that from the description of the heavenly throne-room given in Revelations chapters four to six omits ANY mention of the presence of human believers. They, or at least the martyrs amongst them, are sealed up under the altar awaiting the time of resurrection (Revelations 6:9-11). Now, I'll acknowledge that building theology on Revelations is a risky business however I will say that it doesn't seem to lend aid to a "died and gone to heaven" outlook of the sort normally advanced.

So, in large part my response to your above is simply to point out that time is a far weirder phenomenon than normally supposed and it may be wrong to assume that Christ's (or our) experience of time is identical to that of Paul's. Absent the assumption of a common time-frame, and I think the answer to the question "where are they now" becomes anything but obvious.

Blessings,
Murray Hogg
Pastor, East Camberwell Baptist Church, Victoria, Australia
Post-Grad Student (MTh), Australian College of Theology

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Received on Wed Nov 19 18:24:52 2008