No one is in Heaven yet

[Magnum_V8]

I recently ran into someone that says no human being is in Heaven yet. He was directing this towards our Catholic belief in the Saints being in Heaven and praying to them.

He said:

The Bible states: that the dead are dead in the grave: and death in Jesus is sleep. The saints [saved] are in the graves waiting for the 1st resurrection.

How can we defend against this?

 

[Tantum_ergo]

He says, eh? No Bible chapters and verses in context? No historical tradition that ties this ‘view’ to the apostles and throughout history to the current time, unbroken?

The ball is in his court. He is the one who needs to prove his assertion, first, that the Bible actually says exactly this, teaches exactly this and has continually taught this from AD 33 to now, instead of it being the teaching of a particular Protestant group (and you’ll note it is by no means all Protestants who think this) which **started ** from a relatively short time ago.

 

[Magnum_V8]

Tantum ergo,

I think he holds Seventh Day Adventists in high esteem, although he has said he is not one of them. BTW, this is all from an Internet message board.

(Forgot to mention)

Funny thing is, this guy has posted very long messages which are copies and pastes of Biblical verses to “prove” his point on other issues. Yeah, he didn’t post any verses for that statement, though.

 

[Magnum_V8]

Wouldn’t Jesus’ statement to the penitent thief on the cross be a CLEAR refutation to this guy’s claim?

 

[Benadam]

although this probably won’t bust through the layers of reasons your friend wants to deny the community of Saints, it’s something.

St Paul believed the soul experienced a conscious state outside of the body.

There was a man who was taken up to the third heaven,** in the body or out I do not know,** and saw and heard things that shouldn’t be spoken. ( paraphrase)

I may have hacked that passage up a bit with my paraphrasing but the essential elements are there.

 

[thommie]

II Corinthians 5:6-8, and the heavenly scene in Revelation chapter 4 and onward (note the 24 elders, and the martyrs in 6:9-11).

 

[CollegeKid]

Look, the bottom line here, as TE noted, is that your friend simply asserted that this is in the Bible and left it at that, without providing any gospel, letter, chapter or verse as a reference. I know that in all my Scripture reading I’ve never seen anything that looked similar to what your friend said. I think that we can be fairly sure this isn’t in the Bible.

 

[Benadam]

**Here is Paul’s reference to death as sleep and some OT references. **

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**1 Corinthians 15-51
1Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—
**

Job 7-21
**so man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep.

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Jeremiah 51:39

39 But while they are aroused, I will set out a feast for them and make them drunk, so that they shout with laughter— then sleepforever and not awake," declares the LORD.

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Daniel 12:2
2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt
**

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**None of these passages deny the soul’s particular way of perceiving without a body. Angels are pure intellect and perceive reality through intellect. The human soul is distinct from all other life on earth because it is endowed with intellect. intellect doesn’t require a physical body in order to apprehend reality.******I would ask your friend why when we are out of the body we are asleep if we are present with Christ in heaven? Out of the body present with Christ Paul taught. Christ is in heaven. Also Paul longed to take off the earthly tent to be with Christ. **

**We have to reconcile Paul’s statements that imply an awareness when our soul has parted with the particular concept attached to the word sleep. Paul couldn’t be refering to sleep as it is experienced in our earthly lives since it is a state that isn’t required without a body that needs rest. I would say Paul didn’t refer to the word sleep to mean a state of total unawareness or even a state of unconsciousness. The word is used as a means to express a state of being that is no longer perceiving through the body and more precisely is no longer in a state of ‘becoming’ but is at ‘rest’. **

**.

 

[briang72]

Wouldn’t Jesus’ statement to the penitent thief on the cross be a CLEAR refutation to this guy’s claim?

Indeed it would:

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today (semeron) you will be with me in Paradise.”

Luke 23: 42,43

semeron say’-mer-on: on the (i.e. this) day (or night current or just passed); generally, now (i.e. at present, hitherto) – this (to-)day.