Will you explain why you said we are not all heaven bound?
We have indeed answered questions where we show, from Scripture, that “we are not all heaven bound.” The most recent questions were posted over the last two months. If you care to do a search on our WEBSITE (www.answersfromthebook.net) you can type in the following: “Is Heaven the final destination for a believer in the gospel of Christ” and “If we are all made for heaven, then why did God put us in this cruel world to suffer?”
In our answers to those questions we brought out that all believers in Jesus Christ living in this present Church Age (from the Day of Pentecost until the Rapture) will go to heaven. Jesus spoke of this in 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. 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” (NKJV). The Apostle Paul also refers to this truth in 1st Thessalonians 4:16-17, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” We also believe the Old Testament saints will be raptured to heaven at that same time. In 1st Corinthians 15:22-23 we read, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that THOSE WHO ARE CHRIST’S at His coming.” I firmly believe that “those who are Christ’s” includes all believers who lived in Old Testament times. In Hebrews 11:10 we are told that Abraham “was looking for a city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (NASB). In the next chapter (verse 22) the city is called “the HEAVENLY Jerusalem, so he was looking forward to going to heaven. See also Hebrews 11:13-16 which teaches us the same truth.
After the Rapture the “gospel of the kingdom” will be preached to the nations (see Matthew 24:14 and Revelation 14:6-7), and all who believe it and survive the Great Tribulation will enter into Christ’s Millennial Kingdom on earth. The Lord Jesus taught this in Matthew 25:31-34, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory…all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
During the Millennium many will be born on earth and have the gospel preached to them. We see this brought out in Psalm 22:31, “They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has done this.” All who believe the message that Christ has died for their sins will be counted as righteous in God’s eyes and when the Millennium ends, and the New Heaven and the New Earth are created (see Revelation 21:1), they (along with the saved who entered into Christ’s earthly kingdom at the beginning of His Millennium reign) will no doubt live throughout eternity on the New Earth.
So, all believers are bound for glory, but some will be in eternal bliss on EARTH, and some will in in eternal bliss in HEAVEN. Paul spoke of these TWO FAMILIES of believers in Ephesians 3:14-15, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father, from whom EVERY FAMILY IN HEAVEN and ON EARTH derives its name” (NASB). He wrote of them also in Philippians 2:10, “So that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those who are IN HEAVEN and ON EARTH.” (305.3) (DO)