On August 23rd, I blogged about President Donald Trump saying, “I Wanna Get to Heaven.” It was prompted by the prospect that if he could negotiate a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, it might be enough for God to let him into heaven when he dies.
Now he’s done it again. When Trump traveled to Israel last week to speak to the Knesset and then attend the signing of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the Gaza war, a reporter on the plane asked him about his previous remarks about going to heaven. The reporter said that this ceasefire agreement that Trump and his team had negotiated vigorously might help him “get into Heaven.”
Trump Now Says He Won’t Get to Heaven
Trump replied, “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me in Heaven. I think I’m maybe not Heaven-bound. I may be in Heaven right now as we fly in Air Force One. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make Heaven.” Whadyaknow about that; The Donald was finally speaking truthfully.
However, search the Bible and you will not find any such language, that is, about people going to heaven when they die. And trying to squeeze that doctrine out of 2 Corinthians 5.1-8 and Philippians 1.21-23 ends in failure. Both times, Paul foresees his dying as being “with Christ” because the Old Testament teaches extensively that at death, righteous human souls go to Sheol to await resurrection. And while there, they are unconscious. Thus, the first conscious thing that righteous souls will experience after death will be Jesus’ second coming, when “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. … and thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4.16-17 NASB). Only then will Jesus’ people be with him.
Martin Luther described it well. He said believers dying and being with Christ is like when we go to sleep and the alarm clock awakens us. We are not conscious when we are sleeping, and the alarm clock awakening us is like Jesus giving a shout at his second coming and the trumpet sounding to awaken the dead as they rise from the graves in resurrection bodies to meet him in the air. For my book, Warrior from Heaven, I had a graphics artist make an image I perceived of Jesus’ second coming, and we made that the book’s image on its front cover.
Early Christians Didn’t Believe They Were Going to Heaven at Death
The belief that when Jesus’ disciples die, their souls immediately go to heaven to be with him and forever enjoy conscious bliss is not in the Bible. It comes from Greek philosophy. See Alan F. Segal’s classic book on this subject entitled Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion.
Segal, a Jewish scholar and professor of the New Testament with whom I communicated by email shortly before he died, informs that the earth Christians did not believe in going to heaven when they die; in fact, they spoke against it since it was a Hellenistic belief that derives from Platonic philosophy that originated before the time of Jesus. Jews and Christians later adopted it because it soothed their souls when their loved ones died, thinking they were then happy in heaven.
But the main problem with that belief is that it detracts from the blessed resurrection that will occur at the second coming of Christ. According to the Bible, the Christian’s hope is not in death, which is really what that false teaching amounts to, but in the future resurrection when Jesus returns. There have been people who claimed to be Christian who became depressed and committed suicide because they believed that they would immediately enter into a better life in heaven. That is a lie of the devil!
Greeks Mocked Paul Preaching the Resurrection
The Greeks did not believe in the resurrection of the body. In fact, they mocked resurrection, as they did when the apostle Paul preached the believers’ hope at the Areopagus, saying, “While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’ When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed” (Acts 17.30-32 NRSV).
So, rather than President Donald Trump talking about going to heaven, the true teaching about the afterlife and even this life is about entering the kingdom of God. People enter God’s kingdom positionally when they believe in Jesus for salvation, and they will experience the kingdom of God ultimately when Jesus returns with the glorious kingdom given to him by God.
We Enter God’s Kingdom By Being Born Again
Jesus made this first part clear when he told Nicodemus, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (John 3.3). That is what it means to be born again. It is not water baptism, it is not taking communion like Trump says he likes to do at church, but an inner spiritual experience of truly believing Jesus died for your sins. He made this clear when he later said to Nicodemus, “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man,” referring to himself. He continued, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (vv. 13-14).
Jesus was referring to the time when poisonous snakes came into the camp of the Israelites, biting them and people were dying. God told Moses to make an image of a snake out of bronze, put it on his staff, hold it up, and tell the Israelites to look at it to healed of their snake bites. Moses did, and people were healed. Jesus used that picture to portray his imminent crucifixion death to Nicodemus, who actually with Joseph of Arimathea would remove Jesus deceased body from the cross and entomb it.
So, the afterlife is not about going to heaven but about entering the kingdom of God. And you don’t get into the kingdom of God by doing some seemingly righteous deed such as Trump ending a war. It starts in the heart—truly believing in Jesus with the result being of making Jesus Lord of your life. For Jesus also said to his disciples, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father [God] will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14.23).
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