“If it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2)

I have little trouble believing in God and about the same ease in believing in Jesus. I believe the Bible and am confident I’m saved and that my sins are dealt with forever and there is no condemnation for those in Christ.  I believe every word in those grand old hymns we sing and never preach a thing I don’t believe with my whole heart.

However.

The one thing I have the hardest time accepting is that after we die, some essential part of us remains intact and suddenly materializes in some celestial place called Unimaginable. And that there we will see our loved ones and our Lord and receive rewards for how we have lived this life and dwell there forever and ever in some kind of endless day.

Call it the Father’s House (Psalm 23:6 and John 14:2) or “a kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34), paradise (Luke 23:43), or home (II Corinthians 5:6-8), it’s still asking a lot from us to believe in Heaven .

It’s easier to believe that death ends everything. That’s how things seem.

And yet, as though the Lord (ahem) anticipated that you and I might wonder about these things, right in the middle of that last text–Second Corinthians 5:6-8–(get that? 5:6-7-8!) we read: “for we walk by faith, not by sight.”

He got that right.

It’s all of faith.

We have a thousand and thirteen questions about the business of dying and waking up on the other side to a judgment followed by an eternity of reward or punishment.

Paul identified two of those questions in his “rhapsody on a theme of resurrection” we call the Fifteenth Chapter of First Corinthians. “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?'” (15:35)

He takes the rest of that chapter to answer those two questions, although in reverse order. “What kind of body” is dealt with in 15:36-49; and “How are they raised?” in 15:50-58.

That leaves us only 1,011 questions, although you can make a case for Paul not answering those two questions so much as defining them. So, maybe we’re back to 1,013.

Here are a few of the questions that remain standing, at least for this old farm boy….

1) If there are indeed a possible 8 billion stars in our Milky Way constellation which lie in the temperate zone where life might exist, as scientists now say, and many of those (if not all) have planets, what’s to keep there from being other planets like earth with life of some type?  (This was a large article in The New Orleans Advocate for Tuesday, November 5, 2013.  The scientists then followed with a question of their own: “If there is life on any of these planets, why is the universe silent?  Surely one or more would be doing what we are doing, streaming messages into space asking ‘Is anyone there?’ It doesn’t seem to be happening.”)

2) How do we know?

3) Why do we still fear death so much, even accepting all that Scripture says about it being overcome and defeated?  Death looks and feels final.

4) How could an eternity of anything exist? And yet, if time stopped, then what?

5) How could there be a judgment with any kind of justice? Life is so complex, and even believers have their fair share of sin and doubt?  How is God going to unravel all this?

6) How could there be Heaven and hell–paradise and perdition; eternal reward and unending punishment–and how are we to understand them?

7) And what about my wonderful dog which I loved so much, which brought our family so much joy, and which it broke our heart to bury? Is he gone forever or is heaven going to be overrun by everyone’s favorite pets?

8) What about all those other impressive but “unenlightened” people across the ages and across the world?  We study history and here are the untold millions of China, let’s say, piling up century upon century with their own ways and their own religious practices. When God looked down from Heaven upon that civilization, what did He see and what did He feel? And what happens to them? What would be fair?

9) And yet, if God takes all those civilizations that never heard of Jesus straight into Heaven under a “grandfather clause,” for want of a better term, doesn’t that make ignorance and darkness the greatest plan of salvation?  If the unenlightened get a free pass to Heaven, let’s call in all the missionaries and close down all the churches, because we’re going to Heaven anyway and don’t need to complicate matters asking people to choose.

10) And what about my dad?

You have your own list.  Mine varies from time to time, and when the 10 questions above no longer bug me, something else will.

The biggest question of all–the one that looms largest for most of us–is the simplest: “How do we know?”

For instance, take David’s statement in Psalm 17:15, one I treasure and quote often and believe strongly. “But as for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness. I will be satisfied with Thy likeness when I awaken.”

The Psalmist–whether it was David or someone else matters little–accepts that he will die, but after that, three great realities await: He will awaken, He will see the Lord in HIs righteousness, and whatever that’s like, he will be satisfied.

That sounds great. How do we know?

This is no place for philosophical arguments, and not even a place for archeological discoveries or historical insights, thank you.  Keep it simple, friend.  Tell us so our hearts will know, and not just our brains.

There is Jesus.

There is no answer like Him, no argument better than His life and teachings and death and resurrection.

The old billboards which drew so many derisive comments had it exactly right: “Christ is the answer.”

He is the ultimate answer and every other argument pales in comparison.

I like the way Jesus put this to Nicodemus in John 3….

“No one has been to Heaven except the One who came from Heaven, even the Son of Man,” His term for Himself. (3:13)

Here is what that means….

–Jesus is the ultimate authority on Heaven.  Others in Scripture speaking of Heaven had bits and pieces of knowledge and saw “through a glass darkly” (I Corinthians 13:12), but Jesus knew it all firsthand.

–When He spoke of Heaven, He was talking about His hometown.

–He deserves to be heard and believed.

And so, it all comes down to Jesus Christ.

It always comes down to Jesus. And so He says, “You believe in God; believe also in Me” (John 14:1).