This week's Torah portion will be Genesis 28:10-32:2.
I'll probably write something about it later. But now I'm going to talk about a different topic that relates to what I wrote a few posts ago.
When Jesus was resurrected was he a ghost or did he have a physical body?
When we're all resurrected, is it going to be a physical resurrection? Does it matter? Or does it affect how we live now whether we are looking forward to a physical or a non-physical future? Why is there a physical world?
Is heaven a place where we bask in God’s goodness in an entirely spiritual realm and feel happy and awed all of the time? Is that what we were created for?
It seems that Adam and Eve were supposed to live eternally on the earth. Adam’s job was to cultivate and keep the garden (Gen 2:15), and to rule over the animals (Gen 1:26), and to have offspring (Gen 1:28). After the fall, it got harder to work the land (Gen 3:17-19). So before the fall, we may assume, it was easier than it is now to be a farmer. But that’s what Adam was created to be. What if Adam had not sinned? What if "the fall" had never happened? What if they had never died? Would God have, at some point, turned them into spiritual, non-physical beings and taken them to live forever in heaven?
God created a physical world. And he created man a physical being. So why do we think that our ultimate destiny is completely non-physical?
Maybe heaven is a place of nothing but worship, but not the kind of worship that is singing and soaking in the divine glow. Maybe it’s the kind of worship that is a life of living, gardening, and working with God.
What if, as you were dying, you heard God whisper in your ear, “I’m proud of you. You completed your mission. I made you to do a certain thing and you did it. Good job. Now you’re done. Totally finished. There’s nothing more after this.” Would you be satisfied that you had done what God wanted? Or would you feel cheated that you don’t get more of a reward besides God saying, “good job”? Should you feel satisfied with that? Or are we supposed to desire something more?
Maybe the something more that we desire isn’t to lazily pass our days in paradise, but to work with God in something purposeful.
If we were created to worship God, do we have the right idea of what worship is?
We are left on the earth for a reason. We are not to just worship God hiding in a corner being super spiritual. We are to get dirty and serve. We need to be who we are supposed to be - beings created in God’s image – dynamic and creative, not serene and boring.
1 comment:
I have always thought spiritual body because that is what God has, that is what angels have. I figured that we go to heaven and that is was some sort of prerequ that we lose the physical. We can't see heaven. We can't see God. It only seems to make sense that we don't have physical, visible bodies.
The whole new heaven, new earth comment is new to me. The idea that God destroys this earth and creates a new one that has the same consistency. I don't like these bodies. they are perishable, they get stretched out and fat, we spend all this time comparing one body to the next. these bodies are slow, limited, imperfect. i don't understand why God would choose to recreate such useless things.
Hmmmm, worship. I agree that worship isn't music. But neither is it just using the gifts God has given you. Sometimes people sing real pretty, but you don't feel like God was worshipped. I feel like I have been doing such a poor job lately that i would be so happy if God just told me that I did a good job, that i did what he wanted me to. At this point i feel like God thinks, "You muddled everything i gave you, but I love you anyway."
I think that enjoying God, enjoying his relationship, is worship. that's why i look forward to heaven, cause I feel like I have been going through an eternal long distance relationship. I have so much living to do and I am sick of it already.
Post a Comment