What is unseen lasts forever.
That statement comes from a Biblical quote from 2 Corinthians 4;18, which says “We do not fix our gaze on what is seen but on what is unseen. What is seen is transitory, what is unseen lasts forever.” This is generally not as well known a biblical quote as most quotes which are often heard and repeated and when we do come across it, we generally find it confusing or at least challenging.
The transitory which is seen has to do with our earthly life, the unseen has to do with our spiritual life. Remember we have already established that our humanness consists of a body and a soul and they are inseparable until death. Until death the body and soul acts as one entity. Recall also that we are often told that we (body/soul) are in this world but not of this world. We can find examples of this in Scripture such as when Jesus was about to send out his disciples into the world and was speaking to his Father (John 17: 11-19) “I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world anymore than I belong to the world.”
This means our soul’s real home is in heaven, which lasts forever and we all want that to be our final resting place. It also implies that our (body/soul) time on earth is only temporary and all of that will also pass away. This is the point of the statement that what is seen is transitory and what is unseen lasts forever. However, that statement requires much more discussion about how does the body/soul achieve the goal of heaven while living in this world? We will attempt to address that in this blog. Remember we have already established that when we say we are made in God’s image we are talking about his spiritual image and that refers to our soul. This was established in Genesis 1:27.
We have also already mentioned in a previous blog that when the body dies, the soul becomes our stand-in for our final examination by Jesus before we can enter Heaven. Since the soul stands in for us in the final judgement, then we would want the soul to have all of the attributes that the single body/soul entity had while on earth. It does! We will see that numerous scholarly studies prove that the soul can do that. We will mention the studies later.
One way to make sure the soul gets to heaven is following God’s commandants, Love God, and Love Your Neighbor. While this will surely be a reliable path to heaven it tells us nothing about the difference between the physical body’s role and the role of the spiritual soul. Since the soul’s role is so important there must be a way to enhance the transcendent ability of the soul.
Jesus Calling is a well-known daily devotional which provides guidance and wisdom on how we can both live in this world and yet find Peace in the Presence of the Lord. Recently one of its daily devotionals used 2 Corinthians 4:18 as a reference and provided this guidance:” Do not search for security in the world you inhabit. There is a better way to find security in this life, instead of looking in this world, focus your attention on my Presence with you. I will help you sort out what is important and what is not, what needs to be done now and what does not. Fix your eyes not on what is seen (your circumstances), but on what is unseen (My Presence).” This implies that being in the Presence of Jesus is a spiritual endeavor, and it is. The more time we spend in the quiet Presence of Jesus, the closer we come to understanding the Transcendent nature of God and the closer we come to understand what Heaven is like. This is a way to improve our spiritual life. Improving our spiritual development is clearly a better choice than focusing on our world tasks and that is what fixing your eyes not on what is seen (your circumstances), but what is unseen (My Presence) is trying to tell us.
But the best of example indicating the primacy of basking in the Presence of Jesus can be found in the Bible, Luke 10:38-42. It states, “On their journey Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him to her home. She had a sister named Mary, who seated herself at the Lord’s feet and listened to his words. Martha, who was busy with all the details of hospitality, came to him and said “Lord, are you not concerned that my sister has left me to do the household tasks all alone? Tell her to help me.’
The Lord in reply said to her; Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things; one thing only is required, Mary has chosen the better portion and she shall not be deprived of it”
Clearly Mary was spending time in the Presence of the real Jesus, and that was the better choice. This is a remarkable example of the importance of developing our spiritual side rather than spending all our time in earthly endeavors, and this advice is given by Jesus himself!
When Jesus rose from the dead and went to Heaven, he left us with the Holy Spirit to guide us. He left us with not just the Holy Spirit, but the whole gang, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So how do we call on them to teach us to be in the Presence of Jesus?
The daily devotional, Jesus Calling gives us many examples which all can be considered simply as spending quiet time focusing on Jesus. As we improve our own meditation abilities, we can grow closer to Jesus and approach an understanding of the transcendent nature of God. There is another way for a small group of Christians, recall that at the Last Supper, Jesus broke bread and said this is my body and offered it to his disciples. He added continue to do this in memory of me. Catholics believe that the Host (bread) is actually the body of Christ which comes about when God changes the bread into his body when requested by a Priest during Catholic Mass. This is, of course, controversial not only outside of the Catholic Church but also in the Catholic Church. Recent surveys indicate that perhaps as many as 45% of all Catholics do not believe that the Host is the actual body of Christ. This is shocking to many Catholics and I am not capable of addressing that, certainly not in this blog, and since it is not important for this discussion, so let’s assume for the rest of this discussion that the Host is the body of Christ. The Catholic Church has a cross-like piece that has a hole in the middle so that the Host can be seen and displayed. It is placed in the Church at specified periods call devotions where persons can sit and pray and mediate in the Presence of Jesus the Christ. Several spiritual friends of mine do this so I decided I would do it also. It is difficult to focus on the Host for an hour, but on my last time I really sensed I was in the Presence of Jesus the Christ. So, for some it is a way to be in the Presence of Jesus. It is important that we develop our spiritual side, and being in the Presence of Jesus is certainly one way. Pope Francis offers similar advice in one of his daily devotionals: “This is what it means to be close to Christ. Abide in Jesus! This means remained attached to Him, and with Him, talking to Him. Abide in Jesus.”
Well, we have discussed in some detail how to improve our spiritual side and its importance. Let us now return to how the soul retains all of the features of the inseparable body and soul when the body dies and the soul represents us in meeting Jesus for the final test before entering Heaven. How this happens can be found in the extensive scholarly studies in the book Science at the Doorstep to God. This includes such studies as medical studies of terminal lucidity and hydrocephalic intelligence indicating consciousness and intelligence beyond the brain and studies on uniquely human intelligence and the soul. The studies also include how the mind (brain) operates in the earthly world. These studies are extensive and detailed and for those interested I recommend the book, Science at the Doorstep to God. All these studies lead to the conclusion that there is evidence of a transphysical soul in human beings. It is this soul that places humans as a unique species, superior to all other species. The power of the soul allows it continuously to track and permanently record all the combined activities of both the body and soul. It is too difficult to unravel these studies to prove that point, so for this blog let’s assume that is true. This means that when the soul represents us to be examined by Jesus it is actually us! Think about that for a while.
Having established that, I will now go back to address the question raised by my friend, Jerry, in another blog. The question was will we receive a glorified body?
There is a passage in Scripture (1 John 3:2) that hints we may indeed become a special glorified being, the verse is “Dearly beloved, we are God’s children now: what we will later be has not yet come to light, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Sounds as if being like him is certainly a glorified state. As I have stated before, the use of the term glorified body, is incorrect. Everyone who has studied glorified beings knows that there are no physical bodies in the Heavenly realm. Heaven is the home of the soul and spirits but not bodies.
Having said that, when does the soul acquire its glorified state? I believe that occurs when our soul passes its final test with Jesus and is admitted into Heaven. At that time the soul is glorified and now resembles exactly what we looked like on earth!
We know this transformation occurs because of near death experiences in which glorified souls are recognized as uncles, spouses, and old friends. Once again, we rely on the information provided by the NDEs. The NDEs are important to our ability to understand how the heavenly realm and spirits and souls exist in that realm.
I have probably introduced more new ideas and conjectures in this blog than in most. I have also made some assumptions that allows us to continue comment on this subject. So, let’s see if we can summarize and capture the main points of this blog. This all began with the Scripture verse, “We do not fix our gaze on what is seen but on what is unseen. What is seen is transitory, what is unseen lasts forever.” The point made is that we have both an earthly life (seen) and a spiritual life (unseen). (1) But the major point here is to remind us that we (our souls) are in this world but not of this world. Heaven is the soul’s real home. This is hard to grasp since we are so involved in our earthly life, as we should be since we must figure out how to be successful in this world, how to make a living, how to grow in earthly knowledge, how to marry and have children. Yet we are told, as also in other blogs, the same powerful message, that the soul is the most important part of the body/soul entity and the soul’s real home is in heaven. (2) The point is that we have both an earthly life (seen) and a spiritual life (unseen) and that the unseen spiritual life is the most important. Since the unseen spiritual life is the most important, we must learn how to spend more time on spiritual development and one of the best ways is to understand that is to find out what it means to learn how to Live in the Presence of Jesus. The daily devotional Jesus Calling gives us many good examples and I highly recommend that devotional but the best example of what it means to be in the Presence of Jesus and its importance is given in the Bible verses about Martha and Mary. Because of their importance, those verses are repeated here again: “On their journey Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him to her home. She had a sister named Mary, who seated herself at the Lord’s feet and listened to his words. Martha, who was busy with all the details of hospitality, came to him and said “Lord, are you not concerned that my sister has left me to do the household tasks all alone? Tell her to help me.’
The Lord in reply said to her; Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things; one thing only is required, Mary has chosen the better portion and she shall not be deprived of it”
Clearly Mary was spending time in the Presence of the real Jesus, and that was the better choice. This is a remarkable example of the importance of developing our spiritual side rather than spending all our time in earthly endeavors, and this advice is given by Jesus himself!
(3) So, the third point is to learn how to be in the Presence of Jesus. The last point discussed in this blog was whether we would receive a glorified body in heaven. As was pointed out “glorified body” is an improper term (4)but the last point is that our soul will receive a glorified soul and began to look exactly like us on earth.
So, we have thrown a lot out for the reader to think about. I have listed the four most important take-aways of this blog so give all of this some serious thought and let me know your thoughts.
Peace be with You.
Will Lannes