As I was driving home from sending my last devotion in our last series, someone texted me with a question. I thought … Questions would be a good next theme! So here’s what I’m inviting you to do: Ask me questions! It’s not stump the pastor – we can all look up trivia! It’s what have you always wondered about? What’s confused you? What’s, maybe, stood in the way of you trusting more fully? I’ll pass your questions on to our devotional community anonymously. Here was last night’s question …
As Christians, who do we believe was the first person to enter Heaven? Or perhaps we could ask, when did the first person enter Heaven? If Jesus tells us the “only” way to the Father is through him, who entered God’s kingdom before that?
The first one that the Bible specifically mentions entering heaven is Enoch. Genesis 5:24 tells us, “Enoch walked with God and then he was no more, because God took him.” (As in … Enoch went walking one day in such a deep conversation with God that when he started his steps were on earth, and when he finished his feet were in heaven.)
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To my knowledge the second person that scripture specifically mentions “entering” heaven — at least in the narrative order of the Old Testament — is Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire.
Moses, we also know, had a life beyond earth. Why? Because in the Transfiguration, a very living Moses “appeared” on the mountain with Jesus (and with a very living Elijah).
According to Romans, the reason that people are saved — including Old Testament saints — is because of their faith. In Romans 4, the Apostle Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 and tells us that Abraham “believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Faith equals righteousness equals salvation.
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There are two ways of being saved.
- The first is by being totally righteous, perfect, without sin.
- The second way is by having a Savior. Jesus takes our sin on himself and gives us, instead, his righteousness.
And faith made Abraham righteous, a saving “transaction” occurs when we have faith, when we accept Christ’s sacrifice.
Before Jesus, people didn’t have a Savior to believe in. Nevertheless, their faith still linked them to this longed-for, eternal gift from God. Read Hebrews 11. Here the Apostle – in a passage sometimes known as the Hall of Faith – gives us a long record of Old Testament saints who are commended for their faith.
Now, on this side of the cross, we do have a Savior! And the way we still link to this eternal gift is through faith. It is through faith in God the Father, just as it was in the Old Testament … and … as the New Testament tells us, it is through faith in Jesus Christ too, God’s only Son, our Lord. Indeed, we can’t really believe in God the Father, if we reject Jesus the Son.
But simplify it to this … We’re saved by grace through faith (apart from works prescribed by the law – Romans 3:23ff).
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And the gift of Jesus didn’t make things more complicated – as in, there’s one more thing to believe in. No! The coming of Jesus made God’s love more tangible. In Jesus, we see God – in a visible human form – sacrifice everything for us. And the question for all eternity is: Why wouldn’t we want to believe in that?!
In Christ’s Love,
a guy who joyfully,
thankfully, believes
in that!
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Category: WHO
