{"id":224,"date":"2008-12-04T14:41:34","date_gmt":"2008-12-04T19:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidcprice.wordpress.com\/?p=224"},"modified":"2008-12-04T14:41:34","modified_gmt":"2008-12-04T19:41:34","slug":"is-it-a-wonderful-life-1-john-31-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/is-it-a-wonderful-life-1-john-31-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it a wonderful life? 1 John 3:1-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

How many times have we wondered what it will be like when those of us who have trusted in Christ will enter into heaven?\u00a0 Some of the popular notions include wings, essentially becoming angels (ala It’s A Wonderful Life<\/em>), or spiritual beings with no real form or physical identity.\u00a0 Others think it will be like a big party hanging out with friends and hugging on family members.<\/p>\n

While the first two are pretty ridiculous, I can’t really speak on the last one.\u00a0 There is a great deal of mystery involved with the specifics of heaven and life after we leave this earth (“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared”).\u00a0 However, there is also a great deal of information.\u00a0 Since this is a simple devotion-type post, I won’t go into all the various passages that deal with heaven and, instead, stick to what John says here.<\/p>\n

We have great reason to look with anticipation to Christ’s return because we are told that “when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”\u00a0 What is that like?\u00a0 Well, remember back when Jesus appeared to his disciples, having received a glorified body?\u00a0 Scholars believe that He was in the state in which glorified Believers will be.\u00a0 He was clearly identifiable, though there seems to have been some changes since he walked with two of his followers on the road to Emmaus and they didn’t even recognize Him.\u00a0 Yet, he was clearly a human form (even bearing the scars from his crucifixion), though without the same physical limitations that we face (His mode of travel was a bit quicker than ours here!).<\/p>\n

I like the way the ESV Study Bible describes it:<\/p>\n

In eternity, Christians will be morally without sin, intellectually without falsehood or error, physically without weakness or imperfections, and filled continually with the Holy Spirit. But \u201clike\u201d does not mean \u201cidentical to,\u201d and believers will never be (e.g.) omniscient or omnipotent as Christ is, since he is both man and God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is great for us to speculate and to try and understand what we will be like then<\/em>, but we must be careful not to neglect what is important now<\/em>.\u00a0 That is what John is emphasizing because, rather than heavenly musings ending in trivial pursuits, they should lead us to a life of serious introspection, seeking to live a transformed life here and now.<\/p>\n

Verse 3 says that “everyone who thus hopes in him [that is, if you have this hope that you will be like Him when He returns] purifies himself as He is pure.”\u00a0 In other words, we should be driven towards living a life of purity from sin because we have this hope that one day we will be completely removed from sin as He is.\u00a0 The kicker here is that we already have the indwelling Holy Spirit, so purity from habitual<\/em> sin is already possible.\u00a0 More on that next time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How many times have we wondered what it will be like when those of us who have trusted in Christ will enter into heaven?\u00a0 Some of the popular notions include wings, essentially becoming angels (ala It’s A Wonderful Life), or spiritual beings with no real form or physical identity.\u00a0 Others think it will be like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[20],"tags":[53,85,684,138,209,693],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3jKZO-3C","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":228,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/spiritual-anarchy-1-john-31-10\/","url_meta":{"origin":224,"position":0},"title":"Spiritual Anarchy – 1 John 3:1-10","date":"December 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"If you've been following this running commentary on 1 John, I'm sorry I was unable to post on Friday or Saturday.\u00a0 Friday I was out of town and could not get on a computer and Saturday we had a break-in at the church and my day was tied from early\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":208,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/be-encouraged-1-john-212-14\/","url_meta":{"origin":224,"position":1},"title":"Be Encouraged! 1 John 2:12-14","date":"November 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes we just need encouragement, don't we?\u00a0 It can seem like the whole world is on our shoulder and if one more thing happens, we're going to snap.\u00a0 I love this little section where John just pours out encouragement on his readers.\u00a0 In essence, he simply says, \"I'm writing to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/a-new-kind-of-test-1-john-41-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":224,"position":2},"title":"A New Kind of Test – 1 John 4:1-5","date":"December 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Up to now, the tests in 1 John have been for us.\u00a0 We have been given tests to demonstrate whether or not Christ really lives in us and if we are really following after Him.\u00a0 Now, the tables are turned. Testing the spirits is a vital operation that we must\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":233,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/tough-love-1-john-311-15\/","url_meta":{"origin":224,"position":3},"title":"Tough Love – 1 John 3:11-15","date":"December 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Man, John just pulls no punches, does he?\u00a0 Listen to some of this: \"Whoever does not love abides in death.\" \"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.\"\u00a0 Tough stuff, but I read it very appreciatively. Sometimes we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":238,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/faithless-faith-1-john-316-18\/","url_meta":{"origin":224,"position":4},"title":"Faithless faith – 1 John 3:16-18","date":"December 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"John and James sound very similar here: if you've got the goods and you keep it to yourselves when there is a brother in need, your faith is a sham.\u00a0 Sounds tough, but that's really what is being said.\u00a0 John says it like this: if anyone has the world's goods\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":222,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/the-deception-of-righteousness-1-john-226-29\/","url_meta":{"origin":224,"position":5},"title":"The Deception of Righteousness – 1 John 2:26-29","date":"December 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I'm basically a good person.\" Number 1 answer given for the question, \"Why do you think you should be allowed in heaven?\"\u00a0 The belief that doing good things is enough for salvation is probably one of Satan's biggest attempts to keep us from Christ.\u00a0 Strange, isn't it?\u00a0 Satan doesn't want\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian Living"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}