After Jesus had died where did he go during the time before he was resurrected and where can I find this answer in the bible?

After Jesus died on the cross, his soul (or spirit) went to heaven and his body remained on the cross for a short time and then was then put in the tomb.
This answer comes from two places in the bible:
i. Luke 23:43 ‘Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”’
Jesus is telling the criminal on the cross next to him that that day he (i.e. his soul) was going to heaven (aka paradise), and that the criminal would be with him.
ii. Luke 23:46 ‘Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.”’
Jesus seemed to be expecting his suffering and abandonment by God to end and for him (i.e. his spirit, or soul) to be welcomed into heaven by God the Father.

Did God’s plan include the first sin of Adam and Eve?

The bible teaches that God does not sin and must not be blamed for sin: Deuteronomy 32:4 “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”
James 1:13 “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.”
However, God’s plan did include sin coming into the world, even though he hates sin and even though sin came into the world through the freewill voluntary choices of Adam and Eve.

Why did God allow Satan to be a fallen angel?

Because God decided to create angels (and humans) with free will.
Some angels, including Satan, decided to rebel against God.
This rebellion happened sometime  between the events of Genesis 1:31 and Genesis 3:1. Satan is now a fallen angel, as are demons.

Why is evolution false if the number infinity is real?

If infinity is real why is evolution false?

The questions aren’t clear, but we assume this is what is meant: “if theory of evolution requires the composition of millions (i.e. almost infinite) of tiny changes/gradations and you believe in the concept of such changes, why do you choose to disbelieve it?”
To which we would answer: The theory that the history of our world occurred through millions and millions of gradual steps has problems.  Take, for example, the human cell.  It is composed of a number of irreducible parts.  That is, if one part were taken away the cell would be useless – therefore it would not have evolved.  There may have been a time when the cell was not but then a ‘jump’ must have occurred where the cell then was – gradual steps wouldn’t produce this.  It is the existence of such irregularities that lead Christians to question whether this composition of millions of tiny graduations was actually what happened or not.  Behe’s book ‘Darwin’s Black Box’ explores this concept further for the interested reader.

Once someone is a Christian is it possible for them to backslide, or fall away from God to the point where they are no longer saved?

No. Once someone is a Christian, they remain a Christian. You are a Christian because God has done something in you. He won’t undo what he has done, rather, he will complete what he has started. Philippians 1:6 teaches us this “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
You cannot lose your salvation or no longer be saved. We see this in John 6:39 where Jesus says “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”

Is there something demonic about extreme atheism or to what extent is it fashion?

Extreme atheism may or may not be demonic. And extreme atheism may or may not be the result of thinking/philosophy which is fashionable.
It is safer to say that extreme atheism is a result of people “suppressing the truth” about God, see Romans 1:18-23 below:
“18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

In heaven will we remember our friends or family when they are in hell? Will we be sad because God said that we will have no tears?

A consideration of various bible verses about heaven seems to show that in heaven we will have memories of our life on earth in heaven and that we will be conscious that some people have been judged and sent to hell.
However, God will comfort us so much that the bad memories (e.g. of our friends and family being sentenced to hell) won’t trouble us and cause us to be sad. We see this in Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Furthermore, the extreme joy and total renewal of heaven will utterly eclipse any sorrow we may experience.

In all of Hirst’s work, the idea of mortality and death looms large.  Sometimes it’s really obvious (like a skull covered in diamonds), and sometimes less so, but it’s always there.  It’s where most of the shock and distaste comes from – we’re shocked by his choices of materials and metaphors, but I think mostly we’re shocked because he deals with death frankly, even brutally.  Death is something we rarely talk about in polite company, but Hirst doesn’t just talk about it – he hits you in the face with the reality of your own mortality, and then kicks away everything you could hold onto for support.

The Phyisical Impossiblity of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1992) is probably the piece for which Hirst is most well known – if you ask most people about contemporary art, they’ll think of this.  It features a 14-foot Tiger Shark suspended in a tank of formaldehyde, and it brings you face-to-face with death.  The shark is dead, but it looks dangerously alive with its mouthful of sharp teeth.  Hirst specifically designed the tank so there’s enough room inside for the shark and you so that, as with most of Hirst’s work, you’re made painfully aware of your own mortality.  It has a lot in common with another of Hirst’s controversial pieces, and the one which effectively kick-started his career, A Thousand Years (1990).  A gruesome combination of flies and rotting meat, thousands of lives begin and end before your eyes, making the reality of life and death unavoidable as an insect-o-cutor sizzles.  A large die, with all sides bearing the same number, hints at the inevitability of it all.

But Hirst doesn’t just remind us of our mortality – he also exposes some of the ways we try to ignore that reality.  In particular he focuses on are religion and science.

Another of his formaldehyde sculptures, Away from the Flock (1994) has obviously religious connotations.  Besides the Biblical references to sheep and shepherds, perhaps it’s a nod to the idea of the faithful ‘flock’ nodding passively through the Sunday sermon?  And isn’t being a ‘sheep’ often used negatively, a metaphor for unthinking compliance?  But the lamb in this piece is ‘away from the flock,’ and that isn’t a good place to be if you’re a lamb; there’s comfort and security in joining the rest of the flock and collectively ignoring reality.

Karl Marx called religion “the opium of the people,” and Hirst would seem to agree that religion is one of the ways we numb our senses to the inevitability of death.  Religious imagery recurs often in Hirst’s work – his 2007 shows Beyond Belief and Superstition were full of such work.  Hirst suggests that we find hope in religion in the face of grim reality.  False hope, but hope nonetheless.

But religion is not the only place where we find false hope.  In Pharmacy (1992), Hirst has recreated a pharmacy, with the viewer taking on the privileged position of the pharmacist.  Hirst sees science as an alternative belief system, with its own temples of health and life-giving sacraments, and its own priests to administer them.  Then in the middle of Pharmacy there’s another insectocutor.  Even here, in this temple to health and life, there’s a constant reminder of death.

Hirst’s Pharmaceuticals series, often simply called his ‘spot paintings,’ feature an array of coloured spots in potentially-infinite combinations, and each one is randomly named after a drug.  Hirst’s point is that the pharmaceutical industry is baffling to most of us.  We blindly put our trust in doctors and pharmacists to give us life-extending drugs, but really we have no idea.  Blind faith is equally blind whether it is placed in religion or science.

One of Hirst’s most preposterous works has to be For the Love of God (2007), a replica human skull cast in platinum and encrusted with diamands.  It hit the headlines after going on sale for £50million, but it also does what so much of Hirsts work is about.  It is a reminder of the reality of death, and of the ways we try to escape it.  We may not try to hide our mortality with diamonds, but what about make up, or surgery, or clothes or reputation?  The piece was apparently named when Hirst’s mother cried, “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?!”  But it is also when we’re confronted with the reality of death that questions of God’s existence and his character often arise.

Hirst attacks science and religion in equal measure, dismantling the false hope we put in them in order to evade the reality of death.  But this is where he runs out of things to say.  In the place of false hope, he doesn’t have any real hope to offer us.  In fact, Hirst is pretty honest about his lack of answers.  He’s said:  “I sometimes feel that I have nothing to say and I want to communicate this.”  He’s also said, “…whenever I look at the question of how to live, the answer’s always staring me in the face. I’m already doing it.”  Life is just something you get on with, don’t worry about what happens next.

As we’re brought face-to-face with our mortality, is that enough?  Just carry on living until you have to stop.  Of course, he might be right.  We might just live in a cold, directionless, hopeless world.  If we do, then all we can do is make the best of it before our time runs out.  But what if there is real hope?

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus meets a man called Jairus, a local religious leader.  Jairus comes and throws himself at Jesus’ feet because his 12year old daughter is terminally ill and he’s desperate.  Jesus goes with him but he stops to heal another desperately sick woman.  By the time he’s finished a servant arrives and says, “Your daughter is dead, don’t bother the teacher any more.”

But Jesus replies, “don’t be afraid; just believe and she will be healed.”  This is a huge claim for him to make, isn’t it?  He’s asking Jairus to believe that he can heal his daughter, even though she’s already dead…

When they get to the house the funeral traditions have already started, but Jesus tells them to stop because she isn’t dead – she’s just asleep.  And they laugh at him – they know a dead body when they see one!  But Jesus’ words aren’t a misdiagnosis, he’s talking about what death means to him.  He goes into the room, takes the girl by the hand and tells her to get up… and she does!  Jesus is able to bring this dead girl back to life.  For Jesus, death is no more final than going to sleep.

And this incident points forward to Jesus’ own resurrection.  The one who can bring others back to life rose from the dead himself.  Jesus was crucified, but three days later he came back to life, and he appeared to hundreds of witnesses over the following weeks.  His resurrection showed that his death had achieved what he said it would achieve.  In dying, he dealt with the sin that separates us from God and all of its consequences, including death itself.

Jesus offers hope in the face of death, but this isn’t the kind of empty hope offered by religious ritual or medical science.  This is life as it’s meant to be lived, knowing that we’re loved and accepted by the God who made us, and enjoying life with him forever.  Christians can face the reality of death head-on, just like Damien Hirst.  But where he runs out of answers, Jesus has something to say.  He is the one who really can offer life, because he’s been there.

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If you have any questions about this article, or would like to meet up and chat with someone about it, please email us. Also for a simple explanation of the Christian faith see the ‘Two ways to live‘ interactive presentation.

Photos:

Shark: © Justin Williams. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwillys/2142368293

Sheep: © Jim Linwood. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brighton/5169722956/

Skull: © Aaron Weber. http://www.flickr.com/photos/secretlyironic/524919354/

From a difficult childhood to time in prison, hear how God saved a man at his darkest hour.

Listen to Marcus’ Story.

The question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ is often written off as a rather ridiculous, impossible-to-answer conversation stopper.

But it is actually a very important question to find out the answer to.
Because it’s a question about meaning and life, and meaning and life are important; they are things we instinctively know are weighty and significant.

We want to know what things mean

“What did Shakespeare mean in this part of this play?”
“What does it mean when a cold front is approaching?”
And we want to do things which are meaningful.
We desire meaningful relationships and most of us want to contribute to society, or to our plans, or to our families in a meaningful way.

Meaning is important to us.

If we watch a film which has no meaning whatsoever it is frustrating for us. We feel cheated.
We have a need to do things that have a point or a purpose, or that are working towards an outcome.

Life is important to us

Life’s not worthless or cheap. Life’s not irrelevant.
Life is deep and precious and sacred.
And it’s rich and varied and vibrant…
There’s so much of life to be experienced. Life contains Adele’s voice, Anish Kapoor’s sculptures and Van Gogh’s sunflowers.
Surely life in all its preciousness and vibrancy must mean something.

So what does life mean? Can we know what life means? Is it possible to find out if life has any meaning or purpose at all?

I want to put it to you that without God, life has no meaning.
And this is the case for two reasons:

1. We are far too limited to find out life’s meaning on our own.

Imagine a gym ball. Imagine the space inside it represents all of the knowledge in the entire universe.
How much of that knowledge do you know?
A square inch?
A square centimetre?
A square millimetre?
Surely none of us would even dare claim to have even that much knowledge.
We don’t even know what the contents are of every book in the smallest public library in Reading, let alone know what is the meaning of life.
By contrast God knows everything.
He knows the co-ordinates of every star in the sky, the contents of every book in every library in every country of the world, what there is in the basements of Area 51 and whether Budweiser beer really does condition the hair.

Shouldn’t we therefore look to him to find the meaning to life?
Isn’t it a bit arrogant to think we can work it out ourselves?

Saying that we know what is the meaning of life, is a bit like me saying I can understand how Google works on my own.
There’s no way I could find out how Google works on my own; I’d have to ask someone, and probably the best person to ask would be the creator(s) of Google.

Isn’t the best way to find out what a play means to ask the playwright?
To find out what a lyric means is’s best to ask the songwriter?

2. We need God to find the meaning of life because without God, we are creatures who are the product of chance.

Whatever you believe about creation or evolution, I’m assuming that if you don’t believe in God, you do believe the world happened by chance.
That, as philosopher Julian Baggini puts it, “If we take a long, cold look back to our origins, we just find ape-like ancestors and an evolutionary trail that leads back to the big bang.”ⁱ
And I’m also assuming that you believe that the big bang was the product of an accidental collision of something.
That no purpose or plan caused that collision, it just happened as randomly as a leaf falling from a tree and landing on a particular car windscreen.

If life was started in a meaningless way, surely life has no meaning?
If there was no purpose behind the start-up of the universe, then surely a drawing pin has more purpose than life does.

So: Life + no God = meaningless
But: Life + God = meaning

God brings meaning to life

God brings meaning to life because God made us and made life.
And the one who made us has the right to tell us what life means.
The best person to tell us what the book 1984 means is George Orwell. Because he wrote it.
The best person to explain to us what the film Inception means is Christopher Nolan, because he wrote and directed it.
The best person to tell us what life means is God, because he designed it and created it.
And the thrust of the Bible is that God has come to earth in person to tell us all about life and what it means.

Imagine you don’t know anything about American Football.
You’re up late, watching the NFL Super Bowl on Channel 5 and the men on the pitch look like they’re just running aimlessly everywhere. The game has no meaning for you.
Two scenarios could take place to help bring meaning to the game.

1. You could make up some rules and principles. I.e. you could invent the meaning of the game.
2. Or, there’s a knock on your door and an NFL coach walks in, sits on your bed beside you and explains what the game means to you.

Which is the better scenario?
Which is more satisfying?
Which will reveal the true meaning of the game?

Jesus is the NFL coach who came into the room of our world and explained to us how the game of life works.
He’s the playwright who steps onto the stage to tell us about the play.
He’s the Christopher Nolan explaining the intricacies of the Inception of life to us.
He’s God in human form telling us what the meaning of life is in a way we can understand.
He knows, after all. He made us, and gave life to us, and set us up in the world.
And finding out the meaning of life from the maker of life is deeply satisfying, just like it would be deeply satisfying to a fan of Inception to have Christopher Nolan personally explaining its meaning.

So what is the meaning of life?

The Bible contains the meaning of life.
The Bible is God’s ‘Haynes Meaning of Life Manual’.
And the essence of the Bible and therefore the essence of the meaning of life, is for us to know God, be fulfilled in Him, and enjoy Him.

Jesus told us that life is about knowing God when he said,

“…this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ…”ⁱⁱ

God doesn’t just want us to know him though; he wants us to enjoy him too.
We see this in the Psalms. The Psalms are the hymns of the Bible. They are poetry about life. One of them, Psalm 34, says this, “O taste and see that the Lord is good!”
God wants us to taste him, to experience him, enjoy him and see how good he is.
He wants us to enjoy his world. He designed us to experience pleasure.
Have you ever thought about that?
Think about food and eating. Our mouths and taste buds are receptive to taste and texture which can give us great pleasure.
Think about sex. God could have made reproduction like filling up a car with petrol. But he didn’t. He designed it to be an intensely pleasurable experience.
God is keen on pleasure.
He’s designed our bodies and our minds to be receptive to pleasure.
And when we find pleasure in him and in what he’s given us; when we enjoy him, we are most fulfilled.

Christianity injects meaning into the veins of life. And gives us deep lasting satisfaction and fulfilment as a result.

Atheism, or a belief that life started accidentally, sucks meaning out of life.
How can life have real meaning if life began in a meaningless way?
If life has no meaning, then life is at best frustrating, and at worst terrible, and is, as Bertrand Russell put it, built “…on the firm foundation of unyielding despair.”ⁱⁱⁱ
Because it’s distressing isn’t it, to look up to the stars and to think, “What’s the point of it all?
Why am I here? What does it all mean?”

Atheism, or a belief that life started accidentally not only sucks real meaning out of life, it makes death appalling.
Death is the eraser which comes along and rubs us out of life forever.
All we’ve striven for, worked towards, attained and enjoyed is severed from us forever.
Without God, doesn’t death make life meaningless? Doesn’t it mock life’s efforts?
One philosopher from the Bible wrote,

“Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?”^iv

Without God, the answer is nothing. Man labours and toils and then in an instant is removed forever from everything.
It’s appalling to think death instantly separates us from all of life forever.

But with God, death is not the eraser which rubs us out of life forever.
It is the portal which transports us into life forever.
And that life is a life where the things done on earth still matter, are still worth something, and are still honoured and remembered forever.
That life is a continuation of knowing and discovering and enjoying more of God.
It is a life of fulfilling our potential unhampered by the restraints we encounter on earth.
It is a life of peace, satisfaction and joy.
It is life without racism, sexism, abuse, injustice, spin or spite.
It is eternal life, with God and with Jesus.

And Jesus offers that eternal life to us.
He says,

“Come to me and find meaning and fulfilment. Find life and have it to the full. Come to me and find that death loses its sting. Come to me and find life forever where unhappiness and pain are extinct and peace and delight are alive and well.”

What will you do?
Where will you look for meaning?
Yourself, or God?

*  *  *

If you have any questions about this article, or would like to meet up and chat with someone about it, please email us.

——————————————————————————

ⁱ From an article in the Guardian on Monday 20 September 2004 entitled ‘Revealed – the meaning of life’
ⁱⁱ John 17:3, The Bible
ⁱⁱⁱ From A Free Man’s Worship by Bertrand Russell
^iv Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, The Bible

Paul was challenged one day, as a student at university, by a quote which sparked an interest in determining the truth of Christianity’s claims – “You cannot live with God, you cannot live without him.”.

He spoke to various friends – some believers in various faiths, some agnostics and others atheists – to try and find out whether he could come to a conclusion. Not satisfied with the answers he got back but still wanting to make a decision, he looked into what Christianity claimed himself.

Hear the evidence Paul found and what clinched the argument for him in Paul’s story.

Paul worked as a Statistician and Lecturer at Reading University until 2010. He is currently studying for a BA in theology at WEST (Wales Evangelical School of
Theology).

Vicky grew up in a Christian family and made a commitment to God at an early age. Yet as Vicky gained her independence as a student and was faced with a death in the family, her beliefs were challenged. Listen to Vicky explain more in her story.

Listen to Vicky’s Story.

Vicky now lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she and her husband David work as teachers in Bingham Academy.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously said, “God is dead.  God remains dead.  And we have killed him.”

Nietzsche was an atheist.  He wasn’t claiming that God had existed and now he doesn’t; he was claiming that the idea of a God, and in particular the Christian God, was no longer viable.  He believed that God was a human invention, but that we’ve progressed beyond our need for him.  Like a child finally leaving the reassuring but stifling security of their parents’ home, we we’ve left God behind.  But we haven’t just moved out; with no purpose and no worshippers, God is dead.  And in that line of thinking, science is the undertaker – science has buried God once and for all.  We aren’t saying that he’s impossible, just that he’s unnecessary.

The reasoning goes like this: primitive societies need God as an explanation for things they don’t understand – and in a primitive society there are lots of things they don’t understand.  Why does the sun rise and set?  Why does the rain fall (or not)?  Why do bad things happen?  But then developments in scientific knowledge gradually fill in those gaps in our understanding.  As the gaps close, the need for God shrinks, until we can be fairly confident that one day there will be no more gaps, and no more God.

And in our post-9/11 world, maybe that’s a good thing?  Maybe tolerant, open-minded reason has finally triumphed over small-minded, angry religion?

But has science actually buried God, as some people claim?  To answer this, we need to be realistic about what science can do, and what it can’t…

Science is a process – a way of gathering knowledge by making and testing predictions about the world we live in.  It’s a way of describing the world around us, and the relationships between its different parts.  And science is really, really good at doing that.

But there are some things science can’t do, not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because there are some jobs it isn’t suited to, like using a hammer to slice bread. Within this natural, physical, observable world, science is brilliant, but what about beyond that?

Science can’t answer lots of the why questions we might ask about the world.  For example, we might ask, “Why does a car travel along the road?”  We could investigate the chemical reactions taking place in the engine or the movement of pistons that drive the wheels – that would give us one answer to the question why.  But couldn’t we also answer by saying that someone wants to go to the shops?  Both answers are completely legitimate.  Science can help us get to the first, but not to the second.

And science can’t answer moral questions about good or evil, or right or wrong, or justice.  Science itself is neutral.  It’s an expert witness, but it can never be the judge.

When we come to the question, “Has science buried God?”  We have to conclude that no, it hasn’t.  On its own, science just isn’t capable of burying God.  It’s just a way of looking at the natural world, and says nothing about why it is as it is.  It just can’t answer the big questions of meaning and existence.

What science does is give us evidence, which we then have to assemble into a coherent picture of the world.  Each of us will do that through our particular worldview.  There are essentially two (with a few variations of each): naturalism and theism.  Naturalism assembles the evidence from our senses with no reference to God, whereas theism assumes that God was and is active in the world.  So there are two ways of seeing the world, two stories about what the world is like.

For example, a theist will look at the universe and see how things appear to be perfectly fine-tuned to make human life possible on earth.  As a theist puts the evidence together, he’ll conclude that there must be an intelligent power putting things together.  A naturalist, on the other hand, will look at the same evidence and put it together with no reference to God.  The argument is made that given the size of the universe even tiny odds should produce life somewhere.  And if it hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here talking about it.

Two stories.  The question is, which is the true story?  Which do you choose?  How do you choose?

To solve the problem, there is one key piece of evidence we need to account for, and it will change the way we see everything else.  As a Christian, I don’t just talk about God as a philosophical concept or a variable in an experiment.  God is personal, and he’s come ‘into the box’ in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is a real person in real time, he can be seen and heard and observed.  We might be separated by time and geography, but that doesn’t prevent investigation, does it?  I still believe in Ancient Rome and Henry VIII and World War II.  There are ways and means of investigating those things, based on eye-witness accounts of people who were there.

Whichever view of the world you’re operating under, you have to account for Jesus.  Whatever you make of him, you have to put the evidence together in a way that accounts for him.  Otherwise, you’re guilty of ignoring the most important evidence in the universe.  No serious scientist can ignore the claims Jesus makes.

This article is coming soon. You can find a good answer to this question at the Christianity Explored Isn’t it arrogant…? video.

Also listen to a recent sermon on this subject.

This article is coming soon. You can find a good answer to this question at the Christianity Explored Does God Even Exist? video.