Heaven and Sex: Future Invading the Present

Followers of the Messiah should live already in the present in the light of what they will turn out to be in the future.    N. T. Wright

How does a view of eternity and heaven shape the particular way we think about and live out our lives as it relates to sex?

Heaven Teaches Us to Take Sex Seriously Now

The Christian view of this present life and the life to come are both substantial and physical. As Christians, we are not Gnostics. Gnosticism is a view of life that says what is most important is the spiritual. Physical existence is bad. The biblical answer to Gnosticism is that the physical world is good, therefore, sex is good. Sex, though, is to be taken seriously. Sex is not a casual game of pick-up basketball. There is playfulness but it is between 2 people who have taken one another seriously to begin with! Heaven and eternity do not diminish sex; it increases its importance and calls us to take it very seriously.

Heaven Teaches Us Not to Take Sex Too Seriously Now

This is the irony of the Good News of the Kingdom of God. While heaven calls us to take sex seriously now, it also calls us to place it in its proper context. Since marriage and sex are signposts, pointing to something greater, we are called to not make either more important than they are. It is a really good thing but that’s all. It is not on a level with God. It is a second thing not a first thing. Romans 1:25 speaks of taking something good in creation and allowing that to replace the Creator. When we do that, we actually diminish the created thing and possibly destroy it and others with it.

Heaven Teaches Us That Our Desires Must be Stronger Than the Strongest Sexual Desire

Jesus and the rest of the Bible teach that heaven will be a place that utterly confounds our imagination. Heaven will make our most vivid fantasies, now, seem like a bad dream. We are to stir up our imaginations by contemplating heaven so that we live in such a way that we are beneficial to others, now. Heavenly mindedness, for the Christian, moves you deeper into reality because now you live for something bigger than yourself. Seeing this present life through the grand vista of heaven enables you to not put so much pressure on the good things in this world so that they can actually be rightfully enjoyed; food, relationships, work, marriage, children and sex. They are gifts but not the Giver of the gifts.

Heaven Teaches Us to Serve Others Now

According to Scripture, the most powerful aphrodisiac in sex and marriage is the selfless love for another person. Sadly, it is the very opposite of how sin has corrupted us. The grace and glory of heaven is beckoning us to live very different lives. How can heaven shape your desires to be centered on another person’s good? How can heaven shape your sexual desires to be trumped by your desire to serve your spouse more than yourself?

Heaven Teaches Us Our Present and Eternal Need for the Lamb

All of this can sound overwhelming; and it is. You nor I can rise to this standard. In fact, we fail to in so many areas of our lives on a daily basis. That is why this last point is so important.

As you read Revelation, Jesus always remains a Lamb. You see images of  a Lion but they are often super-imposed onto a lamb. How is sex dethroned and redeemed in our present lives? Only by the grace of the Gospel that becomes ours through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who was slain for our sins and self-centeredness. Only God’s grace can create a revolution so great in us that we want to love God and others more than ourselves. Without the pardoning and cleansing grace of Christ, I am on my own, looking to create a “heaven like” existence for myself that has no room for anyone else unless they are serving me.

The gospel gives me the power and freedom to let go of the center; to not grasp for equality with or superiority over God. I am welcomed in based upon no merit of my own but by the sheer gift of the Lamb of God. I can be welcomed into his embrace now and begin to prepare myself for his ultimate embrace in heaven.

Copyright © 2014 Timothy S. Lane. All rights reserved.

Sex, Intimacy, Pornography and Heaven

Did you know that there are approximately 300 new pornographic websites launched a day? Were you aware that there are over 30,000 people viewing internet pornography a second? These statistics are staggering. And they are not going down anytime soon.

Why are we so driven sexually? Some would argue that it is just the biological/evolutionary impulse to maintain the human race. But Scripture argues differently. Scripture describes sex as a way of knowing another human being. Beneath the surface of a torrid industry is a God-given desire for intimacy run afoul.

The Hebrew word yada is the word often used to talk about a man and a woman having sex. The Hebrew word yada means to know. Older translations of the Bible actually translate the text in this manner. For instance, the King James Bible translates Genesis 4:1 this way;  And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain. This tells us that sexual union is a significant aspect where we can experience intimacy with another person. It is a deep knowing of another and being known by another.

That is a very strong reason the Bible places sex within the context of marriage. This is where an understanding of the nature of heaven is so critical. At least two passages are essential for this task: Revelation 21:1-5; 21:22-22:5.

From these passages, a number of things can be said about the nature of heaven. We could spend quite a while elaborating on each, but I will only focus on one.

•    Heaven is a place that is utterly centered on the Triune God.

Now, we are ready to see the thing that supersedes sex. While there is comfort for past miseries there is so much more. It is a place where we enjoy the fullness of life. We are welcomed into the very presence of the Triune God, who is the fountain of love. This is heaven. Complete and unbridled intimacy with God and with one another. This is ultimately what we want. Jonathan Edwards writes this about the nature of heaven,

God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light. And therefore the glorious presence of God in heaven fills heaven with love, as the sun, placed in the midst of the visible heavens in a clear day, fills the world with light. The apostle tells us that “God is love;” and therefore, seeing he is an infinite being, it follows that he is an infinite fountain of love. Seeing he is an all-sufficient being, it follows that he is a full and overflowing, and inexhaustible fountain of love. And in that he is an unchangeable and eternal being, he is an unchangeable and eternal fountain of love.
There, even in heaven, dwells the God from whom every stream of holy love, yea, every drop that is, or ever was, proceeds. There dwells God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, united as one, in infinitely dear, and incomprehensible, and mutual and eternal love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love

Charity and Its Fruits, Jonathan Edwards, The Banner of Truth Trust, pp. 327-328.

Therefore, marriage and sex are good gifts that ultimately function as signposts to something greater. Covenantal union between husband and wife becomes a metaphor for covenantal union between the believer and God (2 Corinthians 11:1-2 and Ephesians 5:32).

Sex within the context of marriage is pointing to a greater reality in heaven. Knowing and being known. Intimacy. We long for it but we are also a bit afraid of it because we know, this side of heaven, we may be hurt. This is a primary reason many indulge in pornography. Pornography provides sexual pleasure without the dangers of rejection.

A way of combatting any struggle with a misuse of sex can be found in a deep understanding of the nature of heaven and what God has in store for those who would be joined in relationship with the Triune God.

Copyright © 2014 Timothy S. Lane. All rights reserved.

Sex and Heaven?

What is there to talk about in the New Year? How about a complicated passage of Scripture that says some really odd things about sex, the resurrection and heaven? Here’s the passage from Luke 20:27-40.

27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless.30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” 39 Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” 40 And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

For some, the thought of not having to deal with sex in heaven is just fine. It may even be a relief due to your past experiences. Shame, abuse, negative teachings that have left you guilt ridden will be gone and you won’t have to deal with this creepy subject ever again. Heaven is your great escape from something you loathe.

For others, you wonder if this passage really teaches what it seems to teach. You may try some hermeneutical tricks to make the passage say something else. No sex in heaven is not a relief but a supreme disappointment. 

Whichever the case may be for you, we must admit that we live in strange times. Sexual images are all around us and easily accessible in ways that no other culture has ever seen. We are truly a walking example of how voracious the human appetite can be. Satisfying it is futile. The more you feed it, the more it wants. The more it wants, the more you feed it. Sin truly is a vicious cycle. I am fond of this quote from Malcolm Muggeridge who writes towards the end of the 20th century as an older man. He brings perspective to our culture and how it worships sex.

When the Devil makes his offer (always open, incidentally) of the kingdoms of the earth, it is the bordellos that glow so alluringly to most of us, not the banks and the counting houses, the board rooms and the executive offices. We can easily resist becoming millionaires or privy councilors, but to swim away on a tide of sensual ecstasy, to be lost in another body, to fly as high as the ceiling on the wings of the night, or even of the afternoon—that, surely is something. The imagination recoils from the prizes, or toys of a materialistic society. Who but some half-witted oil sheik or popular actor can go on desiring sleek yachts or motorcars or white villas perched above yellow sands? But what about the toys in living flesh? The Barbie dolls that bleed? The Hefner Playmates that move? The celluloid loves forever panting and forever young. Sex is the mysticism of a materialist society, with its own mysteries—this is my birth control pill; swallow in remembrance of me! And its own sacred texts and scriptures—the erotica that fall like black rain on the just and unjust alike, drenching us, blinding us, stupefying us. To be carnally minded is life. So we have ventured on, Little Flowers of D. H. Lawrence (p. 63 Jesus Rediscovered, Malcolm Muggeridge).

What a contrast between what Jesus is teaching and what our culture celebrates. For our culture, this teaching in Luke 20 is a terrible shock and potential disappointment. It is spoken by the very person who created and affirmed the physical world (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16).  He also wanted us to keep the physical world in proper context and perspective.

It appears that this passage is as relevant today as it was when it was first spoken. We may not immediately put sex and heaven together, but Jesus does. In so doing, he has much to teach us.

Copyright © 2014 Timothy S. Lane. All rights reserved.

Thoughts on a Funeral at Christmas

In the midst of a season of the anticipated appearing of the Son of God, I attended a funeral where we reflected upon the sudden disappearing of a minister and friend. These two feel juxtaposed. But maybe not. Maybe the two are connected in some glorious way.

This funeral was unique in its apparent tragedy. He died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 64, just as he was retiring from pastoral ministry to begin a new season of mentoring young church planters. This was his true passion. Why now?

While the family mourned the loss of their husband, father, and grandfather, I left sorrowful yet deeply edified at the same time. That may seem a bit insensitive, considering what the family was experiencing. But I think a good funeral should do exactly that. And, knowing the family, I suspect that they might be encouraged by the impact of the funeral on non-family attendees. I am confident, as this pastor watched on with that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, he was heartened as well.

What stood out?

1.     The auditorium the church rented was filled to capacity with hundreds of people, many who did not attend the church he pastored. His ministry reached far beyond the four walls of the local church he led.

2.     On the Friday night, just after his death on Thursday, I was one of several hundred members of the local church who gathered to mourn and share some thoughts about his ministry. What struck me was who came forward to share. To a person, they shared how this man made them feel welcomed and loved. It was eerily Christ-like in the way he ministered to all people without favoritism.

3.     The local church he poured his life into mobilized the care team to provide meals and childcare, plan a glorious funeral and host a large reception in a short few days. In addition, other churches provided volunteers so those who were members of this pastor's church could attend the funeral.

4.     The participants on stage were made up of a dozen younger pastors who said they had entered ministry because of him. These young men were just a representation of many more pastors and church planters who were in ministry because of this pastor but were not able to attend.

5.     The service began with hope, moved through moments of grief, punctuated by humor, and then ended with comfort, hope, and renewed tenacity to be about the work of the kingdom.

6.     The pastor and his legacy were rightly celebrated but everyone connected this legacy to someone other than the pastor. This someone was this pastor’s Redeemer and King. We had an opportunity to get a glimpse of Jesus through the life of this man.

7.     At least 2 of the funeral participants confessed that they had been unkind to this pastor and went on to speak of how he had offered forgiveness and grace.

8.     In the midst of the celebration, the pastor’s foibles, sins and weaknesses were mentioned appropriately but not in a way that overshadowed God’s gracious work in his life. I left sensing that he was a normal human being, not a super saint that was beyond reach.

As a pastor, I have officiated many funerals and attended even more. For the reasons above, I left strengthened in my faith instead of questioning why God would take a pastor in his prime. I woke up the next day thinking about areas in my life where I need to personally grow in grace and how I might best use the gifts God has given me to point others to Christ.

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Long Term Crisis: Who Do You Care For?

In long term situations, it will appear that the person in need of crisis care is the person on whom you expend all of your energies. But be careful, you may be neglecting others who are just as important.

Consider Everyone In the Family

When responding to a crisis and looking long term, it is important to focus on the whole family not just the individual who is at the center. What kind of care and encouragement is being given to the spouse, the children, close friends and extended family? The suffering of the person at the center is also bringing suffering into the lives of those close to them. Pastoral care, prayer and encouragement will be needed for them as well. 

Pay Attention to the Specific Needs

Get a list of foods that the family can and cannot eat so when meals are brought, they are suitable. Consider child care, homework, school activities, housework, grounds upkeep, groceries, errands, paying of bills, and transportation. When interacting with the doctor and hospital staff, have someone designated to take notes for the family daily. Listen to their instruction with the family to help them hear and remember. Keep elders/deacons/pastors informed. In situations like this, remember that mistakes are inevitable. Learn and adjust along the way.

Remember to Care for the Care Givers

Go overboard in encouraging those who are in the trenches. 1 Peter 1:3-9 reminds us of how God is working in the present to refine us and help us grow. This is true of everyone involved. It is amazing to see the maturity produced in individuals and churches that have gone through intense, long term care situations. Given the nature of the situation, don't be surprised that relational tension rises to the surface. Encourage the caregivers to work at maintaining healthy communication and practicing forgiveness when necessary. In the midst of the trial one thing is certain - you and your church will not remain the same.

Final Thoughts

No church is perfect but a prepared church will respond better when these difficult
problems come. Though many will volunteer to help out in an immediate crisis, it is the
long term needs that strain the resources of the church and reveal its weaknesses. To keep love constant is a challenge but Christ calls us to meet the challenge with his help. Finally, make individual and group prayer a regular part of your journey together.

Helpful Resources

Here are three books you might find helpful as you think about these issues:

1. To Be the Hands of God: One Woman’s Journey, One Congregation’s Challenge,
by Judy Griffith Ransom and James Henderson, Upper Room Books, 1992. This
book puts you in the middle of a church that is caring for a woman dying of
cancer. Also, very helpful practical lists in the back of the book.

2. Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

3. Golden Book of the True Christian Life, John Calvin