As readers may know, I feel a need to understand Christianity so simply and clearly that it can be grasped as a whole, by a single act of thinking.
I have previously explained what Jesus meant in the Fourth Gospel ("John") when he requires people to "follow" him; and I explained it in terms of the Good Shepherd leading his sheep from the front.
I have also explained following in terms of us meeting Jesus post-mortally and being led by Him through the process of resurrection into Heaven.
It now seems to me that Jesus might have meant by "following", something even simpler and clearer because more literal.
We are enjoined to follow Jesus where he went.
That is: if we want resurrected eternal life; we should follow Jesus to Heaven.
That is: we should follow Jesus through the process of resurrection to get to that place or state of Heaven.
But the main thing is to follow Jesus to Heaven.
And we do that by wanting it.
By wanting Heaven more than we want anything else, so that we will do... whatever is needful to get there; what is needful to achieve Heaven; and we will know what that is, when the time is right.
Following Jesus to Heaven is something we do after death, just as Jesus went to Heaven after his death.
Here and now; what is required, is to be known in the context of having decided that we want to follow Jesus to Heaven.
How we personally should live, is in expectation of following Jesus to Heaven.
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*Note: "Following is Not therefore meant as instructions to follow a specific path or rules, nor modelling our life on Jesus's life, nor a matter of following any purported intermediary such as membership, words, rituals or symbols. In the past it was different since Men in those days were groupish by nature; and responded spontaneously in the right way to words, symbols, rituals. For us, here and now, we must follow Jesus specifically and personally - or, probably, we won't be following him at all.
5 comments:
I faintly began to feel what you have expressed here about fifteen years ago, but it really only "hit" me about five or six years ago. And when I say hit, I mean hit, like an epiphany.
To follow is to ‘go fully’ etymologically speaking, which is to ‘move in the same direction as’. So, to follow Jesus is to go to heaven. This makes perfect, plain sense as it's written. And the direction of Heaven is one towards God. But like all children we must know and love our mother first before we can know and love our father.
Practically I think this means loving dirt and growing things, and each other, the people close to us, as the beginning of our path to Heaven. And in this way we would be mirroring Jesus’ life, but not as a script or set of rules, but a shared desire. For more of the good stuff!
I sometimes realize that (as shown in several places in the Bible) Jesus was able to communicate his "message" to people very quickly, and some seemed able to grasp it and "follow" him just as quickly.
@Sean " the direction of Heaven is one towards God." - I don't find this a very helpful conceptualization, because it tends towards a kind of circularity whereas I think we need to grasp Jesus's work (and therefore Heaven) in a linear way.
Mormon theology seems a bit incoherent in this respect. I think the great and true insight was that life is linear: pre-mortal spirits, mortal incarnates, post-mortal immortal incarnates.
But Mormons seem to me then to talk about pre-mortal spirits as inhabiting Heaven, and post-mortal resurrection as if returning, going *back*, to that Heaven. Indeed this kind of picture is something I quite often come across among various kinds of Christians.
But (as you have probably read here) I have come to believe that there is a (primary) first and second creation; and that Heaven did not exist until Jesus.
So I don't really see Heaven as moving "towards" God - ie. our Heavenly Parents. Indeed I'm not really sure how to describe Heaven in relation to the primary creators - I haven't got it clear in my mind.
@Bruce I don't quite know what you mean with regards to circularity. I certainly don't view it as a return to pre-mortal existence, but following the path of life, which grows towards heaven, not back where it came from.
But perhaps it would be better to conceptualize this movement, not towards God our Father, but toward Godhood, that we may become like him, which certainly entails leaving of the nest (mortal life) and then making our own way and establishing our own homes. New worlds and new wonders. Not a return to the womb, which is a one way street.
I need to mull it over myself.
@Sean - Fair enough. I didn't make my point at all well, and indeed the comments isn't the place to make it!
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