Heaven’s Immortality

In the context of the life of mankind, it is common to vary definitions of words.  Those variations have within them the characteristics of facts and feelings.  The facts can be found or designated, but the emotions often garble meanings.  Almost always, language touches something of facts and emotions when verbalization about beliefs and conduct are included in the context of verbal exchanges.  In reviewing materials I have filed during decades, related to biblical texts, I found material related to the above text a column from fifty years ago written by Herbert Palmquist relative to the various applications of the word Christian that he observed or heard in his lifetime.  The column appearing in print in 1964 appealed to me as many of his writings did.  It was practical and insightful.  His approach to themes became even more meaningful when, after taking on the administration of a college identified as a Christian College, I also accepted an invitation to serve a church in Redwood City.  When I arrived there I was introduced to Palmquist, who had just retired from his successful ministry of long tenure in Chicago.  We hit it off from the outset.  I was just a bit over half his age, and took careful note of his experience to wisdom.  I totally enjoyed his serious application of ideas in meaningful humorous understanding of the contradictions and conundrums of human beings, especially from those one expects to be more careful in the development of persuasive argument and literature.  His articles gained even higher respect from me.  This one recited numerous objects, institutions, and situations identified as Christian.  He had found that some of the fathers of the nation had snuff boxes with biblical texts engraved on them including, God is Love and Behold the Lamb of God.  Palmquist then asked: Did that make them Christian snuff boxes?  His conclusion was that: We are Christian to the extent that he lives in us and dominates the spirit of our lives.  

Palmquist was correct in noting that Christian appears only three times in the New Testament.  He believed it was introduced as a derisive term, likely from the pagan society in Antioch; that when Christians suffered for their faith they should not be ashamed because of the designation; and, that when Agrippa said to Paul: Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian – the term was used in disrespect.  Christians tended to identify themselves as brethren or saints.  The Christian term belonged to persons thrown to lions, or enslaved, or degraded in the wider culture.  Christians even suffered under the accusation that they were atheists.  Ultimately this meaning changed after Constantine in the early fourth century A. D.     

How is the Christian identified in God’s Kingdom?  This is taken on by the Apostle Peter in a cryptic verse: 1) a chosen generation.  There appears to be serious involvement of God in the selection of those who are identified not as angels, or seraphim, or any other term than children of God, in the making of the family of God, in the identity of that family as the bride of Christ.  There is a meaningful factor in the identity that his foreknowledge permits the announcement to conclusion before the theology is understood adequately.  The language of heaven is likely too sophisticated for adequate explanation in the temporal world of anything that God might do.  2) A royal priesthood: refers to the uniqueness of the Christians relationship to God.  On the death of Christ the veil was rent from top to bottom, as significant of the fact that Christians are directly treated by availability to God through Jesus Christ as special intercessor for the Christians in a direct parental-like identity related to life.  The analogies are several, but Christians are the only ones identified with the family of God.  3) A royal nation: means there is a citizenship made up exclusively of Christians.  The administration of that kingdom is directly from God.  Christians on earth are noted as ambassadors of that kingdom, and called to represent the appointment faithfully as noted in the context in I Peter 2:9.  4) A peculiar people: means that they have been purchased (ransomed) so to represent a context unlike any other identified grouping in God’s systems.  In this context the special system is identified as God’s Kingdom with his exclusive rule – an adoption that offers God’s nature to his family so to find life, love, peace, fellowship, presence, service and immortality related to God’s planning.