What Is Most Dangerous About Confusing the Gospel?

Episode 16 Show Notes

From the Show

Is the resurrection spiritual in the sense that we are raised into heaven after we die?

The pagan, Greek view that we've inherited as a civilization says that the body is a prison-house of the soul. So once we die, the souls finally freed from its bodily purpose, and flies up like a butterfly to be reunited with the divine, one of which is a spark. Okay, that's the pagan view. Now, the Bible does teach that when we die, the soul is separated from the body and enjoys conscious existence in the presence of the Lord. And that’s wonderful but it’s not the climax. In contrast with pagan thinking, the Bible affirms this world. It affirms creation and the body. We're not saved from this world but with this world. The soul was never intended to be separated from the body. That's the result of death, which is the penalty for sin. The separation of body and soul is only temporary and that's why we call it the Intermediate State. It's not the final state, the final state is the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. So any gospel that stopped short of the resurrection of the body and life everlasting — that there will be no continuity between this earth we're living on right now and our everlasting state — is not reading the Bible correctly. The distinction between heaven and earth will disappear. Heaven will be on Earth, a renewed Earth, not a different world, but a world in a totally different condition. —Michael Horton

Questions in this Episode

1. Is Mark 2:1–12, the story of healing the paralytic, a good verse to show that Jesus was God?

2. What do you think new believers really need to understand about worship?

3. What do you think is the biggest danger in confusing the gospel?

4. How do you understand Romans 2:13? It says that it’s not the hears of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

5. Is the resurrection spiritual in the sense that we are raised into heaven after we die?