What Jesus Said . . . and Didn’t Say

By Glenn C. Carlson

What Jesus said . . . “Follow me and go on a mission.”

And didn’t say . . . “Follow me and go to heaven.”

The main thesis of the book is derived from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In these Synoptic Gospels, Jesus never mentions heaven, except when speaking of God the Father. Being a this-world incarnation of God, he emphasizes life on earth and not the new environment after death.

Our Lord explains that the mission will always involve both words and actions. The words should make two things clear: (1) the one who calls is the man Jesus who is the true revelation of God and (2) one’s relationship with God is a reflection of Jesus’s perfect relationship with the Father. The actions should be in the selfless lifestyle of Jesus himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973644590

Glenn C. Carlson

Following his service as a navy pilot, Glenn C. Carlson was a radio announcer in Ohio. After graduating from Ohio State University, he went west, where he became a program traffic supervisor at NBC in Hollywood. While there he received an MA in television from the University of Southern California. While working at NBC, God called Carlson into the gospel ministry. He received his ministerial degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary. In seminary he was also a teaching fellow, teaching classes in ways to prepare and present the Christian gospel by radio and television. With his wife and infant son, he went to Scotland, where he received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. Carlson has served Presbyterian churches in Ohio, Washington State, and Arizona. After retiring, he was the organizing pastor of a Presbyterian church in Phoenix, Arizona, and briefly served Methodist churches in Arizona and Oregon.

Book preview

What Jesus Said …

and Didn’t Say

GLENN C. CARLSON

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Copyright © 2018 Glenn C. Carlson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-4458-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4460-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4459-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018913342

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/26/2018

Contents

I. What Jesus Said … And Didn’t Say

So … What About Heaven?

Heaven Is Where The Father Is

Receiving Christ Leads To Heaven

More Explicit About The Other Place

II. The Call

The Call: From Jesus

The Call: Comes To All

The Call: No Excuses Accepted

III. The Mission

The Call Is To Mission

Mission: More Important Than Religion

Faith Of Non-Jews Also Accepted

Don’t Be A Stumblng Block

IV. Doing Mission

A Three Fold Call

1. Let Them Deny Themselves

2. Take Up Their Cross

3. Follow Me

V. The Mission Message

1. The Message In Words

God’s Self-Revelation In Jesus

Relating (Reconciled) To God Through Jesus

2. The Message In Action

VI. The Result Of Doing Mission

Good Works: The Cause Or Result Of Salvation

Receiving A Reward

First: About Matthew

Next: Some Concerns Other Than About Going To Heaven

Now: The Reward

VII. Summary

I. WHAT JESUS SAID . . . AND DIDN’T SAY

Jesus began to proclaim … Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near (Matthew 4:17). What Jesus didn’t announce was Repent, and you will go to heaven."

The reason might be that the Jewish people, which included Jesus, didn’t really believe that there was life after death until about the time of the Babylonian Exile in the sixth century BC. In fact, there is no place in the Old Testament (Jesus’ Bible) that says there is a place called heaven where people go after death.

Following the return from Exile (537 BC), they began to use the Hebrew word for paradise which was taken from a Persian word for park. While in Exile they had heard the Persian word which means a peaceful place. (The Babylonians had taken the Jews into Exile. They were conquered by the Persians who let the Jews return home) And so it would have been most natural for Jesus to say to the man being crucified next to him, Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43; cf. Matthew 19:29).

The writer of the Fourth Gospel (attributed by tradition to the Apostle John) refers to Jesus saying, No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man (John 3:13).

Even the great Apostle Paul doesn’t really come right out and say that people may go to heaven after death. He says, for example, Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:49). It is Jesus who is being referred to as the man of heaven, but location is not indicated. Even the previous sentence has heaven sounding more like an adjective than a noun, as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.

When Paul does speak of a place called heaven, he sounds like there may be multiple heavens in Ephesians 4:10 and 2 Corinthians 12:2. And it is interesting to find that Paul, reflecting his Jewish culture, replaces heaven with Paradise in 2 Corinthians 12:4. In Colossians 1:15 - 16, probably from an early Christian hymn, Paul uses the word heaven to refer to all that we see in the skies above.

Perhaps the biggest influence on our thinking about heaven is the last book in the Bible, the apocalyptic writing, Revelation. The apocalyptic style (about 200 BC - 100 AD, apocalypse means to reveal) presented the truth through visions. We cannot expect to find photographs here, rather what we find are surrealistic paintings. These visionary paintings in Revelation take us into heaven, and heaven, thereafter, is mentioned often.

After the initial letters to the seven churches, the heavenly visions are in 4:1 - 22:17. They begin this way: After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! After that, we find such verses as these which speak of heaven: 12:7, 15:1, 19:1, and 21:1. The word heaven is found forty eight times in this apocalyptic writing which was probably written toward the end of the first century.

SO … WHAT ABOUT HEAVEN?

There are frequent references to the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew, and Kingdom of God in Mark and Luke. These two expressions refer to the same thing: God’s reign, rule and sovereignty here on earth. And there is no doubt how that rule and reign has been revealed and is now offered and made available to all mankind. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I [Jesus] cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. (Luke 11:20)

So this needs to be said at the outset. The kingdom of heaven (God) is not to be equated with heaven which we normally speak of as the place we go to after leaving this world. When Jesus selects his twelve apostles he assigns them a mission which speaks of proclaiming the good news, curing the sick and cleansing lepers (Matthew 10:7 - 8). The kingdom of heaven is shown to be very this-world. Jesus called the twelve to go on a mission not to go to heaven.

More evidence of this is found in Matthew11:11 - 12 where the kingdom of heaven is said to have suffered violence, from the days of John the Baptist until now. To understand passages such as this one we must always come down to bedrock reality. The Kingdom of God, God’s rule, his sovereign reign on this earth is found incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. In that human being the Creator of this entire universe (including this little blue marble called earth which came into being some 4.5 billion years ago) revealed and exercised his authority.

In Matthew 11 Jesus is not underestimating the importance of John the Baptist. John was the advance man, the stentorian herald of this one in whom the Kingdom of God (heaven) would appear. This kingdom did not come with John. His mission was to proclaim the one in whom that kingdom would be lived out among fellow human beings. And from the moment the curtain goes up on this new Revealing/Reconciling event, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence.

And that is no better illustrated than with the death of John the Baptist himself. Herod Antipas had murdered John because of some marriage counseling that Herod didn’t want to hear. When God’s kingdom became more apparent in Jesus’ teaching and healing, Herod’s conscience went to work. He believed that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead (Matthew 14:2).

Yes, the kingdom of heaven did suffer violence. And Jesus experienced that right in his own hometown of Nazareth. It was the Sabbath. He was in the local synagogue with all his friends and neighbors. They had heard a lot of good things about this hometown boy so they asked him to read the Scripture that day. He chose Isaiah 61:1 - 2 (our chapter and verses, not his).

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s