Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth

By Albert Meier

Humanity is an animal derived from earth and enlightened by a spirit from heaven. We are urged to abandon our sinful souls and accept an image of our divine creator. We are then both mortal and eternal. Our bodies are from the universe that had its beginning some 14 billion years ago, but spiritual enlightenment came much later and is still happening.

Can a natural being lacking a spiritual enlightenment go to heaven? No, not without the help of a superior spiritual being that we call a Messiah, Jesus came from heaven and was born and lived on earth, and when he died, his spirit returned to paradise with a repentant sinner who had shared the cross with Jesus. Our faith is that Jesus will take us also.

King David, an ancestor of Abraham, died and returned as the transformed son of Mary called Jesus, the image of his heavenly Father.

Symbols are often employed in the Bible. One set of them are the ancient elements--earth, air, fire, and water--that distinguish between our material and spiritual natures. Earth and water refer to the earth life and air and fire relate to the spiritual. In Noah's flood, the water baptizes/cleans our sinful self and a dove, an air symbol, points out Jesus as the ultimate cleanser. The fire on the heads of people gathered from all parts of the world at Pentecost describe the final cleansing by Jesus who baptizes with fire.

The sun, moon, and stars are a set of symbols that refer to the father, son, and holy spirits. The stars represent our spirits that fall to earth periodically and embody there. The star that the magi followed was not an astronomical object; it was the vital spirit of Jesus! The sun, moon, and stars are the spiritual lights of the world.

A few other symbols with important roles are the zodiac, the hidden number 9, and the alpha and omega in the world. This is a hint: ADM.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887513720

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Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth

Albert Meier

ISBN 979-8-88751-371-3 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88751-372-0 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Albert Meier

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1

A Recreation of Biblical Creation Stories

Symbolic Stories or History?

Birth and Rebirth of the Children of God

How Old Are We?

Symbolic Plan for Earth Adventure

Musing with Adam and Eve in the Garden

Who Are Adam and Eve?

The Encounter between Good and Evil

Chapter 2

Sun, Moon, and Stars

Day Four

Birth Pangs Before the Glorious Day

Stars

Struggling Stars

The Root and Offspring of David

The Star of Bethlehem

When Life Begins

Chapter 3

The Creation Week

In the Beginning

Another Glimpse of the Creation Week

The Last Days Last Forever

Pooling Resources

Chapter 4

The Enlightening Light

Fantastic Beacons

Two Fathers Agree to Bear a Son

Moses

Elijah

Jesus

A Near-Death Experience of St. Paul

Chapter 5

The Resurrection

The Transfiguration Prologue

An Arranged Marriage

Like Father, Like Son

The Heralding Angels

Jesus in Angelic Form

The Body after Death

Our Spiritual Resurrection

Melchizedek

Chapter 6

Many Lives in Eternal Life

Adam, David, Messiah

Gospel of the Stars

Kingdom of Judah and Israel

Sin and Repentance

David's Prayer

Transfer of Spirit

Precognitive Visions of David

A Final Dunking

Born Again

Correcting Old Habits

Chapter 7

Cycling to and from the Earth

The Wheel of Life

Son of God and Man

Chapter 8

Return of the Messiah

Heavenly Symbols

A Calendar in the Night Sky

Preparing for the Return

Foreshadowing Events

Breakfast on the Aquarian Shore

Chapter 9

Nine Go to Heaven

The Piscean Harvest

Nine Saved in One Seven

The Rest of the Story

An Addendum: Lagniappe

The Alpha and Omega of Consciousness

Comments on Quantum Theory

Partial Thoughts

Just Musing Along

About the Author

Acknowledgments

My deepest appreciation and love are extended to my parents, Albert and Elva, and to my wife, Arlene.

The following individuals were especially helpful and encouraging: Arlene, who knew what I would write before I wrote it; Mildred, who tried to keep me on the narrow way; Harold, who broadened my perspective; David, who encouraged my belief in a loving God; Theodore, who supported my endeavor; Anthony, who encouraged and strongly urged the publication of this work; and Junita, who prepared the manuscript.

My gratitude is extended to my teachers, especially to my father who taught all eight grades of my elementary schooling, and to Warren, my mentor for the MS and PhD degrees. Thanks to St. Paul High School and to the universities of Washington in St. Louis, Missouri, in Columbia and Washington State. Thanks also to my wonderful colleagues at Louisiana State University.

Preface

This personal venture of biblical discovery began late in life with little planning and only a goal to learn more about God and humankind. Its genesis, however, had a long incubation period. It began when I was born into a devout Christian family in a rural Missouri community. We believed the Bible held the means for our salvation and that the Genesis creation account was divinely inspired history. Our interpretations were formed in an atmosphere of scientific innocence. When later I realized the world was much older than just a few thousand years and that plants and animals, including humans did indeed develop during a long period of natural evolution, the stage was set for a lengthy internal debate.

On the one hand, I was saturated with the love of family and friends, many of whom gave of themselves for Christ's sake. I was also directly captivated by the teachings of Jesus who exemplified love and offered hope for all humankind. On the other hand, I became convinced intellectually that our traditional interpretative approach for the Bible, especially the creation accounts, was untenable.

While employed as teacher and researcher in animal physiology at a major university, I formed several conclusions. My dilemma respecting an accommodation of science and religion was, by no means, unique. Many of the students, especially those in the sciences, were at first confused but became increasingly disenchanted with religion. Some learned to live with the two conflicting concepts simultaneously. Some sought my opinion because they knew I respected the primary tenets of both science and religion. Another conclusion was that some scientists as well as some theologians were hopelessly cemented into opposing mindsets. Throughout more than half a century of reflection, my wonderful and loving wife Arlene was an indispensable help and source of encouragement.

Perhaps the theological doctrine found in some Christian churches that offended me most was the so-called fall of Adam and Eve. How can one respect and love a God that punishes all the descendants of parents who were made so poorly they failed a first test with a crafty serpent? How can such a doctrine measure up to the message of love conveyed by Jesus?

Science has to some extent dodged the unknown by restricting its activities to what is perceived to be testable at the moment. Then some scientists make the cardinal error of assuming the untestable does not exist. Findings in the new physics during the past century are merging the known with the unknown, but this new mindset has not yet impacted society at large and many scientists in particular. The idea that an accidental universe can accidentally produce consciousness found in humans, but that consciousness cannot produce the universe seems to be an absurd leap of faith sustained only by the assumption it may be untestable.

After retirement, I examined the Bible to determine for myself whether it contained answers more satisfying to my life experiences than the simple doctrines generally available in organized religion. If my first reading of a passage indicated an interpretation somewhat at variance from what I knew to be an orthodox position, I reexamined my own conclusion out of respect for the previous input of numerous scholars that led to the orthodox position. But if my own conclusion survived reevaluation and correlation with other messages in the Bible, I went with it and built on it. Because my formal training in theological matters is small, I greatly relied on intuition to alert me to further study and obtain assistance on specific matters.

As the adventure proceeded and some friends expressed interest, I decided to offer the work for publication. A person who is satisfied with his spiritual status quo may wish to stay that way and not risk exposure to new ideas. I do not claim divine inspiration, but others have had life experiences similar to mine and may take this endeavor as an example of what every person can do for himself.

My biblical quest helped resolve not only my own quandary respecting science and theology but also opened up new avenues I had not at all anticipated. The following is a partial list of my discoveries I describe for you.

The creation stories are symbolic abstracts of humankind's past, present, and future. Our creation is ongoing as we approach the seventh day of rest.

Our creation is a merging of two expressions of God, our formation from the dust of the ground and its enlivening with the spirit of God. We are building a new kingdom of heaven on earth.

We are eternal spirits who serve the Most High God in the creation of the world and ourselves. We undergo multiple earth lives to provide experiences necessary for spiritual growth.

Spiritual growth occurs in two phases. In the first phase, our preexisting spirits are clothed in bodies during life on earth. In the second phase, our spirits are transformed as images of the Most High.

Jesus is the first completed man made in the image of the Most High, called the Father. Jesus has shown us the way to become his brothers and sisters. King David was transformed and reembodied to be Jesus.

The vision on the Mount of Transfiguration reveals an organizational base for our ongoing creation. It describes the principal entities in the Old and New Covenants and the passing of the baton from the Father to the Son.

Spiritual entities can have different forms and names. The Lord appeared as a man and an angel, and a man has appeared as a man and a discarnate spirit. And man is an expression of God.

A calendar for biblical events can be seen in the sky at dawn of the spring equinox. Jesus is the lamb from the Age of Aries who made his disciples fishers of men during Pisces and returns during Aquarius.

Quantum mechanics is reconciling science with biblical revelation. Conscious activity creates materiality from immateriality.

A basic premise of my analysis is a belief that God is a gracious Father who loves and supports all His children.

Chapter 1

A Recreation of Biblical Creation Stories

How did we and our world come to be? This question has long intrigued humankind and still occupies much of our attention. Creation stories have been passed down by numerous ancient societies. Many areas of modern science now ask the same question. And much of the Bible addresses this question with a focus on the first several chapters of Genesis.

The answers some derive from the biblical creation stories are often unclear and even contradictory. Many Christians still believe the earth is only some six thousand years old and that the Bible says as much. They believe the entire universe, including man, was made by God in six ordinary twenty-four-hour days. Does the Bible really assert such matters that are clearly contradicted by scientific evidence?

Symbolic Stories or History?

A key for better understanding the creation stories of Genesis is to recognize the symbolic nature of the literature. Some believe the accounts are allegorical but offer, at most, only weak explanations of their meanings. Others say the stories are historical accounts based on ordinary experiences and direct divine inspiration. Scientific evidence as well as a careful biblical analysis places limits on this assumption. The six days of creation followed by a day of rest cannot be twenty-four-hour days. In defending before some Jews his work of healing on the Sabbath (seventh) day, Jesus said that neither he nor his Father had rested (from the beginning) (John 5:16, 17). People at the time the Epistle of Hebrews was written had also not yet entered the day of rest (Heb. 4). Jesus and many early Christians clearly recognized that the days of creation are not twenty-four-hour days.

Moreover, linguists affirm that the Genesis usage of day does not specify an ordinary twenty-four-hour day. The Hebrew word for day is yom, which may be translated as virtually any duration. In their day as well as in our day, a day can have multiple meanings. And that is as clear as day, don't you agree?

The Bible as well as other ancient literature had another meaning for day, one that distinguishes between a human day and a day of the Lord. A day of the Lord has been equated with one thousand human years (Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8). But this definition of a day need not be taken literally. The number 1,000 was sometimes used in the sense of very many. According to Hindu scripture predating the Bible, a day of Brahma is said to be 4.32 billion ordinary human years.

Some people believe the Bible was spoken by God to authors who transcribed the words to the written form. The words are, therefore, original and divinely accurate. But this assumption is unrealistic. The original Old Testament accounts were for the most part written in Hebrew and are available to us now after multiple translations and hand copies that were made multiple times over thousands of years. Original copies are no longer available and copies available now differ from one another. Although the copies are generally similar, the original meanings cannot be verified.

Bibles of the western world are derived from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew made in Alexandria (Egypt) about 200 BC. Linguists realize that translation from one language to another are approximations and not exact. Moreover, the meanings of words within a language change over time. When my granddaughter first called me cool, I thought she meant to bring me a sweater. Versions derived from the Septuagint say that the Messiah would be born of a virgin whereas copies derived from the Hebrew and Aramaic (the common language of Jesus) say the Messiah would be born of a young woman. Of course, the two versions are not contradictory necessarily. But I'm unsure whether the disciples and Gospel writers were able to distinguish between physical and spiritual virginity.

A recognition that the creation stories are not ordinary history is not a recent discovery. We offer a quotation from Origen who was considered by early Church fathers such as Jerome, who assembled the Vulgate Bible, to be the most knowledgeable Christian scholar after the apostles. This quotation was written about 200 AD in Alexandria:

What man of sense will agree with the statement that the first, second, and third days in which the evening is named and the morning, were without sun, moon, and stars and the first day without a heaven? What man is found such an idiot as to suppose that God planted trees in Paradise, in Eden, like a husbandman, etc.? I believe that every man must hold these things for images, under which the hidden sense lies concealed.

What man is such an idiot? Origen asks. Well, many more than one might imagine. This crowd is now beginning to thin out. But instead of searching for the hidden meanings, many are abandoning the Bible and their Lord.

Two creation stories are found in the first several chapters of Genesis. The first story (Gen. 1–2:4) is thought by scholars to have originated in, or come by way of, the northern kingdom of Israel about the time of King David (1000 BC). The second story beginning in Genesis 2 is thought to have come from the southern kingdom of Judah. This story calls God Yahweh, which is translated to English as the Lord or Lord God. The story from the northern kingdom calls God Elohim, which is translated as God.

The first creation story tells us that it is indeed a story rather than a history. Most versions of the Bible summarize this story similar to that found in the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible (Gen. 2:4 NJPS): Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created.

Synonyms for story provided in Webster's New American Dictionary are untruth, tale and canard (a false or unfounded report or story).

Of the versions available to me, only the New King James (not the original KJ) calls the first creation account a history. Do you suppose this NKJ version is a helpful alteration of a fact in order to fit a supposition? It seems probable that His story was never a history except in the creative minds of some historic biblical assemblers.

Experts of ancient Hebrew have concluded that an omission in the translation from Hebrew to the Greek Septuagint accounts for some of the uncertainty introduced in subsequent translations as found in NKJV (F. J. Mayers, The Unknown God; F. d'Olivet by N. L. Redfield, translator to English from the original French, The Hebraic Tongue Restored). These scholars report that the meaning of the Hebrew affix, tho, found in alleh-tho-ledoth (Gen. 2:4) was lost during the translation from the Hebrew to the Greek Septuagint. Tho signified a sign or symbol or something of a hieroglyphic nature that is not a direct description of ordinary reality. To call this story a history is a serious error that challenges the faith of millions.

The second creation story (J account) is also a symbolic rendering according to the story itself. The revelation is in the term deep sleep as found in the formation of Eve from a rib of Adam (Gen. 2:20–22). One clerical guide told a questioner that deep sleep was a divine anesthetic. But we can find a better definition in the Bible by turning to other places where deep sleep is mentioned (Job 4:12–15; Dan. 8:15–18; Dan. 10:7–9; Gen. 15:12; Isa. 29:10–12). Deep sleep is a revelatory (usually prophetic) message provided in symbol during a dream or vision. The reader may recall that an Egyptian pharaoh dreamt that there were seven fat cows followed by seven lean. He did not understand the meaning and turned to Joseph who told him his kingdom would experience seven years of plenty followed by seven years of scarcity. We will quote one account of an awesome dream that by inference tells one who has eyes to see, how he should interpret the second creation story (Isa. 29:10–12 NIV):

Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not from wine, stagger; but not from beer. The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep; he has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers). For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, Read this please, he will answer, I can't; it is sealed. Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, Read this please, he will answer, I don't know how to read.

Isaiah provides an important description of a vision. The vision comes in two parts: first, the vision itself, and then the meaning of the vision. The one who experiences the vision may not be able to understand it. Even if someone can interpret the vision accurately he may decline to do so. The meaning may be sealed until an appropriate time.

Such also is the vision reported in the creation story, a story still lacking a fully acceptable explanation after thousands of years. Given the prophetic role of biblical dreams, the explanation may not concern the past but rather the future. But why has the Genesis vision been masked for so long, and when will it be revealed? Perhaps scientists are the ones who will answer the questions. If Christ is in all (Col. 3:11), perhaps it is wise not to restrict our attention to profound clerical guides.

Birth and Rebirth of the Children of God

Inasmuch as my scholarly background is in biology with relatively little formal training in theology, the analysis offered here may have been, unknown to me, provided previously. It is nonetheless generally unrecognized. A careful analysis by an untutored person (the author) may be useful in order to provide a perspective relatively free from centuries of dogmatic ecclesiastical dust. If Christ is in all (Col. 3:11), maybe even nontheologians are moved by the Holy Spirit.

The subject of this discourse is about the preexistence of ourselves and of our ongoing transformation from creatures to mature children of God. The relevant verses are included in the first creation story called the Elohim account in which the Hebrew term Elohim is translated to English as God. Our transformation occurs during day 6 of creation following the formation of animals (mammals). We will quote the verses in two parts from the new Jewish Publication Society version for reasons that will become evident (Gen. 1:26 NJPS): "And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image,