How to Get to Heaven
I've written quite a few articles about various spiritual topics. However, I haven't written one that is directly focused on the Gospel, and how to get to Heaven. It's true that some of my articles speak about it, and were even intended to guide people to salvation. However, the closest one that does this, is less focused than I'd like. For this reason, I'm chosing to write this article. It's designed to focus on the Gospel, specifically, and explain what a person has to do, in order to get to Heaven.
When speaking about the Gospel, it's important to, first, talk about God and his holiness.
I believe that most people spend very little time thinking about holiness, and how it pertains to God. Even when we do, it's something that's very difficult for us to understand, or relate to. However, a Christian can't talk about the Gospel without talking about mankind's separation from God. And we can't talk about our separation from God, without talking about God's holiness.
First of all, what is holiness?
When I first heard the definition of "holy", it was given to me by a pastor or Sunday School teacher. I was told that it means "to be set apart", or to be "reserved as special". When we think of something as being holy, we recognize that it's the opposite of "common".
If you look up this word, in a common dictionary, you'll find that, it's often related to God, by default --meaning that something that is holy isn't just special; it's special because it's related to God.
All of these definitions point our minds in the right direction. When we talk about God being holy, it's an understanding that he's special, and not common. He's not like anything else. He's in a class of his own.
If we take the time to think about some of God's attributes, we can think of certain characteristics that apply to him, alone. For instance, he's unlimited in his knowledge and power. He's infinite, in terms of time, with no beginning and no end. He's, also, omnipresent --meaning that he's at all places, at all times.
Although we can understand these things, I still don't believe that they give us a complete understanding of God's holiness. After all, when you read the Bible, and you learn about God talking about being holy, what he says transends, even these things.
For instance, when God revealed himself to Moses, via an unconsumed, burning bush, in a desert, God told Moses to take off his sandals because Moses was standing on holy ground. We can read this in Exodus 3:1-6.
In Hebrews 20:18-21, the Bible talks about an instance, which took place at Mount Sinai, a holy mountain; the same place where Moses was told to take off his sandals. God told the people that, if an animal were to touch the foot of the mountain, it must be killed by being stoned to death.
These are just two examples. However, the Bible is filled with objects, ceremonies, places, etc., that are holy. When we encounter these things, often times, they don't make a lot of sense, from a human perspective. Because we struggle to understand these things, some people try to, wrongly, accuse God of being cruel. What it shows me, is that God is incomprehensible, and that there are many things about him, that don't make sense to us.
I could dedicate an entire article talking about this. In fact, I've written one that is entitled, A Good Person, which touches on this subject.
All of this is to say that, when it comes to God, we shouldn't view him as a human being who lives in the sky, and has special powers, like a superhero. He's beyond us, in every way -- even in things, and ways, that we can't comprehend. For this reason, we may not be able to fully understand how it is that certain aspects of us, are offensive to him. Some even struggle with the notion that a loving God, who doesn't make mistakes, made creatures who would sin against him. It contradicts human understanding and human comprehension. Should we be surprised that God, who surpasses our understanding, would be, and do, things that we don't completely understand?
I've written about this sort of thing in an article entitled, Beyond the Superficial.
I believe that it's important to talk about God's holiness because, if we don't, it's difficult to understand how our sin is able to separate us from God.
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