Will We See Adam in Heaven?

Will we see Adam in heaven? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts.

You can watch us on YouTube live and message us that way. And of course, you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to a message we received from one of our listeners named Paul.

Yes, hi. Can you provide me some scripture to reflect on, to help me get through the days where I have to deal with those who seem to intentionally want to harm me? And how do I turn you to the cheek and accept their shortcomings? Hey, Paul. I'm sorry to hear about this situation, but there are several passages of scripture that I can point you to. It sounds like you were even alluding to the words of Jesus Christ. So, you know, one, just the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verse 43, where Jesus said, Here he's saying, Jesus is saying that our love for our enemies, in one sense reflects the way God deals with humanity.

He causes good things, the rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. And so we're called, Paul, as the children of the true and the living God, to extend that grace, that kindness, to pray for those who persecute us. You know, it seems unnatural, you know, naturally, when somebody hurts us or sins against us or is persecuting us, we want to fight back. And I think that that's the tendency that we have.

We get angry, we want to fight back. But we need to go back to the words of our Lord Jesus there and pray for our enemies, those who persecute us. It wasn't just Jesus who taught this clearly, his own disciples, the ones who were the initial followers of Jesus. Paul, in the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 14, said, If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all and never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. And so you have that text in Matthew 5. There, another passage in Romans, chapter 12, verses 14 and following.

Let me just give you one more, Paul. And I know that you're not alone in this, that there are a lot of Christians who wrestle with this, so I know that this is going to help a lot of people. And that's the words of Peter in 1 Peter, chapter 3.

And again, this is just so important for us to see. 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 8. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. For to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. And so there's this encouragement. And when you ask the question, how do I do this?

How can I do this? It feels so natural for me to want to fight back, to want to revile back. Will you set your eyes on Jesus? What an example we have in the gospel of God's love for sinners, of his grace towards those who hated him. And Paul says in Romans, chapter 5, that we were among the haters of God, that we were living in sin, you know, rebels, enemies of God, shaking our fists at him.

And yet, Jesus was kind to us, merciful to us, he called us to himself, he forgave our sins, he made us a part of the family of God, he gave us brothers and sisters in him. And if God treated you in that way, if God has forgiven your sins and been merciful to you, then we pray also for our enemies that they might experience his grace as well, Paul. And may the Lord give you strength to do that. God bless. Some great reminders from God's word about how we are to respond to those who may have it in for us, so thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open right now.

If you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, theology, Christian doctrine, or even how our faith intersects with our daily life and today's culture, we would love to hear from you. Here's the phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE. We'll be taking calls for the next 20 minutes or so, so jump on your phone right now.

833-THE-CORE, or 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Michael in Peoria, Illinois. Michael, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hello, hello. Hey, Michael, what's your question? Well, I have to first say that Romans 12 kind of nails me. I haven't think of that in a while.

Nails us all, I guess. Romans 2 also. My question, we read of King Solomon's wisdom and Queen Sheba comes along and gives it a strong recommend, but there are no answers to all of her deep probing questions.

Are we left to rely on Aristotle, Virgil, Albert Camus, and Soren Kierkegaard? Well, I think that you're referring, Michael, to that scene in 1 Kings Chapter 10. Is that right? I just want to make sure I'm going to the right passage. I don't know the exact title, but that sounds close.

Yeah, yeah. So in that text, we're not told exactly what it was that the Queen of Sheba was asking Solomon, but we are told that she's given answers and she's just overwhelmed by Solomon, by the way in which God has blessed Solomon. Just read some of 1 Kings Chapter 10. It says, now, when the Queen of Sheba heard the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue of camels bearing spices and very much gold, precious stones, and when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. And Solomon answered all her questions and there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her.

So, I mean, he answers her questions satisfactorily. And when the Queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her. In other words, Solomon took her breath away. And so you have this really kind of a neat scene here, but what really is being highlighted here is just the way in which the Lord had blessed Solomon with wisdom, with wealth, with so many things. So much so that the nations of the world, the Queen of Sheba, are just, you know, jaws dropped because they see God's great blessing upon this king. And, you know, the chapter goes on to describe Solomon's wealth and so on and so forth. And we know, actually, if you're familiar with the story of Solomon, that a lot of this ended up going to his head.

And he had kind of a rough go towards the end of his life. But all that to say, it seems to me, according to this text, that he did have answers for her. And her questions aren't outlined here in this passage, and there's no answer to that, and I'm not sure why the biblical author decided not to share specifically what she was asking, which wasn't in line with what God inspired for us to have.

That's not the point of the text. And so God bless you, Michael, and thank you for your question. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez. We love getting your questions here. In fact, you can call us 24 hours a day and leave us a voicemail. Here's the phone number.

It's 833-THE-CORE. You can call anytime and leave us a message. We try to review our voicemails once a day to respond to you.

And here's a voicemail we received from one of our listeners named Luverne. I've been really encouraged about the answers you've been given. You did an excellent job. Where is it in the Bible to state that Adam was eternally saved?

Where is it in the Bible to state that Adam was eternally saved? Thanks for answering my question. I appreciate your work. Bye.

Hey, Luverne. Thanks for your encouragement there. We want to be careful that we don't speculate about people's salvation. Obviously, in Scripture, you do have some clear passages of Scripture. You think of the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. You have all these Old Testament saints who are placed there and they're commended to us as examples of faith. They belong to the Lord. They're in the presence of the Lord. Adam is not mentioned there.

Sort of interesting. But does that mean he wasn't saved? Are we going to see Adam in heaven? I am of the opinion that the answer is yes.

Just a couple of things. One, in Genesis, you do have in chapter 3 the description of the fall, the fall into sin, Adam and Eve sinning against the Lord. But you also have hope. The hope of the Gospel, Genesis 3.15, we sometimes call that the first proclamation of the Gospel, the proto-Euangelion, where mankind is promised that the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent. I know ultimately that that seed of the woman is Jesus Christ. But just a little bit later there in the book of Genesis in chapter 3, it says, the man, that is Adam, verse 20, called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Now I think even here we're given a sense of hope. It's not all bad.

Yeah, there has been this fall. But Eve is not the mother of death. She's the mother of all living. There's hope here that Adam has. And again, you see in verse 21, the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

That is, he covered their nakedness. And so I think right here you have a picture of the grace of God toward them, a picture of salvation, forgiveness. So these are things that I think suggest to us that, yeah, they're in the grace of God, that they had turned to the Lord even after sinning. Let me just say this.

I was thinking about this. I've been preaching through the book of Genesis, but the fact that God forgave Adam, clothed Adam and Eve, isn't that so wonderful? I mean, talk about a sin that has serious consequences for all of humanity.

Talk about, I mean, this is just as bad as it gets, right? And yet, God is infinite in his mercy and grace. And in forgiving them and clothing them, he's showcasing his great love, the depth of the ocean of his mercy. And that's an encouragement for me. It should be an encouragement for you, for all of us, because we recognize when we sin that there are repercussions, consequences that affect many people oftentimes. And yet, if God could forgive Adam, and I believe that he did, then he can forgive you as well.

We can go to him confidently. Thank you for that question again, Laverne. God bless. Well, if there was hope for Adam, then there's hope for me.

That's a good news for you. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Hey, here we're just about a week and a half away from a big day in many people's lives. That's Halloween. And Christians struggle with that particular day on the calendar for a variety of reasons. And we get a lot of calls this time of year about things like demon possession and angels and how does Satan work in our lives. And we actually have a wonderful free resource on this topic that will clear up some of the confusion about Satan.

Yeah, thanks, Bill. If you've ever wondered if the little devils in pop culture movies and novels might have shaped our idea of who Satan is more than the scriptures, you stop and you think about it. Do you really know who or what the devil is and what he's trying to do?

Is he everywhere, all knowing, all powerful, a kind of mirror image of God but bad instead of good? We answer these questions in a helpful resource, a new resource called Can the Devil Read My Mind by Pastor David Cassidy. It's a 70-page booklet that gives you a thorough understanding of what the Bible says about Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare. And it's yours for free over at corechristianity.com.

There's some tough questions but important ones that we might assume we know the answers to until we actually look at the biblical evidence. And to download this resource, just head over to corechristianity.com forward slash offers and look for Can the Devil Read My Mind? Again, that's corechristianity.com forward slash offers. While our phone lines are still open, if you have a question for Pastor Adriel about the Bible or the Christian life, Christian theology or doctrine, here give us a call. We'd love to hear from you.

Again, it's 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Tim calling in from Lincoln, Nebraska. Tim, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hey, Pastor. Thank you for taking my call.

Hey, and thanks for calling. Yeah, my question is, if we have to go through the Great White Throne Judgment, and also the Judgment Seat of Christ, isn't that kind of double jeopardy? Or when we go through the Great White Throne Judgment, is it we're forgiven for what we did, and when we go through the Judgment Seat of Christ, we're shown what we should have done and didn't do?

Would hands double? Mm-hmm. Hey, thank you, brother, for that question. So this is something that people differ on. Some people say, well, there are two different judgments. There's the Bema Seat, the Judgment Seat of Christ, and then there's also the Great White Throne Judgment, which is specifically for non-believers, those who rejected Christ.

I actually think that those are both. The Judgment Seat of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment, I view them as the same judgment. One of the things that we read or find in the New Testament in particular is that everyone is going to experience the judgment. Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 10 says, we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Now, this sounds a lot like the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20 verse 11.

Then I saw a great white throne, and him who was seated on it, and from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. And so, it seems to me, throughout the Scriptures, again, this judgment, one judgment includes everyone. You see this also in Acts 17, 31, in Romans chapter 14 verses 10 through 12.

But, here's the distinction that we need to make. For believers, for those who are in Jesus Christ by faith, we're already justified. The judgment has already been rendered in Christ. And the fact that we're in Christ means that we're not going to come into the judgment in the same way as everyone else. We're not going to enter into condemnation. And this is precisely what Jesus himself said in John chapter 5 verse 24.

He says, if you believe in me, you've already passed from death to life. You will not enter into the judgment. And John himself, in 1 John chapter 4 verse 17, says that we can have confidence in the day of judgment.

Why? Because of God's great love for us. And so, there aren't two judgments taking place. There's really only one judgment. And if we are in Christ, he has borne our judgment.

He took the wrath of God in our place so that we might stand before God justified, freely forgiven, so that we might, as John says in 1 John chapter 4, have confidence in the day of judgment. And that's something that you can have, brother, you can have that, Tim. You can have confidence on the day of judgment, not in your own perfect righteousness, but in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ in which you are clothed by faith. God bless. Thanks so much, Tim. And thanks for digging into God's word.

A great question. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Evan in St. Louis, Missouri. Evan, what's your question for Adriel? Hey, Evan. Hi. Oh, Yvonne. Sorry.

Yvonne. Oh, I am sorry. Yes, that's okay. That's okay. Appreciate all that you do. It's very helpful.

I listen to your show often. I just have a quick question regarding in the Old Testament. Second Chronicles 26, 16 to 21, where Uzziah was struck with leprosy on his forehead and forever put out of the camp. However, some people who are like Miriam, for example, who are put out of the camp, maybe for seven days or some are given an opportunity to cleanse and come back.

Is that forever out of the camp? Is that a form, even temporary, is that a form of condemnation? Is that conviction or is that just chastisement?

Hey, Yvonne. I'd love to see you digging into the scriptures. I'm just going to read this text because I'm sure that it's one that a lot of people aren't familiar with. We begin in verse 16 of Second Chronicles 26. But when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction, for he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. But Azariah the priest went after him with eighty priests of the Lord who were men of valor and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense.

Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God. Then Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord by the altar of incense. And Azariah the chief priests and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead. Then they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the Lord had struck him. And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord, and Jotham his son was over the king's household governing the people of the land." You don't really see, Yvonne, any repentance here.

I think that this is just a great warning for us first. The issue is he was, as a king, taking into his hands the responsibility of the priest, which was a great big no-no. If you remember Saul, the first king of Israel, he did this very same thing, offering sacrifices, and he was rebuked, seriously rebuked for doing this. It was not okay for people to take upon themselves the responsibility of the priesthood, and that's what Uzziah was doing here. But it was rooted in something deeper, a deeper issue here that we read in verse 16. When he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction.

And that's the issue here. I think what's being highlighted here by the chronicler is the peril of pride. The Proverbs says pride comes before a fall and a haughty look before destruction.

That's what we see here. Often when an individual advances in strength, in being blessed, if you're not careful, your head can get too big, and that's what happens here. Pride can set in, and that always leads to destruction, and that's why he was cast out, essentially. He had to immediately leave the sanctuary because he was unclean in this state of leprosy. The book of Leviticus describes the uncleanness, the ceremonial uncleanness, that was not permitted to enter into the temple. So there are all these issues here, and it's God essentially showing him this serious, serious problem.

We don't really see what else happens here. I think you asked the question, is this a chastisement? Is this a judgment?

Why is this happening? Is he condemned forever? This is the consequences of his prideful behavior. Yes, we would say that this is a chastisement from the Lord, the Lord marking him as one who was sinning against him.

Like I said, there's a warning here, and the warning is against pride. Thank you, Yvonne, for your encouragement and for giving us a call. Yvonne, thanks so much, and thanks for researching God's word. We always are encouraged when we hear people that are really digging into the Bible and have those great questions.

Let's go to Zarit from Tennessee. Zarit, how are you, and what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hello, hi, how are you?

Thank you for everything. Hi Gabriel, I'm fine. Can everyone hear me? Yes, we can hear you fine, Zarit.

What's your question? Well, my question is regarding the denomination of Christianity. When we read both the New and Old Testament, does God have said anything about denomination? And as a Christian, I'm an Orthodox Christian, is there a day or a time where it will come, there will be only one Christianity? Hey, great question.

Boy, I wish we had a lot more time to answer this one as we come to the close of our program, but a couple of things. One, you asked, does the Bible say anything about denominations? Well, I think, brother, of the prayer of our Lord Jesus in the Gospel of John after he had given his upper room discourse, he prays for the unity of the church. And so while we have divisions and there are so many divisions within the body of Christ today, I think that's something that we should lament. I think that's heartbreaking.

But here is the good news. And you asked this question, is there ever going to be just one church? Well, in the new creation, when we're in the presence of the Lord, at the final judgment, when everything is restored, yeah, we're not going to have all of these divisions anymore that characterize this present evil age. Right now, because of sin, we divide because there are these issues, issues of sin, issues of not fully understanding the truth of God's Word, sound doctrine, sound theology. And it's a shame because Jesus prayed for the unity of his church.

And ultimately, there is only one church and it consists of all those who have faith in Jesus Christ together with their children who call upon his name. And so I pray that you've done that, my friend, and thank you for your question. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at CoreChristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673.

That's 833-The-Core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together. .