Christianity[edit] Main article: Heaven (Christianity) The Ascension, by Dosso Dossi, 16th century. Many ascension scenes have an upper (heavenly) and a lower (earthly) part.[8] In the sola fide belief of many mainstream Protestant Christians, one does not have to live a perfectly good life, but one must accept (believe and put faith in) Jesus Christ as ones saviour, and then Jesus Christ will assume the guilt of ones sins; believers are believed to be forgiven regardless of any good or bad works they have participated in.[9] Catholic Christians too speak of heaven as unattainable by even heroic human effort and having been opened instead by the death and resurrection of Jesus.[10] They see heaven as Gods eternal reward for good works accomplished with the grace of Christ and giving rise to no strict merit on the part of human beings,[11] while the works of the flesh exclude from heaven.[12] For the Orthodox too, free will and our cooperation with God is always understood to be an act of grace[13] Christian Universalism, on the other hand, holds that, because of divine love and mercy, all will ultimately be reconciled to God, regardless of present faith or good deeds. Some Christian denominations believe in an Intermediate state between death and the Resurrection of the Dead. Christianity is based on the biblical belief in heaven as the Throne of God.[14] To this is added the belief that grace enables believers to ascend to heaven, as exemplified by Elijah and Enoch,[15] and to which all the elect will be admitted.[16][page needed] The First Book of Maccabees (part of the Deuterocanonicals) uses Heaven as a name for God, but the spatial metaphor does not identify God with heaven, which is incapable of containing God.[15] Creedal beliefs about heaven are expressed in the Nicene Creed, such as belief in the Ascension of Jesus to heaven and the Session of Christ at the Right Hand of God, and in the belief in the Second Coming of Christ from heaven to earth. Creedal beliefs about the afterlife include the statement: I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 20:02:31 +0000
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