Their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven

 

Their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven

 

Matthew 18:7-10 『Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.』

Those who cause people to stumble (skandalizeiσκανδαλίζει) are those who preach the present resurrection life within the church community, but the believers refute that the resurrection takes place after the death of the body. And they persecute them as a group. Therefore, the believers fall into tribulation. The believers will face opposition from these believers and will be troubled about whether they should leave the church community. The expression "stumble" refers to this.

However, Jesus says something terrible to those who cause them to stumble. First, “If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.” Hands and feet are symbolic expressions of ministry. The hands represent the hands of a pastor who baptizes. The feet represent those who go abroad to spread the word of God. It is a message to those who distort the resurrection life through wrong baptism or wrong words to stop. Romans 6:4-5 “Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.”

Baptism is believing that when you go into the water, your physical body died with Jesus, and when you come out of the water, you believe that you have been resurrected with the resurrected Jesus. Therefore, resurrection is a ceremony of believing that you have been resurrected when you are baptized. However, it is said that it is a wrong baptism ceremony because it is believed that the body will be resurrected after death. This is because the person giving the baptism does not know the meaning of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the meaning of resurrection. Resurrection is when a spiritually dead person comes back to life and wears a mysterious spiritual body, not a physical body.

If you go abroad to do missionary work with such a wrong view of resurrection, the result will be to instill the same wrong things. Matthew 23:15 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel over sea and land to make a single convert, and when he becomes a convert, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” Jesus is speaking to the Jews who do not know about resurrection life.

“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell fire.” There are physical eyes that look at the world and spiritual eyes that look at the kingdom of God. Do not look at the kingdom of God with worldly eyes, but look at the kingdom of God with spiritual eyes.

Those who think of the resurrection as a physical resurrection judge the kingdom of God with their physical eyes. Jesus said in Luke 20:35-36, "But those who are accounted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, nor can they die any more, for they are equal to angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection." By talking about angels, he makes it clear that the resurrection is spiritual.

In 1 Peter 3:18, it says, "For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit." Therefore, the spirit that was imprisoned in the flesh has been resurrected with a spiritual body and is at the right hand of God. Ephesians 2:6, "And raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places (epouranois) in Christ Jesus." Although the body is on the earth, the resurrected spirit is at the right hand of God wearing the clothing of an angel. The Apostle Paul is the one who explained this well. He talks about his experience of going to the third heaven, and the right hand of God refers to the third heaven.

Epouranois is a compound word of epo (above) and uranois (genitive case of heaven). The Greek word for heaven is uranon, which means the kingdom of God in the soul. The ton uranon translated as heaven in the Gospel of Matthew is heaven. In 2 Corinthians 12:1-2, Paul says that he did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body. He made an ambiguous expression that man cannot know, but God knows.

The saints must know exactly about the spirit, soul, and body. The soul of an ordinary person is a life phenomenon, so when the body is alive, it is combined with the spirit and becomes the soul. That is why it becomes the soul and the body. However, when the body dies, the life phenomenon disappears, so the spirit and the body are separated. Since it is not in Christ, the spirit goes forward wearing the garment of the resurrection of judgment.

However, those who are in Christ are different. Those who are in Christ believe that the fleshly body died with Jesus, so the soul that came from the flesh disappears and they are clothed with the soul that comes from heaven. Therefore, by being united with the resurrected Jesus, the spirit comes alive, and they are clothed with the soul (spiritual body) that comes from heaven, and the soul is at the right hand of God. Of course, the body that they received from their parents is still alive, so it has consciousness. However, their identity must be placed in the soul in heaven. They need to be conscious that the fleshly self of the old man that remains in the body is not theirs. As for the question of whether the body and soul are separated, like the Apostle Paul, they cannot know whether the soul in heaven is inside or outside the body. Only God knows.

"Their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven." Their angels refer to the angels who returned to being angels after the saints were spiritually resurrected, received spiritual bodies, and were seated in heaven. It refers to the angels who originally sinned in the kingdom of God, but were resurrected and returned to their original positions. The word resurrection means returning to the original state.

Genesis 28:12 "In his dream, he saw a ladder set up on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." This is the content of the dream that Jacob had after making a covenant with God. This is the same content as John 1:51 "And he said to them, 'Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven (ton uranon) opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. '" This is what Jesus said to Nathanael. Ton uranon refers to the kingdom of God in the soul, and in Matthew 3:2, it refers to heaven. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Heaven refers to Christ who has the resurrection life.