Expert: Mr. McClellan - 10/14/2008

Question
QUESTION: What parts of the Bible; explains/ sheds light on; when a person body dies, where are the different (passable) places that that person sole and spirt might go to?
Thank you in advance.

ANSWER: Hi Allen,
Well, it is for sure that the notion of Purgatory is not in the Bible and no one was authorized to invent it and teach it as if it was from God either. And the only other places spoken of is heaven and hell, though a few other terms are used for those two places sometimes. The idea about Purgatory is simply a teaching invented by men who did not know how to correctly understand what the scriptures say. These people simply made assumptions that they then taught others to think were the truth, and they claimed authority that God did not give them. So, you don't have to believe a word they say.
I have to go right now, but I'll get back to you with some detail later.
Have a nice day.
Sincerely,
Mr. McClellan

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: (What parts of the Bible; explains/ sheds light on;)
A) you missed that part of the question.
B) How many HEAVENS are there/going to be?
(in the Bible I think it says that  heaven will flee away and there will be a new one; also it talks about the 4th heaven) so would it be 4 or more heavens?  But is there more other places?

Answer
Hello Allen,
Sorry about having to be so brief at the moment, I don't want you to think that I'm not going to answer your questions. It's just that I'm quite tied up with a lot of work just now.
However, I do want to make a quick statement to get you to thinking though these sound like trivia questions for a school assignment. Are they?
A convincing answer to the first one about where a person's spirit goes when they die could take a good bit of space and time. But, there is a very well researched book about all this called "The Fire That Consumes" by Edward Fudge that you ought to read. When you've done that, see if you can decide what to think. In the end, it really won't matter what you decide because that is one of those things that you don't NEED to know the truth about in order to go to heaven. However, the doctrine of purgatory is being taught by certain people as "the" truth, and that is wrong. That teaching is simply speculation that no one is obligated to believe in the least.
You can believe it if you like, but don't go trying to convince other people that they have to believe it too.
How many heavens? There's only one heaven actually mentioned in the Bible. The things you are referring to are figurative ways of speaking and not to be understood literally. Don't be embarrased about not knowing this though. A lot of people make the same kinds of mistakes and it comes from just not knowing how to recognize some of the different kinds of figurative language the writers of the Bible used and from not really knowing the scriptures very well.
Besides, these are things that are not necessary to know the absolute truth about before you can go to heaven. They were just some topics that were tangent to the things that are necessary to know and why more time was not spent on explaining them more thoroughly. It's just common sense that if it were necessary to know the plain and unmistakable truth about them, a just God would have made sure that there was nothing left to guess at. The necessary things Jesus and his apostles spent a lot of time on explaining many different ways as they reasoned with people to convince them to change their lives and work at being conformed to the image of God's moral character. Things like how many heavens there are, or exactly what happens immediately after a person dies, and a host of other such questions have nothing to do with whether or not you can have your sins forgiven and have eternal life, unless you start telling people that their ultimate destiny depends on knowing these things for certain. When that starts happening, you're involved in legalism and that will seriously cost you, according to the Bible.
So, maybe you'd rather I spent my time answering questions that would, or at least might, actually have a serious effect on your life; that would help you know if you're headed in the wrong direction or not. However, maybe you are more interested in playing a game of trivia with me. I'll have to tell you though, I'm not much for games. They tend to be a waste of time and life is too short and there are just too many more important questions that need to be answered and that people really need to know the answers to.
Tell me, Allen, does God exist. or does God not exist? This question can be answered with absolute certainty and, because of the implications, it is the one most important question that you need to know the answer to without guessing. You can know it just as sure as you can know anything that you know. Tell me, do you know the answer, and how did you go about finding it? Was the Bible actually "inspired" by God, or not. Does it actually contain his will for all humans, or not? What's the answer? Because, if you can't know this, or if no one can know this, someone has to be able to prove it before it can just be dismissed. The results of not knowing it, if it can be known, are of the most serious nature imaginable. So, you'd better be sure that you aren't overlooking something, or that you haven't accepted some misconcepts that are causing you to be blind to the truth.
Can you think "outside of the box" you're in? Sleep tight.
Sincerely,
Mr. McCellan