The Church in Philadelphia
To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
โThis is the message from the one who is holy and true. He has the key that belonged to David, and when he opens a door, no one can close it, and when he closes it, no one can open it. I know what you do; I know that you have a little power; you have followed my teaching and have been faithful to me. I have opened a door in front of you, which no one can close. Listen! As for that group that belongs to Satan, those liars who claim that they are Jews but are not, I will make them come and bow down at your feet. They will all know that I love you. Because you have kept my command to endure, I will also keep you safe from the time of trouble which is coming upon the world to test all the people on earth. I am coming soon. Keep safe what you have, so that no one will rob you of your victory prize. I will make those who are victorious pillars in the temple of my God, and they will never leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven from my God. I will also write on them my new name.
โIf you have ears, then, listen to what the Spirit says to the churches!
(Revelation 3:7-13) KJV
In the Bible the word dogs is often a euphemism for morally depraved people. There are no dogs in heaven, but does this mean that there are no Canines in heaven?
The Bible teaches us that the human soul is eternal. When sin entered the world it caused the process of senescence, biological decay towards eventual death. Therein lies the dilemma. We’re all eternal souls but, for the time being, we inhabit bodies that will die in a physical system that’s collapsing into itself under the weight of corruption and decay.
God has provided for this situation by preparing a new system that’s not bound by the constraints of this one. Passage from this world to the next depends on whether or not we have been purified. Purification is available to all through faith in Jesus Christ. How can a Canine be purified? Can a Canine believe in Jesus Christ?
The question we need to ask is not so much, are there going to be Canines in heaven? but, do Canines have a soul? It’s possible to answer this question.
We saw during the month of November the catastrophic changes that are going to happen to the earth during the tribulation. One of them gives us a very important clue to understand the soul. Most of the Biblical references to the soul use it as a way to designate a person. Instead of referring to someone as a man it refers to them as a soul: the man’s identity. In the most important ways they are the same thing, because the man is the personality with whom we interact, which is the soul.
And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
(Revelation 16:3) KJV
The Bible is referring to marine organisms as souls. What can we understand about this? We worked on a series entitled soul and spirit where we showed how to delineate between the soul and spirit. We need to know where one ends and the other begins. A brief summary of this discussion goes like this:
Matter has four states
- Solid
- Liquid
- Vapor (gas)
- Plasma
This we equate to the components of ourselves:
- Body
- Blood
- Breath (Spirit)
- Plasma (the Spirit dissolved in the blood)
The Bible tells us that the life is in the blood. The life is the spirit, so where is the soul? We deduced that each soul is a gravitational singularity which encompasses the aspects of mind and heart. It is physically located in the heart muscle but it emits a field which imparts our uniqueness to the body we inhabit, including the brain which is the location of our mind. The separation of mind and heart pictures for us the separation of heaven and Earth.
- IF the soul is uniquely us, our consciousness and personality,
- THEN any creature which consists of a body (solid and liquid),
- AND which is animated by a spirit (vapor) can support a soul,
- THEREFORE it is SENTIENT.
As such dogs – Canines – have a soul. Anything that breathes has a soul. So do things that don’t breathe, like fish, but who have gaseous exchange and metabolism.
Which brings us back to our passage. The Bible refers to some people as dogs. People who are morally depraved. We have been that way at times in our life. By the grace of God he showed us the light and we accepted Jesus Christ as our savior. Praise be to God! But there are people who will not see the light and accept Jesus Christ, many of whom have heard the gospel over and over again.
There, but by the grace of God, go I.
Read through the Bible in a year
| Reading plan | December 24 | |
| Linear | Revelation 1-3 | |
| Chronological | 2 Timothy |
Salvation
- Call upon the name of Jesus Christ,
- believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
- confess your sin.
