Hi HansC,
Just thought I would interject here...
Nathan said:
Scripture never mentions "streets". It states "street". One river in the garden of Eden, one river flowing from the throne in Revelation . . .and one street of gold.
Could it be one straight street or one street with many connected branches, so many avenues but all interlocked? We could debate that here, but once on the other side, we will see and experience and the issue will be settled.
We will know if it is one straight street or one street with many branches but still counted as one street. Or even if there are bricks of gold, or one solid mass of gold.
On this side, we have to buy into an interpretive narrative presentation.
On this side, we have to take these matters by faith.
On the other side we will know.
On the other side we will not have to take it by faith, because we will see and experience whether there are Muslims there, or bricks of gold, or one solid straight street.
You are right in that we won't really know until we get there. But we can make some pretty good guesses. And it is based on our beliefs and faith.
IMHO it pretty much has to be symbolic. A street is physical. Gold is physical. But the physical will pass away for the spiritual.
If we will not need to take these things by faith over there, because we can see and experience.
Then how is a person who rejected Christ on this side to take Christ by faith on the other side when seeing and experience become irrefutable? How is that possible?
I guess who's to say everything will be revealed
all at once? We don't know exactly what anyone will experience when they awake "on the other side". What will be the first thing you see when you open your eyes after the resurrection? What is the judgment? What is the lake of fire? When does everyone bow and confess and swear allegiance to Christ? When does every creature praise God's name? These things are sure to happen, but when, for how long - what will be revealed at each stage? What specifically will happen in each stage?
"each in their own order" is a key phrase here - everyone is made alive, but each in their own order. Not at the same time.
Lets hypothesize a bit further here.
God is making all people in His image. His image is Love - patient, kind, not delighting in evil, faithful, always hoping, always protecting, persevering, never failing. So faith is part of that (being faithful, always hoping). These are the attributes of love - which is what God is.
Lets look at some of these attributes. For example: "Always protecting" - by necessity, in order for us to be made in God's image - in order to understand how to always protect - there must be something we need protecting from. This means
by necessity there must be some evil in the world that we need to be protected from
so that we learn how to protect. Likewise in order to learn how to not delight in evil -
evil must exist at least temporarily. If it did not, we could not learn how
to not delight in it.
Now because of these two goals: learning how to always protect and how to not delight in evil (which is part of God's plan to make us in His image), it practically necessitates that there be much evil in this world and it also necessitates that many people in this world will not actually learn these things
before they die.
However:
God's plan is still to make all people in His image! Since this cannot happen for everyone before they die (as far as we can see) - it must happen after they are resurrected.
Which now brings me back to the question you were raising. How can people learn faith after they have died? Well if we stick with the hypothesis that God is making us in His image - then we can be rest assured that
everyone will learn faith. I can imagine a thousand different scenarios in which that could be achieved. Collectively I could call this the judgment they go through, or symbolically a 'lake of fire' experience. Specifically, just hypothesizing, perhaps people are resurrected into a place where they need to learn faith in order to come to God. Perhaps they are resurrected but not everything is revealed yet. This could be accomplished through many different means, much in the same way it is accomplished in this life.
I guess the larger point here is that God has a plan, and God is using methods, causes, and means to bring that plan to fruition, and that plan does not necessarily stop at our physical death. Certainly it does not because we know all are resurrected. And certainly judgment is a large part of that plan.
