John 3:12-13: If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.

Col. 3:1-4: If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.

Phil. 3:17-21: For many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

For our conversation (lit: citizenship) is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.

Believer, if you have been quickened by the Lord Jesus Christ out of sin and death (Eph. 2:1), are risen with Him (Col. 2:12) and have been seated in heavenly places with Him (Eph. 2:6), then your destiny and eternal home is in heaven, not on earth.

That is why the Apostle Paul urges us to “set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-4). Which begs the question: what are the earthly things as opposed to heavenly things. This article will attempt to answer that, leaving explanation of the “heavenly things” for a later paper.

But be warned, the earthly things Jesus and Paul both cite may come as a shock to you. For neither the Saviour nor Paul, his later Apostle to the Gentiles, are speaking only of the gross carnal things of the world (though most commentaries think so). No, they are also dealing with what things believers believe, whether heavenly or earthly things.

For example, and this may shake you, in John 3: 1:17 Jesus makes clear that being “born again” is an earthly thing as opposed to a heavenly one. Not so, you cry. Well, let the Bible speak for itself. What had Jesus been impressing on Nicodemus all through the passage? Answer: the need for both Nicodemus and all Israel to be “born again”. Short of that, neither Nicodemus nor the nation would be able to enter or even see the kingdom of God, Jesus said.

Now, undeniably, Jesus makes clear in the “Lord’s Prayer” (Matt. 6:10) that when the kingdom comes it will come on earth not in heaven. Thus he told his disciples to pray: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. And since being “born again of water and Spirit” is cited as the only entry ticket into this kingdom on earth, then being “born again” is necessarily an earthly thing”.

But as Jesus also told Nicodemus, “ye believe not … and receive not our witness” (John 3:11-12). Consequently, since they refused to believe Him about earthly things (John 3:11-12) our Lord was unable to tell them of heavenly things. What’s more, He clearly ruled out the prospect of Israelites going to heaven, saying in John 3:13:

And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

And if nobody had then ascended to heaven, then Enoch and Elijah didn’t go there and are not there today.  You see, Jesus had been sent to minister to Israel the hope of an earthly kingdom in which they would be resurrected to live again on earth, not go to heaven.  Accordingly in Rev. 5:9-10 resurrected saints declare: “Thou (i.e. Christ) hast redeemed us … and made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth”, i.e. not in heaven.

Let’s face it. There are two different callings of those brought to believe on Christ as Saviour. One is an earthly calling for the truly saved of Israel and those Gentiles who were added to their number in the Acts period. The other is the heavenly calling of all people, both Jew and Gentile who since Paul’s later message are now saved by grace through faith given by God.  And this without the works which Israel had been commanded to do (Eph. 2:8-9).  Importantly, the now hope of grace-saved saints is not to be resurrected to live again on the earth but to live and be with Christ and in Christ in heaven.

This is because a major change in God’s programme of redemption for mankind occurred after Israel’s “fall” in in Roman 9, 10, 11. They were finally set aside in Acts 28:28 when God took away the very purpose for which He had made Israel – to bless all nations with the good news of salvation. Instead He sent the salvation message to the Gentiles who, Paul says, will “hear it”. And in scripture to hear means to obey.

So what other earthly things did Paul have in mind when in Philippians three he rebuked the “enemies of the cross of Christ” for “minding” them? In short, they comprised anything previously required of humans to qualify for salvation before the “mystery” (Eph. 3:3-5) of fully completed salvation was revealed to the Apostle when in prison. The heart was “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

In the light of this new message, I suggest that the “earthly things” now include:

REPENTANCE - Because now under grace saints “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4) are “quickened” when still dead in trespasses and sins before they even ask to be saved. See also Col. 2:13,

WATER BAPTISM - Because this Jewish rite is made redundant by the entirely spiritual baptism into death and resurrection conducted by God Himself (Col. 2:12). Fact is, we have been “reconciled” (Col. 1: 20) by the blood of Jesus when He made peace for us on the cross. To explain, the baptism of repentance was required in the gospels and in Acts in order to “reconcile” sinners with God.

SELF CLEANSING OF SIN - (as urged in 1 Cor. 5:7). Why is this now redundant? Because already we are “complete in Him (Christ) (Col. 2:10) having been “circumcised without hands with the circumcision of Christ in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh” (Col. 2:11). So we as quickened believers have now been made “meet to be partakers of the saints in light” (that is in heaven not on earth) (Col. 1:12-13). We are also “delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of his dear Son”.

SELF SANCTIFICATION – Unnecessary now since the Lord Jesus has already fully sanctified us. Thus Col. 1:21-22 declares:

And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of his flesh to present you holy, and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.

And who in their right mind would want earthly things in preference to that?

John Dudley Aldworth