What we know for certain is that immediately after His death, Jesus was in a place called Paradise or Abrahams Bosom with the bandit on the cross (Luke 23:43) and at some point later was in a place called Prison (1 Peter 3:19). These are seemingly two opposite places in Sheol that are separated by a great chasm (Luke 16:19-31). What is Sheol? Sheol ("Hades” in the Greek), is the biblical term for the general place of the dead (Isaiah 14:9, Psalms 16:10, Acts 2:27-31).

So, Jesus at some point was in both places and, while He was in Prison, He made a proclamation to the spirits there, though we don’t know exactly what that proclamation was. Some hold to the view that He was proclaiming condemnation to the demons, but all such views can only be speculation.

He finished His atoning work on the cross (John 19:30; 1 Peter 3:18), thus eliminating the view that He took His blood to Heaven to offer it on a Heavenly alter.

Firstly, we must acknowledge that it is not an “if”. We are predestined. (Romans 8:29-30, Ephesians 1:4-5, John 6:44, Acts 13:48, 2 Timothy 1:9, Revelation 13:8). There are many more that confirm that we are, indeed, predestined by God unto salvation before the foundation of the world. We need not wrestle or quarrel with this truth since it is, unquestionably, a biblical truth. In fact, it is a necessary truth that God predestine us and draw us accordingly because, according to scripture, the natural man does not seek God of His own volition (Romans 3:11) and Ephesians 2:8 teaches that faith is GIFT from God. We can’t even have faith unless God intercedes. In other words, if God does not predestine and draw men unto salvation, no one would be saved.

However, predestination does not necessitate arbitrary motives. All through the OT, we see God cause EXTERNAL circumstances to fall on people in order to reveal Himself and their sinful state, thus drawing His people to a change of heart. This seems to indicate that HE recognizes and so endowed us with free-will to act and choose based on information as it is presented to us. We are free agents, and God has often presented choices to His people. In the garden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was given to present a choice to Adam and Eve. Deuteronomy 30:15-20 teaches us that, before Moses died, he called for people to choose between right and wrong; good and evil; life and death. In Joshua 24:15, Joshua calls God’s people to choose whom they will serve, and that He has chosen to serve God. Yet, they quickly rebelled against God. Our will is tainted with sin and, as seen in the OT, is constantly desiring to rebel against God. We are under a curse and we are spiritually dead.

“If we are creatures of free-will, why can’t we choose God without His predestination and drawing?” Can you choose to fly? Can you choose to breathe water? No. You cannot do these things because you are physically incapable of doing them, but that does not hinder your free-agency. Likewise, we cannot choose God because we are spiritually incapable. We, in our sinfulness, do not desire God. God must intercede.

Another important distinction to make is that predestination and predetermination, both biblical truths, are not the same thing as foreknowledge, though it is entirely possible that foreknowledge is included in God’s predetermined plan. Not that God peers into the future to learn what decisions we will make, but that He simply knows due His eternal nature. He was, is, and always will be All the time. Our God is not restricted by past, present, and future tenses. Due to the nature of His aseity, that is that He is all powerful, all sovereign, and all KNOWING, God doesn’t learn anything. He doesn’t take in information, neither can anyone teach Him anything new. Romans 11:34-36 says “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” Things don’t just “happen” to God. Indeed, all things are “from” Him, indicating He is the source and beginning of all things. Proverbs 16:9 teaches us that “the mind of man plans His ways, But the Lord establishes His steps.” So even if we will to move, our motion must first be wrought from the authority of God. Jesus tells His disciples in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” His statement removes any pride from the disciples that they may have had. “I’m smart because I chose Jesus.” “I’m a good person because I chose Jesus.” But Romans 3 teaches us that no-one can choose God in their sinful state. We are naturally opposed to God being a slave to our desires. God must first be the initiator that calls us out of darkness and quicken our souls by special revelation. Only then can we choose God; when our desires have shifted from dark to light.

So then, how is man’s will free? Well, it is free in that you are the one cognitively and with full responsibility making choices that have consequences. There is a choice in this life to be made. Deut. 30:19-20 gives us this clear indication. Before Moses dies, He gives the Israelites this charge. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order the you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” And the nature of this choice is truly “Whoever will may come” as described in Revelation 22:17. So, there really is 2 choices, and there really is nothing hindering our free agency. However, what you do in your free agency is totally determined by one thing; your desires. We do what pleases us. We eat what we like. And our desires are totally affected by sin, indicating that we do not desire God in our natural unregenerate state. If left purely to our will, no one would ever be saved. God has to first quicken us and change our desires so that we would truly be free to choose.

There are no scriptures that say that there is no, or cannot be, sin in the present heaven. The only verse that would appear to suggest this is Habakkuk 1:13 which, in some translations, say “You (being God) cannot look upon iniquity” including the King James which states “Thou… canst not look on iniquity”. The literal rendering is “You are not able to look upon vexation”, but a proper understanding of this is not a matter of God’s ability or inability, but of His character. Otherwise, if God were literally incapable to look at evil, He could not look at us. Yet, scripture tells us plainly He watches over His creation. This is why some interpreters have added “with favor” after “iniquity” or “wickedness” to help communicate the meaning to the readers.

Since the present heaven IS a part of creation (Gen. 1:1), and ALL of creation has been subjected to futility and the curse (Rom. 8:20-22), we have every reason to believe that the present heaven is also cursed because of sin. If it were not so, Satan would have not been able to sin in the first place. The present heaven is included in the “former things” or “first things” in Revelation 21:4. Revelation 21:1 tells us that the FIRST heaven will pass away and Revelation 21:27 tells us that no sin will be in the New Heaven.

“If sin is/was possible in the first heaven, why won’t it be possible in the future Heaven?” Because since creation had just begun, though it was “very good”, it was necessary for God to create free agents of creation (angels and man) in order for the sanctification process to begin. At the end of creation, all of His children will be sanctified and made in the image of Christ. Since Christ was/is sinless, and we will have perfectly conformed to His image through sanctification, we will not sin in heaven. And all the angels that are left are His elect angels, so they will not sin either.(1 Tim 5:21)

While there would seem to be an apparent contradiction, with the text in Matthew suggesting the Pharisees purchased the field and the text in Acts suggesting Judas purchased the field, there is actually no contradiction at all and the answer is fairly simple. The answer is both. Though the priests did the actual purchasing, it was still Judas’ money because the priests could not accept it as payment as it was “blood money” (Deuteronomy 23:18). So, the priests literally did the purchasing with the silver, but Judas purchased it by his betrayal. This was done in order to fulfill Zechariah 11:11-14.

The Bible neither promotes, neither does it prohibit, the existence of extra-terrestrial life, though there would be some rabbit-holes and quandaries if they did exist. Christians should view the existence of aliens as a win-win scenario. If they do not exist, then the Bible is unhindered because it makes no mention of them. We could affirm the view that we alone were created in the image of God being creatures of rational thought (Gen. 1:26-27) . The only “heavenly-beings” mentioned are angelic beings.

If they did exist, the odds of our universe being able to create life are so astronomically small that the existence of 1 planet being able to sustain life to a point of being intelligent is a miracle. The idea that there could be 2 planets that sustain life is doubly astronomical. The fundamental constants (gravity, speed of light in a vacuum, plancks constant, mass and energy of atoms, etc.) have to be what they are without variation, otherwise the universe would fall apart. The primordial components would have to meet very specific conditions to even create life, and even then the “science” of abiogenesis is more philosophical than scientific. 2 planets of intelligent life doubly confirm the existence of a Divine and intelligent Creator. HOWEVER, if aliens should appear, Christians ought to be ready to defend from any kind of deceit they bring, for they may very well be agents of Satan to cause deceptions and apostasy.

It depends. The only out-right prohibition to tattoos is in Leviticus 19:28, and even then the context has more to do with idolatry than the act itself. We are not under the Mosaic Law, but are under the law of Grace in Christ Jesus. There is no new-testament condemnation for tattoos. So, like with all things, it is the intention behind it. We must do “All things to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Therefore, if you are satisfied in your conscious that you are getting a tattoo to glorify God, then there is no sin. If there is, however, any doubt as to the reason, and you therefore would violate your conscious, it is best to avoid.

Though this perversion is clearly condemned in this particular scripture, we believe 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1st Corinthians 14:33 are better scriptures to use when upholding this truth because we as the NT church are no longer under the Mosaic Law. Although its appearance in Deuteronomy highlights another biblical truth, that there is nothing new under the sun. The perversion of gender comes from the author of perversion, Satan, who has from the beginning sought to corrupt God’s created order. With order comes structure and clarity. Wearing clothes of the opposite gender promotes confusion and works to further blur the lines between man and woman. God wants those lines to be clear.

We can’t. A Christian ought not base the validity of their christianity on what they experience. There are recorded miracles in just about every religion and superstition. I once heard a Satan worshipper say that the reason they worshipped Satan was because their “prayers” were being answered. We, however, are not called by God to depend on spiritual experience or the promise of answered prayer.

2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 “Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”

If your faith is in miracles, there will be the temptation to follow the antichrist. Rather, we are convinced in our Spirit that the Word of God is true. Scripture self-attests to it’s trueness, being such a unique book that it is. 66 books, 40+ authors, 1,500 years. Such a great amount of diversity in the Bible, yet the Bible has a central theme that runs throughout it: Jesus Christ and His Gospel. The Bible records between 3-6 hundred prophecies regarding the messiah that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ. The odds of that randomly occurring are greater than than amount of sand that is on the earth.

Not only this, but because God is love, the only monotheistic God that can exist is one of a plural nature. Love is the giving of onesself to another. In eternity past, before all creation, all other monotheistic Gods were incomplete because they were unable to love. The triune God, however, is self-sufficient, existing in perfect love and unity within Himself since He exists as a plurality of persons and is therefore able to express love between the persons.

Most Christians today when asked to define worship would probably say something along the lines of “singing songs” to God. While it is true that worship does incorporate singing hymns of praise to God (Eph. 5:18-20, Col. 3:16, Psalms), there very first use of the word worship mentioned in scripture did not incorporate singing. In Genesis 22, when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, he says to his troupe as they approach the mountain “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will WORSHIP and return to you.”(vs. 5) So, it would appear here that worship to Abraham involved making a sacrifice to God. Worship involves sacrifice, worship involves singing, and worship involves fearful reverence. Psalm 2:11 “Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.” However, while worship incorporates these attributes, they still don’t define what worship is. Worship would appear to mean plainly active obedience to God. In Romans 12:1, we read this. “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” Worship involves sacrifice, reverence, and praise, but is fulfilled by active obedience. Abraham was taking his son to be sacrificed in obedience to God, and that obedience was to expressed through sacrifice.

If we revere God, if we fear God, if we love God, if we praise God, if we sacrifice to God, that should be exemplified by our obedience to His Word. John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

This means that if a church praises God irreverently, which many American churches do by outlining their worship style to be comfortable and appealing to the congregation, they are engaging in improper worship. If churches are living in disobedience, they are worshipping God improperly. One of God’s qualms with the Israelites was their continuous sacrifice to Him despite their living in sinfulness.

We must be carful to worship God in the way He desires us to worship Him, and we learn proper worship by the study of His word.