Imagine by John Lennon
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
I appreciate the heartfelt cry for world peace, and the intense yearning for a human condition that is abounding in love, and sharing, and brotherhood, which John Lennon expressed in his most famous song. A little analysis, however, kind of ruins it for me.
John starts out by refuting the doctrine of heaven, but then leads straight into a beautiful description thereof. In the real heaven, wide open to all who believe that God has a home and that He has sent His son to make a way for their welcome(For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16), there will indeed be a people "living for today", "living life in peace", and "sharing all the world".
There will "be no countries" but there will be saved people there from every country.
Nothing "to kill or die for" because that will have already been done by the suffering Savior who died "once for all".
There will be no religion in heaven. No man made efforts to reach God. God will have accomplished His reach into this world and retrieved all those willing.
There will be "no possessions". John was right to wonder if we can even imagine that, but with all of our needs being met by God directly and completely; without living in a fallen and cursed world, there will be no competition for, or striving after what is necessary.
There will be a "brotherhood of man", for all in heaven, having received Jesus Christ, will be "children of God".
I hope this description, Biblically based, will be received in the same spirit as John Lennon's song was received and loved. I hope you "will join US" in the true heaven when you die, rather than living here with only the vain hope that some imagined utopia will supernaturally appear in this real world so full of striving and fighting and greed; and then dying to discover that the heaven and hell found so easy to "imagine" away are real, and present.
John 1:12,13
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
By the way...MILLERWRITES copy is COPYRIGHTED. Why cut and paste when you can simply copy the link?
here here! that song has always been a thorn on a rose for me. Its beautiful in the wide openness of thinking, the utopia we all crave, the absense of greed and wantonness. But when you dig right down into its foundation, I think he's trying to remove all that. And the only way to do that is to remove the human element. Treat each other as you want to be treated, live in peace, and accept God, and you will have your Heaven.
ReplyDeleteJamie Dement (LadyJai)