By Tin-chee (TC) Lo
I guess the original intention of the questioner was to ask, “Do you love the gift which comes from God more than your love for God Himself who is the gift-giver?” The purpose of this thought-provoking question is meant to inspire Christians to examine the purify of their motives for loving God.
But in order to maximize the value of the gift, the questioner uses the word “Paradise” in place of the word “gift”. This can amplify the question so that a clearer answer may be obtained. This literary hyperbole is often used in Jesus’ parables, such as the one about the “camel passing through the eye of a needle.” But, by doing so, sometimes it makes the question more paradoxical that one cannot really answer it immediately by saying either “yes” or “no”.
If I change this question into a more manageable one as: “If God doesn’t give you benefits, do you still believe in God?”
Then commonly acceptable answer is: “We should still believe in God because He is God, not because He a Benefits-Giver.”
Although this is the “standard answer” to the very question, it nevertheless leaves some room for further discussion: What does it mean by “benefit”?
If the so-called “benefit” means: “being healed when sick, or finding a job after laid-off, or being saved from a disaster, and so on,” then the “standard answer” makes sense, because He is “God” and not treated as our “servant” who answers to our never-ending requests. In this case. not only must we trust Him and submit to His sovereignty, but we must also take hold of His promise stated in Romans 8:28.
If, however, by “benefit” we mean “Christ’s saving grace,” then the question is to be re-phrased as, “If there is no salvation, do you still believe in God?” In this case, then there is room for further contemplation.
Salvation is for those who are “dead in sins and trespasses,” so it is entirely the grace of God. Because salvation is 100% from God and not a single drop of human merit. If the Father had not in the first place chosen us, regenerated us, and given us the gift of faith, not only would we be “unwilling” to believe in Him, we would “never be possible” to believe in Him. So, this would turn out to be a “wrongly asked question”.
Now we have enough basis to answer our original question: ” If there is no Paradise, do you still believe in God?”.
First of all, what is “Paradise”? Most people think of it as, say, the “New Heaven and New Earth” after the end of history. It is partially true; for the “New Heaven and New Earth” is the final and perfect fulfillment of the “Kingdom of Heaven”.
The Kingdom of Heaven is an “Already but Not Yet” state. When Jesus Christ came for the first time, He announced that the Kingdom of Heaven had already arrived. This means that God’s attributes and Christ’s sweet grace have been manifested tangibly on earth. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven represents God’s peace, joy, righteousness, peace, holiness, and God’s abiding presence. In short, God’s attributes.
All these spiritual benefits define who God actually is. Moreover, these benefits come to the hearts of believers. This is, in fact, the essence of the Gospel. If the Gospel is the theme of the Kingdom of Heaven, then without the Gospel there is no Kingdom of Heaven. If Paradise is the ultimate and perfect fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no Paradise without the Kingdom of Heaven. We can now say this:
If God does not give us Paradise, He must not be the God described in the Bible, and we should not believe in Him, because believing in something other than the biblical God is idolatry.
“If there is no Paradise, do you still believe in God?” The answer, to my mind, is: “I will not believe in a God without Paradise.”
