To me, these many understandings of Luke chapter twenty have great merit.

I particularly like Dena's post that we don't enter the KINGDOM via marriage (connection to another), or via birth (being "born into the right religion") ... but just by waking up to who we really ARE.

In an attempt to integrate this with Tim B's posted reference to Luke chapter twenty section, I might say that just by waking up to who we really ARE, we enter/become alive in/resurrect to the KINGDOM OF THE SONS OF GOD/ANGELS/MESSENGERS.

I'm jumping in also with a further understanding of this section of Luke by experiencing my realm of love as it casts out my realm of fear about the death of my body of flesh, my offspring of flesh and my friends still flesh as the cost of being righteous.

I see righteousness as the Spiritually joyful prerogative of radical grace by the cheerful real self.

Matthew 5:38 NIV You have heard that it was said, Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Luke 6:27 NIV But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

And the Luke chapter twenty section discussed in this thread makes righteousness even more powerfully convincing to me.

I hope my next several paragraphs reveals how.

Luke 20:37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Acts 23:8 NIV The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits.

As revealed in Genesis 6, when any of the angels/sons of God/messengers desired marriage and reproduced children of flesh and blood, they fell away from the timeless realm of God our Father and were diminished.

1 Corinthians 15:50 NIV I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed- 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Like the end to circumcision - being the indication that the Canaan land possession covenant is over, so also is the end of any flesh and blood possession of the Heavenly Father's kingdom on earth. We are waking up to who we really are: Spirit, without beginning or end, a timeless, formless, infinite Presence, where the physical human race no longer needs to exist.

God is the God of the living, which [as Hebrews 12 reveals] is a great surrounding cloud of witnesses regardless whether being in the flesh or not. So I assert that those of us already postmortem have awareness of themselves when flesh and also have awareness of us still flesh. And this is just like the adult view that sets aside the child view but can relate from both.

Thinking in a form of childhood-orientation on what makes us valuable is transcended [and included] to what we think makes us valuable in adulthood-oriented form. These also are transcended to what we realize makes us truly valuable in the formless orientation of the timeless, infinite presence of the Spiritual Father. Spiritual epiphany indicates transformation. All Spiritual epiphany, prior to and postmortem that one experiences is this last trumpet now sounded.

1 Corinthians 13:8 NIV Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Note: I do not advocate the destruction of or seek to destroy the physical, flesh-based aspect of the human race - rather advocating only that it is of no real value as I just described it. For regardless of being in the flesh or not, I advocate and seek to joyfully/cheerfully provide real grace in His kingdom now while on earth for the Spiritual encouragement of my neighbor.

To me, the significant truth Jesus told is that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, you and I do not need physical, flesh and blood bodies to be alive, It contributes nothing for the dead to come to life. Apropos: flesh and blood is now - right now - not essential when rising to newness of life by the renewing of our minds which is the timeless, formless Spiritual realm of the Father.

When I browse thru http://bible.cc/acts/23-8.htm, I see Barnes and Clarke reveal that the Sadducees believe there is nothing but matter. They are materialists, and suppose that all the operations which we ascribe to mind can be traced to some modification of matter. They deny a Spiritual state and they observe the ordinances of the law; for they also believe the five books of Moses to be a revelation from God: yet they have nothing in view but temporal good; and they understand the promises in the law as referring to these things alone. In order, therefore, to procure them, they watch, fast, pray, proverb, etc., and all this they do that they might obtain happiness in the physical life.

I assert that we are too often de facto Sadducees. For we act to preserve and promote our "skins" and those of our children and children's children for physical life happiness.

Is it not ignorance to think the extinct world of the first Adam - the one of dust, of the earth was ever going to inherit the kingdom of the last Adam - the one of Spirit, of heaven?

I do not think that we are of that extinct world. Is not marriage/flesh and blood reproduction/parenting an entanglement in its extinct ways? Are not these pursuits a false god where its worshipers believe that obeying its pattern is life? I consider that world to be extinct and a futility to practice its ways.

Kelly Minter wrote a book titled; No Other gods: Confronting Our Modern Day Idols. In it she reveals that she is looking to her idols of our culture for life that only Christ can give because she exalts them as gods, things she believes can bring her life. These things she lists are the television, body image, boyfriends, girlfriends, food, shopping, family, children, alcohol, money, houses, spouses, drugs, religion, even her own sense of righteousness. She writes they are not necessarily bad things, just things that are detrimental.

So also I confess of continual idolatry. Idolatry is a continuous realm of reality that I have the choice rather to operate in the continuous realm of the Spirit. I confess of a continuous realm of fear that I have the choice rather to operate in the continuous realm of perfect love.

Note: I believe as Paul recorded in 1 Corinthians 15 that Christ rose from the dead and appeared. I believe that Jesus is alive in the Spirit but appeared alive in the flesh also for the sake of building up the faith of Thomas, you and me as revealed in John 20:26-27. And that faith, I assert, is sacrificing one's flesh and blood body in the belief of the truth Jesus taught that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Thomas, you and I do not need physical, flesh and blood bodies to be alive.

Is it not when we begin to grow afraid of the death of our body of flesh, our offspring of flesh and our friends still flesh as the cost of being righteous, that we can recognize that we are backsliding and shrinking from the timeless here and now?

Romans 12:1-2 NIV Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

I notice that verse 21 of Romans chapter 8 does not say that creation is liberated from decay, but that it is liberated from bondage to decay. So this means that physical death and decay continues, yet we are in the timeless realm that is unafraid of it!

I aim to be in my realm of love and not in my realm of fear. I aim this way, fellowshipping with you.

What do others think?

Good regards, Carl