Life After Death
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What is meant by "the dead will rise" (Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25 and Revelation 20:13), the promise in Daniel 12:13 and life after death in general? Life after death on this world is possible because Jesus rose people from the dead while he was alive, for example:

    John 11:43-44
    After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave clothes, and with a cloth round his face. "Untie him," Jesus told them, "and let him go."

    Mark 5:39
    He went in and said to them, "Why all this confusion? Why are you crying? The child is not dead – she is only sleeping!"

In addition, God is the God of the living, not of the dead (Mark 12:27), so everything can be expected to happen on our Earth, which can also be made into heaven (a state of being free due to following Jesus).

    John 14:2-3
    There are many rooms in my Father's house, and I am going to prepare a place for you. I would not tell you this if it were not so. And after I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to myself, so that you will be where I am.

People are raised from death by rebirth, by becoming the children of people who are already living in the New Age. Therefore, it will be perfectly normal for people to provide accommodation for them in the "Father's house". Cities will be built by those who have been oppressed in the present age, so it will involve the implicit forgiveness of sins by those who Jesus came to teach about. When people rise from the dead, they will greatly appreciate finding that there is life after all, and that the people there have taken the trouble to build cities for them. People will be brought up in an environment where everyone follows Jesus, making it easy to learn how to follow him.

A follower of Paul might question why everyone is worthy of the New Age, even though some people have not believed that Jesus was a real person. People at the present time bear the consequences of not following Jesus. For example, Muslims have harsh Islamic authorities that punish people for minor infractions of the Koran. Many people have died in horrific wars. It is literally true that if people sin then they are a slave to sin (John 8:34), because they do not achieve the state where the truth sets them free. The Christian religion has involved people following Paul rather than Jesus, so Christians are in no position to judge anyone as being unworthy of the New Age. Belief in the Pauline assertion that Jesus takes away our sin cannot justify the promise of heaven, and neither can the lack of this belief justify eternal hell. In addition, if sin-bearers had been given the same opportunity to sin as other people, then they would probably have behaved in an equally sinful way. Everyone is worthy of heaven because all people behave selfishly in the absence of true teachings about Jesus, and no-one is any more Holy than anyone else.

Matthew 25:24 shows that everyone goes to heaven; "Then the servant who had received one thousand coins came in and said, 'Sir, I know you are a hard man; you reap harvests where you did not sow, and you gather crops where you did not scatter seed.'" The harvest refers to the time of the end and to the deaths of all people who have died before this time. People are 'gathered up' in this harvest even if they have never heard of Jesus.

The raising from death occurs over a timescale stated in the book of Revelation:

    Revelation 20:6
    "Happy and greatly blessed are those who are included in this first raising of the dead. The second death has no power over them; they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they will rule with him for a thousand years."

The New Age is predicted to start in 2039, so this implies that the "thousand years" ends around 3000AD. There are other parables to suggest that this millennium is the thousand years referred to in Revelation 20:6. For example, Jesus said that he would lay down his life and rise again on the third day. To God, a day is like a thousand years (Psalms 90:4). However, as discussed in "Parables and General Issues", Jesus is said to have risen right at the start of the third day (2000 years after his death), just before the start of the New Age.

Matthew 20:1-16 describes a parable in which workers were called into a vineyard at various points during a single day, and were each paid a silver coin at the end of the day. This 'day' refers to 2000AD-3000AD, and those being called to work in the vineyard are people resurrected into the New Age.

Revelation 20:7 says that when the thousand years are over, "Satan must be let loose a little while." This letter shows that the 3000th name in the Bible is Paul. This parable indicates that followers of Paul are resurrected on or after 3000AD. This corresponds to the idea that God separates people into two groups, those who have followed Paul and those who have not. A representation of the timeline is given below:

A circular timeline, labelled 0AD at 12 o clock, 1000AD at half past one, 2000AD at half past four and 3000AD at six o clock. Six o clock to 9 o clock is labelled 'eternity' and 9 o clock to 12 o clock is labelled 'before jesus'. There are two thin arrows from around 0AD to around 2000AD that indicate the resurrection of Mary Magdalene and Simon Peter. There are two large arrows that represent the resurrection of sin-bearers between 2000 and 3000AD and the resurrection of sinners after 3000AD

Instead of a straight timeline, imagine that the timeline is a circle which is infinitely big, with God in the middle of it who sees and arranges the whole Universe independently of time. Perhaps that is why space-time is curved as Einstein discovered (its curvature may be a parable to support this concept).

People are raised from death by re-birth. This is a normal birth by parents who are living in the New Age. However, the child has lived before but initially has no memories of their previous life. They are raised into the opposite gender to their original one and at some point they regain their memories of their previous life. There are parables to suggest that people regain their memories when they are 30 years old (see "The Time of The End"). On the timeline shown above, both Mary Magdalene and Simon Peter are resurrected by rebirth into our society, representing John the Baptist and Jesus respectively. John the Baptist taught a little before Jesus, and his teachings represent those found on this website.

The concept of rebirth provides the meaning for the following verses:

    Matthew 18:10
    "See that you don't despise any of these little ones. Their angels in heaven, I tell you, are always in the presence of my Father in heaven." This means that we should not despise people because their angels (themselves in the future) are following Jesus.

    Luke 16:25-26
    But Abraham said, "Remember, my son, that in your lifetime you were given all the good things, while Lazarus got all the bad things. But now he is enjoying himself here, while you are in pain. Besides all that, there is a deep pit lying between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, nor can anyone cross over to us from where you are." The deep pit is a gulf of time between the past and the New Age.

There is the potential problem of population growth and overcrowding. If women in the New Age were to have an average of one child every 25 years, the population would double every 50 years, because people become "like the angels in heaven and cannot die" (Luke 20:36). Under these circumstances, the population of the Earth would increase to around 75 billion in 3000AD from an initial population of 144,000 in 2039.

The present population of the Earth is over six billion. How many people can it support in theory? Due to our consumer-driven lifestyles, we are already exceeding the limits; half of the world is in poverty. However in the ideal society, where people consume very little, the Earth would be able to support a much larger population.

The total surface area of the land on the Earth is about 135 million square kilometres, of which about 31 million square kilometres is habitable. A city of 144,000 people occupies about five square kilometres of land plus the land it farms. However, current guidelines suggest that at least 0.001 square kilometres of crop land is required to feed one person, meaning there would only be enough land to support about 30 billion people. This problem could be solved by building upwards, perhaps by constructing multi-layered cities such as the one drawn in the diagram. This would require advanced building technology, which supports the idea that the parables against science and technology refer to the mindset of common sense that they engender, rather than to science and technology themselves.

Life after death is one way in which to love your neighbour as yourself, by providing people with the best possible heaven. In the New Age there should be no such thing as poverty, so the first commandment (love the Lord) would mean following parable-based guidance from God, and the second commandment (love your neighbour as yourself) would consist of healing, serving and small things like making each other happy. Friendships would be genuine, with people actually prepared to die for each other (not that anyone should have to). That is why the New Age will be heaven. The Kingdom of God is not really a series of buildings or cities – it is within us (Luke 17:21). The cities will help to provide the right infrastructure to make following Jesus as easy as possible.