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[Levi]

I don't know how I can still be a Christian after finding out that Jesus Christ lied in the Bible..?

I can't stop thinking about this!

Here's the lie...

Elijah was taken to heaven in a whirlwind during the time that King Ahab was ruling Israel way before Jesus Christ was born..
"As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind." - 2 Kings 2: 11

But Jesus Christ tells us the following..

"No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man." - John 3: 13

He was talking about himself when he said that nobody else has ever gone to heaven because he's the only one who came from heaven..

Furthermore, Malachi 4: 5-6 says this..

"See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

Therefore, if Elijah is/was in heaven with God then Jesus Christ lied about nobody going to heaven except for himself.

I know Enoch is also taken by God, but the Bible says Elijah was taken to heaven in a whirlwind so I used his story instead.

Jesus Christ lies the same way in every English translation of the Bible.. except for the New Living Translation created in 1996..

P.s. I already looked up the original Hebrew and Greek texts.. Jesus Christ is still found to be a liar in the original texts.
What's the point of following Jesus Christ if he is a liar?

[jimwalton]

Thanks for asking. You can still be a Christian, because Jesus didn't lie.

Though Elijah is said to have gone up in to heaven, we have to remember that the Hebrew word translated "heaven" can also refer to the sky, and therefore does not clearly suggest that Elijah was taken into God's presence. It's also noticeable that the people of the day didn't assume he went into heaven (God's presence) because in 2 Ki. 2.16, just 4 verses later, the sons of the prophets wondered where Elijah had been put back down. In other words, they didn't know what had happened to him.

Now, we can be certain that Elijah ended up in heaven, as did all the Old Testament saints. Are you thinking that because Jesus said "no one has ever gone into heaven," that heaven was empty?

Let's look at Jn. 3.13. If you studied the Greek, you know that ἀναβέβηκεν is the prefect active indicative of ἀναβαίνω. The perfect tense connotes "no one has gained the heights of heaven..." Jesus is talking with Nicodemus about how to gain eternal life (a point that is not part of the Elijah story or Malachi). People cannot raise themselves to heaven and gain it by their own goodness or knowledge. "Ascent to heaven" is only possible by the Spirit by new birth. It isn't possible for a human to attain on one's own. Even Enoch and Elijah did not achieve heaven by meriting it.

What Jesus is saying is that He alone knows the mind of God. He alone was with the Father from eternity past. He alone has unimpeded access to the mind of God. He alone is qualified to speak of heavenly things and how to rightly attain salvation.

John 3.13 has nothing to do with what happened to Enoch and Elijah. Jesus didn't lie. They are completely different teachings. The story of Elijah in 2 Kings is about prophetic power passing from one prophet to another. Malachi 4.5-6 is a prophecy about John the Baptist as a forerunner to Jesus (Lk. 1.17). John 3 is about how to find salvation.