One day you are standing on a rocky outcrop admiring the beauty of the sunset as you look out to sea. You feel the stresses of the week being erased, but you fail to notice the tide coming in. Fortunately, someone on the shore has noticed your predicament. To your relief, a lifeboat comes and carries you to safety.

This is the predicament of the church. It knows the tide has changed and hopes that God will carry it to safety. Yet its responsibility is the same as that of the person on the shore who recognises the dangers and provides hope to others.

The dismay the Disciples experienced at the Crucifixion was turned around by the wonder of the Resurrection. Pentecost brought increased communication from God, through the Holy Spirit. These events could not be seen, only experienced. So when Christians began to write about these experiences they used imagery to symbolise the unseen reality. Although the imagery is dramatic, especially in Revelations, it is only a symbol of an unseen reality.

Throughout the ages, this imagery increased as artists strove to explain to people the unseen actions of God. However, the imagery is now out of date and tends to obscure reality rather than reveal it. It is not surprising that many educated people reject the imagery of angels with wings, lakes of fire, and Jesus on a throne. Yet it will be unfortunate if the church avoids the theology of heaven, hell, salvation and judgment, because of the imagery.

There is no need to change Scripture. God is enabling us to experience imagery in a new way. Christians are receiving images pointing to the reality of life beyond death. A Christian in Edinburgh was deeply moved when he received an image of a dark tunnel, where Christ was guiding him, helping him to avoid the pitfalls in the tunnel, and leading him towards a bright light where he sensed the presence of God. In hospital, I experienced similar images. I was at a beautiful place where the warmth, peace and purity were overwhelming. It was greater than anything else I could imagine or desire, and I could only perceive it as being in the presence of God. However, adjacent was a vortex filled with filth and muck and everything that was not connected to the beauty next to it. I realised that the vortex was so powerful that I could easily be sucked into it. However Jesus placed a barrier over the vortex so that there was no way that I could enter it. Although these images do not appear in Scripture, they confirm Scripture rather than contradict it. Jesus is clearly identified as Savior, and the Scripture "No one can come to the Father except through me" (John 14:6), is confirmed.

Science is drawing our attention to the experiences of people in near death situations. There is a commonality about their images that is different from the old images in Scripture, but are similar to the images I have just described.

With so much new material becoming available the church has a renewed opportunity to proclaim the message that life exists beyond death. Paul says ‘What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror, and our knowledge is only partial’. The situation has not changed for us. Yet we have even stronger grounds for sharing his hope that in time, we shall see God face to face and our knowledge will be complete.