Heaven

Again, it's been a long time since I've written anything in this blog. I am finding out that thoughts from God don't just come out of a vending machine at our beckon call; they come when His Spirit gives them out, period. It would be nice to be able to make entries every day, but it just doesn't happen that way. Time is another factor; when you work for a living, weeknights just aren't enough time to give something like this the careful and prayerful thought it demands and deserves. Nonetheless, here is my latest entry.

I have been thinking about the subject of Heaven quite a lot lately. Oh oh, you're probably saying, here comes a truckload of heresy and speculation, just like all the other things I've read about it. Well, actually, it seems that not a lot is really written about it, at least not as much as things like tithing, prayer, spiritual gifts, etc. I think that's because these aforementioned things and other more widely written-about subjects are stuff we can more easily wrap our finite minds around. Well, sorry, but that's just not good enough for me. Subjects like prayer, church leadership, bible reading, christian relationships, and the aforementioned, are important in the context of a healthy walk with the Lord, but after a while they can take on lives of their own and actually DISTRACT us from our simple devotion to Christ. We can become bogged down in the earthly to the extent that we forget how mystical and supernatural our God really is, and how inexplicable His ways and attributes really are to our human brains. And then, WHOOMP, a trial hits, and we are confronted with this inexplicably, and we instantly enter panic mode! Hey, this doesn't agree with so-and-so scripture; wow, this is not what my favorite preacher so-and-so says! This isn't what they taught in Sunday School! No, it isn't, brother and sister. It's LIFE, Life 101. You might want to re-read the scriptures and find how many times the words "trouble", "tribulation", "suffering", etc, are mentioned. Jesus even PROMISED we would have trouble. But He followed that with an encouragement to be of good cheer, as he did several other times in the gospels. One of my biggest sources of disillusionment has always been when the world doesn't meet my expectations of how I believe in my Christian matrix it should be. And I think this is the big pitfall that young, idealistic Christians or Christians brought up in a works and action-oriented atmosphere confront. The Big Reality Check hits. The Christian Fantasy of changing the world for Jesus has a head-on collision with the Fall of man. And so we discover, either in one shocking, painful experience, or by a series of smaller disappointments and misadventures, that this world we live in is truly...BROKEN. Yes, friends, the hype you've heard just ain't true. One look at USA Today or an hour of Fox News should tell you right away that something here isn't right. Granted, the news tends to condense a lot of scattered bad news into a small space, but it's out there. And then there's the stuff that you don't see on the news, but see in your daily life of work, family, marriage, health, etc, or hear about friends and loved ones going through. It all adds up to a pretty grim picture, doesn't it? John Eldredge in his book "The Sacred Romance" describes it as a war zone, and it pretty much is when you compare it to what Eden is described as being like in Genesis, or what our final destination is described as in Revelation. It's a war on several levels; nation vs. nation, individual vs. individual, citizen vs. government, family conflicts, and that's only the earthly aspects of it. Then there is old nature vs. new creation, church vs. world, etc., the spiritual side. The war is both around us and within us. And we quickly find out that, especially for the spiritual side, the stakes are alarmingly high. Literally life and death.

And yet...somewhere deep down inside, we long for something better. Something more peaceful, something more loving, something more innocent, something more beautiful. Now why in the world would we do that, when we are surrounded by all this ugly? It is true that many who are not believers simply resign themselves to the ugly, becoming dead and cynical...a truly dreadful course if you ask me. But for me...I just can't and won't do that. I KNOW that there is something better...something that does not exist here on this planet and, despite the best efforts of well-meaning ministers and politicians, CAN'T. Our nature, our fallen nature, simply cannot create such an earthly paradise. It either ends up in the horrors of communism that remain a curse for decades, or the boondoggles of various communitarian movements like the hippies that burn out quickly. Yet even those of us who are seasoned believers look at the old films of Woodstock and kind of wish it could have really happened like those young kids wanted it to. But our fallen nature intruded as always, causing hostility and eventually breaking the said movement apart. Both Eldredge and C.S. Lewis in "Mere Christianity" ask the penetrating question of why we have these longings in the first place (Lewis uses them as a proof of God's reality, while Eldredge uses them as an inspiration to lunge forward). It's because that place EXISTS.

We who are believers know that place as "Heaven". Jesus also refers to it as "Paradise". The word "Utopia" is used by non-religious people to describe a kind of heaven on earth (again, which history has proved is NOT achieve able). Other faiths past and present use various words like Nirvana and Valhalla to describe a glorious afterlife, or simply a state of perfection. These and other names all describe that place and state of mind that our souls long for; a place where there is no more pain, sorrow, violence, hate, guilt, or any of those things we have come to be sadly accustomed to in this broken world. We all know that people of different faiths have different pictures of what the perfect afterlife will be like, but what is interesting is that even individual Christians have different ideas of what God's Heaven is like. I think that, to a large extent, these different ideas are based on what each of us individually thinks of as a perfect place or perfect state of mind, according to our personalities and pursuits. A marine biologist might imagine Heaven as a water planet full of multicolored marine creatures; a naturalist might see it as a jungle planet; an architect might see it as a perfect, shimmering city full of astounding structures; a singer might see it as a never-ending concert of angel voices. Well, as it turns out, those thoughts might not be as far from the truth as we have been taught.

One of the most awesome books I've ever encountered about the subject is "Heaven", by Randy Alcorn. I cannot recommend this book more highly, even though I've had disagreements with some of his other writings. It is truly an exhaustive study of the subject of Heaven, who we are there, what we will do there, etc. Though I think he does a bit too much proof-texting at times, I believe that he provides us with a sweeping illustration of our eternal home that bursts many of the mythical bubbles that exist about it. One of the important distinctions he makes is between "Present Heaven" (the "Paradise" that Jesus promised to the thief, and the cloudy destination Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians) and the "New Earth" (what Isaiah and Revelation are speaking about). Present Heaven is explained by Alcorn as being a transition destination; a place located above earth that is every bit as real as earth, and where we will be with Jesus with fully intact emotions and senses (even though our bodies are not yet resurrected), but which will not be our final destination. The final destination is the New Earth spoken of in Revelation, which will, according to Alcorn, pretty much be like this planet in many ways, with some very important exceptions. This cleared up some confusion I had about the Thessalonian description vs. the Revelation one, and I'm sure there will be further confusions cleared up as I read further, even if I disagree with a certain statement Alcorn might make (he admits that he might be in error in places where he speculates). It also opens up some absolutely incredible possibilities that I will talk more about later. It's really a bit too involved to fully explain here; read the book, by all means, if you want more insight into this distinction; nonetheless, I am proceeding here with the assumption of a present Heaven and a future New Earth going forward.

Nonetheless, it is with all of this in mind that I tread very, very carefully on this ground, for, while the scriptures in actuality speak of Heaven a multitude of times, they offer only vague descriptions of what it will actually be like. The only real descriptions are found in Revelation, and even these are not of much help to our minds, since many of the visions John relates are cryptic and symbolic. For instance, John is told by the angel, "come, let me show you the Bride of Christ". What is he shown? A city. A HUGE city, about 1,400 miles long, wide and high. How can a city be the Bride? Simply because the city is the Church; us. WE are the Bride; that we know; therefore the city is representing the Church. It is huge, magnificent, made of gold and jewels, all of which symbolize purity, which we as the Church are, by virtue of His grace and no other reason. Can this actually be a portrayal of a real city that will be there for us? Of course it can. But at the same time it must be remembered that Revelation was given to John to encourage the churches enduring the same Roman persecutions that landed him on Patmos, and therefore to encourage us all forward in time. Much of the language about beasts and prostitutes represents the authorities and rulers of that time. I have always thought that efforts to label the symbols of Revelation as references to the U.S., Iran, Russia, etc., and of antichrists as some modern leader, are somewhat misguided at best. But this is not a treatise on Revelation and its symbolism, so I'll leave that topic alone I think. Nonetheless we are given some tantalizing glimpses of Heaven, some things we can grab hold of with confidence. And I believe it is really high time we began thinking more about it, not by way of a lot of cerebral speculation and wild, unscriptural conjecture, but in a prayerful and reverent way, albeit with bold faith to dare to believe that our God has such an incredible destination pre-prepared for us. It will be jaw-droppingly beautiful in every way we can possibly imagine, and in a million ways we can't. Its beauty would fry our brains to burnt crispies to look upon it in our present state of being. But the scriptures indicate that we will have glorified bodies to go along with our already existing regenerated spirits, so we should be able to take it all in with no problem, I would imagine.

So why are we so afraid and reluctant to think about Heaven? Well, for one, it's the unknown to a large extent. We shy away from dealing with the unknown because we fear it. After all, it involves death, which is the one thing our old humanity fears above all else. But what we fear is the death that no longer applies to us as believers; the death that is reserved for those that have rejected Jesus and are therefore accountable for their every sin. Which of course is actually two deaths, as Revelation alludes to. Also, we fear to speculate about Revelation because of the dire warning we get at the end of the book about adding to or taking away from it. But I have to believe that this applies only to any efforts to add to or take away from the writings themselves, by way of an alternate book. I can't believe that God would add all the plagues of the book to any person that had thoughts of Heaven that didn't exactly agree with John's writings. If he knowingly embraced them and preached them to the masses, and wrote books about it, deceiving millions, that might be another story. Which is why I'm writing this, albeit with a lot of prayer and consideration; I believe that the benefits of encouraging my brothers and sisters to think about "whatever is good, pure and holy", i.e., Heaven, outweighs any risks of heresy. I believe we as Christians, while we need to discern the scriptures as accurately as possible, also need to stop getting tied up in knots about getting our theology exactly correct. Remember, the letter of the law kills; it is the SPIRIT that brings life (i.e., Christ).

I therefore, with this grace of our Lord in mind, offer up several attributes of the New Earth that we can be 100% assured of based on the scriptures, with a few of my own thoughts added:


1. God will be the center of it, He will be the ruler of it. He will be in absolute command of every being and every thing that exists; there will be NO ONE above Him. No longer will we suffer under the rule of crazed tyrants and incompetent amateurs; we will live forever under the awesomely loving and caring rule of a God that loves us all beyond what we can conceive (This applies to both the intermediate and the final destinations).

2. He will be the object of all-encompassing worship, both by the redeemed humans that will populate it and by the angelic beings that have always been there. And that worship will be continuous and LOUD; imagine billions upon billions of humans and angels ALL shouting and praising God at the same time. A million Hillsong concerts going on at the same time could not equal that sound. If we were there as earthly humans, our eardrums would instantly be destroyed. But in our perfected bodies, no doubt that won't be a problem. And that titanically enormous sound will all be directed to one place; THE THRONE. The worship will re-define the word "glorious". And it will be FUN and JOYOUS and EXCITING, unlike a lot of our church is today. Imagine that.

3. The source of all light, heat and energy of any kind will be God, and only God. No sun or moon will be needed there for that reason. If they still exist, they will be hidden from view on the New Earth. For those who think they will miss seeing the sun and moon, I imagine that the light emanating from the Throne will be so incredibly magnificent, composed of so many different wavelengths of light, many of which don't exist in time and space, that it will more than make up for the sun and moon. It might even be brighter than the sun itself (Jesus' face itself is described as being that bright), but, again, with regenerated bodies, that won't be a problem for us either. Neither will the fact that the heat energy that might generate could be millions of degrees. A billion supernovas or a billion black holes could not generate the energy that will emanate from the Throne of the Lamb!

4. We will have glorified bodies. I think it's pretty safe to say that, since Jesus showed up in such a body to the disciples before leaving for the Father's Right Hand. What they will look like is more of an unknown, which I will get into more below.

5. There will be no more physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual pain OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER. This is one fact that the scriptures lay out with crystalline clarity. He will wipe away every tear. God will make sure HIMSELF, personally, for each and every one of us, that all of our sorrows are no more. All those pictures and paintings of Jesus hugging us, or hugging kids, while speculative in their imagery, are ABSOLUTELY ACCURATE in their portrayal of how our Lord will be with us in His Kingdom. To me this is one of the most joyously encouraging aspects of Heaven to think about. The brokenness of this world is the source of just about all of our pain, isn't it? So it would stand to reason that in the perfect Kingdom of our perfect Lord, we would have no pain. It still blows my mind to pieces, the idea of being HAPPY AND PAIN-FREE FOREVER. But that is exactly what we are promised in several places in the scriptures.

OK, now I will tread on more delicate ground, nevertheless with the assurance that God will NOT roast me alive if I make a boo-boo here and there. Here are some more speculative, but I think nonetheless wonderful, thoughts about our True Home:


1.. We will all be young. Now I admit THIS is NOT specifically spelled out in the scriptures, but if our bodies are regenerated, and aging is degeneration, would it not stand to reason that we would be forever youthful? Yet I think that our appearance will be a thousand times more magnificent than in our absolute prime here on earth. And this stunning beauty will be shared by those who were never beautiful here, due to defects or disfigurations of one kind or another. Furthermore, there will be no retardation, blindness, deafness, or paralysis. NO defects of any kind. For with any defect we would not be worthy to inhabit this place; but HIS blood shed for us and HIS body broken for us opened up the way for us to BECOME perfect with HIS perfection. The perfection in Him that we now enjoy in our spirits, even as we suffer in this life, will become PHYSICAL perfection in the New Kingdom.

2. We will be reunited with each other. Revelation doesn't really speak as much about who will be in the New Earth with Him as it does about the angels and heavenly beings that will be there, and about how our tears will be wiped away (although it does mention several times who will NOT be there, but tossed into the Lake of Fire). Paul in 1 Thessalonians gives us a brief glimpse of the Present Heaven when he speaks of the dead in Christ rising first, then the living in Christ, to meet Jesus in the clouds (from what I read, it seems that the New Jerusalem will be contained within that Present Heaven, but then come down to the New Earth). Neither of these descriptions tell us about being reunited, and recognizing one another, but they do hint at us arriving in Heaven as the church, as His Body. Whether this contradicts people's stories of seeing a light and walking toward it as individuals, I don't know, and won't speculate on. But the scriptures do not mention, as some writers have suggested, that we will dissolve as individuals into a collective Bride of Christ. I believe with all my heart that I will inhabit the New Earth as a fully functioning New Redeemed Human; the same me that I am here, only fully regenerated and perfect, never to degenerate and age again. What Ponce de Leon was searching for in Florida, I will have as a free gift from my awesomely loving and holy Savior.


3. Nature will be restored to an absolutely pure state; rain forests, mountains, praries, deserts, rivers and streams, will all be restored. Imagine no pollution and degradation of any kind. Will we be free to exploit it for our own use? I tend to doubt we would even need to, since most of the reasons we exploit natural resources here have to do with food, clothing, and shelter, all of which we will have free of charge from our Lord beforehand. But even if we did exploit it, being regenerated, holy beings, we would do so with the utmost care and reverence, being in the very presence of its Owner, and having such overwhemlming love for that Owner that despoiling or squandering His new creation would not be remotely thinkable, like the way I believe we should think of it HERE and NOW. I can't even concieve of what a nature walk or a hike would be like in the New Earth; you could hike for ten thousand years (which would not add up to much considering we'll be there FOREVER) and still not see it all. And, since our bodies will have supernatural capabilities, I don't see why bodily space travel (at speeds many times that of light, of course, since time and space will be no impediments) wouldn't be possible. Perhaps Mars will actually be a nice place to visit and not a barren place. But now I speculate.

4. We will be like children. Yes, I said children. Now why on earth would that be? Wouldn't we be like bulls in a china shop? Of course it must be noted that when we think of children here on earth, we understandably think of how selfish, undisciplined and careless they are here on earth; in other words, childish. But this is not what comes to my mind at all. What comes to my mind when it comes to Heaven are all of the best and most precious attributes of small children; their insatiable curiosity, their lack of inhibition, their simple worldview, their almost divine ability to trust. We will be like that. Even if we look like adults, and darn good looking ones, we will be like that in our souls and our spirits. In fact, it will be IMPERATIVE that we be like that; remember what Jesus said about needing to be like a child to enter into the kingdom of Heaven. Well, there you go. Made to order. I would not be surprised at all to learn that daily activities, far, far from just worshipping and singing (although there will be lots of that, and it will be FUN and EXITING like much of church here isn't), consist of things like rolling down a hillside, blowing dandelions, skipping rocks, playing duck-duck-goose and London Bridge and tag, having story time (Imagine someone like C.S. Lewis or Joni Earickson-Tada reading to you), and dancing in a circle holding hands and singing children's praise songs. And having ETERNITY to do it. If everything you needed to know you learned in Kindergarten, well, imagine it being in session FOREVER. Perhaps in our Father's house are many Romper Rooms. And the greatest part, of course, is that He will be loving us and being with us the whole time.

OK, I could go on and on for...well...eternity with all the fun and awesome and joyful things we will see and do and be in God's New Earth. But for now we endure this existence with all its pain, loneliness, injustice, and ugliness, all things that sadly characterize being an adult human being here on the first earth. But deep within me stirs this joyous presence; this life of Christ inside me that a dear brother described once as a "spark of eternity". His Life in me creates that Heaven within my soul that stands firm against the fiercest brutality of the Lord of Hell, and is that quiet little Japanese garden of the Spirit that my soul retreats to when troubled. It is in that way that I find Christ to be my "ever present hope"; my lamp, my compass. And the awesome thing for me is that because He lives in me in that way, I have a strong foretaste of that New Earth within me even on this old earth. May we who know Him all find that taste of Heaven, that childlike spirit that is His gift to us, and live by THAT life and that life alone, until such time as it becomes our all-encompassing reality in His New Earth.

Peace,
Tom Sebring