"Heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace." "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be." So say the choruses and songs we sing. Most believers look forward to going to heaven. You know, Saint Peter and those pearly gates that give us access to heaven. Well maybe not. But you may have been trained in evangelism to ask, "If you were to die today and you stood before God how would you respond to His question, "Why should I let you into My heaven?" But what if that is the wrong question? What if God isn't interested in letting you into heaven? The reality is we know little of the afterlife other than there is one. Scripture is just pretty unclear as to how it all works. But as Biblical, evangelical, followers of Jesus we are often told we are going to heaven and will will see Jesus (or Yeshua if we want to use His real name). But do the Scriptures honestly tell us that? Eternity in heaven? That doesn't seem to be God's plan.
Before we get to that point let's see what we can know about death and the life to come. First the Old and New Testaments most often refer to death as sleep. There are over twenty-five references to "slept with his fathers" in 1 and 2 Samuel alone. I Cor. 11:30 and 15:51 are New Testament examples (unless you have a modern translation which simply says you are dead). The Hebraic idea seems to be that the end of life is a time of rest. Rest from the struggles and toil of this world. Just as an aside, if you look at the days of creation the first six all say, "there was evening and morning" but that is not so of day seven, the Sabbath Day. Rabbinic teachers said that was because Sabbath was a picture of the everlasting Sabbath we come to at the end of our days on earth. So death is rest and sleep if you accept the Biblical references. However there is more. There is a place called "Abraham's Bosom" according to Luke 16. It has a place of rest for those who believe and torment for those who do not. Yeshua met with Moses and Elijah (Mt 17) and they had physical bodies and awareness, so death seems to be more than just unconscious sleep. Whatever the state of things, we will be aware, and it appears we will participate in things that happen in some heavenly realm.
The Scriptures do say that there is some sort of heavenly connection when we die. Elijah was taken up into heaven (2 kings 2:11) as was Yeshua (Acts 1:11), the Apostle John (Rev 4:1), and the Apostle Paul (2 Cor 12:2). Though Paul is a little ambivalent as to his experience in the third heaven. In Revelation John sees the martyred believers in heaven singing praises (Rev 16). Another side note here. In the often quoted verse in 2 Cor 5:8, the one where Paul says we "would prefer to be absent from the body and at home with the Lord", he doesn't say we will be; Paul just says that is what is "preferred". I would prefer to be in the Outer Banks. That doesn't mean I will be there. It is unlikely that Paul's thought is a Greek out of body experience rather than an Hebraic hope for the resurrection. Just read chapters 15 and 16 if you find that hard to believe. Paul's point in 2 Cor. 5:8-10 is to be "well pleasing to the Lord" for we will all stand before Him to give an account. It is not a theological statement about death but a challenge as to how we should live.
Thankfully we are told that we will be with the Lord forever. In John 14, Yeshua told His disciples that there are many dwelling places in His Father's house. He is going to prepare a place for us and He will come and take us to this place of many dwelling places. 1 Thess. 4 claims that the dead and those alive will forever be with the Lord. The question is where will this forever place be. As we come to answer this question I must first ask this question, "What is your greatest hope?" For many it is the hope of Heaven. That was not so for the Apostle Paul and that is not why Yeshua went to the cross. The greatest hope we have is the resurrection from the dead. Check out much of the latter half of 1 Corinthians. You know, "This perishable must put on the imperishable." 1 Cor. 15:19 "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied." The resurrection from the dead is most essential, most important to Paul. It is foolishness to the Greeks who saw the temporal body something to be shed and released from. But not Paul, not the Jews. A resurrected body was the great hope. Death is conquered by Messiah and His resurrection is the "first fruits" and we will follow. Yet we don't talk much about the importance of a resurrection. We talk about going to heaven where the body thing is sort of nebulous. We have been infected by Greek thought and philosophy.
So why is a resurrected body so important? Because we will be with the Lord forever and He will be on a tangible, physical earth. We know little of heaven but God gives us a great deal of info about a new earth, or at least a new Jerusalem that will be on a new earth. In Revelation 21 John sees a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem coming down to the earth. The new Jerusalem is about 6,000 miles on each side. It is a cube about the size of our moon. It has streets of gold and pearly gates. It has perpetual light because the Father and the Son are there. There is no need of a temple for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. There is a throne for the Lord God and the Lamb and a river of life flows from it. There are trees along that river forever bringing forth fruit. There is no more pain, or death, or sorrow, or crying, for God will wipe away every tear. The former things have passed and the new has come. A tangible city on a tangible earth, where God and the Lamb are, will have tangible people with new resurrected incorruptible bodies. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. This new earth must be pretty huge to support this new Jerusalem. A 6,000 mile cube of a city must have many dwelling places that Yeshua has gone to prepare for us. And He will come again and receive us to Himself.
So it looks like the Scriptures don't promise eternity in heaven with Jesus. They promise eternity on a new earth in a new Jerusalem with a new body. That is our hope. Resurrection from the dead, and an incorruptible body to serve and worship the Lamb and God our Father in a new city on a new planet prepared just for us. How cool is that? Hope to see you there.
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