Is our idea of heaven based on Scripture? (montage by J Fowler)[/caption]
As a boy that uncertainty plus the belief I got at church that we would spend eternity singing hymns “somewhere beyond the blue” sure wasn’t something I looked forward to. I enjoyed catching crawdads, frittering away hours in farmer Kelly’s woods, playing “kick the can” with my friends, and just hanging around at home smelling supper and reading Sugar Creek Gang books. That nagging fear of being bored to death with heaven hung on well into adulthood, but I never talked about it. It seemed ungodly and un-Christian.
That’s why the realization I came to a couple decades ago kindled a new hope in my heart—the understanding of the biblical promise that heaven was going to come to earth, and the earth be redeemed by “the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 5) and would be refreshed (Acts 3:19), reunified Ephesians 1:9-10), restored (Acts 3:20), reconciled to God (Colossians 1:20): the joyous “Five Rs” of our future existence on God’s good earth!
This truth was unfolded aptly by my friend Mike Wittmer, associate professor of systematic theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, in his encouraging book Heaven Is a Place On Earth:
Our temporary stay in heaven—what theologians call the intermediate state—is not the primary focus of Scripture. There are only a few verses that allude to it. Scripture is relatively silent on our intermediate state in heaven because it is not the Christian hope. The Christian hope is not merely that our departed souls will rejoice in heaven, but that, as 1 Corinthians 15 explains, they will reunite with our resurrected bodies. And where do bodies live? Not in heaven: That’s more suitable for spiritual beings like angels and human souls. Bodies are meant to live on earth, on this planet. So the Christian hope is not merely that someday we and our loved ones will die and go to be with Jesus. Instead, the Christian hope is that our departure from this world is just the first leg of a journey that is round-trip. We will not remain forever with God in heaven, for God will bring heaven down to us. As John explains his vision in Revelation 21:1-4, he “saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” to the earth, accompanied by the thrilling words, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them.” In short, Christians long for the fulfillment of Emmanuel, the divine name that means “God with us.” We don’t hope merely for the day when we go to live with God, but ultimately for that final day when God comes to live with us.That’s not a message I heard preached as a kid but really would love to have heard. It was hard to live all those years thinking that my future state was going to be boring—and to feel guilty because of that feeling. Later in his book Mike describes what that future state might look like as foretold in part by the ancient prophet Isaiah. He concludes with this thought:
Because redemption restores rather than obliterates creation, we will find that its completion in our next life will be the fulfillment of our humanity. Nothing will be more satisfying than dwelling with our Father on the earth we call home, enjoying the well-rounded, flourishing lives he intended for us all along. Our next life will look an awful lot like this one, lacking only the suffering that arises from sin.Now that’s a heaven this old boy can look forward to! [Source: WonderOfCreation.org – Thank you Dean!]]]>
Amen! Great post.
Hi Bill, I really like this one too. Dean makes some brilliant points here very simply.
I'm curious where you grew up Dean, and in what denomination. I grew up first in the Catholic church, and then as a teen in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), and I rarely heard talk of heaven as some far off but primary goal. Granted, there wasn't a lot of preaching on the new heaven and new earth, either, but there was some. I would say the overall focus in both places was that we be people who honor God in our daily lives. In the Catholic church that generally meant being involved in helping those in need. In the PCA that leaned instead toward knowing the Bible inside and out, memorizing it, meditating on it, etc.
In fact, the only statement I remember specifically regarding what heaven will be like was made by a PCA pastor in Colorado Springs who believed that in heaven we won't know who is who because if we did we'd be sad at those that aren't there and since we won't be sad in heaven, we must not know people by specific identities. I chalked that up to wishful but crummy use of logic and chucked the idea.
I guess I missed out on the whole heaven-centered thing in the church. I've heard other people mention that they grew up in it also, so apparently it was a movement that was happening for awhile. I'm curious, when and where was that? Was it mostly due to a few specific preachers, or was it primarily in one or two specific denominations? or was it just a southern thing?
@barefootmeg: I grew up in the Baptist church and my exposure to evangelical culture all my life has been centered on going to Heaven after we pass through this world. This of course makes for a very incomplete gospel when that is all you focus on. I realize now what Dean realized -that the Bible actually speaks of a renewal of both our bodies and the created order as GOD makes His dwelling with us in the end. -shalom!
Do you think this heaven-focus is primarily a Baptist thing, then?
barefootmeg: I would say it has been a mainstream, American evangelical focus for generations, but beyond that, the church (and the world) has been riddled with a Platonic view of Heaven all throughout church history and in turn misapplied expressions of faith in JESUS. N.T. Wright talks about it a little in this great article: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html
barefootmeg: I would say it has been a mainstream, American evangelical focus for generations, but beyond that, the church (and the world) has been riddled with a Platonic view of Heaven all throughout church history and in turn misapplied expressions of faith in JESUS. N.T. Wright talks about it a little in this great article: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html
barefootmeg: I would say it has been a mainstream, American evangelical focus for generations, but beyond that, the church (and the world) has been riddled with a Platonic view of Heaven all throughout church history and in turn misapplied expressions of faith in JESUS. N.T. Wright talks about it a little in this great article: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html
barefootmeg: I would say it has been a mainstream, American evangelical focus for generations, but beyond that, the church (and the world) has been riddled with a Platonic view of Heaven all throughout church history and in turn misapplied expressions of faith in JESUS. N.T. Wright talks about it a little in this great article: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1…
I've heard others mention it as well, but as I've never experienced it, nor have I had any friends who have ever brought it up as part of their experience, so I still think it's a pretty localized thing. Yes, I can definitely see how Plato has effected our thinking. This comes up particularly when relating to the environment. But I just haven't seen it in terms of a heaven-centric focus. I'd love to get input from others in denominations other than presbyterian or baptist to see what they grew up with. (Or perhaps this is a time-localized thing and I missed it. Could it be that this was preached primarily in the 60s and earlier?)
Hey Meg:
I grew up in a very small Methodist congregation in rural Virginia. Even though we Methodists weren't as likely to batter our fellow sinners over the head with the Bible, demanding their repentance (as it seemed our Baptist brothers and sisters did), it was clear that the whole point of Christianity was personal salvation. Being a Christian was about getting to heaven (or more often, about avoiding hell).
But to be fair, I think the missional hermenuetic is becoming more acceptable everywhere now. I'm in a Wesleyan seminary, for example, and it was emphasized in my NT intro class.
And another thought Meg. The Reformed (Presbyterian) tradition (and especially the PCA) has long had social justice as a point of emphasis. I think the heavencentricism (I just made that up) is more likely to be a part of conservative evangelical thinking.
Another book of interest here would be Alejandro García-Rivera's new book, The Garden of God: A Theological Cosmology. It's very readable, and seeks to retrieve the thought of Teilhard de Chardin. The main theme is to find a way we as (post)modern Christians can be at home in the universe.
Another book of interest here would be Alejandro García-Rivera's new book, The Garden of God: A Theological Cosmology. It's very readable, and seeks to retrieve the thought of Teilhard de Chardin. The main theme is to find a way we as (post)modern Christians can be at home in the universe.
I must say I agree very much that slowly the christian hope was changed to a ‘place in Heaven’ rather than about the restoration of life on earth under God’s blessing. About 15 years ago I began studying the scriptures looking at the theme of the ‘blessing’ that was passed down through all the faithful men of old and it became very clear to me that the earth has always been a large part of the blessing. We are promised eternal life on a blessed earth. I feel that because of this change christians of our modern times have been emotionally disconnected to the earth and thus the destruction that is happening to our planet.