Continuing our meditations on the four traditional themes of Advent
Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; this week it's Heaven.
Mention the word 'heaven' to people and probably the first image that
will spring to their mind is one of cute angels sitting on fluffy
clouds playing harps, or a purely spiritual realm inhabited by
ghost-like beings. Ask them again what they imagine heaven to be
like for them or their loved ones and you'll probably get a
description of them doing their favourite activity. Ask them who'll
be there and you'll more than likely get the response “everyone”
(except of course Hitler / bin Laden / notorious criminals etc.).
But what does the Bible tell us about what heaven will really be
like? The most obvious thing to note about the biblical view of
heaven is that it is the dwelling-place or the kingdom of God,
although it is not a literal place in the universe because God is
also said to be everywhere. The Lord's Prayer says that heaven is a
place where God's will is done, and in various places the worship of
God by angels around his throne in heaven is spoken of. However, it
is surprising to also note that, despite the traditional Christian
thought and language, the Bible doesn't talk of heaven as being the
place we go to (or should aspire to go to) when we die.
Jesus
taught us to pray “your kingdom come: your
will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) and the
second phrase should be seen as an explanation of the first. God's
kingdom comes when his will is done. And Jesus wants us to pray for
that to happen on earth in the same way as it already is in heaven.
He doesn't want us to pray that we would go to heaven so we can be in
his kingdom, but that his kingdom would come on earth. In Jesus'
first coming the kingdom of God started on earth, but we await his
kingdom to come in on earth all its fullness. This is made
explicit in Revelation 21, where the vision of the future is a new
heaven and a new earth, but that these are now joined: “God's
dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them”
(Revelation 21:3). Our ultimate aim therefore is not heaven but
'heaven-on-renewed-earth.'
It still has those
characteristics of being God's dwelling-place, where he is worshipped
and his will is done, but it is not a 'spiritual' place but a
physical, earthly place. And of course this shouldn't be surprising
for us who believe in the resurrection, because the accounts of
Jesus' resurrection prove that it was a bodily, physical resurrection
not a spiritual resurrection. So we are not resurrected as ghosts or
spirits but with physical bodies, and physical bodies need a physical
environment. Also, Paul reminds us in Romans that sin doesn't just
affect humanity, but it has also affected the created world.
Therefore Jesus' death, which won humanity's salvation also won
salvation for creation: “the creation itself will be
liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and
glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).
So if
'heaven-on-renewed-earth” is what we should aspire to, who goes
there? As we saw last week, Jesus invites us to “repent and
believe the good news” and the future judgement, and therefore the
decision about whether we will go there, will be on the basis of
whether we've accepted Jesus' invitation or not.
The good news of
Christianity about heaven is that it is more wonderful than we
commonly think, as it involves the renewal and re-creation of the
whole of creation, including our bodies, and the joining of heaven
with this renewed earth. The relationship we can have with God now
is infinitely enhanced and there will be an intimacy that is beyond
our wildest dreams. By accepting Jesus' invitation we become part of
God's kingdom here and now, and God promises us that we will be part
of his future kingdom-on-renewed-earth.
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