Heaven

by Randy Alcorn

  If the components of our disintegrated bodies will endure the fire and be re­assembled in resurrected bodies, what about the gold, silver, and costly stones of our works? Paul appears to be saying more than just that we will be rewarded for what we did on Earth. He appears to be saying that what we did on Earth will itself endure. Does he mean that these things too will be resurrected?

  In my book The Law of Rewards, I make a case from these passages and many others that what's done in this life has a direct carryover to the next life.105 Resurrection is not a figurative expression. It indicates durability. If our physical bodies will survive, doesn't it suggest that other physical things might also survive?

  USING OUR IMAGINATION ABOUT THE RESURRECTION

  Biblically, the resurrection of the dead extends much further than most of us have been taught. How much further might the power of resurrection go? Let's use our biblically informed imaginations. Could a child's story written out of love for Jesus survive this world, either in Heaven's handwriting or the child's own? Might certain works of art, literature, and music survive either literally (on the canvas and paper they were written on) or at least be re-created in Heaven? Obviously, we can't be certain, but isn't the idea consistent with what we've seen of the nature of resurrection?

  If our bodies and the works of our hands that please God will be resurrected, why not a chair, cabinet, or wardrobe made by Jesus in his carpenter's shop in Nazareth? Couldn't God reassemble those molecules as easily as our own? Are they not as much a part of God's "very good" creation as our bodies, and ani­mals, lakes, and trees? What about things we made to God's glory? Could these be resurrected or reassembled?

  In my novel Safely Home, I portray a faithful Chinese servant who builds a chair for Jesus, a chair on which no one else ever sits. It represents Christ's presence in his home. Might Jesus resurrect such a chair and use it on the New Earth? If Jesus will resurrect people and flowers, might he also resurrect a spe­cific flower arrangement given to a sick person that prompted a spiritual turn­ing point? Might he resurrect a song or book written to his glory? or a letter written to encourage a friend or stranger? or a blanket a grandmother made for her grandchild? or a child's finger painting? or a man's log cabin built for his pioneer family? or a photograph album lovingly assembled by a devoted mother? or a baseball bat that a man handcrafted for his grandson's eleventh birthday?

  Some may think it silly or sentimental to suppose that nature, animals, paintings, books, or a baseball bat might be resurrected. It may appear to trivialize the coming resurrection. I would suggest that it does exactly the oppo­site: It elevates resurrection, emphasizing the power of Christ to radically renew mankind—and far more. God promises to resurrect not only humanity but also the creation that fell as a result of our sin. Because God will resurrect the earth itself, we know that the resurrection of the dead extends to things that are inani­mate. Even some of the works of our hands, done to God's glory, will survive. I may be mistaken on the details, but Scripture is clear that in some form, at least, what's done on Earth to Christ's glory will survive. Our error has not been in overestimating the extent of God's redemption and resurrection but underesti­mating it.

  Close your eyes and picture something special hanging on your living-room wall or posted on your refrigerator. You may see these things in Heaven, and not just in your memory. Picture the kinds of things done by his children that God, the ultimate father, would put on display. God rewards with permanency what is precious to his heart. What pleases him will not forever disappear.

  If we understand the meaning ofresurrection, it will revolutionize our think­ing about the eternal Heaven. God, whose grace overflows, may be lavish in what he chooses to resurrect.

  Let's pray with Moses, "~M.2ke permanent the works of our hands."

  REFORMING OUR VOCABULARY TO FIT THE RESURRECTION

  A radio preacher, speaking about a Christian woman whose Christian husband had died, said, "Little did she know that when she hugged her husband that morning, she would never hug him again."

  Though the preacher's words were well intentioned, they were not true. He could have said, "She'd never again hug her husband in this life," or better, "She would not be able to hug her husband again until the next world." Because of the coming resurrection of the dead, we willbe able to hug each other again—on the New Earth.

  Someone might say, "We all know what the preacher meant." But I'm not sure we really do—or that he really did. I'm not trying to be picky, but we need to carefully reform our vocabulary to express what's actually true. If we don't, we will ultimately fail to think biblically and continue to embrace predominant ste­reotypes of Heaven.

  "That's the last time I'll ever see him in his body," a man said of his son who died. No. Because they were both Christians, they will see each other again in their resurrection bodies.

  "I'll never see my daughter again on this earth." But if she is a believer, and you are, then the statement is wrong. You will see her again on this earth. You and she will be transformed, and the earth will be transformed, but it will still really be you and your daughter on an Earth that really is the same Earth.

  We do not just say what we believe—we end up believing what we say. That's why I propose that we should consciously correct our vocabulary so it conforms to revealed biblical truth. It's hard for us to think accurately about the New Earth because we're so accustomed to speaking of Heaven as the opposite of Earth. It may be difficult to retrain ourselves, but we should do it. We must teach ourselves to embrace the principle of continuity of people and the earth in the coming resurrectionthat Scripture teaches.

  We nee a clear understanding of the doctrine of the new earth, therefore, in order to see God' redemptive program in cosmic dimensions. We need to realize that God will not be satisfied until the entire universe has been purged of all the results of mans fall.

  ANTHONY HOEKEMA

  Because ethereal notions of Heaven have largely gone unchal­lenged, we often think of Heaven as less real and less substantial than life here and now. (Hence, we don't think of Heaven as a place where people will hug, and certainly not in these bodies.) But in Heaven we won't be shadow people liv­ing in shadowlands—to borrow C. S. Lewis's imagery. Instead, we'll be fully alive and fully physical in a fully physical universe.

  In one sense, we've never seen our friend's body as truly as we will see it in the eternal Heaven. We've never been hugged here as meaningfully as we'll be hugged there. And we've never known this earth to be all that we will then know it to be.

  Jesus Christ died to secure for us a resurrected life on a resurrected Earth. Let's be careful to speak of it in terms that deliver us from our misconceptions and do justice to the greatness of Christ's redemptive work.

  RESURRECTION DAY

  What will it be like on our resurrection day, when we return with Christ to this old Earth, when we are given new bodies in the knowledge that we will together colo­nize a New Earth (whether that is immediately, or after a thousand years)? At the end of my novel Safely Home, I tried to catch a flavor of what it may be like:

  The battle cry of a hundred million warriors erupted from one end of the heavens to the other. There was war on that narrow isthmus between heaven and hell, a planet called Earth. The air was filled with the din of combat—the wails of oppressors being slain and the joyous celebrations of the oppressed, rejoicing that at long last their liberators had arrived.

  Some of the warriors sang as they slew, swinging swords to hew the oppressors with one arm and, with the other, pulling victims up onto their horses.

  The long arm of the King moved with swiftness and power. The hope of reward that kept the sufferers sane was vindicated at last. No child of heaven was touched by the sword this day, for the universe could not tolerate the shedding of one more drop of righteous blood.

  Heaven released fury. Earth bled fear. It was the old world's last night.

  At the Lion's nod, Michael raised his mighty sword an
d brought it down upon the great dragon. His muscles bulging at the strain, Michael picked up his evil twin and cast the writhing beast into a great pit. The mauler of men, the hunter of women, the predator of children, the persecutor of the righteous shrieked in terror. The vast army of heaven's warriors cheered.

  The battalions of Charis gazed upon the decimated face of the earth, the scorched soil of the old world. Nothing had survived the fires of this holocaust of things. Nothing but the King's Word, his people, and the deeds of gold and silver and precious stones they had done for him during the long night since Eden's twilight.

  Soldiers dropped their weapons, the crippled tossed their crutches and ran, the blind opened their eyes and saw. They pointed and shouted and danced, throwing their arms around each other, for each knew that any now left on earth were under the King's blood and could be fully trusted. The King gathered children upon his lap. He wiped away their tears. . . .

  The sound of a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and loud peals of thunder, shouted, "Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready." . . .

  All eyes turned to the King. The entire universe fell silent, antici­pating his words.

  "I will turn the wasteland into a garden," the King announced. "I will bring here the home I have made for you, my bride. There will be a new world, a life-filled blue-green world, greater than all that has ever been. The Shadowlands are mine again, and I shall transform them. My kingdom has come. My will shall be done. Winter is over. Spring is here at last!"

  A great roar rose from the vast crowd. The King raised his hands. Upon seeing those scars, the cheering crowds remembered the unthinkable cost of this great celebration.

  Warriors slapped each other on the back. The delivered hugged their deliverers, enjoying a great reunion with those once parted from them.

  The multitudes innumerable began to sing the song for which they had been made, a song that echoed off a trillion planets and reverber­ated in a quadrillion places in every nook and cranny of the creation's expanse. Audience and orchestra and choir all blended into one great symphony, one grand cantata of rhapsodic melodies and sustaining harmonies. All were participants. Only one was an audience, the Audi­ence of One. The smile of the King's approval swept through the choir like fire across dry wheat fields.

  When the song was complete, the Audience of One stood and raised his great arms, then clapped his scarred hands together in thun­derous applause, shaking ground and sky, jarring every corner of the cosmos. His applause went on and on, unstopping and unstoppable.

  Every one of them realized something with undiminished clarity in that instant. They wondered why they had not seen it all along. What they knew in that moment, in every fiber of their beings, was that this Person and this Place were all they had ever longed for .. . and ever would.106

  SECTION FIVE

  SEEING THE EARTH RESTORED

  CHAPTER 14

  WHERE AND WHEN WILL OUR DELIVERANCE COME?

  There is not one inch in the entire area of our human life about "which Christ, •who is Sovereign of all, does not cry out, "Mine!"

  Abraham Kuyper

  If God were to end history and reign forever in a distant Heaven, Earth would be remembered as a graveyard of sin and failure. Instead, Earth will be re­deemed and resurrected. In the end it will be a far greater world, even for having gone through the birth pains of suffering and sin—yes, even sin. The New Earth will justify the old Earth's disaster, make good out of it, putting it in per­spective. It will preserve and perpetuate Earth's original design and heritage.

  Isaiah and the prophets make clear the destiny of God's people. They will live in peace and prosperity, as free people in their promised land. But what about the recipients of these promises who have died—including people who lived in times of enslavement and captivity, war, poverty, and sickness? For many, life was short, hard, and sometimes cruel. Did these poor people ever live to see peace and prosperity, a reign of righteousness, or the end of wickedness?

  No.

  Have any of their descendants lived to see such a place?

  No. "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. Peo­ple who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.... They were longing for a better country—a heavenly o n e . . . . [God] has prepared a city for them" (Hebrews 11:13-14, 16).

  THE OLD TESTAMENT HOPE FOR A NEW EARTH

  The "country of their own" spoken of in Hebrews 11 is a real country, with a real capital city, the New Jerusalem. It is an actual place where these "aliens and strangers on earth" will ultimately live in actual bodies. If the promises God made to them were promises regarding Earth (and they were), then the heav­enly "country of their own" must ultimately include Earth. The fulfillment of these prophecies requires exactly what Scripture elsewhere promises—a resur­rection of God's people and God's Earth.

  What thrilled these expectant believers was not that God would rule in Heaven—he already did. Their hope was that one day he would rule on Earth, removing sin, death, suffering, poverty, and heartache. They believed the Mes­siah would come and bring Heaven to Earth. He would make God's will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

  The hope of the ancient Israelites was not only for their distant offspring but also for themselves. They longed for God's rule on Earth, not just for a hundred years or a thousand, but forever

  Since where God dwells, there heaven is, we conclude that in the life to come heaven and earth will no longer be separated, as they are now, but will be merged. Believers will therefore continue to be in heaven as they continue to live on the new earth.

  ANTHONY HOEKEMA

  It's commonly taught that the Old Testament concept of Heaven is stunted. However, though it’scertainly true that very little is said about the intermediate Heaven, where believers go when they die,the Old Testament actually says agreat deal about the eternal Heaven.(We saw some of it in Isaiah 60and other passages, and there’s a lot more.) Unfortunately, we often don’t realize it.Why? Because when we read passages about a future earthly kingdom,we assume they don’t refer to Heaven. But because God will dwell with his people on the New Earth, these Scripture passages do refer to Heaven.

  "But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. . . . The earth will give birth to her dead" (Isaiah 26:19). Just as Adam was made from the dust of the earth, we will be remade from the dust to which we returned at death. God's people are not looking for deliverance from Earth, but deliverance on Earth. That's exactly what we will find after our bodily resurrection.

  THE QUESTION OF THE MILLENNIUM

  Many have reduced the coming reign of Christ on Earth to a thousand-year millennial kingdom on the old Earth. Consequently, they have failed to under­stand the biblical promise of an eternal reign on the New Earth. Because of this, it's necessary for us to take a closer look at the Millennium, which has been the subject of considerable debate throughout church history.

  Revelation 20 refers six times to the Millennium, describing it like this:

  • The devil is bound for a thousand years (v. 2).

  • For a thousand years, the nations are no longer deceived (v. 3).

  • The saints come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years (v. 4).

  • The rest of the dead don't come to life until after the thousand years are ended (v. 5).

  • The saints will be priests and kings for a thousand years (v. 6).

  • Satan will be loosed at the end of the thousand years, and he will prompt a final human rebellion against God (w. 7-8).

  Theologians differ over whether the Millennium should be understood as a lit­eral thousand-year reign, and when it will occur
in relation to the second com­ing of Christ. Christians generally hold one of three views about the Millennium: postmillennial, premillennial, or amillennial.

  From a postmillennialviewpoint, Christ's Kingdom is spreading throughout the world, and God's justice will prevail across the earth prior to Christ's return. After his reign is established through his people for a long duration (not neces­sarily a literal thousand years), Christ will physically return to an already sub­stantially redeemed world.

  From a premillennial viewpoint—which would include much of dis­pensational theology and the teaching of a variety of scholars throughout church history—the Millennium will be a literal thousand-year reign of Christ, which will begin immediately upon his return when he defeats his en­emies in the battle of Armageddon. During these thousand years, God's promises of the Messiah's earthly reign will be fulfilled. Redeemed Jews will live in their homeland, and (according to some teachings) the church will gov­ern the world with Christ. The Millennium will end with a final rebellion, and the old Earth will be replaced by, or transformed into, the New Earth.

  From an amillennial viewpoint—including most Reformed theology and the teaching of many scholars throughout church history—the Millennium isn't a literal thousand years, nor is it a future state. Rather, the events depicted in Revelation 20:3-7 are happening right now as Christ's church reigns with him over the earth, in victorious triumph empowered by his death and resurrec­tion. The saints rule over the earth from the present Heaven, where they dwell with Christ.

  Theologians who hold to amillennial or premillennial viewpoints differ on spe­cific details even within their own camps. For instance, according to dispensational premillennialism, the Rapture will occur prior to the Tribulation, and both will occur prior to the final return of Christ to Earth. According to historic premillennialism, the Rapture is an inseparable part of Christ's single, physical return to Earth, which will occur after the Tribulation.107