Heaven

by Randy Alcorn

  For believers, more accurate poetic lines would be,

  The best is yet to be,

  The next of lives, for which thefirst was made.

  The last of our life before we die is in fact not the last of our life! We'll go right on living in another place. And one day, in the resurrection, we'll live again on Earth, a life so rich and joyful that this life will seem impoverished in compari­son. Millions of years from now we'll still be young.

  In our society many people look to cosmetic surgeries, implants, and other methods to remodel and renovate our crumbling bodies. We hold to youthfulness with a white-knuckled grip. Ultimately it's all in vain. But the gospel promises us eternal youthfulness, health, beauty, and happiness in the presence of our God and our spiritual family. It's not ours now—but it will be, in the res­urrection of the dead.

  ARE WE PAST OUR PEAKS?

  The following diagram illustrates the biblical view of the future for those who know Christ. The part of the graph below that depicts life on the present Earth is the only one that takes a dip, representing the physical and mental decline of old age that so many experience under the Curse. But at the point of death, it's followed by a dramatic upward movement in which the believer goes immediately to be with Christ in the intermediate Heaven. However, even though that's a vast improve­ment, it's not the believer's peak. We'll be resurrected, eventually living on a resur­rected Earth. Our knowledge and life experiences, certainly, and probably our skills and strength, will continue to develop. In other words, we will never pass our peak.

  I write this book well aware that I won't be on Earth much longer. Oh, I might last another thirty years. But it could be twenty, ten, five, or one—one year, day, or hour. By the time this book goes to its next printing, I could be a true expert on the present Heaven—as a resident. By the time you read it, I may have died years ago. Our time here is short. But when we consider "here" is under the Curse and "there" is freedom from that curse, then why would people in their right minds want to be here instead of there?

  When I wrote the first edition of this book, Nanci's dear father was dying, falling further and further from his peak of a very strong mind and body. I heard Nanci say to someone on the phone, "Life is closing in on him, but he's headed in the right direction." It's paradoxical, isn't it? But true. The further we drop from our earthly peak, the closer we get to the present Heaven—where Nanci's father now resides—and ultimately to the New Earth. For the Christian, death is the doorway to the Christ who has defeated death and will swallow it up. Therefore, to be headed toward death is to be headed in the right direction. Nanci's dad now has a restored mind, and one day will have a restored body, both far exceeding what he had here in his "best days."

  Understanding that our peak doesn't come in this life should radically change our view of deteriorating health, which otherwise would produce dis­couragement, regret, anger, envy, and resentment. Elderly people could envy and resent the young for what they can do. People handicapped from birth could envy and resent others for what they can do. But when the elderly and handicapped recognize that their experiences on the New Earth will be far better than the best anyone else is experiencing here and now, it brings anticipa­tion, contentment, consolation, and the ability to fully rejoice in the activities of the young and healthy, without envy or regret.

  People without Christ can only look back to when they were at their best, never to regain it. Memories are all they have, and even those memories fade. But elderly or bedridden Christians don't look back to the peak of their prow­ess. They lookforward to it.

  When we Christians sit in wheelchairs or lie in beds or feel our bodies shut­ting down, let's remind ourselves, "I haven't passed my peak. I haven't yet come close to it. The strongest and healthiest I've ever felt is a faint suggestion of what I'll be in my resurrected body on the New Earth."

  This isn't wishful thinking. This is the explicit promise of God. It is as true as John 3:16 and anything else the Bible tells us.

  When blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby wrote the lines "His glory we shall see" and "When our eyes behold the city," her thoughts were all the more signif­icant because her eyes had never seen anything. She'd tell people not to feel sorry for her because the first face she'd ever see would be Christ's. Her sight was forever healed in 1915 when she died and left this world.

  I had the privilege of spending two hours alone with Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright six months before he died. As he sat there, tubes running to his oxygen tank, he almost jumped out of his chair as we talked about Heaven and the God he loved. This wasn't a man past his peak but one leaning toward it. "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day" (Proverbs 4:18, NASB). This was true of Bill Bright. Although when I had breakfast with him that morning he was nearing his death, his eyes and smile looked supernaturally young.

  Dallas Willard says in The Divine Conspiracy:

  I meet many faithful Christians who, in spite of their faith, are deeply disappointed in how their lives have turned out. Sometimes it is simply a matter of how they experience aging, which they take to mean they no longer have a future. But often, due to circumstances or wrongful deci­sions and actions by others, what they had hoped to accomplish in life they did not. They painfully puzzle over what they may have done wrong, or over whether God has really been with them.

  Much of the distress of these good people comes from a failure to realize that their life lies before them. That they are coming to the end of their present life, life "in the flesh," is of little significance. What is of significance is the kind of person they have become. Circumstances and other people are not in control of an individual's character or of the life that lies endlessly before us in the kingdom of God.328

  The time may come when I won't be able to play tennis, ride bikes, drive, write books, or read them. I may suffer terribly before I die. Someday my wife or my daughters may sit beside my bed, lovingly assuring me that I've been imagining things again. I don't look forward to that. But I do look beyond it. I look first to being with my Jesus, second to being with loved ones, third to Christ's return and the bodily resurrection, and fourth to setting foot on my eternal home—the New Earth. It makes me want to shout and cry and laugh just thinking about it.

  My waning years or weeks or days won't be the last my wife or daughters see of me. I'll be with them again, and one day we'll all have bodies and minds far better than the best we ever knew here. We'll converse with a brilliance and wit and joy and strength we've never known.

  I don't look back nostalgically at wonderful moments in my life, wistfully thinking the best days are behind me. I look at them as foretastes of an eternity of better things. The buds of this life's greatest moments don't shrivel and die; they blossom into greater moments, each to be treasured, none to be lost. Everything done in dependence on God will bear fruit for eternity. This life need not be wasted. In small and often unnoticed acts of service to Christ, we can invest this life in eternity, where today's faithfulness will forever pay rich dividends.

  "Thanks, Lord, that the best is yet to be." That's my prayer. God will one day clear away sin, death, and sorrow, as surely as builders clear away debris so they can begin new construction.

  HOW CAN ANTICIPATING NEW OPPORTUNITIES CHANGE US?

  After Columbus discovered the New World, Spain struck coins with the Latin slogan Plus Ultra. It meant "More Beyond." This was a horizon-expanding message to people who'd always believed the world they knew was all there was.

  We'll constantly enjoy the wonders of the New Earth, but we're promised the new heavens too, including stars, planets, and cosmic wonders that will thrill us. Plus Ultra—there will always be more to discover about our God. In his new universe there will always be more beyond.

  God is going to enjoy his new universe, and we'll enter into his joy. Since we'll draw from the reservoir of God's being, which never runs dry, we'll never run out of passion and joy. And
God's creation will never run out of the beauty that will be the Creator's reflection.

  At 2:30 a.m. on November 19,2002,1 stood on our deck, gazing up at the night sky. Above me was the Leonid meteor shower, the finest display of celestial fire­works until the year 2096. For someone who's enjoyed meteor showers since he was a kid, this wasthe celestial event of a lifetime.

  ln heaven 'tis the direct reverse 'tis

  on earth; for there, by length of time things

  become more and more youthful, that is, more

  vigorous, active, tender, and beautiful.

  J0NATHAN EDWARDS

  There was only one problem. Clouds covered the Oregon sky. Of the hundreds of streaking meteors above me, I couldn't see a single one. I felt like a blind man being told, "You're missing the most beautiful sunset of your lifetime. You'll never be able to see another like it."

  Was I disappointed? Sure. After searching in vain for small cracks in the sky, I went inside and wrote these paragraphs. I'm disappointed but not disillu­sioned. Why? Because I did not miss the celestial event of my lifetime.

  My lifetime is forever. My residence will be a new universe, with far more spectacular celestial wonders, and I'll have the ability to look through clouds or rise above them.

  During a spectacular meteor shower a few years earlier, I'd stood on our deck watching a clear sky. Part of the fun was hearing the oohs and ahhs from neighbors looking upward. Multiply these oohs and aahs by ten thousand times ten thousand, and it'll suggest our thunderous response to what our Father will do in the new heavens as we look upward from the New Earth.

  On the inside of my office door is a beautiful photograph of a menagerie of several hundred galaxies (there are more than three thousand detectable in the full picture), averaging perhaps a hundred billion stars each, never seen with any clarity until photographed by the Hubble space telescope.329 The photograph represents the deepest-ever view of the universe, called the Hubble Deep Field. In addition to the spiral and elliptical shaped galaxies, there's a bewildering va­riety of other galaxy shapes and colors. This is a tiny keyhole view of the uni­verse, covering a speck of sky one-thirtieth the diameter of the moon. When I look at this picture, I worship God.

  We are not past our prime. The earth and planets and stars and galaxies are not past their prime. They're a dying phoenix that will rise again into something far greater—something that will never die.

  I can't wait to see the really great meteor showers and the truly spectacular comets and star systems and galaxies of the new universe. And I can't wait to stand gazing at them alongside once-blind friends who lived their lives on Earth always hearing about what they were missing, some believing they would never see, regretting the images and events of a lifetime beyond their ability to perceive. The hidden beauties will be revealed to them—and us.

  Plus Ultra—there is more beyond. If we know Jesus, you and I, we who will never pass our peaks will be there to behold an endless revelation of natural wonders that display God's glory . . . with nothing to block our view.

  CHAPTER 44

  WILL WE DESIGN CRAFTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND NEW MODES OF TRAVEL?

  God will provide for us a renewed natural universe and a new city with the best of human culture from the old Earth. But where will civilization go from there? That will be up to us. For just as God called Adam and Eve, God calls us to develop a Christ-pleasing culture and to rule the world to his glory.

  With advanced science and technology, we will build far greater things on the New Earth than we can on the old. Paul Marshall points out, "The Bible never condemns technology itself. . . . It does not make the modern distinction between what is 'natural' and what is 'artificial.' Both are seen merely as aspects of what is 'creational,' a category that includes both the human and the nonhuman world in relation to each other."330

  DOES GOD VALUE CRAFTSMANSHIP?

  The first person Scripture describes as "filled with the Spirit" wasn't a prophet or priest; he was a craftsman. "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri,. . . and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you'" (Exodus 31:1-6).

  God gifted and called Bezalel to be a skilled laborer, a master craftsman, a God-glorifying artist. Bezalel and Oholiab were not only to create works of art but also to train apprentices to do so. The gifting and calling were from God: "He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as craftsmen, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them master craftsmen and designers" (Exodus 35:35).

  If you don't believe craftsmanship will be an important part of the New Earth, read Exodus 25-40. God tells his people in exquisite detail how to sew clothing, what colors to use, how to construct the furniture for the Ark of the Covenant and Tabernacle, what stones to put on the high priest's breastplate, and so on.

  The Master Designer goes into great detail in his instructions for building the Tabernacle: the veil and curtain, the Ark of the Covenant, the table, the lampstand, the altar of burnt offerings, the courtyard, the incense altar, the washbasin, the priests' clothing. The design, precision, and beauty of these things tell us about God, ourselves, and the culture of the New Earth. Those who imagine that spirituality is something ethereal and invisible—unrelated to our physical skills, creativity, and cultural development—fail to understand Scripture. God's instructions and his delight in the gifts he imparts to people to accomplish these tasks make clear what we should expect in Heaven: greater works of craftsmanship and construction, unhindered by sin and death.

  It wasn't an accident that Jesus was born into a carpenter's family. Carpenters are makers. God is a maker. He'll never cease being a maker. God made us, his image-bearers, to be makers. We'll never cease to be makers. When we die, we won't leave behind our creativity, but only what hinders our ability to honor God through what we create.

  WILL THERE BE TRADE AND BUSINESS?

  I believe we will see trade and business in Heaven, although not for all the same reasons we engage in them now. There's much more to business and trade than putting food on the table or repairing the roof, though those are good reasons. Business is the result not of sin but of human interdependence, creativity, and variety. To say we will not "need" money or goods or services on the New Earth doesn't close the discussion. We may not "need" homes, food, and drink either, but we'll enjoy them nevertheless.

  When the kings of the nations bring treasures into the city, is it possible that one purpose will be to give tribute to the King and another to exchange trea­sures with other people groups? Might they then bring back to their own people the cultural splendors, including discoveries and inventions, of other nations? Even now, honest trade brings benefit and pleasure to both parties.

  People trade and engage in business for reasons besides survival. It's possible that business as we know it could be replaced by a social structure centered on cre­ating, giving, and receiving. An artist might create a beautiful work and simply give it away for someone's delight, just as Christ freely gives of himself. Jesus said it's "more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35), so the joy of giving some­one else a cultural treasure would exceed even the joy of receiving one.

  Whether you work in a bookstore, bakery, or school, don't you experience joy in using your knowledge, skills, services, and products to help and please others? Sure, it's good and often necessary to earn money too, but that isn't the ultimate joy. If we dismiss the likelihood of business and commerce on the New Earth, we send the wrong message: that business and commerce are part of the Curse, in­herently unspiritual or unimportant to God. On the contrary, God's Word tells us, "Whatever you do,
work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving" (Colossians 3:23-24). We work for him on the present Earth, and we will work for him on the New Earth.

  WILL THERE BE TECHNOLOGY AND MACHINERY?

  Technology is a God-given aspect of human capability that enables us to fulfill his command to exercise dominion. As we've seen, we will find harps, trumpets, and other man-made objects in the present Heaven. What should we expect to find on the New Earth? Tables, chairs, cabinets, wagons, machinery, transpor­tation, sports equipment, and much more. It's a narrow view of both God and humans to imagine that God can be pleased and glorified with a trumpet but not a desk, computer, or baseball bat. Will there be new inventions? Refine­ments of old inventions? Why not? We'll live in resurrected bodies on a resur­rected Earth. The God who gave people creativity surely won't take it back, will he? The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29).

  When God gave Eden to Adam and Eve, he expected them to develop it. He'll give us the New Earth and expect the same of us. But this time we'll suc­ceed! This time no human accomplishment, no cultural masterpiece, no tech­nological achievement will be marred by sin and death. All will fully serve God's purposes and bring him glory.

  On this earth, we seek comfort and invent ways to get it. On the New Earth, comfort may seek us. It may be built into the environment so that our efforts can be spent on other concerns. Of course, we'll have the technological knowl­edge and skills to control our environment, so if we can make ourselves more comfortable, we will.