Heaven

by Randy Alcorn

  Something in the human constitution loves to create, tweak, experiment, and play with machinery. This isn't a modern development; it was true of an­cient people as well. It's inherent in exercising dominion over creation.

  If mankind had never sinned, would we have invented the wheel and created machinery? Certainly. On the New Earth, shouldn't we expect machinery made for the good of mankind and the glory of God? On the New Earth people might in­vent machinery that could take us to the far ends of the New Milky Way, to other galaxies and beyond. Why not? Is this notion more unthinkable than it once was to imagine sailing a ship across an ocean or flying a plane across the world or landing a spacecraft on the moon? Because people in this fallen world have extended their dominion beyond our current Earth, might we not expect people on the New Earth to extend their Christ-exalting reach into the new universe?

  WHAT WILL TRAVEL BE LIKE?

  Many people have asked how our resurrected bodies will travel on the New Earth, wondering whether we will be able to materialize, as Christ apparently was able to do in his resurrected body (John 20:24-26). Will our bodies become servants to our righteous wills, carrying out their directions? Might we be able to go somewhere simply by thinking or willing it? Possibly. It's also possible that although our bodies will be like Christ's, his ability to dematerialize and materi­alize and to rise in his ascension could be unique to his deity. We can't be certain on this point.

  Philip, after he met with the Ethiopian, was "snatched away" by God's Spirit and found himself at Azotus (Acts 8:25-40). Philip didn't snatch himself away, but perhaps he experienced a foretaste of what a Spirit-empowered person with a resurrection body might do. Since we will rule with Christ over a vast New Earth, and possibly over faraway places in the new heavens, it seems likely that we might be able to be instantly transported great distances.

  Perhaps we might be able to be directly in the presence of Christ, worship­ing him before his throne in the New Jerusalem, then go off to our duties far away, only to come back to him regularly. Perhaps we will be able to travel to the far ends of the New Earth, or even to the remote parts of the new universe, in the blink of an eye.

  We do know, however, that the New Jerusalem will have streets and gates, suggesting conventional modes of travel. If citizens only walked, perhaps paths would be enough. But streets may suggest the use of wagons and horse-drawn carts, or something more advanced. Will we ride bicycles and drive motorized vehicles? Will we travel to other places outside the New Jerusalem in airplanes? We don't know. But we should use the "why not?" test. Is there anything sinful about wheels and motors? Unless you're a Christoplatonist, you realize the an­swer is no. Therefore, there's no reason to assume we won't enjoy high-tech modes of travel on the New Earth.

  Remember, the New Earth isn't a return to Eden in the sense of abandoning culture, including inventions, transportation, and technology. It's a resurrected Earth with resurrected people, who have better brains and will be capable of better inventions. How long would it take brilliant people working in full co­operation to make startling technological breakthroughs? Imagine how quickly the space shuttle could become a relic.

  WILL WE TRAVEL AND EXPLORE IN SPACE?

  I've explained my understanding of Scripture that God will resurrect nations and cultures and that we'll be able to visit them on the New Earth. This may seem radical, but it's just the beginning. I've also mentioned my belief that we will explore the far reaches of the new universe. Let me further develop that idea.

  God promises to make not only a New Earth but also "new heavens" (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13). The Greek and Hebrew words translated "heavens" include the stars and planets and what we call outer space. Since God will resurrect the old Earth and the old Jerusalem, transforming both into the new,shouldn't we understand "new heavens" as an expression of his intention to resurrect galaxies, nebulae, stars, planets, and moons in a form as close to their original form as the earth will be to its original form and we will be to ours?

  There will be new planets

  to develop, new principles

  to discover, new joys to

  experience. Every moment

  of eternity will be an

  adventure of discovery.

  RAY STEDMAN

  The stars of the heavens declare God's glory (Psalm 19:1), yet how vast and distant they are. God made countless billions of galaxies containing perhaps trillions of nebulae, planets, and moons. Not many in human history have seen more than a few thousand stars, and then only as dots in the sky. If the heavens declare God's glory now, and if we will spend eternity proclaiming God's glory, don't you think exploring the new heavens, and exercising dominion over them, will likely be part of God's plan?

  As a twelve-year-old, I first viewed through a telescope the great galaxy of Andromeda, consisting of hundreds of billions of stars and untold numbers of planets, nearly three million light years from Earth. I was mesmerized. I also wept, not knowing why. I was overwhelmed by greatness on a cosmic scale and felt terribly small and alone. Years later I first heard the gospel. After I became a Christian, I found that gazing through the telescope became an act of delighted worship.

  From the night I first saw Andromeda's galaxy, I've wanted to go there. I now think it's likely I will.

  Many of us have taken pleasure traveling on this earth. What will it be like to travel both the New Earth and the new universe? People didn't venture across oceans and to outer space because of sin. They did so because God made us with the yearning to explore and the creativity to make that yearning a reality. Have you ever read about people who have taken amazing journeys and wished you had the time, money, courage, or health to do the same? In the new universe, none of those restraints will hold us back.

  It's hard for me to believe God made countless cosmic wonders intend­ing that no human eye would ever behold them and that no human should ever set foot on them. The biblical accounts link mankind so closely with the physical universe and link God's celestial heavens so closely with the mani­festation of his glory that I believe he intends us to explore the new universe. The universe will be our backyard, a playground and university always beck­oning us to come explore the wealth of our Lord—as one song puts it, the God of wonders beyond our galaxy.

  WILL WE FIND NEW BEINGS ON OTHER WORLDS?

  When we travel in the new universe, will we find new beings on other worlds? No Scripture passage proves that God will or will not create new races of intelli­gent beings, either on Earth or on other planets spread across the new universe. It's not speculative to say there will be a new celestial universe of stars and plan­ets. Scripture is clear on this point; that's what "new heavens" means. Whether God might inhabit them with new creatures is not provable but certainly possi­ble. God is a creator. He'll never stop being what he is. We should expect new and wondrous creations that declare his glory. God hasn't exhausted his creative resources. He never will.

  Some people will say, "To imagine that God would populate worlds with new beings is just science fiction." We may have it backward. Science fiction is the result of mankind's God-given sense of adventure, wonder, creativity, and imagination. It emerges from being made in God's image. Like everything else undertaken by sinful humans, science fiction is often riddled with false philoso­phies and assumptions that glorify mankind and ignore God. But this shouldn't cause us to dismiss its glimpses of what an infinitely creative God might fashion across the broad expanse of the new heavens and the New Earth. Is God's imag­ination less than that of his image-bearers? Or is the height of human imagina­tion at its best a reflection of the infinite creativity of the divine mind?

  Those who consider extraterrestrial creation a foolish notion shouldn't dis­miss too quickly the longing and intuitive sense that many people have about in­telligent creatures different from ourselves. The worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and E. T. are fictional, as are the worlds portrayed throughout the long history of mythology, fantasy, and science fiction.
But if people, created in God's image and endowed with divine creativity, have invented these fictional alien races and have so passionately contemplated them, should it surprise us if God creates the sub­stance of which science fiction, fantasy, and mythology are but shadows?

  When we get excited reading Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy or Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, it's not our sinfulness that arouses that excite­ment. It's our God-given hunger for adventure, for new realms and new beings, for new beauties and new knowledge. God has given us a longing for new worlds.

  Give painters a room full of canvases, and they will paint. Why? Because they are painters. It's their nature. When the Creator fashions the new heavens—as we're told he will—whatever he does will be in keeping with his nature. Con­sidering that his higher glory and praise come not from inanimate objects such as stars and planets but from intelligent beings such as people and angels, it's no great stretch to suppose he might create other intelligent beings.

  Would I expect the Creator, from whom human artists derive their creativ­ity, to do less to demonstrate his ingenuity in the coming ages than he has in this first age? No. I anticipate an eternity of delight in watching and discovering what he creates to reveal more of himself to us.

  WILL WE TRAVEL IN TIME?

  If we will travel to other galaxies, will we also be able to travel in time? Even though I believe we'll live in time, God is certainly capable of bending time and opening doors in time's fabric for us. Perhaps we'll be able to travel back and stand alongside angels in the invisible realm, seeing events as they happened on Earth. Maybe we'll learn the lessons of God's providence through direct obser­vation. Can you imagine being there as Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount? Perhaps you will be.

  Want to see the crossing of the Red Sea? Want to be there when Daniel's three friends emerge from the fiery furnace? It would be simple for God to open the door to the past.

  Because God is not limited by time, he may choose to show us past events as if they were presently happening. We may be able to study history from a front-row seat. Perhaps we'll have opportunity to see the lives of our spiritual and physical ancestors lived out on Earth.

  Usually we're not able to see God's immediate responses to our prayers, but in Heaven God may permit us to see what happened in the spiritual realm as a result of his answers to our prayers. In the Old Testament an angel comes to the prophet Daniel and tells him what happened as the result of his prayers: "As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you" (Daniel 9:23).

  Will God show us in Heaven what almost happened to us on Earth? Will he take us back to see what would have happened if we'd made other choices? Per­haps. Will the father whose son had cerebral palsy see what would have hap­pened if he'd followed his temptation to desert his family? Would this not fill his heart with gratitude to God for his sovereign grace?

  Will I see how missing the exit on the freeway last night saved me from a crash? Will I learn how getting delayed in the grocery store last week saved my wife from a fatal accident? How many times have we whined and groaned about the very circumstances God used to save us? How many times have we prayed that God would make us Christlike, then begged him to take from us the very things he sent to make us Christlike? How many times has God heard our cries when we imagined he didn't? How many times has he said no to our prayers when saying yes would have harmed us and robbed us of good?

  Perhaps we'll see the ripple effects of our small acts of faithfulness and obe­dience. Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, perhaps we'll see how we affected others, and how living our lives differ­ently might have influenced them. (May God give us the grace to see this now while we can still revise and edit our lives.)

  If we believe in God's sovereignty, we must believe God would be glorified through our better understanding of human history. We'll no longer have to cling by faith to "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God" (Romans 8:28, NASB). We will see history as definitive documenta­tion of that reality.

  Does this discussion seem to you a bit bizarre? Consider it further. Surely you agree that God is capable of sending resurrected people back in time or of pulling back the curtain of time and allowing us to see the past. If he couldn't do this, he wouldn't be God. So the question is whether he might have good rea­sons to do so. One reason might be to show us his providence, grace, and good­ness in our lives and the lives of others. Wouldn't that bring God glory? Wouldn't it cause us to praise and exalt him for his sovereign grace? This is surely a high and God-glorifying response. Couldn't this fit his revealed pur­pose "that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace" (Ephesians 2:7)?

  C. S. Lewis wrote, "Don't run away with the idea that when I speak of the resurrection of the body I mean merely that the blessed dead will have excellent memories of their sensuous experiences on earth. I mean it the other way round; that memory as we know it is a dim foretaste, a mirage even, of a power which the soul, or rather Christ in the s o u l . . . will exercise hereafter. It need no longer . . . be private to the soul in which it occurs. I can now communicate to you the fields of my boyhood—they are building-estates today—only imperfectly, by words. Perhaps the day is coming when I can take you for a walk through them."331

  WILL GOD DO MORE THAN WE IMAGINE?

  In much of what I've just said, I'm speculating, of course. But because the Bible gives a clear picture of resurrection and of earthly civilization in the eternal state, I'm walking through a door of imagination that Scripture itself opens. If all this seems more than you can imagine, I'd encourage you not to reject it sim­ply on that basis. Our God, after all, is called the one "who is able to do immea­surably more than all we ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20). The very next verse gives praise to this God who acts immeasurably beyond our imaginations: "To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!"

  In my novel Edge of Eternity, Nick Seagrave beholds the Woodsman (Jesus) and the end of the world—then realizes it's really a beginning:

  I saw a dying cosmos hold out its weak right arm, longing for a trans­fusion, a cure for its cancerous chasm. I saw the Woodsman, holding what appeared to be a tiny lump of coal, the same size as the blue-green marble he'd held before. The Woodsman squeezed his hand and the world around me darkened. Just as I felt I would scream from unbearable pressure, the crushed world emerged from his grip a diamond. I gasped air in relief.

  I saw a new world, once more a life-filled blue-green, the old black coal delivered from its curse and pain and shame, wondrously remade.

  It looked so easy for the Woodsman to shape all this with his hands. But then I saw his scars . . . and remembered it was not.332

  CHAPTER 45

  REORIENTING OURSELVES TO HEAVEN AS OUR HOME

  I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.

  C. S. Lewis

  When I see ocean fish in an aquarium, I enjoy watching them, but I feel as if something's wrong. They don't belong there. It's not their home. The fish weren't made for that little glass box; they were made for a great ocean.

  I suppose the fish don't know any better, but I wonder if their instincts tell them that their true home is elsewhere. I know our instincts tell us that this fallen world isn't our home—we were made for someplace better. As we've seen, the Bible repeatedly confirms this instinct.

  Theologian Donald Bloesch suggests, "Our greatest affliction is not anxiety, or even guilt, but rather homesickness—a nostalgia or ineradicable yearning to be at home with God."333

  Christian slaves sang of "goin' home to live with God" and a chariot "comin fo' to carry me home." Christians have always thought of going to Heaven as going home. When Je
sus said he was going to prepare a place for us, he spoke of building us a home. To anticipate Heaven, then, we need to understand the meaning of home. Early in the book we touched on it. Now it's time to take a closer look as we move toward our conclusion in the next chapter.

  WHAT HOME IS LIKE

  Have you ever been on a trip that became miserable, where everybody got sick or everything went wrong? What did you want more than anything? Togo home. In your imagination you could feel your comfy bed, taste a home-cooked meal, and picture the company of family and friends laughing together in front of the fire, telling stories about what went wrong on your trip.

  Home is also about comfort. It's a place where we can put on jeans and a sweatshirt and throw ourselves on the couch to relax. It's a place we want to be. As much as I've enjoyed traveling to many different countries, I always love to come home. That craving for home is sweet and deep. Home is our reference point, what we always come back to. No matter how much we enjoy our adventures away, we anticipate coming home. Knowing we can come home is what keeps us going;—and that's what Heaven should do for us. It should keep us going because it's our eternal home, the welcome refuge that awaits us and calls our name.

  Home is where friends come to visit. It's where we putter, plant gardens, read our favorite books, and listen to music we enjoy. Home is where I inhale the wonderful aroma of strong, rich coffee every morning, and where Nanci fixes great meals and her amazing apple pie.

  I realize it sounds as if I'm romanticizing home. I know that many people have had terrible experiences at home. But our true home in Heaven will have all the good things about our earthly homes, multiplied many times, but none of the bad.

  The world says, "You can never go home again." It means that while we were gone, home changed and so did we. Our old house may have been destroyed or sold, been renovated or become run-down. In contrast, when this life is over—and particularly when we arrive on the New Earth—God's children will truly be able to come home for the very first time. Because our home in Heaven will never burn, flood, or be blown away, we'll never have to wonder whether home will still be there when we return. The new heavens and New Earth will never disappear. They'll give a wonderful permanence to the word home.