Heaven

by Randy Alcorn

  APPENDIX B

  LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE INTERPRETATION

  If my interpretation is accurate of even one-quarter of the Scripture passages I've cited in this book, then the Bible says a great deal more about Heaven than many Christians have ever considered. How could this be? A major reason is the interpretive assumptions we bring to Scripture.

  For years, I taught biblical interpretation at a Bible college. We studied the different types of biblical literature and how to interpret each—including his­torical narrative, wisdom, poetry, prophecy, and instruction (especially the Epistles). There's considerable overlap between these literary forms. For in­stance, the Gospels are historical narrative but include Christ's parables. The letters are instructional but include some history and poetry. Biblical poetry of­ten recalls historical events. Historical books contain prophecy. Prophetic books include history and instruction. Daniel and Revelation are apocalyptic books that contain both history and prophecy. Therefore, it's a mistake to say that every statement in a historical book should be taken literally and every statement in an apocalyptic book should be taken figuratively. We must always evaluate meaning in light of immediate context.

  In studying biblical interpretation in the classroom, we'd often go to texts commonly understood a certain way, then try to discern what the original writer was conveying to the original readers. Often we found a striking difference be­tween what the texts actually said and how they were popularly understood. We realized that our minds often weren't open to the meaning of the texts because of the preconceived ideas we were reading into them, ideas we'd heard from others or picked up from our culture, but which didn't correspond to Scripture.

  This is why we read in Luke 15:7 that Jesus says there is "rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents," yet we don't believe that people in Heaven are aware of what's happening to people on Earth. We read in Luke 16:9 that we should "use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings," yet we don't believe we'll have homes in Heaven and open those homes to each other. We read passages in the prophets promising that God's people will live forever on a righteous Earth, then assume this must mean a spiritual blessing in an incorporeal Heaven. We read that we will have resurrection bodies and will eat and drink at tables with Christ and fellow believers, yet we don't actually envision this to be true. We read in the last two chapters of Revelation about nations on the New Earth and kings of those nations bringing their treasures into the city, yet we don't believe there will be real nations or kings of those nations. Many doubt there will be a city at all. The examples go on and on—when it comes to the eternal state, we don't let Scripture say what it says.

  Then, despite these and innumerable other passages, we say, "The Bible tells us very little about Heaven." The truth, in my opinion, is that we simply don't believe the significant amount the Bible tells us about Heaven. Our christoplatonic assumptions have a stranglehold on us and impair our ability to interpret Scriptures that deal with the afterlife. Only by discarding those as­sumptions and replacing them with the scriptural doctrines of bodily resurrec­tion and life on the New Earth can we interpret Scripture in ways that allow "bodies" to be bodies, "eating" to be eating, and "dwelling places" to be dwelling places. I'm well aware that many readers will question my interpretations in this book, often because they've never heard them before. They sound far-fetched because we're unaccustomed to them. Though some of my hundreds of inter­pretations are undoubtedly flawed, I believe most of them are sound. I encour­age readers to let the texts speak for themselves—let God speak to you without filtering his words through christoplatonic assumptions.

  If we abandon the unbiblical assumptions that predetermine our biblical in­terpretations, the otherworldly house of cards will come crashing down. In its place we'll be able to construct a doctrine of Heaven that's solidly based on re­vealed Scripture.

  To do this, let's further examine what went wrong—how, historically, the church has embraced false assumptions that distort our view of Heaven.

  SCHOLASTICISM'S UNEARTHLY HEAVEN

  Prior to the Middle Ages, people thought of Heaven tangibly—as a city or a paradise garden, as portrayed in Scripture. But the writings of twelfth-century theologians such as Peter Abelard and Peter Lombard and thirteenth-century theologian Thomas Aquinas led to the philosophical movement known as scholasticism, which came to dominate medieval thought and ultimately took hostage the doctrine of Heaven.

  The scholastic writers viewed Heaven in a much more impersonal, cold, and scientific manner than their predecessors. They departed from the Heaven of Scripture that contains both the unfamiliar transcendent presence of God, surrounded by the cherubim, and familiar earthly objects and personages, in­cluding people wearing clothes and having conversations. They embraced a Heaven entirely intangible, immaterial, and hence—they thought—more spiritual.358 They claimed that Heaven couldn't be made of familiar elements such as earth, water, air, and fire. Instead, they argued, "the empyrean [the highest heaven or heavenly sphere] must be made of a fifth and nobler ele­ment, the quintessence, which must be something like pure light."359 And they ignored almost entirely—or allegorized into oblivion—the New Earth as the eternal dwelling place of resurrected humans living with the resurrected Jesus in a physical realm of natural wonders, physical structures, and cultural distinctives.

  The scholastic view gradually replaced the old, more literal under­standing of Heaven as garden and city, a place of earthly beauty, dwelling places, food, and fellowship. The loss was incalculable. The church to this day has never recovered from the unearthly—and anti-earthly—theology of Heaven constructed by well-meaning but misguided scholastic theologians. These men interpreted biblical revelation not in a straightforward manner, but in light of the intellectually seductive notions of Platonism, Stoicism, and Gnosticism.

  According to Aquinas, neither plants nor animals will have a place in Heaven, the world of light.360 He argued there would be no active life in Heaven, only contemplation.361 Because God is the great object of our worship, Aquinas supposed we would think of nothing and no one but God.

  Aquinas was absolutely correct that God is the cosmic center. But his faulty logic reshaped our understanding of Heaven by undercutting the bibli­cal doctrines of physical resurrection, Paradise restored on the New Earth, and the redeemed culture and community of the New Earth's holy city and nations. His view neglected the eternal nature of Christ's humanity and im­manence, entirely eclipsing them with his deity and transcendence. Scholastic theology requires that we negate or spiritualize countless Scriptures, rejecting the plain meaning.

  Though some thinkers later departed from scholasticism, its underlying christoplatonic views never lost their grip on the Western church.

  SHOULD WE TAKE LITERALLY WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS ABOUT HEAVEN?

  No one interprets the Bible absolutely literally or absolutely figuratively. Whether we tend more toward the literal or the figurative largely depends on our assumptions. People who believe Christ's body remained in the grave must interpret the Resurrection accounts figuratively. If they believe that Christ liter­ally rose, but that Heaven will be a realm of disembodied spirits, then they will take some of Christ's words literally, but take figuratively Christ's references to Heaven being an actual place, mankind one day inheriting the earth, and the physical universe being renewed. They will take figuratively God's fashioning of the new heavens, New Earth, and New Jerusalem.

  Obviously there are many figures of speech in the Bible, such as when Peter is called a rock and Christ is called a door, a lamb with seven eyes, and is said to have a sword coming out of his mouth.

  Scripture is also full of accounts that should be taken literally, such as Noah's flood and ark, the plagues, crossing the Red Sea, and Christ being born in Beth­lehem, calming the storm, healing people, multiplying loaves and fishes, being crucified, physically rising from the dead, and ascending.
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br />   I believe that our resurrection bodies wouldn't be called bodies if they weren't actual bodies. They wouldn't be said to be like Christ's body if they won't be, just as Christ wouldn't be portrayed as literally rising from the dead and having a resurrection body if he didn't. Similarly, Paradise wouldn't be called paradise if it wasn't Edenlike, at least to a degree. (It need not be identical to Eden, of course.) Similarly, I believe the New Earth wouldn't be called the New Earth if it wasn't earthlike. Kings wouldn't be called kings and ruling wouldn't be called ruling if the meaning didn't largely correspond to those words. (The meaning needn't be limited to what these words mean presently, but there must be substantial correlation.)

  The detailed literal fulfillment of Christ's first coming and death portrayed in Isaiah 52-53 and 61:1-3 instructs us on how we should interpret Isaiah 6066's detailed descriptions of a coming life of righteousness and peace on what is called a "new earth." Similarly, I believe that the historical accounts of Christ's life on Earth after his resurrection should instruct us how to interpret Revela­tion 21-22's account of our lives on the New Earth after our resurrection. It's true that large portions of both Isaiah and Revelation contain figurative and apocalyptic depictions, some of which should not be taken literally. Yet we shouldn't make the same mistake many scholars make with Isaiah 52-53, spiri­tualizing these passages and entirely missing their central—and very literal—points, even in the midst of much that's figurative.

  HOW LITERALLY SHOULD WE INTERPRET THE BIBLE AS A WHOLE?

  It's demonstrably true that Revelation, as apocalyptic literature, often shouldn't be taken literally. Will the blood literally flow up to the horses' bridles (14:20)? Will Christians become pillars in the temple (3:12)? Is there really a seven-horned, seven-eyed lamb, and are there seven spirits of God (5:6)? If you took their temperature, would the Laodiceans be lukewarm? Does Christ literally spit them out of his mouth (3:16)? Is Christ actually knocking at the door (3:20)? Is he the lion ofJudah (5:5) and the lamb with seven eyes? Is the woman literally clothed with the sun (12:1)? Does a great prostitute sit on many waters (17:1)? Is there literally a great red dragon with seven heads (12:3)? These are figures of speech. They can't be taken literally without contradicting known facts, both observable to us and elsewhere revealed in Scripture.

  It's obvious that certain numbers, especially the numbers seven and twelve, and various multiples of twelve, have symbolic significance in Revelation. As I've developed elsewhere, the thousand years of the Millennium have been understood either literally or figuratively by orthodox Christians throughout history362 (However, those who disagree about the Millennium can nonetheless agree on the New Earth.)

  When John the Baptist said, "Look, the Lamb of God," no one should (or does) think he was affirming that Jesus had wool and walked on four legs (John 1:29). Rather, John meant, "Look, this man Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrificial system." Note, however, that this figure of speech alludes to realities with physical correspondence—the actual, literal death of Jesus on the cross. So, the figure of speech had an actual (one might say almost literal) fulfillment in Christ's crucifixion.

  Christ's words to the seven churches of Revelation 2-3 contain some figura­tive language. But shouldn't we believe these were actually seven churches, lo­cated in the specified geographical locations? In Revelation, didn't the real apostlejohn witness certain real events, some past, some present, and some future, including the physical return of Christ to the earth? Revelation, like other books of Scripture, contains passages that must be interpreted according to their con­text.

  Peter, in an instructional letter, tells the church about the new heavens and Earth, with no suggestion that he's speaking figuratively. Isaiah spoke of new heavens and a New Earth in very tangible, descriptive, earthly ways. Hence, when we hear of God creating new heavens and a New Earth in Revelation 21, we would be mistaken to assume it doesn't have a literal meaning corresponding to the Bible's previous references to a New Earth.

  When Jesus is described as a lamb with seven eyes, it contradicts known facts to take that literally. But would it contradict known facts to believe that on the New Earth there will be a great city with streets of gold and gates made of pearls (Revelation 21:21), and with trees and a river (22:1-2)?

  When Christ is described as riding on a white horse (Revelation 19:11), must this be purely symbolic? When he rode a colt into Jerusalem (John 12:1216), it had symbolic meaning, but it was also literal—he was actually riding a colt. If Christ could descend from Heaven at the Second Coming, why couldn't he just as easily come down riding on a horse? Kings often rode horses into van­quished cities. Thus, commentators say that riding a horse symbolizes a kingly entrance. Of course it does. But that's because kings really did ride horses into cit­ies. And they really did sit on thrones that had symbolic significance. Christ has a body suited to sitting on a throne and riding a horse, doesn't he? He created horses and exults in their magnificence (Job 39:19-25). Why should we assume he won't actually return on horseback or sit on a throne?

  Of course, I recognize that thrones and horses can be used figuratively, partic­ularly in apocalyptic literature. But if you look at the passages of Scripture I've cited in this book, you'll find that most of them are not from apocalyptic litera­ture. Many of them are from epistles and books of historical narrative where the authors normally expect us to take their words literally.

  Because we know that Christ's resurrected body is physical and that our resur­rected bodies will be like his, there isn't a compelling reason to assume that other physical depictions of the New Earth must be figurative. The doctrine of resur­rection should guide our interpretation of texts concerning the eternal state.

  When faced with a decision about whether to interpret a passage of Scrip­ture literally or figuratively, how do we know which is right? One way is to in­terpret based on what the Bible says elsewhere about the same subject. Consider Revelation 2:7, "I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." A figurative or allegorical interpreter might say that the tree of life stands for eternal life, and its fruit symbolizes that God will spiritually nourish us in Heaven. A literal interpreter would say it means there's an actual Paradise with a real tree bearing real fruit that will actually be eaten by people with real bodies.

  In Genesis 1-3, Scripture tells us about mankind's nature and about Para­dise. Was Paradise an actual place? Yes. Was the tree of life there actually a tree? Yes. Did it have fruit on it that people could eat? Yes. Did the people have actual bodies with which they took bites of fruit, chewed, and swallowed? Yes. If this tree of life is our reference point when we read Revelation 2:7,1 see no reason to believe that the tree of life depicted there isn't a literal, physical tree.

  As Francis Schaeffer points out in Genesis in Space and Time, it's essential to a Christian understanding of history that we realize the early chapters of the Bible are not allegory or metaphor. It's also important that the final chapters of the Bible, which correspond so closely to the first, aren't stripped of their physi­cal reality.

  If after we die we'll never again be physical beings living in a physical place, then by all means we should not take Revelation 21-22—or any of the other passages about Heaven—literally. But because Scripture teaches us that we will be resurrected beings serving God in a resurrected universe, we should take at face value what it says about the New Earth.

  CAN SOMETHING BE SYMBOLIC AND LITERAL?

  One of the frustrating aspects of christoplatonic interpretation is the tendency of interpreters to assume that because something is symbolic it can't also be lit­eral. Earlier I referred to thrones. A throne is rightly regarded as a symbol of power and authority. When Jesus says that his disciples will sit on thrones and rule a kingdom on the earth (Luke 22:30), some regard this as purely symbolic. But every earthly king sits on a throne. His throne is, of course, symbolic of his power and authority, but it's also an actual physical object. Nevertheles
s, inter­preters often understand the throne in the New Jerusalem as purely figurative (Revelation 21:3,5). They read the word city and think "relationship," walls and think "security,"gates and think "access to God." Personally, I believe in all these symbolic meanings, but I also believe there will be a real city (the New Jerusa­lem) with real walls and real gates.

  Suppose you travel to Switzerland. After returning, you tell others about what you saw. You describe the Alps, the jagged peaks and slopes, the beautiful rivers and trees, the shops and the city streets. What would you think if some­one said, "When he speaks of the peaks, he's speaking of the lofty, transcendent nature of Switzerland, which he experienced in a disembodied state, floating in the spiritual realm. By streets, he means that one may journey there into deeper spiritual truths. By waters, he means the place is pure and life-giving, a source of refreshment. By trees, he means the place is alive with a beauty which can't be put in human words."

  How would you feel? Frustrated? How might God feel when he tells us about the New Earth and the New Jerusalem—a huge city with a river going through it, and the tree of life bearing fruit, and people living there, coming and going through its gates—and we take it as nothing but a collection of symbols, without substance? Both in Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 20-22, in order to generate "spiritual" meanings, interpreters too often strip the text of its literal meanings.

  IS THE NEW JERUSALEM A LITERAL, MASSIVE CITY?

  In describing the New Jerusalem, the apostle John writes, "The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass" (Revelation 21:21). The pearls John de­scribes are gates set in walls that are two hundred feet thick.