A while back I wrote a post about The Good Place, a comedy about four people in the afterlife. I promised in that post to write a follow-up on the widespread belief that heaven will be boring. Spoiler alert: the characters in The Good Place come to that conclusion and most of them opt for eventually ceasing to exist. They exhausted all the new experiences, all their unfulfilled longings. There was no god in The Good Place, which is an obvious difference from our Christian beliefs. But apparently a lot of people who do believe in God also think that heaven will be boring.
I decided I needed to do some in depth reading on heaven. I wrote recently about Imagine Heaven, a book about near death experiences. It recounted really encouraging testimonies that there is an afterlife and that heaven is not boring. But that book is not a thorough study of what the Bible says about heaven. I am currently reading Randy Alcorn’s 560 page book on heaven. I have borrowed it online from my library and it is due in 3 days, after which time I will have to wait for it to become available again. I am 22% through the book, but feel I have read enough to write this post! And not having read the whole book, perhaps my post will be shorter and to the point!
Alcorn begins by talking about the many misconceptions about heaven and about the lack of joy of anticipation. “Tragically, … most people do not find their joy in Christ and Heaven. In fact, many people find no joy at all when they think about Heaven. A pastor once confessed to me, “Whenever I think about Heaven, it makes me depressed. I’d rather just cease to exist when I die.” “Why?” I asked. “I can’t stand the thought of that endless tedium. To float around in the clouds with nothing to do but strum a harp…it’s all so terribly boring.” (Section 1, Chapter 1) Alcorn goes on to include quotes from other Christians that essentially say the same thing.
Alcorn believes that most of us have been taught little about heaven and that what we have been taught is largely wrong. For instance, the quote above indicates that this pastor thinks we will be in an “unending church service” (a quote from another person), and that we will have nothing else to do. The reference to floating around probably indicates a belief that we will no longer have bodies. So many people, Christian and non-Christian, have these misconceptions, which Alcorn sees as a strategy of Satan to discourage us:
“Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn’t exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence. If we believe that lie, we’ll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we’ll set our minds on this life and not the next, and we won’t be motivated to share our faith. Why should we share the “good news” that people can spend eternity in a boring, ghostly place that even we’re not looking forward to?” (Section 1, Chapter 1, “Where do we get our misconceptions?”)
Alcorn holds the view that there are two heavens. The first is the “paradise” into which the thief on the cross entered after death as a result of his saving faith in Jesus. In this paradise or “Present Heaven”, all believers who die are presently waiting for the culmination of history, the judgement throne and the re-making of Heaven and Earth. He believes even in “Present Heaven” God’s people have bodies. They are experiencing joy and deliverance from sin, but they also are waiting for the final fulfillment of God’s promises of justice, reward and new heavens and earth. They are aware of events on the fallen earth, and as illustrated by the martyrs in Revelation 6:9-11, they are yearning for something which has not yet taken place. Still believers who have died have entered a place far better than the earth they left, though they have not yet reached the Heaven we will all enter together after the completion of history.
The second heaven is what is described in Revelation 20 and 21, the New Heaven and the New Earth, between which there will be no division, and which will be the location of the New Jerusalem. God will be present among us. This will be a fully physical place, It is also described in Isaiah 65 and 66 and 2 Peter 3:13. Alcorn deduces from these passages that, as Adam and Eve were put into the garden originally to rule all creation, so in the new heaven and earth, we redeemed humans will be recommissioned to rule and to work. (Because human history and marriage are now fulfilled, one difference will be that we no longer birth new humans to fill the earth; the earth will be filled with all the born-again.)
One particularly beautiful aspect of this heaven is that a multi-ethnic body of Christ will bring into the kingdom all of their different cultures. Culture will be redeemed, not erased, no longer a form of idolatry, pride or division. Isaiah 66 makes reference to people streaming into the kingdom from many nations, on chariots, litters, mules and dromedaries. Revelation 7 makes reference to the multitude praising God from every tribe, people and language. A second blessing to anticipate will be to enjoy in all their perfection the physical wonders of the world, not only which God has made, but also which his human creatures make, untainted by sin and rebellion against God. Alcorn believes this is what we were created to do from the very start. Yes, we will corporately worship in song, but we will worship in the whole of life. We will make things! We will work without thorns and thistles to spoil the product. We will feast. We will fellowship with loved ones from our personal history, but we will also make new friends and experience all cultures and nature. The tears will be wiped away. The lion will lie down with the lamb. These are things which the Bible tells us. And third, there will be a pervasive sense of Rest, even amidst the blessed work the Scriptures describe. Rest from hurry and anxious toil, fear of guilt and death. Hearts fully cleansed to long for good things with a pure heart. Face to face with Jesus. Perhaps we still can’t imagine how endlessly wonderful it will be, but the older I get, the more I trust that Jesus has prepared a place for me, and that to be with him will be wonderful.
Alcorn writes from a theological framework which not all Christians share, which he forthrightly acknowledges. He interprets some things literally, which other faithful theologians interpret more figuratively. Nevertheless, a different interpretive lens cannot falsify or substantively change the promises of eternal joy which Jesus gave to his followers. (John 14, Matthew 25:21, 23) Faithful Christians all share the hope of the Life to come on a creedal level (see the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed), whether or not on a functional level we misunderstand the expectation of heaven so thoroughly that we are not motivated by it in our daily life. The hope of eternal blessing was attested to by Hebrew prophets, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, the writer to the Hebrews, Paul, Jude, and James. In 1 Peter 1, Peter writes to us of the hope that fills us, though we cannot see Jesus at present, and how it motivates us to holy living and endurance through trials. Again Peter says in this second epistle: “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:13)
In my personal experience, so many people are weary of a world filled with unrighteousness. Then why don’t we long for heaven? We all might give different reasons. I personally need to consider what the Bible says about heaven. The Bible holds out heaven as a key to our endurance. To endure with eyes fixed on heaven is to walk in the footsteps of the pioneer of our faith:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”(Hebrews 12:1-3)
The apostles who had the privilege of walking with Jesus for three years, yearned for heaven because they so missed his presence. They sought to pass on that yearning. Paul said in Philippians 1 that personally, if given a choice of outcomes from his imprisonment, he would prefer to die and be present with the Lord. But that wish did not make any of them unmotivated to serve faithfully as long as the Lord appointed for them to be on this earth.
I remember one conversation with my father, after my mom passed. (I have probably written about this before!) Dad longed to be with Mom again. He spoke of that often. But this one conversation was unusual because he spoke of looking forward to serving God with pure motivations, maybe what David was referring to in Psalm 86:11 as a united heart. I long for that as well. I get tired of my sinful heart!
I always loved the movie The Wizard of Oz. I loved the beginning of the scene where the four beleaguered travelers come out of the dark woods, onto a vista of the Emerald City across a field of poppies. One of them says to the others something like, “Let’s run! The Emerald City is closer and more beautiful than ever!” That is essentially what the writer to the Hebrews is saying – “let us run with endurance…looking to Jesus,…who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” He is there, praying for us, awaiting the time when his Bride is assembled for his wedding. Those of you who are married may remember looking forward to your wedding days. We need to stir one another up to love and good deeds, all the more as “we see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25)