Heaven is something that we all mention a lot but rarely do a lot of thinking about it in any serious way. And most of us have a pretty bizarre and distorted view of what it will be like. To make matters worse, because of that distorted view, most of us if we were honest are not really in any hurry to get there. It just seems so boring to float around in the clouds singing praises for all of eternity. Am I right? Well let me try to shake up your image a little and I think you might just like it.
First of all let me say that all of my information came from reading the Bible and studying all of the Scriptures related to heaven. Then through prayer I asked the Holy Spirit to teach me and guide my study, and to not allow me to teach anything untrue. Obviously in a topic like this there is a lot of ambiguity and I will indicate where things are a little more uncertain. I did not consult other books or references on the subject till after I was finished. I will mention two books that are helpful, neither of which I agree with completely. The first is "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn. The second is "Surprised By Hope" by N.T. Wright.
But why study heaven at all? There is plenty to occupy our time here. The first reason is that God mentions it a lot in His book. It is mentioned 667 times in the OT and 284 times in the NT. Then there are numerous references to heaven without mentioning it by name. Secondly, heaven is our hope and if our hope is what drives us then we should have an accurate view of what we are getting into. Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him. The hope of heaven can allow us to endure various trials that come our way. Paul says in I Cor. 15:19 that if for this life only we have hope then we are of all people most to be pitied. And lastly in Eph. 1:18 Paul wants us to know the hope to which He has called us.
So what is heaven? In its most basic sense heaven is where God dwells or where the Presense of God is. We need to be careful to not be confused with two things. Often the Bible speaks of the heavens (the heavens declare the glory of God) when in the proper context it is referring to the sun, moon and stars ect. Then in the NT there are references to the Kingdom of heaven. This is referring to the rule and reign of God here on earth - essentially the church universal. But is heaven a real physical place or is it some state of mind or conscience existence? The Bible speaks of God creating heaven (Gen. 1:1) and so it must have physical properties. Numerous references to things going on in heaven all suggest that it is a real place. But I do not think that we can go to it in our current state. I do not know but suspect that it operates in different dimensions than what we have to work with. Are there different levels? Despite Paul's journey to the third heaven (II Cor. 12:2), there is little evidence of levels. And the Paradise referred to three times in Scripture is probably equivalent to heaven.
That is all I will cover this week, but stay tuned and I will cover who is there, what it looks like and its characteristics. Then I will write on our resurrection and what happens to us when we die before Christ returns. Lastly I will discuss the new heaven and the new earth and I think what I say may knock your socks off, but may have you more anxious than ever to be there.
No comments:
Post a Comment