Heaven. What is it?
It used to be the basis of the faith to hold up heaven and hell and say: Where do you want to go? We're less sure what to do with that now, partly, I'd say, because it is unquantifiable escapism and really feels like it has little sticking power for a person's faith and little relevance to day-to-day life. Yes, we live in the hope of heaven, but what is that? What are we hoping for?
Does the Bible want us to think about heaven? What does it want us to think of it? What texts give you your notions of heaven and what do you imagine it to be? Give us your theological insights and your day-to-day heavenly lifestyle speculations.
This one is for the imagination and speculation, since there are more questions than answers. Give us your honest ideas and even your hopes (i.e. I hope we get to play frisbee there a lot).
With all of it we'll try to reflect on what stands up to Scripture.
And while you are at it, give us the top three "Bible heroes" and "saints" you would like to have words with in heaven.
29 comments:
I'll kick us off with some peeves and "pet" ideas, and first my answers to that last question about who you want to meet in heaven (Tuna's idea):
1) I look forward to finding out how I'll coexist for eternity with John MacArthur and not punch him in the face.
2) I love the idea of sitting around the campfire as GKC retells one of his novels or tells us a new one.
3) I like the idea of seeing my son Elijah play chess with Elijah of old, or seeing Angie shake hands with Augustine, or Brady flipping burgers at Balaam's house. Weird stuff like that. And being able to sit down for potato salad with Jesus at a picnic without mosquitoes.
Ideas about heaven: Obviously I see it being about finally-unhindered fellowship with God and one another in physical/spiritual state in a new heavens and new earth. I cringe at ideas of timeless perfection with no sense of discovery or cause and effect experience in a new reality. I read Genesis 1-2 and it doesn't seem to me like that was ever the point.
I feel like the good-very good-holy of the 7days of creation all realize their full potential was we share together in eternal communion with the Father through union with the Son by the power of the Spirit. I think this was always the point, even before the fall, and that without the fall Jesus still would have come and would have given us this fuller realization.
So I don't think of it as a return to Eden but as a fulfillment of its trajectory through Christ.
I cringe at the idea of an infinite sing-song. I see it as a city of joy, peace, fellowhsip, discovery, and relationship with God and one another unhindered and yet needing exploration. And we have plenty of time for all of it.
Even I think it is time for a new topic and that's saying something. So good job on bringing a new topic and one that we can have a little fun with.
My feelings on heaven range the cambit from excitment to dread. This mostly has to do with the wrong ideas about heaven that I have been fed. Heaven is impossible to comprend and when we think about it, it causes a whole range of feelings.
I like what you had to say Fear about still discovering things in heaven. The sense that everything is completed is hard for humans to comprehend. And an eternity of the same stuff seems like it would drive us crazy. On the other hand if we spent an eternity in perfect relationship with God and eachother discovering all God is and has made; that sounds like a great time.
I do believe God wants us to think and dream about heaven. We are suppose to live in the tension of believing that Jesus could return today while still holding to the view that Jesus might not come today. It is good to dream about heaven as long as that is not all you do.
My list of people I want to spend time with heaven might sound strange but I think it makes sense. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel will be my go to guys. This might seem werid but these guys lived pretty miserable lives and their calling was to bring messages of death and judgment to their friends and family. These guys are going to be ready for a good time!
Heaven, I hope it's just Earth 2.0
I've always hated fire insurance evangelicalism, always. Even as a 10 year old I hated it. That included the idea of telling someone to believe in God for the carrot stick of heaven.
Paul does say that our faith is pointless without heaven though doesn't he? So what might it be?
I hope I live with my wife, I hope I play street hockey with my friends and brothers, I hope we still have Christmas and Easter and Communion, I hope there are neighborhood BBQ's and movie theatres. Basically I hope it's earth without mosquitos or money or governments.
Who would I like to meet? Amos, Stephen, John and Ghandi.
Ghandi? When did he convert to Christianity? I'm not sure if your trying to be funny or if you think there is more than one road to heaven?
Fear: Thanks for taking charge yet again and giving us a new topic.
I think I've mentioned my thoughts on this in previous posts; I know I've talked about it with Fear in greater detail.
My thoughts on heaven used to be filled with hopes of Frisbee and barbecues and whatnot. I'd really like to chat up Melchizedek, actually. He's probably at the top on my proverbial list. Can't think of two more... oh, how about Ehud. I guess I have questions for Noah, too.
Anyway, in the past year, though, my own spiritual life has taken a real turn and I can't shake the feeling that heaven is going to be all about worshiping at the throne: face-down, praising-at-the-top-of-our-lungs, trying to worship with more than we have... like a man who has just walked through the desert and is now trying to drink more than his fill of water. I know that doesn't sound interesting or fun to do for an eternity but to me it sounds appropriate for God Most High and even eternity won't be enough for us to simply cry "Holy!" again and again.
I'm not stuck to this view and can't prove it any more than we can prove heavenly frisbee, but my prayer-life of late has been largely re-invigorated with this idea... and in trying to capture a sense of it now. So I'll run with it for a while.
And if there is frisbee and barbecues, well that would be cool too. I could probably handle an eternity of laying in a hammock, watching NASCAR, and drinking cold beer... although some might suggest that's hell.
I think it has to be somewhere between the frisbees and the throne. We need to hold both images in our head probably. Maybe it actually will involve both somehow. I don't feel like God created us just to lie there saying holy, even though he is worthy of it. I feel like there was some fellowship intended for it, and that part of his holiness is exactly this incredibly gracious love, which not only created us with the inkling to invent the frisbee but might actually let us use it in heaven.
NASCAR? No thanks. Maybe we'll have "rec options" in heaven just like at Youth Conference.
I am with you trembling. I can't imgagine spending less than the first thousand years of heaven at least on my knees. In fact, I wouldn't get up until Jesus tapped my shoulder.
Thing is, something tells me he will.
I do want to avoid speaking of heaven merely as one speaking of my favourite things in a loud voice (to paraphrase Barth), but at the same time I think it is a genuine attempt to capture some of that Grace and Purpose in creation which I must believe is also to be there in the new one.
I want to add Ireneaus and St. Lawrence to my list of people I want to meet. (see my blog for why. shameless plug!)
I'll choose floor hockey for my heaven rec option.
Trembling, I hear what you're saying and as Fear said, clearly God is worthy of that but I dont think He'd want it.
I can't find anything in the Bible that points to heaven as a specific place away from and dramatically different than earth. It is spoken about in such symbolic terms and the new earth is mentioned so often as well...
As for Ghandhi, I was both trying to get a rise out of someone and admitting a bit of a penchant for universalism.
Fear: I hate to admit this, but when I was at CBC, the only YC I ever liked was the one when Tuna and I did 36(?) hours of car security. That YC changed me in a profound way (partly because I watched Tuna throw up all over himself).
If heaven has any parallel to YC, I hope to do car security with Tuna again!
I'm not going to dispute throwing up over the YC weekend but it wasn't all over myself. I truly was a wreck that weekend and that experience probably cost me a couple years of my life but I will still outlast you Trembling just so I can do the elogue at your funeral!
I would also look forward to doing car security with you in heaven.
I think we all can agree that God is worth a an eternity of praise but is that solely accomplished by us laying prostate before the throne forever? Isn't God also praised when his creation performs as it should: running fast, writing great songs and books, painting a beautiful picture (all things that I can't do, and probably wont be able to do even in heaven). Maybe in heaven God recieves great praise by watching his creation do what it is suppose to do, without the impacts of sin pulling us down.
Tuna, I'm not a spelling Nazi, but in this case, the meaning really changes! It's "prostrate" before the throne... not "prostate". haha
Yeah, maybe we'll have those singing/painting/soccer options in heaven, but I can't shake the feeling that God is great and we won't WANT to do anything else. Rev. 4-5 has really inspired my thinking on this. I think the first 10 seconds of heaven is going to be us saying "I can't believe how we managed to survive on earth with such scraps of grace, now we're in God's full presence and eternity won't feel like enough time to praise him."
And then the great cloud of witnesses will suddenly unleash bellowing praise. Wow, that's going to kick ass. I'm ready to go!
Tuna, I AM a spelling Nazi, and I'm not sure what an "elogue" is but I expect you might have meant a "eulogy". Personally I don't want anybody doing any elogues at my funeral, sounds foul, haha.
I love the YC dialogue and the heaven parallels. My favourite YC times were wearing those times when I'd get on stage before a rally and stick the fog machine up inside my shirt and get them to fog the living daylights out of me. I was trying to draw some parallels to my visions of heaven with that but I'm drawing a blank.
Anyways, I've always imagined that God is most glorified in us when we are most glorified in him (take that Fear, two can play at the namedropping game, "Piper"). I take that to mean that God gets the most pleasure out of us when we are doing what we are created to do, meaning worship. But I never imagined that as endless singing or lying "prostate". I always thought of it as using the gifts, abilities and skills that God gave us to the best of our ability. And along those lines, I love what fear had to say about the elements of continuing exploration and discovery.
I have no doubt that God is fully worthy of the entirety of humanity of lying on its face in awe and respect for the duration of time, but I just can't imagine He'd actually want that.
Kudos to Tanti for trying to get a rise out of somebody with the Ghandi comment, I might have done that myself had he not beat me to the punch. Perhaps there should be a new S*#tdisturber award with Tanti's name on it. I know Ghandi didn't like Christians but he sure did like Christ, so who knows what might have happened. I'd love to sit down around a spinning wheel with that guy and shoot the breeze.
Other people on my list of people to talk to: Hosea, the writer of Esther, GKC, George MacDonald, and Deion Sanders.
Neon Deion?
I too would like to sit around the heavenly spinning wheel with Gandhi, and will admit to the chance he'll be there, but none of us knows if he actually surrendered to the Saviour or just tried to live by his principles in the area of non-violence. By the way, if you intend to sit around the spinning wheel with him get ready to have him disappear to go sleep with a young girl to test his "mettle". They skipped some stuff in the movie. Great movie though. And a great man. I like the idea of an award about this.
I agree with what has been said in relation to Dr. T. Tremblesalot and also Dr. Tuna's spelling (which he uses as a way to distract us from his brilliance).
I would suggest that there will be prostration, song, etc as in Rev 4 and 5 and that this could last some time or be a recurrent theme. But if that's all God wanted he would have stopped with the angels no? Why make us? Something else is going on here.
I was profoundly impacted by Joni Eareckson Tada's comment that the first thing she'd do in heaven with the use of her new legs would be to fall on her knees at Jesus feet. I'm so with her on that.
But I think Jesus can't wait to pick her up and see her run. Swim, even.
On another note, I don't know what purpose there would be for car security in heaven but I totally want to be on that shift when Tuna and Trembling are on. Those 36 hours are one of the top ten periods in CBC history! I remember going to replace Tuna after a shift and he hobbled out of the car, slipped on a patch of ice and lost everything he was trying to carry on his cafeteria tray.
I wonder if there will be laughter like that in heaven. I don't know how we'll have humour without someone getting hurt.
36 hours of car security was a like a Brillo pad on our souls. It was like the transfiguration.
What's scary is how long we wanted to go, (the ENTIRE weekend) but "the man" wouldn't let us. We could have become gods!
I don't know if I would even be alive if our original plan of doing car security over the entire weekend had been approved. That weekend was truly the best of times and the worst of times.
On to the rants about my spelling. If you want me to be part of this blog you are going to have doeal witth sommee spellling mistakkes. I can bring the funny and some insights but spelling and grammar are beyond me. How about adding a spell-checker to the site?
I can only hope that spelling isn't a part of heaven.
Tanti's comment about Ghandi did creep me out. I'm not the one to decide who goes to heaven (aren't all of you happy about that) but it seems the church is sliding in its view of salvation to include other ways than Jesus. This point of the gospel is clearly troubling to our inclusive society but the Bible stands behind this truth. We probably would sleep better if universalism (I'm not sure if that's even a word)was correct but I fear that it isn't and want to live like its not.
I'm sure we are going to be surprised when we see who is in heaven and who isn't. Again its not up to me to decide but I think we need to be careful and work out our salvation in fear and trembling (this line should garner me some kind of award).
i don't know enough about gandhi to say, and who does, but if the basis of the claim to his salvation is that he followed Jesus' priniciples in a certain way then you basically have a person who has earned salvation by living a certain way. if the basis of this claim is some notion that he had faith in Jesus for salvation/union with God, great. i believe one could discern such a faith by looking for something other than an altar-call style moment of intellectual assent, but again, it comes down to faith in Jesus. if one has faith in oneself or in some system of thought i don't see what separates them from Oprah or Hitler or anyone else.
as far as I'm concerned, the definition of heaven comes down to what are God's purposes for the world. I think we learn these in two main places: Genesis 1-11 and Christology. In other words why did God make us? I see that he made us for a very earthy existence in communion with God, ultimately through Jesus Christ. We're told heaven is a new body and a new city and new heaven and new earth, and I believe it is better than Eden because of what has been accomplished in Christ and also because Eden as such was a work in progress ... but at the same time I think the signs are all there.
Therefore I think heaven is the unhindered eventuality of the kingdom that cannot be shaken (Heb 12), but is yet on its way and is in part breaking into the world already in those with faith.
Tuna, your spelling is fantastic. but prostate (and to a lesser degree: elogue) were well worth pointing out! reminds me of a certain fantasy football team name the Engimas. At least it wasn't the Enemas!
Tuna, I don't care if your spelling is good, bad, or "ulgy" (haha) but when we fall "prostate" before the throne, that changes everything!
Oh, if you run Firefox (which you should) then you'd have a spellchecker.
Hey Fear, your paragraph that started with "if the basis of the claim to his salvation is that he followed Jesus' principles in a certain way then you basically have a person who has earned salvation by living a certain way." didn't go in the direction I expected. Maybe you meant to or maybe you felt that it didn't need to go unstated, but if Gandhi lived this way then wouldn't that make his salvation based on works, not faith? Maybe I misunderstood; that was a first reading.
It's hard to speculate about Gandhi (or anyone) but I do like Sir Ben Kingsley!
i meant it in the negative, as in you have a person saved for living a certin way, which is works, which isn't really how it "works"
This discussion makes me harken back to the past when an amazing movie came out, that movie was called the Matrix. The first installment was incredible. There is a scene in it where Agent Brown is talking to Neo about the first matrix they set up. Agent Brown said it didn't work because it was too much like Eden and humans only understand suffering.
I think there is something to that statement. When we try to think about an eternity free from pain and suffering our minds always lean to the absurd. We don't live in that kind of reality and when we try and contemplate it, it becomes too much for us.
As humans we weigh the moments of happiness in our lives against the moments of pain. Our times of joy seem better compared against our sufferings. So how in heaven is something truly great if there isn't something painful aswell?
I love the promises of the Bible but I can't wrap my head around them and they seem unbelievable.
Back to the Matrix; how did such a great movie spin off two horrible children? I was so looking forward to the sequels but they were just a kick to my nards.
great post tuna. too bad i schooled you in settlers last night.
i think that is a good reminder of our frailty to comprehend. yet i think we are to imagine, or concieve of, what is beyond at least enough to have a sense of what we hope for it. but that hope is tied to what is revealed and given not to our imagination.
matrix 2 was deplorable. makes spiderman 3 look good.
here's my question: do you all think heaven is a return to Eden? a new earth as in a renewed earth? i hear this a lot, and not just from one group, i hear it from my generation and i hear it from the "fogies" too. i think there is a sentiment there that i agree with but i think the new heavens and new earth are way beyond Eden.
I think even earth without sin was intended to go beyond Eden.
Or is this where the millennium comes in? You get both: a renewed earth for 1000 years and then the heaven thing.
this is perplexing to me and i want to see what you all think.
A movie must be quite ridiculously terrible to make Spidey 3 look good in comparison, and if any movie deserves such distinction it might as well be Matrix 2, or perhaps that new justin timerlake movie Alpha Dog or even Land Before Time XIV.
I listend to a great sermon by Rob Bell yesterday on the topic of Heaven. It was pretty neat, he took up the entire church service with an hour and fifteen minute sermon and the crowd sounded like they were quite into it.
Anyways, Bell went in to a pretty exhaustive defensive of his contention that whenever the biblical prophets ever referred to Heaven in a text it was never as though it was some separate place apart from the earth. He says all those texts refer to a Heaven that will be here, with us, on the earth.
He said that often when we tend to think about Heaven we tend to fall into the trap of Dualism and assume that Heaven is all about the spiritual and the physical is left behind. I know most people hold on to the new bodies thing and that is an aspect of physicality but for the most part I think we tend to envision all our activities as purely spiritual and that can give people, like the Tuna, the heebie-jeebies.
He talked about the wholistic nature of salvation and how the physical word will be redeemed right alongside us as well. That's something easily lost sight of too.
Anywas, didn't have any of my own opinions for this post so I thought I would rip some off.
CSU, I listened to that same sermon the other night. I was inspired by a link on one of fear's other blogs - http://www.thissideofsunday.blogspot.com/ If you've never gone there you should, it's good stuff.
Anyway, I hear a lot in the Bible about a "new earth" and the redemption of creation. Recently I was challenged to think about heaven as more than just Eden pre-sin. Again this challenge came from a thoughtful article in the aformentioned blog.
I think and hope heaven-after life-eternal life is to be found on earth, or someplace a lot like it. I also hope it's more than Eden though cause I don't like the idea of walking around nude and not being able to eat from the best tree.
I love the new Ghandi award and I definitely believe it's possible that he's in heaven. I'm gonna leave that one up to God though.
Ah, nice post Tanti. Seems I'm not as on top of the game as I thought since half you have already listened to that same sermon. Oh well.
I remember Rob talking about how we often conceive of heaven as though it were the pre-sin Eden. But Bell talks about how that was merely the starting point of creation and it would have continued growing and developing from there in wonderful directions were it not for the interruption of sin. I like the sounds of that idea.
I would also rather not be walking around in the buff but I care not about eating from the best tree, unless it happens to be some sort of mythical salted meat tree. I will eat from such a tree anyday.
Seems like Fear is a blogoholic. I wonder what Mrs. Fear has to say about that, haha. I will have to go check out his blog, sounds well informed and likely full of ridiculous amount of GKC quotes.
for the record my blogoholism takes away from my studies, and not my family. but it helps me to put my thoughts out there, otherwise i retain nothing. tanti is one of the five people nice enough to read along.
uncanny how you listened to that sermon too CSU. i liked what Bell was saying but had one problem. to me it seems like he is almost saying that we can bring heaven to earth by living as Christ did and "partnering in the resurrection" and such. yes, i believe that is what the church is about. but unless we hold in tension the other concept which is that this new earth and new heaven is only possible upon Christ's physical return. in other words, we are working as a church to bring more of the Kingdom of Heaven to earth ("the already") but we can't forget that as sin-tainted human beings this side of Christ's return ("the not yet") we'll never quite get it. if we lose sight of this i think our voice merely blends in with the postmodern utopia movement that seems to be catching on. its a fine movement, but i hope people realize that every past attempt at utopia has fallen short and there is NO reason to think this one will be any different.
we need saving. from above. really.
this Sunday in Sunday School I shared "my" theory (I actually got it from Irenaeus and as a tangent from Barth) that Eden was incomplete, the point was to grow, and that Christ was always going to come, sin or not. The amazement of grace is that he still came, despite our rejection, rebellion, etc..
I just can't see how an incarnate God and a resurrection to a new heaven and new earth and a new body could have been a "tag on" to the plan because of sin. This makes sin good! I think it was always God's plan to do this. I think Enoch and Elijah got what everyone would have got if not for sin. I think the point was always for us to grow from "very good" (day 6) into "complete" and "holy" in communion with God, ultimately through Jesus.
Sin is not diminished. It is all the more devestating. It has wrecked that for all of us. But Jesus still came. We must still trust him and obey him (as Adam and Eve) had to trust and obey. But due to sin we must also repent. We must. Else we think we're gods, and, well, Adam and Eve showed us what that does.
SO, heaven: something better. Something we live for on earth, and yet long for as something yet to come when Christ finishes the deal.
fear, agreed.
Fear, your readership now numbers 6. And I think it will soon grow once I perfect my new mass emailing virus, muahahahaha.
Funny, I never got that impression from the Bell sermon that we as humans could succeed in bringing heaven to earth without Christ. But maybe I started to drift off after the first hour or something. If he were to use his favourite phrase "Are we tracking?" I would have been forced to say "yes, but just barely".
I do like the responsibility that comes along with the idea of Heaven eventually coming to earth. It sure emphasizes to me how we need to be better stewards and how we can't just rampantly consume because we think we've got some ticket off this rock once we give up the ghost.
I love "your" idea Fear about the incomplete Eden. There is something unsettling to me about perfection. I don't like the loss of discovery and exploration and growth that seems to go along with it. But then again maybe my definition of perfection is just way too narrow.
Incidentally, how did it go over with your sunday school class when you told them about it?
puzzled looks. got told it was "interesting". and that is rarely a compliment. on the other hand most people seemed pleasantly enlightened. not enlightened in the sense that they unthinkingly bought it but in the sense that they were going to chew on it. one fellow was sure to point out that sin is still a major enemy that Jesus' incarnation ended up battling. people seemed to think it tenable at least. one guy said i hurt his brain.
anyway, your point about perfection is a good one, csu. where we got the idea that eden was perfect is beyond me. and even if it was, who defines perfection as a static existence? i suppose we get it from the idea that GOd is unchanging, but can't he continue in the throes of relationship with is creation without essentially changing? and as far as it goes for us, even when we're made perfect, why can't that involve an eternity of growth and discovery? that is only imperfect if we assume that heavenly perfection equals immediate omniscience. i'm not sure where we get that idea.
Good points you guys. To it's detrement the Evangelical church has promoted the idea that heaven is some other place far removed from earth. This attidue has fostered an idea that we can destroy the earth, and that social justice issues aren't as important as saving souls.
That being said I am concerend with those who promote the idea that heaven can be achieved here on earth. This notion seem to teach moralism, that if we just work harder, love harder, do the right things that heaven will be established on earth.
TO me the Bible seems to teach both ideas that heaven is another place and is something that will be established on earth. This leads me to think that God wants us to hold in tension these two views. To realize that as Christians we are to dedicate ourselves to living Christians lives out of love for God but also to realize that this earth is so corrupt, sick, and evil and needs to be destroyed.
I'm not sure how this translates to real life but for now I find it easier to say that both camps are dead wrong and probably a little right.
Wow, Tuna really seems to be filling in the gaping hole I left with frequent posts! Way to step it up Tuna.
I haven't checked in on this site for close to a month I bet, but I read through this fantastic stuff on heaven tonight, and thought I would pipe in with a couple of thoughts, since heaven seems to be on my mind more in the last year than ever before.
Every once in a while, in my recent experience, I get a thought about eternity and I'm blown away. I think about the verse in 1 Corinthians 13 that says, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face." I already feel that God is at times, quite awesome and overwhelming, so the feeling of "bigness" I get when I consider that what I see now is just a poor reflection is a bit scary. Not that I'm scared of heaven...but in a way I am. I get this sense of being in a wide, unfillable chasm, amazed at how little I really knew. (Not that I think heaven is a wide, unfillable chasm- it's just the feeling I'm trying to describe.) It's not so much fear as awe. Hard to describe. But it doesn't take much to convince me that I would likely fall to my knees. For a long time.
After that, I would want to sit and chat with the apostle John and choose football as my heavenly rec option. =)
i'll admit heaven frightens me. always has. only in intimacy with Jesus and fellowship with others for me does that go away.
welcome back hansens.
i'm thinking of posting a new topic when i get a chance ... so get in your last thoughts on heaven.
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