In the course of this blog, I have covered the topics of Sheol, Heaven, Judgment Day, dying, Christ’s descent into Sheol, the Resurrection, the New Earth and Hell. Use the search box to find any of these topics and more, if you didn’t see the entries as they came out. We have been on the topic of Hell for awhile, in honor of All Saints Day, which is November 1, let’s go back to the topic of Heaven.
1 John 3:2 raises a question worth thinking about:
Dear friends, now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
What will we be like when we pass from this world, if our destination is Heaven? As the text suggests, there is a lot we don’t know about that topic. We will be whatever a glorified human being is like, because Jesus is still both God and human. While we don’t know much about this, we can say some things. The first set is more about what we will not be like.
We won’t have a sinful nature anymore. Our sinful nature is a part of our flesh and we will leave that behind for the time being. That changes many things. All our tendencies toward selfishness, anger, lust, sloth, greed, addiction and whatever other sin will be gone. We may remember what those are, but we won’t feel it. For the first time ever, we will be able to control our tongue. We will also have God’s love for others saturating our every moment. Just think of the fantastic relationships we will have with the other people in Heaven! Even if we had been conflicted with somebody, if they are saved, there will be a whole new, beautiful relationship with them in Heaven.
Assuming that there will be millions of humans, let alone angels, in Heaven, I wonder who we will know and how much we will relate. At the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John see and know Moses and Elijah. There doesn’t seem to be introductions. I doubt if there were name tags. They just seem to know who they are. I think we will just know people. We will know those who were a part of our lives on Earth and we will know others we had never met.
Our existence in Heaven will not be a ghostly, immaterial existence. Paul speaks of a “heavenly body” in 1 Corinthians 15. He is not referring to a planet nor is he referring to somebody who is sexy. There is a body we will have that is properly a part of Heaven. It is not our resurrected, earthly body for that is properly a part of this universe. What will this body be like or look like? I don’t know. It may resemble you in some way, it may not. It may be a set “age”, it may not. Expect an improvement, however, for another thing we can say about Heaven is that there will be no “curse”.
The Curse is spoken of in Revelation and refers all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It is responsible for such misery as sickness, aging, accidents, natural disasters, boredom and the frustration that goes inherently with this world. The way I like to describe the curse is God taking a step back from the controls. If God didn’t maintain some control, we would all just dissolve into non-existence. The Bible says, Jesus “holds all things together”. But with the rejection of God by Adam and Eve, it seems that God relinquished His control of creation in part. The result is what I listed above. In Heaven, God takes back control, and that is a good thing.
Now we can ask many more questions. Do we eat, sleep, work, or poop? I suspect the answer is yes, but I don’t know for sure. Is there something like sex? What is the experience of time like? Is there really no beer in Heaven, or is that just the words to a polka? We will have to wait on all of that, but what we do know should make you think. You should imagine past the end of life, because the “hope” we have is not wishful thinking. It is a certainty based on the promise of God.
afterdeathsite 