Another common misconception about eternal life is that Heaven is our final destination. Most people believe the Bible says that if you are saved you go to Heaven forever, and if you are damned you go to Hell forever, but the Bible is very clear on this subject, a New Earth is our ultimate goal. Heaven is an intermediary destination.
Here are some relevant passages on the topic:
2 Peter 3:13
But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Revelation 21:1-4
21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
The idea of being in Heaven forever didn’t come from the Bible. It first seeped into Christian thinking from Greek pagan religion. The Greeks believed that this world and our bodies were evil and the goal was to be released from our bodies. Similar ideas can be found in Hinduism and Buddhism. You can understand from where such thinking came. Our bodies and this world are not as God had created them. We get sick and die. We have all sorts of natural inclinations toward evil. This is because we have been altered by sin and live under the curse of God. It is not because the material universe is inherently corrupt or undesirable, but it can sure seem like it at times. In fact, God’s goal is to restore it original glory rather than abandon His creation.
In more recent times, Enlightenment era theologians had a tendency to conflate scripture that referred to Heaven with those that spoke of the New Earth. As a result, there are many beloved hymns from that era that speak of Heaven as our permanent home. Finding the words “the new Earth” in a hymn is rather unusual. Why this is so probably has something to do with the idea of the resurrection of the dead. Reanimating long-decayed remains seems like a physical impossibility. True people of science would never believe this to be literal. A heavenly goal is not challengeable by the laws of nature, so it seems more believable; but the laws of nature don’t restrict God.
Seminary and Sunday School also can shoulder some of the blame for our not hearing about the New Earth. In systematic theology classes that are jammed packed with topic matter, our eternal destiny tends to be left to the end of the line and was probably not always covered. If pastors were not thorough in their studies of scripture, they could easily overlook or dismiss the temporary nature of both Heaven and Sheol. As noted earlier, Sheol is usually mistranslated in most Bibles, therefore many pastors may not understand it at all. Then there is the training most lay people have had. I’ll admit the true plan of God for eternity is a little complicated. Try explaining it to Sunday School kids or, for that matter, Sunday School teachers. How much easier is it to present the “Heaven forever” model.
The Heaven Forever model does create some dissonance with the “resurrection of the body” that is proclaimed, often weekly, in the Creeds. That is one reason we have the ancient creeds. It is so we don’t lose important parts of the truth to false oversimplifications. If we are in Heaven, why would we need our earthly bodies resurrected? Of course, the answer is because we’re not in Heaven forever, still people readily ignore this contradiction.
Heaven is the destination of the redeemed between death and Judgment Day. What we will experience in Heaven is not well explained in Scripture, but there are several descriptions of God’s throne room which are quite detailed. They will be the topic matter for the next few publications.
afterdeathsite 