Tag: New Earth

Confusing Heaven and the New Earth

One thing that seems to escape many Christians, even clergy and theologians, is that Heaven and the New Earth are two separate places. The idea that there is just Heaven and Hell has been broadly taught for generations. We have even gone soft on these. “Heaven” is almost never capitalized. Does this mean that the editors of various hymnals and Bible translations consider “Heaven” to be a concept rather than a place with a name? And many Christians don’t believe in Hell.

If you are of the impression that there is only Heaven and Hell, where did you learn that? What Bible passages were used? Or was this just the general description given you as a child by adults who never studied the Scripture for this topic? Such an idea can become entrenched in our mind. We are certain that it must be in the Bible, but it is not.

A couple of linguistic things add to our confusion. First, the Greek word for “Heaven” is used to describe “the atmosphere” (first heaven), “the universe” (second heaven), and the dwelling place of God or what I would describe as “Heaven” (third heaven).

“Hell” an English word with a long history of where it came from, is often sloppily assigned to two Aramaic words, “Gehenna”, which was just transliterated into Greek (so it is a Greek word too), and “Sheol” which is translated into Greek as “Hades”. I think it is interesting that one word is just borrowed by Greek (like the word “hard drive” is rarely changed in other languages) and the other is assigned a word with a lot of meaning. “Hades” is also a place of the dead for the Greek people. From this I would conclude that “Gehenna” and “Sheol” are not synonyms. They are two place names, and the latter conceptually fits with the Greek idea of Hades. The result is the tendency to merge places that exist before Judgment Day with those that only exist after Judgment Day.

Heaven, as most of us would think of it, clearly exists now. It is the visible dwelling place of God, the Cherubim (also called Seraphim) and the angels. It will continue to exist after Judgment Day but will not be the visible dwelling place of God. The New Earth is something spoken of in both Old and New Testaments. It is not Heaven and only will exist after Judgment Day. It becomes the formal dwelling place of God with the arrival of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21.

Sheol/Hades is a place for the damned (and until Jesus made atonement for sin, the Old Testament righteous) that exists today. What I would call “Hell”, Jesus calls “Gehenna”, and John calls the “Lake of Fire”; does exist until after Judgment Day. That it is something distinct from Sheol/Hades is established in Revelation 20:14 where Hades is thrown into the Lake of Fire. I guess at that point they become the same thing.

So will we be in Heaven forever? With the resurrection of our bodies on Judgment Day, the New Earth will become both our permanent dwelling and the dwelling place of God (Rev. 21:1-4); but there are some clues that Heaven remains in the mix somehow. First there is this:

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 5:1

Does Paul mean “heavens” as the universe or as the current dwelling place of God? Is “heaven” wherever God dwells or a place of its own? I believe Paul is not speaking of the universe and that Heaven is a place, even after God dwells with man on the Earth. Another passage:

According to his (God’s) great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

1 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV 1984)

We do go to Heaven when we die. God and probably the New Jerusalem are a part of Heaven that is eternal, but will move to the New Earth. Still, I think this is saying that part of our eternal inheritance is Heaven, the place. The New Earth and Heaven could be our home eternally. There is the movement of the New Jerusalem, which could be the sum total of Heaven, to the New Earth. This would create a parallel to the merging of Sheol and Gehenna described above, but symmetry is all that interpretation has going for it.

While I can see that some of the questions that can be raised about our eternity are unanswered, merging Heaven and the New Earth doesn’t honor the Scriptures, which clearly describes them as distinct. Either way, these things are ours by grace. God prepares for us a body or bodies and a sin and curse free place of existence where we are with Him.

The New Earth in Isaiah

The New Earth appears in several passages in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments.  One of the weirdest, and hardest to reconcile with the rest of scripture, is found in Isaiah 65:17-25.  I will emphasize that this is my take on this difficult passage and I have more questions than answers.  Prophecy is often purposely unclear.  Some aspects are meant only to be understood when either hindsight or the Holy Spirit unlocks its true meaning.  For prophecies in Isaiah, the mode in which he received them could be a part of the issue.  Isaiah’s prophecies read like verbal descriptions of visions.  Visions that were presented almost like Powerpoint presentations.  What I mean is that one “slide” could be the present, the next Jesus’ first coming, the last Judgment Day; and there is no sense of elapsed time.  Hindsight shows you that there is elapsed time.

With respect to Isaiah 65, Isaiah may be interpreting the vision in terms he and his immediate readers would understand.  We need the rest of scripture to give us “hindsight” into how to understand some the things that he writes.

The section starts with great clarity as to what it is about:

Behold I will create new heavens and a new earth.

This passage is not about Heaven.  It is not about a “millennium”.  It is about a to be created new universe with a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

This may make you a little sad.  I don’t think this means that we will forget about our relationships nor that the good God worked through us and for us will be forgotten.  Rather the pain and difficulty inherent in our present time will become a memory that fades away.

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.  I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.

These words stand for themselves, but the next part is where it gets weird.

Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.

For people who probably had a life expectancy of 45 years, this might seem like quite an upgrade, but God has promised us “eternal” life.  Verses about eternal life have to inform our understanding here.  Will there be infants and old men?  Living and dying?  Being accursed?  Sin and the wages of sin, should be eliminated with the death of our bodies and the removal of Satan’s kingdom from the system.  No other passage in scripture would lend support to aging, dying, or being accursed.  For this reason, I would have to consider this a literary device, or an interpretation of what Isaiah sees, to make a point–things will be changed for the good.

No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat.  For as the days of a tree, so will the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands.  They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they are their descendants with them.  

Surely they understood that trees die.  But in comparison it must have seemed that certain species lived forever.  A question raised here is whether the reference to children and descendants are also a literary devices.  Maybe.  With resurrected bodies, it is possible that the new earth might include procreation.  A passage in Matthew tells us that “in the resurrection” which means “in the new earth”, that we will be like angels neither married or given in marriage.  Some take the leap to suggest that means we must be asexual in the new earth, but to be honest I don’t know what the angels are like.  If the new earth is a return to Eden in a way, I would have to assume that Adam and Eve were going to procreate with or without the fall into sin.  I think this topic remains a mystery for now.

Before they call I will answer, while they are speaking I will hear.

Like the Garden of Eden, God is there in visible form.  He will live with us.

The wolf and lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food.  They will not harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Some people want to read this metaphorically.  I think it is probably quite straight forward.  God’s plan is to redeem creation, not just people.  While there is no reference to nature in Heaven, there is a reference here.  Also like the Garden of Eden it is a death-free system without predators.  A place of beauty and of peace.  Could our pets be a part of this “nature”?  We will see.

 

The New Earth: A Return to Eden

Imagine a world in many ways similar to this one.  There are plants and animals, the full spectrum of God’s original creation.  We have bodies.  We eat, sleep, do pleasurable work, maybe even are sexual.  But this world has some profound differences.  First, we never die or get sick.  There is no war, crime, abuse or sin of any sort.  We don’t believe God exists by faith.  We see Him and speak with Him all the time.  Can you imagine this?  If so, where am I?

You might want to say the Garden of Eden, and that would be a close answer.  But this is a description of God’s ultimate, post-Judgment Day plans for us.  It is the New Earth.

I will say again, I am stunned as to how few Christians are familiar with even the idea of a new heaven and earth.  This includes clergy.  As you will see it is clearly declared in the Bible.  There is probably a more complete description of the New Earth than there is of Heaven.  People either haven’t read these passages or they have conflated the concept of Heaven with the New Earth. (If you haven’t read it, see: “Our Oversimplication of Life After Death“)

Let’s look at the passages about the New Earth, starting with the most basic 2 Peter 3.  Some of our questions will be answered, we can infer some things, but be prepared to have more questions than answers.

Starting with 2 Peter 3:10:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.  The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?  You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.  That day will bring about destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.  But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and new earth, the home of righteousness.

This passage foretells the complete annihilation of not only the planet but the whole of the universe.  All gone, down to the atomic level.  But this is not the end of all things.  In fact, it is something of which to look forward.  Why?  The creation as it now stands is messed up.  Its “order” has been disordered by Satan, by us and intentionally by God; and to get it back to the way God wants it, it must be destroyed and rebuilt.

In this passage we have very little detail of what the “new heaven and new earth” will be like, except that it is the “home of righteousness”.  We can infer some details from these words.  There will be no Satan, no sinfulness, no rebellion against God.  There will be no separation of God from His creation.  It will be somewhat like the Garden of Eden minus the way to mess it up.  We may maintain a knowledge of what evil was, but we will never go there again.

This was the understanding of life after death even in the Old Testament.  Next entry I will go to perhaps the most confounding passage on this topic or any in the Bible–Isaiah 65.

Our Oversimplification of Life After Death

Most people, if they believe in life after death at all, would subscribe to a basic Heaven for all or a Heaven and Hell model.  They would also believe the Bible supports these models.  It seems too few understand that the resurrection of the body leads not to Heaven but to a New Earth.  Why is this so?  I have even found pastors not clear about this.

The teaching that post-Judgment Day the saved will inhabit a New Earth is well attested in the Bible.  You can find it in Isaiah 65, 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21 and 22.  This blog will eventually get around to each of these.  For now, I just want to ponder why were we taught that we will go to Heaven forever.

I starts way back with the first century church.  The Greek idea of the afterlife was a strongly “spirit only” model.  The body was seen as corrupt and worthless and had no part in life after death.  The Jewish understanding was different.  It was focused on the resurrection of the body.  Old ideas can die hard, and for quite a while the Church had to fight a Greek heresy called Gnosticism.  While repudiated, Gnosticism subtly had its influence just as the Greek worldview affected the thinking of Western culture.  Those influences and the scarcity of Bibles to read and for that matter the ability to read gave the common Christian the idea that Heaven was the end goal.  Even the presence of “the resurrection of the body” in the creeds didn’t dissuade people.  They just assumed that the resurrected body was made for Heaven.

Plenty of the Church fathers understood about the New Earth.  In fact, that is what is dominately talked about with respect to the afterlife.  Some question whether the hope of Heaven is biblical.  Heaven does show up in the Bible, however.  It is not part of Old Testament teaching as a destination for people most likely because God didn’t reveal it as a possibility until after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The teaching of our having a place in Heaven is found in Luke 18:22, 2 Corinthians 5:1, Philippians 3:20, 1 Peter 5:4 and Revelation 6:9-10, 7:9-17.  In fact the 2 Corinthians passage speaks of “an eternal home in Heaven” which might have led some to conflate Heaven and the New Earth.

The conflation of the doctrines of Heaven and the New heavens and Earth seems to be a particularly big problem during the period of the Enlightenment.  I am not sure why.  That period also gives us a number of our hymns about Heaven.  Try to find a hymn verse about the New Earth in Lutheran Service Book.  There are only a few verses, typically something like verse 8 and 9 which you never sing, about the resurrection of our bodies.  This adds to the ignorance of the Bible’s promise of a New Earth.

Heaven Is My Home, or Is It?

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.

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