A Modest Proposal

At one time or another, all of us believers have heard (or said) something along the lines of “I can’t wait to go to Heaven” or “I’m looking forward to going to Heaven”, or something close to that. Even if unintended, what is implicit in that statement is the idea that our future residence is somewhere else, perhaps even some non-Earth place. But what does Scripture teach and is this a Biblical idea? I would suggest that it is not. That isn’t to say that there isn’t some place that deceased souls go as all of Creation waits for the return of Jesus and the ushering in of God’s Kingdom; I don’t have time to address that here…rather, I want to talk about where this all ends up, the culmination of history. In the end, I want to suggest that instead of saying one of the phrases above, we say, “I can’t wait to live in God’s Kingdom”, or “I can wait until the Kingdom is here”.

Nothing against the guy, but Plato is the reason that many (some? not sure how prevalent it is) modern Christians have a spiritualized view of Heaven (referred to as Platonic thought/philosophy). Plato heavily influenced Origen, who heavily influenced the fathers of modern theology. The spiritualized view, however, was not the view of ancient Hebrews or 1st Century Jewish believers. What we see in Isaiah 65:17 or Revelation 21 is the idea of a RE-newed Creation…it is the idea that God cleanses the Earth from sin and RESTORES the Earth from the Curse that he placed on it in Genesis 3. Our modern translations make it sound as if Scripture is talking about the total obliteration of the current heavens and earth, but based on Old Testament eschatological expectations, it simply cannot be that the New Testament writers had this in mind.

Moving away from the background and towards the practical — I think that how we speak about simple things like Heaven matters in how we think about Faith in general, and ultimately matters in how we live our lives. I’ve said many times, if Heaven is harps and babies, I don’t want it; that is neither appealing nor much of a reward for living a life in submission to Jesus. What God has in store for his family, at the end of this Age, is lavish banquets (Isaiah 25), restored bodies (Philippians 3) where the law of God is written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 11)and ever fiber of our being says “yes” to God — it is the utter absence of sin and the effects of the curse (no pain, no sorrow, no suffering). It is a creation that does not fight against us — it is abundance of provision, perfect government, ultimate and never-ending peace among the people of the Earth (Isaiah 2). That is what we are looking forward to and THAT is the reward for those to whom Jesus says, “well done, good and faithful servant.” When you see in Scripture how Heaven is described, it is described as a place where the five senses that God has created us with (sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing) are fully engaged. What is ‘passing away’, to quote Revelation 21, is the current Age, the period of time that the Earth has been under the Curse, going all the way back to Genesis 3.

When we talk about Heaven being the Kingdom that Jesus is bringing back with him — our lives become less about Christian ‘escapism’ (the ‘oh, I’m just passing through’ idea) and more about ordering our lives now around what will eventually become our joy-filled, everyday reality. What we are looking forward to is the full restoration of the Kingdom of God, here on Earth and the rejoining of Heaven and Earth, just as it was in Eden. Jesus will be sitting on the throne and will be, along with the people of Israel, mediating justice and restoring Creation to its original perfection. Heaven is going to be here and you and I will have renewed bodies that interact with Creation in many of the same ways they do now, but without the influence of disease, decay and death. We will be living in constant communion with God, working in roles that satisfy us completely, and under the abundant provision of the Great Shepherd. That is something we can lay our lives down for! So what do you say? As for me, I can’t wait to live in the Kingdom.

“Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this bread, our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.”