The subject of the after-life came up in a recent conversation. The man I was chatting with told me that he wasn’t particularly excited about the thought of heaven. On one level I can understand that.
There was a Sunday School teacher who wanted to make the point that heaven is not earnt by our efforts – but rather that it is a gift of God, freely given as we trust in the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. She asked her students, “If I gave away all my money to charity, would that get me to heaven?” The students shook their heads and said, “No!” “What if I became a missionary and went to teach about Jesus in another country, would that get me to heaven?” Again, the students shook their heads and said, “No!” “What if I gave up my job and worked for the Red Cross?” Again the response from her students was negative. She was proud of her students and felt that she had made her point, so she asked the children, “So, why wouldn’t any of those things get me to heaven?” One young lad put up his hand and then answered, “Because you’ve gotta be dead to go to heaven!” Well, I guess that fear of death is a rather strong incentive not to get too excited about heaven. And yet…! Everyone does think about heaven and it seems to me that everyone believes that they will eventually end up in that place of eternal bliss.
Allow me to point out two other reasons why some people don’t have very positive thoughts about heaven.
A very obvious reason is that according to the Bible, heaven is the place where you end up in the very presence of Almighty God. Heaven is where the Lord God reigns from the great white throne in all His glory and splendour. Now imagine that you’re an atheist… and you can’t stand the thought that a God like that might really exist. In that case the Bible’s heaven would be the last place where you would want to end up. I believe some people are not going to go to heaven simply because God won’t force Himself on people who don’t want anything to do with Him. People like that may still dream of some kind of Nirvana but it is not the Bible’s kind of after-life.
The other reason why some people don’t think all that positively about heaven is because they have been influenced by cartoons and caricatures of the pearly gates – you know what I mean – a place where you are welcomed and given a harp and a set of angel wings. I’ll be honest and admit that floating on clouds and eternally strumming a harp does not at all appeal to me. One of my daughter’s once remarked, “That would be so boring!”
Our problem is that we have not always done justice to the Bible’s teaching about the end-time. It teaches the restoration of all things as a powerful end-time result of the saving work of Jesus. We forget that heaven is not the final destiny of God’s people. The last book of the Bible (Revelation) talks about a new heaven and a new earth. But it’s interesting how it does that. The Greek language of the New Testament has two words for ‘new’. One is new but of a different kind, the other is new, but of the same kind. Let me illustrate. I have a Volkswagen car. If I went out and bought another Volkswagen I would have a new care but new and of the same kind. If, however, I bought a Toyota I would have a new car but new and of a different kind. When the book of Revelation talks about the new earth that Jesus will bring about for those who love and serve Him, it is consistently new and of the same kind. In other words it is this world renewed and restored as God originally intended it to be; a world from which the curse of sin has been removed.
That is going to be anything but boring. It may be a world where I will enjoy playing a harp but it will also be a world where I can swim with the dolphins on Wednesdays and soar with the eagles on Thursdays. This week, God willing, we go into a new year. That’s another year closer to that great end-time destiny… a destiny more wonderful than we can even begin to image.
John Westendorp