Thoughts about Heaven

As I write these words, I am preparing to teach a course at Gooch Lane on Heaven. The sheer amount of material on the subject in God’s word is almost overwhelming! It is not difficult to relate every part of the Bible to that place where we plan to spend eternity.

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” 1 John 3:2. Heaven is where God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, angels and other heavenly beings, and the redeemed of all the ages...will dwell forever. It is a place “beautiful beyond human description.” We are dependent on God for accurate ways to describe His dwelling place, and therefore to enable us even to think accurately about heaven. We think with words and with mental pictures we have formed during our lives. The more we read the Bible and think about Heaven, the more “real” Heaven will be for us.

Our life here is a kind of school where we are preparing for an entrance into the life beyond. Jesus came to lead us through our preparatory stages into that eternal life. In John 10:10b, He declared: “...I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

Our “abundant life” begins when we respond to God’s gracious invitation. The forerunner for Jesus, John the Baptist, preached: “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’” Matthew 3:1,2. Jesus began His public ministry in the same way: “Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel’” Mark 1:14,15. It is not an overstatement to say that the greatest message ever proclaimed to mankind began with the simple word “repent.” Our change of heart leads to a change of life and a change of our destiny. The “good news” of the gospel is that God has shown us, through His word, a Savior who will lead us to the place where He lives.

What is our position in God’s great plan for our destiny? He has made us a “little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:3-8). Jesus has these words applied to Him as He became man (Hebrews 2:6-9) in order to experience life as a human being, live a perfect life in which He defeated sin, and then to die for our sins.

Our special place in God’s order is one in which we now follow Jesus in our lives, imitating His example to the point that “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” Galatians 2:20. We anticipate His coming in which “...the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17.

God has chosen to reveal much more about our preparation for heaven than to reveal what we will do in Heaven. We will have service under One who loves us. Consider this precious promise: “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: ‘I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.’ And again: ‘I will put My trust in Him.’ And again: ‘Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.’ Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” Hebrews 2:10-15.

Released from the bondage of sin, we are then in a position to allow God to work in us. He will, as we yield to His will, transform our lives so that we are fitted for heaven. Charles Wesley wrote these words in the song “Love Divine”:

“Finish then thy new creation,

Pure, unspotted, may we be;

May we see our whole salvation

Perfectly secured by thee;

Changed from glory into glory,

Till in heav’n we take our place,

Till we cast our crowns before thee,

Lost in wonder, love and praise.”