Our series on the Christian’s great hope in the face of death has so far covered issues pertaining to our culture’s discomfort with death, noting it as God’s judgment on sin, while also observing that Scripture offers a wonderfully tender perspective. We discussed how believers, by God’s grace, escape the second death, which Christ endured in their place. We also considered the blessings God has for his saints, both body and soul: that a believer’s soul is immediately with Christ, made perfect in holiness, free from sin, is delighting in the presence of God in glory, and that his body is kept securely, resting in the grave as in his bed, awaiting that future day of resurrection at Christ’s return.
We have also given some thought to the Resurrection of Christ and what it portends for the future resurrection of our own bodies, considering the implications and importance of Christ’s resurrection for us right now and what it means for us upon his return.
Today, we want to think about heaven. We have already spent some time thinking about our glorified bodies and what our state will be like in the new heavens and earth, which Jesus will usher in at his second coming. But chronologically, we are backtracking a bit. Readers will know that if we died today, as believers in Jesus, and if Christ had not yet returned, we would go to heaven. But heaven is not the glorified state; it is what the theologians will call the intermediate state. It is wonderful, but it is temporary.
We will remain there until the Lord returns to earth. At that point, the old heaven and earth pass away, and the new heaven and earth are ushered in, and our souls will be reunited to our bodies, and our bodies will be gloriously changed, to be like Christ’s body. And we will forever be with the Lord (Westminster Larger Catechism 87, 90; 1 Cor 15:12–58)
So, thinking chronologically, heaven comes first, and then the glorified state, the Age to Come, comes last and is the finale. Having already considered a good bit about the finale, today we will begin to consider heaven, a crucial doctrine filled with comfort and hope for the Christian soul.
Jesus on Heaven in the Upper Room
It is fitting for us to begin considering heaven from Jesus’ own words as he speaks on the night of his betrayal, the day before his crucifixion. He speaks words of comfort to his disciples, and in speaking those words, he talks about heaven (John 14:1–6): “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”
It is remarkable that Jesus Christ is on the verge of the most vexing event in all of human history, the greatest wrong and evil that was ever perpetrated, the greatest miscarriage of justice that was ever done—the conviction and execution of the sinless Son of God, the Holy Lamb of God—and what does he choose to talk about? He talks about his disciples’ hearts not being troubled.
That tells us something about our Lord. When he was facing down the single most troubled event in all of history, that he was about to undergo, foremost on his mind was his disciples’ comfort and peace. Oh, how he loves his people.
In recent decades, there has been something of a downplaying of the doctrine of heaven. I think that has been in part a reaction against a pietism or a sentimentalism that exists in some corners of American Christianity; a kind of unbiblical escapism has percolated for a while. And so, this has led to a downplaying of the doctrine of heaven and a more pointed emphasis on the doctrine of the last times of glorification, of our resurrected bodies, and the new creation.
We do certainly want to emphasize the truth of the glorified body and the new creation. Absolutely. We do not want to foster a kind of unhealthy, unbiblical escapism. But we must be sure that we do not throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. There has been, in my estimation, an unhelpful overcorrection and overreaction on this matter in some parts of the church.
The answer to wrong or exaggerated teaching is not to jettison the doctrine of heaven, but rather to insist on a right and biblical teaching regarding heaven, and to hold that in balance with everything else Scripture teaches regarding the new creation, and so forth. Because the doctrine of heaven holds forth great hope for God’s people, we must not neglect or minimize any ounce of hope that our Lord has given us in his holy Word. If anything, I would suggest that we could do with more heavenly-mindedness in our day, not less.
Thus, in the face of the darkest hour in all of human history, Jesus comforted his disciples by telling them about heaven. “Let not your hearts be troubled. . . . I am going to prepare a place for You” (John 14:1–2). This is part of what Jesus is doing right now, by the way. In his ruling and reigning at the Father’s right hand, he is preparing a place for us, where he will one day receive us to himself.
Jesus says, “And you know the way where I’m going.” And Thomas, on behalf of the other disciples, pipes up, “Lord, no, we don’t. We don’t have a clue!” And Jesus’ response is, “I am the way.”
Recall, just three chapters earlier, he had said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). In both John 11 and John 14, Jesus is focusing all their faith on what? On himself. So, given what Jesus says in John 14, we will think about heaven along four lines, considering them over the course of subsequent installments:
- the place of heaven,
- the symptoms or characteristics of heaven,
- the joy of heaven,
- and the Lord of heaven.
The Place of Heaven
As many of our readers will know, the word heaven, both in Greek and Hebrew, is a word that can be used in different ways. Sometimes in the Bible it means the sky, and so you will hear phrases like “the birds of the heavens” (Matt 6:26). In such usage, the Scripture is simply speaking of the birds that are in the sky.
Sometimes in the Bible heaven or heavens refers to the starry hosts, and so the Bible will speak of “the stars of heaven” (Gen 22:17; Deut 1:10; Jer 33:22). Then, the Hebrews and the early Christians spoke of a third heaven. That third heaven, or the heaven of heavens, is the place of God’s dwelling. The apostle Paul talks about that in 2 Corinthians 12. The Corinthians had seen and done some things that they thought nobody else had, and the apostle Paul, in response to their boasting, retorted in 2 Corinthians 12:
I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. (2 Cor 12:1–5)
In that passage, the apostle is speaking of the third heaven, that heaven of heavens where God dwells.
The Bible uses a lot of imagery to describe that third heaven, the place where God dwells. Let us note a few examples. We have already seen, for instance, the heaven of heavens or the third heaven, or the place where God dwells, described in John 14:2 as the Father’s house.
Jesus is very much building on Old Testament themes and imagery, not least of which is from Psalm 23:6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” or places like Psalm 122:1 and Isaiah 2:2–3 where the “house of the Lord” or the “mountain of the house of the Lord” is understood to be typological, such that the earthly temple in Jerusalem (“the house of the Lord”) is pointing forward to a future, more splendid, eschatological reality.
A similar thought is expressed by Paul in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 5:1, “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.” For the believer, then, heaven, the place of God’s dwelling, is understood to be the Father’s house.
Heaven is also referred to as paradise. We just observed Paul use that language for it in 2 Corinthians 12, but also recall Luke 23:43—where Jesus famously told the thief on the cross, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise”—and Revelation 2:7: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”
It is called the heavenly Jerusalem in Galatians 4:26, Revelation 3:12, and in Hebrews 12:22. It is called the eternal kingdom by Peter in 2 Peter 1:11. It is called the eternal inheritance in 1 Peter 1:4 and in Hebrews 9:15. It is called a better country in Hebrews 11:14 and 16.
We are said to “sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Luke 16:22), “to be in Abraham’s bosom” (Matt 8:11), and “to reign with Christ” (2 Tim 2:12), and to “rest in heaven” (Heb 4:10–11).
Paradise, of course, means life and freedom from sin and evil. That is what the original paradise was in Eden. Everything you can think of in a connotation of life, that is what was in Eden, and that is what the Lord is bringing his people back to, amplified to an even greater degree in the new creation!1 Life—never again in the company of the wicked (2 Tim 4:18); bliss without end, fullness of joy forever. A place which Christ has prepared (John 14:2).
And we should note, however obvious it seems, that heaven is a place. We briefly discussed this in one of our previous articles. Regarding this matter, frankly, there are some things we cannot answer precisely. Is heaven in some sort of alternate dimension, a plane above this universe? After all, Jesus ascended up into the clouds and went to heaven, and he shall come again from that same direction (Acts 1:6-11). But ultimately, it matters little whether we can locate heaven precisely. It matters that heaven is where the Savior is. Heaven is where the one who has saved you and the one in whom you delight above all else is. Where heaven is matters little so long as we are there with him and with all those who love him.
There is more for us to consider regarding the doctrine of heaven and why it brings such immense comfort and hope to believers. We will consider those matters in more detail when we return next time to our ongoing series on the Christian’s comfort, even in death.
Note
- Geerhardus Vos, “Heavens, New (And Earth, New),” in The Collected Dictionary Articles of Geerhardus Vos (Logos Bible Software, 2013).
©Sean Morris. All Rights Reserved.
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Sean Morris
Sean was educated at Grove City College, Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, MS), Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and the University of Glasgow (Scotland). He earned his PhD from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, and serves as a minister at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN. He also serves as the Academic Dean of the Blue Ridge Institute for Theological Education and has published numerous theological and devotional articles. Sean lives in Oak Ridge with his wife, Sarah, and their children.
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