INTENTIONAL FAITH · THE PROMISE
Let’s be honest. For a lot of people, including a lot of church people, heaven doesn’t sound very appealing. One pastor confided that thinking about heaven actually depressed him. He pictured floating on a cloud with nothing to do but strum a harp, forever. He said he’d rather simply stop existing.
He isn’t alone. Many believers quietly picture eternity as an endless church service, one hymn after another with no end in sight, and then feel guilty for not being more excited about it. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn heard Miss Watson describe heaven as a place where you go around all day with a harp and sing, forever, and he decided he didn’t think much of it. A woman who had been a Christian since childhood shared that a teacher once told her she wouldn’t know anyone or anything from earth when she got to heaven. She lived for years with a fear of heaven and eternal life.
Where do these pictures come from? Certainly not from the Bible. Paul said that to depart and be with Christ is far better (Philippians 1:23). Nobody calls a cloud and a harp “far better.”
Three reasons our picture has gone gray
First, we’ve simply not been taught. Many systematic theologies spend dozens of pages on other doctrines and a page or two on the eternal state. Seminary classes on the end times often run out of time before they ever reach Revelation 21 and 22, the Bible’s fullest description of our eternal home. Many Christians who have sat in church their whole adult lives can’t remember a single sermon on heaven. We’re told how to get there, but almost nothing about the place itself. Imagine an astronaut lifting off for a five-year mission to Mars who, when asked what he knows about Mars, shrugs and says, “Nothing. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.” Unthinkable. Yet that’s how many of us are traveling toward eternity.
Second, we have an enemy who slanders heaven. Jesus called the devil a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). Revelation 13:6 tells us the beast opens his mouth to slander God’s name, his dwelling place, and those who live in heaven. Notice the three targets: God’s person, God’s people, and God’s place. Satan doesn’t need to convince us heaven doesn’t exist. He only needs to convince us it’s dull and ghostly. If we believe that, we lose our joy, we fix our minds on this life instead of the next, and we lose our urgency to share the good news. After all, who’s eager to invite friends to a place they themselves aren’t looking forward to?
Third, we’ve breathed in the air of naturalism. That’s the assumption that only what we can see, measure, and touch is real. C. S. Lewis captured this beautifully in The Silver Chair. Trapped in an underground kingdom, the children and Puddleglum are slowly persuaded by a witch that the sun is only a dream copied from a lamp, and that Aslan is only a fancy copied from a cat. The truth, of course, is exactly the reverse: the lamp is a poor copy of the sun. In the same way, heaven isn’t a projection of earthly wishes. Earth is the shadow and heaven is the substance, made by the Creator King.
Why our longing matters
Here’s a simple illustration. We don’t hunger for gravel, because God didn’t design us to eat gravel. Trying to develop an appetite for a bodiless, nonphysical eternity is a lot like trying to develop an appetite for gravel. It doesn’t work, and it isn’t supposed to.
What God made us to long for is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the risen Christ, on a renewed earth. Our deepest desires aren’t wishful thinking. We want these things because God planned them and built the longing into us.
For reflection
- What picture of heaven did you grow up with? Where do you think it came from?
- Which of the three reasons above (lack of teaching, the enemy’s slander, or naturalism) has shaped your thinking most?
- Why do you think a dull view of heaven would weaken a believer’s witness?