Book Excerpt: Heaven is a Place on Earth

I don't want to go to heaven. Not that I'm lobbying for the other place-I want no part of everlasting fire and unbearable, unquenchable torment. The reason why I first repented and asked Christ to forgive my sin was to avoid going to hell. I became a Christian to get out of hell, not because I wanted to get into heaven. Before you judge me, remember why you said the Sinner's Prayer.

The delights of heaven may be to die for, but isn't that precisely the problem? Everyone who makes it into heaven has to leave this life to get there. Granted, death is not the worst thing that could happen to a person, but it's pretty close. All things being equal, I'd rather continue the earthly existence that I currently enjoy.

I'd love to go to heaven-for a visit. It will be unspeakably exhilarating to stand in the presence of God and sing his praises-but to do nothing but this forever and ever? That's a lot of rounds of "Shine, Jesus, Shine." Perhaps you think I'm being unfair. Well, what else do people do in heaven but worship God? As one preacher put it, "I don't know what we're going to do there but I promise you it won't be boring." Thanks for the help. I want to believe you, but in the absence of any hard facts, I'm siding with Huckleberry Finn.

In a futile attempt to persuade a fidgety Huckleberry to behave, a stern Miss Watson warned her young charge about the hellish destiny of restless boys and the heavenly reward awaiting those who sat up straight and studied their spelling books. According to Huckleberry, "Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said, not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together."¹

Huckleberry Finn is right: heaven does sound boring. Who wants to go there? We are not cut out for the clouds. We don't make very good angels. Humans weren't made for heaven. As wonderful as it will be to praise God in his celestial glory, there is still one thing better-to kneel in the presence of God with the bodies he created us to have in the place he created us to live.

Heaven Is Not My Home, I'll Just Be Passin' Through

And this is precisely what God promises. Contrary to popular opinion, the Christian hope is not that someday all believers get to die and go to heaven. Indeed, the only reason anyone ever goes to heaven is because of sin. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they would have continued to live on this planet, enjoying the beauty of creation as they walked in close fellowship with their Creator. However, as we will learn in chapter 9, Adam's sin brought death into the world. Now all people must die, an event which separates their souls from their bodies. Their bodies immediately begin to decay, but their souls continue to live, either in hell with the damned or in heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ.

But even those of us who make it to heaven have not yet achieved our perfect state. It must be extremely satisfying to join the other saints in heaven who continually stand in the presence of God. Yet even those saints who are there still long for something more. They long to be whole again, to not merely bow before God as a disembodied soul but to praise him as a fully restored person, possessing both a renewed spirit and body.

This is why our temporary stay in heaven, what theologians call the intermediate state, is not the focus of Scripture. There are only a few verses that even allude to it.² Scripture is relatively silent on our intermediate state in heaven because it is not the Christian hope. The Christian hope is not merely that our departed souls will rejoice in heaven, but, as explained in 1 Corinthians 15, it is that they will reunite with our resurrected bodies.

And where do bodies live? Not in heaven: that's more suitable for spiritual beings like angels and human souls. Bodies are meant to live on earth, on this planet.³ So the Christian hope is not merely that someday we and our loved ones will die and go to be with Jesus. Instead, the Christian hope is that our departure from this world is just the first leg of a journey that is round trip. Rather than stay with God forever in heaven, Scripture tells us that God brings heaven down to us. As John explains his vision in Revelation 21:1-4, he "saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God" to earth, accompanied by the thrilling words, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them." In short, Christians long for the fulfillment of Emmanuel, the divine name which means "God with us." We don't hope merely for the day when we go to live with God, but ultimately for that final day when God comes to live with us.

¹ Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, (New York: Random House), 5-6.

² Corinthians 5:6-9, Philippians 1:21-24, and 1 Thessalonians 4:14, 17.

³ It's not impossible for bodies to live in heaven, as Jesus' presence there now proves, but it is not where bodies are meant to live. Even Jesus will return bodily to live forever with his saints on a newly restored earth (Revelation 21:1-4).