What are we waiting for?

September 03, 2021

The death and resurrection of Jesus opens the way to eternal life for those who put their trust in him. But what does the Bible actually have to say about heaven, and this new life Christians are hoping for?

This article is a précis of material from the author’s ‘Heaven: the ultimate destination?’—the penultimate chapter of Death and the Afterlife: Biblical perspectives on ultimate questions NSBT 43 (Apollos, 2017).

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Some older readers may well remember singing the children’s song Countdown, so popular in the late 60s due to NASA’s space program. It began with a countdown from 10 to ‘blast-off’, and then the lines: ‘Somewhere in outer space, God has prepared a place/For those who trust him and obey.’

While this Child Evangelism Fellowship song clearly expresses a fairly typical evangelical piety of the twentieth century, in recent decades such an ‘other-worldly’, ethereal hope for the afterlife is far less popular. Tom Wright scathingly critiques the very idea of heaven as ‘somewhere in outer space’ and the ultimate destiny of the people of God. ‘Many Christians,’ he observes, ‘grow up assuming that whenever the New Testament speaks of “heaven” it refers to the place to which the saved go after death.’ Moreover, ‘when they find Jesus talking about “entering the kingdom of heaven”, they ... suppose that he is indeed talking about “how to go to heaven when you die”.’[1]

Heaven and our eternal home

So how should we conceive of ‘heaven’ in relation to our Christian hope? The Old Testament admittedly presents heaven or God’s dwelling place as far above us, somewhere in or beyond outer space, as it were. However, there is little thought in the Old Testament of heaven being a human destiny. Even the experience of Enoch and Elijah, taken by God in bodily form rather than undergoing physical death (cf. Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11), is nowhere presented as paradigmatic for others. However we understand some expressions of hope in the Psalms (e.g., Psalm 49:15; 73:24), the focus in the Old Testament was not enjoying God’s presence in heaven, but having God’s presence here on earth. Indeed the Temple, and before that the Tabernacle, were manifestations of this: God visibly dwelling among his people. The ultimate Old Testament hope was that ‘the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea’ (Habbakuk 2:14; cf. Isaiah 11:9). So as far as the Old Testament is concerned, a metaphysical heaven is not considered our eternal home.

As we might expect, the New Testament vocabulary for ‘heaven’ serves much the same function as in the Old Testament, denoting both the sky above and the physical universe, as well as the extraterrestrial realm of God and angels.[2] The latter meaning, however, is much more frequent in the New Testament. Accordingly, when Jesus describes his Father’s house as having many rooms, and then speaks about going to prepare a place so that others may be with him (John 14:2–3), it might seem as though our eternal home is God’s celestial abode after all. However, talk of our investments, rewards, inheritance, or citizenship being ‘in heaven’ simply suggests that Christian loyalties, hopes and values should be focused on God, rather than on the transient and false securities of this world. So, when Jesus promises to take us to the place he has prepared for us, we should probably interpret that in light of terminology used elsewhere to describe what Christians are waiting for.

The kingdom of God

The ‘kingdom of God’ or the ‘Kingdom of heaven’, as it is usually described in Matthew, is the main focus of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus and his apostles understood this to be the goal and fulfilment of Old Testament promises (Mark 1:15). However, while the New Testament announces its arrival in Jesus, there is clearly both a present and future dimension, best expressed by the theological concept of ‘inaugurated eschatology’: the kingdom has indeed arrived (cf. Matthew 12:28; Luke 17:21), but it is yet to be seen in all its fullness. For that, we must await Jesus’ second coming, when everything is renewed, and resurrected/glorified Christians live in perfect submission to their God and king.

Eternal life

Such a present and future dimension is also reflected in the concept of ‘eternal life’ (i.e., ‘life of the age to come’) which appears both explicitly and implicitly throughout the New Testament—especially in John’s Gospel—as something Jesus has already inaugurated. Jesus came that we might have this ‘life of the coming age’ in the present. Through putting their trust in Jesus, Christians have eternal life right now (cf. John 5:24; 10:10; 17:3), just as they have already entered the kingdom of God. But it’s clear that, like the kingdom of God, the best is still to come. When Jesus returns Christians will experience eternal life in all its fullness. But this does not entail removal from planet Earth. Rather, just as Jesus brought heaven and eternal life to earth through his incarnation, so we will experience this ‘life that is truly life’ (1 Timothy 6:19), not in some ephemeral location in the heavens above, but in the new (i.e., renewed) earth—a physical place where we will be embodied.

New creation

The most encompassing depiction of our Christian hope is that of new creation. This too is something Christians experience now in part. As Paul puts it, ‘if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!’ (2 Corinthians 5:17; cf. Galatians 6:15). Such is the significance of being ‘born again’ or ‘born from above’—it is through such ‘regeneration’ (Titus 3:5) that we receive the gift of eternal life and enter the kingdom of God (cf. John 3:3–15). But regeneration or new creation also encompasses ‘the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne’ (Matthew 19:28). This renewal or ‘regeneration’ [palingenesia] to which Jesus refers is of cosmic proportions; it is what Peter subsequently describes as ‘the restoration [apokatastasis] of all things’ (Acts 3:21), and what Paul undoubtedly has in mind when he speaks of ‘creation being liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God’ (Romans 8:21). It is a vision of cosmic redemption and salvation, articulated most plainly in the biblical expectation of ‘a new heaven(s) and a new earth’ (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1; cf. Isaiah 65:17; 66:22); that is, a renovated or renewed creation, the fullest description of which is found in the final chapters of Revelation. There, drawing on several Old Testament motifs, John describes a new cosmos, a new Jerusalem, and a new Eden—complementary descriptions of a single reality: the ‘new creation’.

As with the individual’s ‘new creation’, so too the cosmic: the old will pass away and the new will come, not by obliteration and replacement, but by purging and renewal. And in this renovated creation, the chaos of evil will be forever eradicated—symbolised in Revelation 21:1 by the absence of any sea. There will be nothing in this new creation to ruin or corrupt it; to threaten the peace and joy of those who inherit this new and perfect world order.

Most significant in the depiction in Revelation is the presence of God himself (21:3, 22; cf. 22:3b–4). This city needs no temple (21:22), because God will dwell directly with his people. The experience enjoyed now through the indwelling Holy Spirit will become more immediate when God’s dwelling will be with us (21:3), his glory outshining the sun (21:23; cf. 22:5; Isaiah 60:19–20)—a wonderful picture of heaven on earth.

John’s portrayal of the renovated cosmos culminates in a new Eden (Revelation 22:1–5). The Jewish hope of a return to paradise is thus realised — but with a sizeable bonus. Borrowing imagery from Ezekiel 47, John describes a river flowing from God’s throne, lined by life-sustaining trees with leaves ‘for the healing of the nations’ (22:2; cf. Ezekiel 47:12). Moreover, this new Eden will be free of all that led to expulsion from the original paradise; this is not simply Eden restored, but Eden perfected—where we will serve God and the Lamb (22:3b), and reign for ever and ever (22:5b), accomplishing the goals for which God created us.

In the light of all this, what should we make of that wonderful assurance in John 14—that Jesus will come back and take us to be with himself? How does his Father’s house, with its many rooms, square with this terrestrial concept of heaven we find depicted elsewhere? While some think John 14 is referring solely to an interim, disembodied state, more likely the image used by Jesus expresses our final hope: our eschatological home is depicted in terms of an extended household. As Köstenberger explains, this would have been very familiar in the first century:

It was common in the culture of Jesus’ day for many dwelling units to be combined to form an extended household. When a son would marry, it was customary for that son to add to his father’s house so that the entire estate grew into a large compound.[3]

Understood in this manner, the image is one of inclusion within God’s family:

He who goes to the Father prepares a place there for those who belong to Him. He establishes them as members of the Father’s household. He makes His home accessible to them as a final place of residence.[4]

Jesus thus assures his disciples that he will bring them into God’s extended household, guaranteeing their place in God’s abode. While that may presently be in the heavenly realms, the allusion to his coming again in John 14:3 suggests that Jesus speaks here of our final state, when ‘God’s dwelling place is ... among the people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’ (Revelation 21:3).

Does all this mean that Christians will not go to ‘heaven’ when they die? Not at all. Even though the Bible never uses such language, several texts suggest that we will in some sense go to be with Jesus at death: Jesus promises the dying thief that he would be with him that very day in paradise (Luke 23:43); Paul speaks of being absent from the body and at home with the Lord (Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:8); Hebrews and Revelation offer images of the redeemed worshipping God in his heavenly abode. But contrary to what some Christian hymns may suggest, this will not be our eternal residence. Rather, this is just a temporary abode, for ‘in keeping with God’s promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells’; that is to say, a physical place where we will live with God, and God will live with us forever.

Dr Paul Williamson is a faculty member at Moore Theological College, where he teaches Old Testament, Hebrew and Aramaic.

ENDNOTES

[1] N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (SPCK, 2007), p23.

[2] As with several OT texts, it is not always clear which ‘heaven’ is chiefly in view or whether such a distinction is even intended.

[3] A. J. Köstenberger, ‘Heaven in John’s Gospel and Revelation’. C. W. Morgan and R. A. Peterson (eds), Heaven (Crossway, 2014), pp139–157 (p144).

[4] G. Schrenck, ‘patēr’, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. 5 (Eerdmans, 1968), pp945–59 (p997).