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What to Expect on Sunday |
Today is the fourth in our five week series on Heaven, entitled Is This Heaven? It’s been quite a journey and I’ve heard from several of you about how interesting and challenging this topic is. Last week’s topic—regarding an "intermediate heaven" until Christ’s return establishes a new heaven and a new earth—seemed particularly challenging. Before touching the tip of the iceberg regarding today’s topic—the new heaven and new earth—let me comment on some questions raised from last week. First of all, when speaking about an intermediate heaven, I am not talking about the Catholic Church concept of purgatory—particularly in my understanding of Catholic theology on purgatory that speaks of a place to which go those who died in Christ but are in need of further cleansing. And especially I am not speaking of the practice of praying for those in purgatory and the giving of indulgences or money to the church to assist those who are in purgatory. That is not what I mean by an "intermediate heaven." Rather, I am speaking about the place God has created for those who die in Christ before Christ returns. When Christ returns, God will create a new heaven and a new earth that will be our eternal home. In the meantime, those who die in Christ are not "asleep," totally absent from the presence of Christ and awaiting resurrection. Their spirits are immediately in Christ’s presence awaiting the second resurrection—a bodily resurrection—that occurs at Christ’s return. It’s heaven, but it is not the eternal heaven God will create. What, then, does the eternal Heaven look like? I’m going to suggest something to you that you likely have not considered…unless you’ve read Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven. The eternal Heaven…is a renewed and restored Earth. I suspect when you’ve envisioned Heaven you did not envision it as Earth. But it is a vision for Heaven that Scripture encourages us to see, as we’ll reference in a moment. Now, to be clear, I am not speaking of the present Earth or our current life on this Earth. Heaven is not what you make of this life—the best we can do with what occurs in this life. Heaven is our future home that God has created for us. And I’m suggesting that future home, the eternal Heaven, will be a renewed and restored Earth. More about that later. First of all, however, I want to address our hesitation to imagine a renewed Earth as our eternal home. Recall from last week the term Christoplatonism, Randy Alcorn’s term for the philosophy, rooted in Plato, that physical matter is bad and spiritual things are good. Found also at the heart of the early heresies in the Church—ideas like Gnosticism and Donatism which argued that Jesus Christ was not really human but only appeared to be human (if physical matter is bad or evil Christ could not have been truly physical!)—subtle acceptance of this philosophy has led to our imaginings of Heaven being confined to the spiritual. Heaven can’t be physical if physical matter is bad. We need to challenge that thinking. We need to challenge it, first of all, because Christ was indeed fully human. He empathizes with us because he experienced what it means to be a human being. He suffered and died, truly died, yet rose from the grave for our salvation. We need to challenge the subtle philosophy of Christoplatonism because God created not only the heavens, but also the earth and called it good. And we need to challenge our thinking that material things are bad and immaterial is good because it leads us away from imagining a wonderful picture of Heaven—Heaven as a New Earth, restored to the place in which God intended us to live. God is in the business of redemption and renewal. He does not seek to destroy, but rather seeks to redeem and renew. It is His desire for us. And it is His desire for the Earth He created. Consider these passages from Scripture: Peter, when speaking to the crowd that had gathered at the temple after healing a crippled beggar, tells them about Jesus—that he was killed, but rose from the dead into heaven where, "He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets," (Acts 3:21; underline mine). Jesus himself, in addressing the disciples’ astonishment over the difficulty for a rich person to enter heaven—the "eye of the needle" story in Matthew 19—says, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," (Matthew 19:28; underline mine). While there are certainly images in Scripture of great destruction on Earth preceding the time of Christ’s return, those images do not necessarily lead to a conclusion of the total destruction of Earth. Rather, it appears that Christ’s return brings an end to the destructive activity caused by sinful humanity and brings, instead, God’s redemption and restoration. Anthony Hoekema, a reformed theologian and professor of theology puts it this way, "In his redemptive activity, God does not destroy the works of his hands, but cleanses them from sin and perfects them, so that they may finally reach the goal for which he created them. Applied to the problem at hand, this principle means that the new earth to which we look forward will not be totally different from the present one, but will be a renewal and glorification of the earth on which we now live." Is it possible that Heaven, the place where we will live with God forever, is a restored Earth? Something with which we will be familiar? An Earth as God originally created it before the destructive results of humanity’s sin? A kind of restored Eden? I think it is not only possible, but it is likely that Heaven will be such a place. Consider our Scripture reading for today. There are certainly in it earthly images of rivers, streets and a city. In the midst of the city, the new Jerusalem, and the river that runs through it is the "tree of life." Where before have we seen the tree of life? In Eden prior to the fall of humanity: "And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," (Genesis 2:9; underline mine). The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," of course, was the location for the test of humanity’s free will and obedience to God. We failed. We disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The result was banishment from the Garden of Eden, the Curse of sin present with humanity…and the earth on which humanity lives, and access to the tree of life denied. "After [God] drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life," (Genesis 3:24). And humanity has lived with those conditions ever since…and will continue to do so until Christ returns and restores creation to its original condition before the fall, before humanity’s sin. There is a chart in Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven, that is helpful in envisioning God’s redemptive activity throughout history—the story that is the Bible. THREE ERAS OF MANKIND AND EARTH Past Present Future Genesis 1-2 Gen 3 – Rev 20 Rev 21-22 Original mankind Fallen mankind Resurrected mankind Original Earth Fallen Earth, with New (resurrected) Earth glimmers of original Mankind given Mankind’s dominion Mankind’s dominion dominion, with thwarted, frustrated, fulfilled; redeemed intended stewardship and twisted stewardship of Earth of Earth God in Heaven, God in heaven, separate God living forever visiting Earth yet active (indwells with mankind on the believers by his Spirit) New Earth No Curse Sin and the Curse No more Curse Tree of life in Eden Tree of life in Paradise Tree of life in New Jerusalem River of life Rivers and nature, River of life flows with glimmers of past from the throne God walking with Humans cut off God dwells face-to-face humans in the Garden from God with humans Creation and mankind Creation and mankind Creation and mankind perfect tainted by sin restored to perfection
That is just a glimpse of the redemptive history of God toward humanity as told to us in the Bible—beginning with a perfect creation, then struggling through a creation tainted by sin, only to be restored again to its intended perfection when Christ returns. While I still cannot fully imagine such a place, when I now ponder the wonders of God’s redemption and begin to imagine what life in Heaven will be like, my imagination goes not to some spiritual, ethereal place, but rather to a place much like Earth…only more beautiful than what I experience now—that beauty is just a glimpse of what beauty we’ll experience in heaven. More than that, the image of Heaven as a restored, perfect Earth is more beautiful than what I can imagine. But, it is a wonderful thing to try and imagine! We’ll have more to say next week about eternal life in the Heaven of restored creation in our concluding sermon in this series. For now, I conclude with these words on the subject from Paul Marshall, Christian author and professor. "This world is our home: we are made to live here. It has been devastated by sin, but God plans to put it right. Hence, we look forward with joy to newly restored bodies and to living in a newly restored heaven and earth. We can love this world because it is God’s, and it will be healed, becoming at last what God intended from the beginning." Let’s take a moment for silent reflection. |
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