by Randy Alcorn
God's glory will be the air we breathe, and we'll always breathe deeper to gain more of it. In the new universe, we'll never be able to travel far enough to leave God's presence. If we could, we'd never want to. However great the wonders of Heaven, God himself is Heaven's greatest prize. Father Boudreau writes, "The beatitude of Heaven consists essentially in the vision, love, and enjoyment of God himself"147
In Heaven we'll at last be freed of self-righteousness and self-deceit. We'll no longer question God's goodness; we'll see it, savor it, enjoy it, and declare it to our companions. Surely we will wonder how we ever could have doubted his goodness. For then our faith will be sight—we shall see God.
Many contemporary approaches to Heaven either leave God out or put him in a secondary role. The Five People You Meet in Heaven, a best-selling novel, portrays a man who feels lonely and unimportant.148 He dies, goes to Heaven, and meets five people who tell him his life really mattered. He discovers forgiveness and acceptance. It sounds good, but the book fails to present Jesus Christ as the object of saving faith. Instead, it portrays a Heaven that isn't about God, but about us. A Heaven that's not about God's glory, but our healing. And a Heaven that's not about God's unfathomable grace to undeserving sinners, but our goodness and self-importance. Man is the cosmic center; God plays a supporting role. This sort of Heaven, of which the Bible knows nothing, is a place of therapeutic self-preoccupation rather than preoccupation with the person of Christ.
Jonathan Edwards said in a 1733 sermon, "God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean."149
HEAVEN RELOCATED TO EARTH
Not only will God come to dwell with us on Earth, he will also bring with him the New Jerusalem, an entire city of people, structures, streets, walls, rivers, and trees that is now in the present, intermediate Heaven. If you've ever seen a house being relocated, you appreciate what a massive undertaking it is. God will relocate an entire city—Heaven's capital city, the New Jerusalem—from Heaven to Earth. It's a vast complex containing, perhaps, hundreds of millions of residences. He will bring with it Heaven's human inhabitants and angels as well.
It appears that God has already fashioned the New Jerusalem: "He has prepared a city for them" (Hebrews 11:16). It doesn't say that God will prepare a city or even that he is preparing it, but that he has prepared it. This suggests that the New Jerusalem, complete or nearly complete, is already there in the present Heaven. When God fashions the New Earth, he will relocate the city from Heaven to the New Earth. It's possible that those in the present Heaven are alread living in it. Or it may be set aside, awaiting simultaneous habitation by all its occupants when transferred to the New Earth. Imagine the thrill of beholding and exploring ing God's city together!
We are certain that when the mists of death are cleared away, the whole city will stand visible and proud. Our inheritance is as sure as morning. .
CALVIN MILLER
God's new center of government will be the New Earth. This will be the ultimate answer to the Lord's Prayer,They will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10, Kjv). God's will shall be done on the New Earth as it now is in Heaven. Indeed, the New Earth shall be a part of Heaven, for the veil between the worlds, first torn apart by the Cross and Christ's resurrection, will be permanently removed. There will be no barrier between Earth and Heaven, or between mankind and God.
BEING WITH GOD
Many books and programs these days talk about messages from the spirit realm, supposedly from people who've died and now speak through channelers or mediums. They claim to have come from Heaven to interact with loved ones, yet almost never do they talk about God or express wonder at seeing Jesus. But no one who had actually been in Heaven would neglect to mention what Scripture shows is the main focus. If you had spent an evening dining with a king, you wouldn't come back and talk about the place settings. When the apostle John was shown Heaven and wrote about it to the church, he recorded the details—but first and foremost, from beginning to end, he kept talking about Jesus.
The 1998 movie What Dreams May Come portrays Heaven as a beautiful place, yet shows it as lonely because a man's wife isn't there. Remarkably, someone else is entirely absent from the movie's depiction of Heaven: God.
Going to Heaven without God would be like a bride going on her honeymoon without her groom. A Heaven without God would be like a palace without a king. If there's no king, there's no palace. If there's no God, there's no Heaven. Teresa of Avila said, "Wherever God is, there is Heaven."150 The corollary is obvious: Wherever God is not, there is Hell. As John Milton put it, "Thy presence makes our Paradise, and where Thou art is Heaven."151 Heaven will simply be a physical extension of God's goodness. To be with God—to know him, to see him—is the central, irreducible draw of Heaven.
The presence of God is the essence of Heaven (just as the absence of God is the essence of Hell). Because God is beautiful beyond measure, if we knew nothing more than that Heaven was God's dwelling place, it would be more than enough. The best part of life on the New Earth will be enjoying God's presence, having him actually dwell among us (Revelation 21:3-4). Just as the Holy of Holies contained the dazzling presence of God in ancient Israel, so will the New Jerusalem contain his presence—but on a much larger scale—on the New Earth. The Holy of Holies in the Temple at Jerusalem was a perfect thirty-foot cube. The New Jerusalem itself will be a perfect cube, one that stretches fourteen hundred miles in each direction (Revelation 21:16).
In the New Jerusalem, there will be no temple (Revelation 21:22). Everyone will be allowed unimpeded access into God's presence. "Blessed are those who . . . may go through the gates into the city" (Revelation 22:14).
Heaven's greatest miracle will be our access to God. In the New Jerusalem, we will be able to come physically, through wide open gates, to God's throne.
BEING WITH JESUS
Jesus promised his disciples, "I will come back and take you to be with me that you also maybe where I am" (John 14:3). For Christians, to die is to "be present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8, NKJV). The apostle Paul says, "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far" (Philippians 1:23). He could have said, "I desire to depart and be in Heaven," but he didn't—his mind was on being with his Lord Jesus, which is the most significant aspect of Heaven.
Samuel Rutherford said, "O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without thee, it would be a hell; and if I could be in hell, and have thee still, it would be a heaven to me, for thou art all the heaven I want."152 Martin Luther said, "I had rather be in hell with Christ, than be in heaven without him."153 A place with Christ cannot be Hell, only Heaven. A place without Christ cannot be Heaven, only Hell.
We'll worship Jesus as the Almighty and bow to him in reverence, yet we'll never sense his disapproval—because we'll never disappoint him. He'll never be unhappy with us. We'll be able to relax in Heaven. The other shoe will never drop. No skeletons will fall out of our closets. Christ bore every one of our sins. He paid the ultimate price so that we would be forever free from sin—and the fear of sin. All barriers between us and him will be forever gone. He will be our best friend.
When Jesus prays that we will be with him in Heaven, he explains why: "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world" (John 17:24, emphasis added). When we accomplish something, we want to share it with those closest to us. Likewise, Jesus wants to share with us his glory—his person and his accomplishments. There's no contradiction betw
een Christ acting for his glory and for our good. The two are synonymous. Our greatest pleasure, our greatest satisfaction, is to behold his glory. As John Piper says, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him."154
Christ's desire for us to see his glory should touch us deeply. What an unexpected compliment that the Creator of the universe has gone to such great lengths, at such sacrifice, to prepare a place for us where we can behold and participate in his glory.
Jesus indwells us now, and perhaps he will then, but he will also physically reside on the earth with us. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to walk the earth with Jesus, as the disciples did? Have you ever wished you had that opportunity? You will—on the New Earth. Whatever we will do with Jesus, we'll be doing with the second member of the triune God. What will it be like to run beside God, laugh with God, discuss a book with God, sing and climb and swim and play catch with God? Jesus promised we would eat with him in his Kingdom. This is an intimacy with God unthinkable to any who don't grasp the significance of the Incarnation. To eat a meal with Jesus will be to eat a meal with God.
HOW CAN MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ALL BE WITH JESUS AND RECEIVE PERSONAL ATTENTION?
After the first edition of this book, this question was one of the most frequently asked. It's worth considering.
Though it's possible we may cover vast distances at immense speeds in God's new universe, I don't believe we'll be capable of being two places at once. Why? Because we'll still be finite. Only God is infinite.
Because the resurrected Christ is both man and God, the issue of whether he can be in more than one place at the same time involves a paradox not only in the future, but also in the present.
Since God will make the new earth his dwelling place, and since where God dwells therein heaven is, we shall then continue to be in heaven while we are on the new earth. For heaven and earth will then no longer be separated as they are now, but they will be one. But to leave the new earth out of consideration when we think of the final state of believers is greatly to impoverish biblical teaching about the life to come.
PETER TOON
On the one hand, Jesus is a man, and man is finite and limited to one location. On the other hand, Jesus is God, and God is infinite and omnipresent. In a sense, then, one of these truths has to yield somewhat to the other. I suggest that perhaps Christ's humanity defined the extent of his presence in his first coming and life on Earth (humanity thereby trumping deity by limiting omnipresence). But Christ's deity may well define the extent of his presence in his second coming and life on the New Earth (deity thereby trumping the normal human inability to be in two places at once). Jesus has and always will have a single resurrected body, in keeping with his humanity. Yet that body glorified may allow him a far greater expression of his divine attributes than during his life and ministry here on Earth.
Since we can accurately say that Jesus' functioning as a man does not prohibit him from being God, we must also say that Jesus' functioning as God does not prohibit him from being a man. So, although we cannot conceive exactly how it could happen, I believe it's entirely possible that Jesus could in the future remain a man while fully exercising the attributes of God, including, at least in some sense, omnipresence.
Don't we already see that now? Where is Christ? At the right hand of God (Hebrews 12:2). Just before dying, Stephen saw him there (Acts 7:55). Jesus will remain there until he returns to the earth. In terms of his human body, Christ is in one location, and only one.
But despite his fixed location at God's right hand, Jesus is here now, with each of us, just as he promised to be (Matthew 28:20). He dwells in our hearts, living within us (Ephesians 3:17; Galatians 2:20). If even now, in this sin-stained world, he indwells those who are saints and yet sinners, how much more will he be able to indwell us in the world to come when no sin shall separate us from him? That indwelling will in no way be obscured by sin.
On the New Earth, isn't it likely we might regularly hear him speak to us directly as he dwells in and with us, wherever we are? Prayer might be an unhindered two-way conversation, whether we are hundreds of miles away in another part of the New Jerusalem, thousands of miles away on another part of the New Earth, or thousands of light years away in the new universe.
Consider the promise that when Christ returns "every eye will see him" (Revelation 1:7). How is that physically possible? By the projection of his image? But every eye will see him, not merely his image. Will he be in more than one place at one time?
If God took on human form any number of times, as recorded in Scripture, couldn't Christ choose to take on a form to manifest himself to us at a distant place? If he did that, might he not take on a temporary form very similar in appearance to his actual physical form, which may at that moment be sitting on the throne in the New Jerusalem? Might Jesus appear to us and walk with us in a temporary but tangible form that is an expression of his real body? Or might the one body of Jesus be simultaneously present with his people in a million places?
Might we walk with Jesus (notjust spiritually, but also physically) while millions of others are also walking with him? Might we not be able to touch his hand or embrace him or spend a long afternoon privately conversing with him—notjust with his spirit, but his whole person?
It may defy our logic, but God is capable of doing far more than we imagine. Being with Christ is the very heart of Heaven, so we should be confident that we will have unhindered access to him.
WILL GOD SERVE US?
Jesus said, "It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them" (Luke 12:37).
This is an amazing passage. Jesus says that the Master will do something culturally unthinkable—become a servant to his servants. Why? Because he loves them, and also out of appreciation for their loyalty and service to him. The King becomes a servant, making his servants kings! Notice that he won't merely command his other servants to serve them. He will do it himself.
We will be in Heaven only because "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). We must assent to Christ's service for us (John 13:8). But even in Heaven, it appears, Jesus will sometimes serve us. What greater and more amazing reward could be ours in the new universe than to have Jesus choose to serve us?
If it was our idea that God would serve us, it would be blasphemy. But it's his idea. As husbands serve their wives and parents serve their children, God desires to serve us. "On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples" (Isaiah 25:6). God will be the chef—he'll prepare us a meal. In Heaven, God will overwhelm us with his humility and his grace.
Both God the Father and God the Son are portrayed as reigning on thrones in Heaven. But what will be the Holy Spirit's role? The answer isn't spelled out in detail, but we can surmise that he'll be involved in creating the new heavens and New Earth (Genesis 1:2; Isaiah 32:15). He may continue to indwell believers (John 16:7). He'll empower us to rule wisely with Christ (Deuteronomy 34:9; Judges 3:10). He may still move our hearts to glorify and worship the Father and the Son (John 16:14; Revelation 19:1-10). He'll continue forever as their companion in the Triune Godhead (Genesis 1:26; Hebrews 9:14).155
WHOM WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
If you had the opportunity to spend the evening with any person who's ever lived, whom would you choose? Probably someone fascinating, knowledgeable, and accomplished. High on my list would be C. S. Lewis, A. W. Tozer, Jonathan Edwards, Hudson Taylor, and Charles Spurgeon. Or how about Ruth, David, Mary, Paul, or Adam and Eve? I'd enjoy meeting Eric Liddell, the great runner and Christ-follower portrayed in Chariots of Fire.
Perhaps you'd choose someone beautiful and talented. Maybe you'd hope that at the end of the evening he or she would have enjoyed your company enough to want to spend time with you again.<
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Is Jesus the first person you would choose? Who is more beautiful, talented, knowledgeable, fascinating, and interesting than he?
The good news is, he chose you. If you're a Christian, you'll be with him for eternity and enjoy endless fascinating conversations and experiences. Incredibly, he'll also enjoy your company and mine. After all, he paid the ultimate price just so he could have us over to his place for eternity.
Most of us would love to spend the evening with a great author, musician, artist, or head of state. God is the master artist who created the universe, the inventor of music, the author and main character of the unfolding drama of redemption. Head of state? He's king of the entire universe. Yet if someone says, "I want to go to Heaven to be with God forever," others wonder, Wouldn't that be boring?
What are we thinking?
The very qualities we admire in others—every one of them—are true of God. He's the source of everything we find fascinating. Who made Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart? Who gave them their gifts? Who created music itself and the ability to perform it?
All that is admirable and fascinating in human beings comes from their creator.
HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD
In a sense, we're already in Heaven with Christ: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:1-4, emphasis added).
Our intimate link with Christ in his redemptive work makes us inseparable from him, even now. As we walk with him and commune with him in this world, we experience a faint foretaste of Heaven's delights and wonders.