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For the last ten years, I’ve spent a lot of discretionary time thinking, speaking, and writing about following Jesus in everyday life—in families, at work, in the community, and so on. In this series, I’m exploring some words and concepts in the Christian subculture that might inadvertently make it harder for us to follow Jesus: I’d like to discourage the use of these discouraging words.

 

We know that “hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). But if our ultimate hope is to “go home to heaven,” it may actually be an impediment to God’s love overflowing from us to our neighbours.

How we use the word

We often use the word “heaven” as shorthand for “Christians’ final reward and resting-place.” Our evangelism explains the importance of “getting in to heaven when we die”; we say that Christians who’ve died have been “called home.” Our songs are shot through with this theology: we’re passing through on the way to heaven; we have a blessèd home beyond this land of woe; when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be; when we’ve been there 10,000 years, we’ll have no fewer days to sing God’s praise than when we first began.

Why this is discouraging

At first blush, it’s hard to see why this should be discouraging: after all, what greater comfort in the face of trials or grief to know that Christians go to be “with Christ” when they die (Philippians 1:23), and that the Lord himself will wipe every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4)?

But in fact, the Bible doesn’t speak of heaven as our home. And if our hope doesn’t line up with the Biblical picture, it can end up diminishing our love for God, his people, and his world.

To explain this, let me outline a Biblical view—both of heaven and of our hope for the future. The word “heaven” in the Bible has a range of meanings, but here I’ll focus on the idea that heaven is the place where God dwells. Heaven is separate from the earth, where we dwell: God sits on his throne in heaven on high; the earth is his footstool (e.g., Psalm 11:4; Isaiah 66:1). Since Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the Garden, humanity hasn’t lived in God’s presence and blessing.

With this idea in the background, the New Testament reveals several astounding ways that heaven has come to intersect with the earth. First, God himself became flesh in the person of Jesus and dwelt among us (John 1:14).[1] Second, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we’re now included in Christ; we’ve been blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3), and; we’re even now raised and seated with him in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 3:1–4; cf. Hebrews 10:19). Finally, our hope for the future isn’t that we’ll go to heaven; it’s that heaven will come here: “our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).[2]

Jesus is coming back, and when he appears, he’ll put an end to sin, death, mourning, crying, and pain. So our hope isn’t that we escape the earth to live forever in heaven; it’s that God bring a new heavens and new earth where we can dwell forever with him, face-to-face (Revelation 21:1–7; 22:1–5; cf. Romans 8:18–21).[3]

This Biblical picture is so much richer than the common, discouraging story that Christianity is simply about getting in to heaven when you die. The New Testament shows us how our salvation fits into God’s magnificent plan to redeem all things and bring glory to his name (Ephesians 1:3–14; Colossians 1:15–23): this will prevent us becoming individualistic or self-focused. It also preserves us from “passport Christianity”—that thin and pallid version of discipleship where we cling to justification by faith as a kind of “ticket to heaven,” but we travel through life as if Jesus had no interest in our day-to-day activities.

That is, the Biblical story won’t allow us to be “too heavenly minded to be any earthly use”: rather, the fact that we’re seated in the heavenly realms gives us both the motivation and the power to live for God in the here and now. The Spirit sent from heaven has given us new life; this comes with a new, Spirit-filled lifestyle—a life of love; a life where we pray and act such that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is the logic of Colossians 3.[4] Paul opens by saying that since we’ve been raised with Christ, we should set our hearts and minds on things above, not on earthly things (verses 1–4). I’ve sometimes heard this explained to mean our present lives are fleeting and inconsequential. But in context, this seems to me to be a serious misreading. Because as we set our hearts and minds on Christ, it transforms the way we live in the present: we’re empowered to put to death ungodly desires and actions (verses 5–9) and to live distinctively as the people of God (verses 10–17), which includes the very earthy spheres of marriage, parenting, and work (verses 18–22). The end of the chapter provides a clear summary of how slaves’ hope for the future should transform their present: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (verses 23–24).

In contrast, the idea that “heaven is our home” obscures how God would have us follow Jesus on the earth. It discourages us from seeing the goodness of the creation or from living now in light of God’s redemption. Thankfully, it’s not too hard to avoid this language.

Some more encouraging alternatives

When speaking about Christians’ forever-home, we can use the language of “the new creation” or “the new heavens and new earth.” We can thank our Father in heaven for his commitment to renew all things, and for Jesus’ bodily resurrection—both the firstfruits and our sure proof that God will have a final victory over his great enemies (and ours!), sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:12–28). And as we speak of our hope for the future, we trust that this won’t make us long to escape the earth, but rather to love it selflessly here and now—to play our part in seeing God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven.

[1] As such, “heaven” may even stand in for “God”—where Mark and Luke have Jesus describing “the kingdom of God,” Matthew says “the kingdom of Heaven.”

[2] For a discussion of this and other Biblical passages about heaven, see Wright, “New Heavens, New Earth,” in Called to One Hope: perspectives on the life to come (ed. Colwell; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000).

[3] We may ask, “But what about Paul’s statement that he’s going to be ‘with Christ’ when he dies?” It does seem to be true that Christians go to heaven when they die: the point is, they don’t stay there. Heaven isn’t their home; they’re just passing through. They’re in what theologians call the “intermediate state”—waiting for Jesus to return and bring in the new creation (including the resurrection of their bodies). There’s a clear introduction here: http://www.desiringgod.org/art…

[4] The ideas—and much of the language—of this paragraph come from Adeney and Heath, Good Work: a labour of love (Summer Hill: Groundwork, 2010).

Image: “Heaven” (by adyyflickr) at flickr.com.

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