Mitch Lewis

Scot McKnight has been writing a series of posts about the Bible's concept of heaven. This post is a revised and extended version of comments I left there.

I'm not sure if N. T. Wright's little book, "Surprised by Hope" spurred Scot's series or not, but Wright's book has been the source of much discussion in the press and in the blogosphere. Wright reminds the church that the New Testament speaks of the coming of God's kingdom in power and judgment, the resurrection of the dead, the end of death, the appearing of the Son of Man at the end of the age and the coming of a new heavens, new earth and new Jerusalem. It does not speak much, if at all, about "going to heaven when you die."

Wright's concern is that many Christians have come to disconnect their hope for the future from God's creative activity. Creation, redemption and eschatology all belong together. If "going to heaven" means leaving bodily existence behind and abandoning the created world for something completely different, then Christians have discarded the Biblical hope proclaimed in the New Testament. It's interesting that the first person who called this to my attention - that the New Testament does not talk about "going to heaven" - was Garner Ted Armstrong in his 1970's era radio show. Armstrong was heterodox in so many ways, but It just goes to show you that you can discover the truth in unexpected places.

Some of this discussion of "heaven" vs. a "transformed creation" may be a distinction without a difference. The "transformed creation" seems a lot like what many Christians mean when they talk about "heaven."

In my reading of the Bible, this is some of what I see:

1. God is eternal, existing before, after and outside of the existence of the universe. God is not just another object - even a very powerful one - in the cosmos.
2. God is the god of the entire universe - not just the god of the third rock from the sun.
3. God's salvation in Jesus is cosmic in its scope. God's deliverance is not limited to this terrestrial ball any more than it limited to Judea, the eastern Mediterranean or the Roman Empire.
4. God's salvation in Jesus Christ is eternal. There is a once, for all and forever quality to God's salvation in Jesus.
5. God created human beings as physical beings in a physical universe. This is who we are and where we belong in God's creation. We are unities of mind, body and spirit. There is no hint in the Bible that there is some invisible, essential spirit or soul within us that can be ripped from the flesh and sent off to live an ethereal existence.
6. God's salvation of human beings ultimately entails their physical transformation. The perishable will put on the imperishable and the mortal, immortality.
   • Jesus' resurrected body exhibited both continuity (eating and drinking, scarred hands and side) and discontinuity (appearing in locked rooms, sometimes not recognizable) with his pre-resurrection body.
   • Paul envisions similar continuity-discontinuity for resurrected believers (It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.) Jesus is the "first fruit" of the resurrection of the dead. His resurrection is the ground and the model for the believer's resurrection.
   • John envisions similar continuity-discontinuity for transformed creation (Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away)

From my understanding of the world, the following also appear to be true:

1. The physical universe is not eternal. Physicists understand something of its beginnings (the so-called "big bang") and the processes by which it has developed into the universe we know now. There is some debate, as I understand it, as to whether the universe will end by collapsing back in on itself or simply expand forever and run out of steam. In either case, its destiny is death.
2. The earth's sun will someday run out of hydrogen fuel and begin to change. It will begin fusing the helium produced by hydrogen fusion and become a red giant with a radius greater than the earth's current orbit. There is some debate as to whether the expanding sun will swallow the earth whole or simply cook it to a cinder. Now that's global warming! Eventually, the sun will run out of all possible fuels, collapse into a white dwarf and spend a few billion years fading away into a cosmic clinker.  In any case, the earth and its sun will die.

The earth, then, is not simply the eternal stage on which the drama of salvation plays out. It may be true that salvation does not consist of our souls being liberated from our bodies to exist as pure spiritual beings, but it is also true that redemption involves more than simply changing the nature of human social relationships or power structures. It involves even more than resurrecting us to immortality and spiritual perfection and setting us back on terra firma. Our ultimate salvation involves a fundamental change in the nature of the universe itself. There is no eternal life of any sort that will take place on planet Earth as it now exists. If human beings will continue to live bodily lives in God's created universe, then creation no less than human flesh needs the power of Christ's resurrection. Just as there will be both continuity and discontinuity between my personal existence in this age and the age to come, so there will be both continuity and discontinuity between the physical universe we know and the universe that will be.

When God raised Jesus from the dead, that act involved both a resuscitation of his corpse and a transformation of its essential nature. Similarly, Paul says we will not all die ("sleep") but that we will all be changed. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Those who die will be raised to eternal life, and those who are alive at Christ's appearing will be transformed from perishable to imperishable.

While the resurrection raises corpses to a new form of existence and transforms the living, I doubt the power of the resurrection depends on the existence of a physical body to raise. I don’t think, for example, that cremation is an obstacle to the resurrection. All bodies, in fact, decompose after death. The molecules that compose my body may or may not exist in a form that resembles my body when the Lord returns. Given enough time, it is literally true that we go from “dust to dust.”

If we have an essence, it is our thoughts, feelings and memories which are a function of our brain. When the brain decomposes, it’s not as if it can be turned back on like a long dormant computer. There’s no longer any “there” there. But if God knows me and remembers me, surely he can make a new me from the dust of the new creation and breathe into me the breath of life.

If we are hanging around when the Lord appears, I assume that Paul’s phrase “we shall be changed” accurately describes the transformation of our physical bodies. But even if our physical bodies are long gone, God is surely still able to resurrect the essential me to life in what Paul calls a “spiritual body.” This is of some practical interest to me as I work with men and women who face violence that sometimes leaves little recognizable as human remains.

God will transform not only my own flesh and blood but the cosmic environment as well. Just as the doctrine of bodily resurrection does not depend on the resuscitation of of my earthly corpse, so the doctrine of the “new earth” doesn’t depend on the continued existence of the bits of dust on which we now walk. In one breath the author of the Apocalypse says that he sees a new heavens and a new earth; in the next he says that the old heavens and earth passed away.  My faith does NOT depend on God stepping in before the earth burns to a crisp and its molecules are scattered throughout the universe. Perhaps the Lord will appear tomorrow and transform the physical world in which we live into one in which there is no death. Perhaps not. But if not, God can surely still complete, redeem and restore his creation.

So, while the New Testament does not teach that believers "go to heaven," in my reading it does teach that the future existence is substantially different than world we know. The traditional concept of heaven attempts to capture this "otherness." Still, I prefer to use the Biblical language of “a new heavens and new earth” and “Christ’s appearing.” In doing so, what I really want to affirm in that is this: God intends to complete and redeem his creation. Christian eschatology is not world negating, but creation affirming. The future state may indeed be “heavenly” in comparison to this one, but I still have no interest in sitting on clouds or living an angel’s life. What I want - and what I think God has promised - is a life in which the good gifts of the world God created for me - and which I barely know - are rescued, preserved and protected.