Something to look forward to - 3 November 2010 |
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The Revd Dr David Field has (temporarily, if you want my guess) stopped blogging (though his old blog is available as a Word document and is well worth printing out in full for a few weeks’ worth of edifying Sunday afternoon reading). However, just occasionally I find myself in a conversation with some friends to which one of David’s old posts is supremely relevant. Today was one such occasion.
So here, with David’s kind permission, is an old post of his entitled, “Not looking forward to heaven,” originally posted 18 November 2005.
One of the most deep-seated and unhelpful ways in which Christian use of particular vocabulary is at variance with that of the Bible is in the widespread idea that the future blessed state of the righteous should be called “heaven”. As in “what will heaven be like?” “will my dog be in heaven?” “won’t heaven be wonderful?” and so on. This is badly, badly out of step with the way that the Bible uses the terminology of “heaven”.
There are two main words which are translated “heaven” in our English Bibles – one Hebrew and one Greek. They are both used in a variety of ways but most especially they refer to two realities. First, the words translated “heaven” refer to the skies, the heavens. Second, these words refer to what might be called the “dwelling place of God” or “God’s space”. God, of course, neither needs a dwelling place nor can be confined to one. But at the beginning of all things he created a space in which he particularly revealed himself and which should be thought of as the “divine dimension of created reality” (even though, of course, God is present in every space throughout creation).
So, heaven (1) as sky and heaven (2) as the created space in which God is particularly revealed and which the infinite, unconfined, and essentially incorporeal God chooses to make and call his dwelling-place.
Scriptures which use the word translated in English as “heaven” in sense (2) teach that this place, where there is some sort of created, physical revelation of the glory of God, is to be identified with God’s temple (Psalm 11.4; Psalm 103.19; Habakkuk 2.20; Zechariah 2.13) and God’s throne (Isaiah 66.1, Psalm 115.3, Ezekiel 1, Revelation 4-5). This heaven is the ‘source’ of God’s blessings and judgments – God hears from heaven, blesses from heaven, his wrath is revealed from heaven and so on (II Chron 7.14, Gen 19.24, Romans 1.18). It is in this heaven that the ‘real’ tabernacle / temple is to be found (Hebrews 8.5, 9.23) and where Christ did his real atoning work (Hebrews 9.12, 14, 24). It is therefore to this heaven that we ‘go’ when we pray and when we worship (Heb 6.19-20, 9.12, 24, 10.19-22, Revelation 4.1)
‘Heaven’ in this sense intersected with earth (a ‘bit’ of this heaven came to earth) in the Holy of Holies, and in the Spirit theophanies (Gen 3, Ex 19-24, Ex 40, I Kings 8, Haggai 2, Acts 2, 4.31) and, this ‘heaven’ was found on earth in the person of Christ (John 1).
This can be thought of as the home of the angels, the spiritual realm, the scene of some of the activities of the spiritual powers (Job 1-2, Luke 2.12, Matthew 18.10, Col 1.15-20, Ephesians 1.10, 6.12). It is where prophets received God’s word (I Kings 22.19-23, Jer 23) and the place from which Christ saw Satan fall and from which Satan was hurled (Luke 10.18; Rev 12.7-13). Stephen saw into heaven as he was dying because he saw Christ (Acts 7).
The Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven (John 6.38) and is the man from heaven (I Cor 15.45-49). He has gone back into heaven (Acts 1) and it is where he dwells in his glorified body (Ephesians 1.20, 2.6). He has been granted authority over heaven as well as earth (Matthew 28.18, I Peter 3.22) and is thus our Master in heaven (Col 4.1). When he returns, he will come from heaven (I Thess 1.10). The Holy Spirit, too, came from heaven (Acts 2.2, 33 I Peter 1.12, John 1.32).
When a sinner repents there is joy in heaven (Luke 15.7) and the names of disciples are written in heaven (Luke 10.20). Believers are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3) and have a heavenly calling (Hebrews 3.1). They pray to their Father in heaven (Matthew 6) and are to lay up treasure in heaven (Matthew 6.20). Their inheritance (which is not heaven) is kept in heaven for them (I Peter 1.4).
But for all this, the word translated “heaven” in our English Bibles is not used for the future hope of the righteous. It is a present reality, God’s dimension. It is where the spirits of believers go to be with Christ until resurrection day. It is where our future is being prepared and guaranteed. But it is not that future. We shall not spend eternity in “heaven” but in the new heavens and the new earth.
Of the more than 250 times that the greek word translated as “heaven” is used in the New Testament it is arguable that not once does it unambiguously refer to the future hope of the righteous. In fact, there are only three or four occasions where it is even a strong possibility that this is what is being referred to. This is staggering, given the way in which the word is normally used amongst English-speaking Christians.
This sloppy and misleading use of an important biblical word would matter even if it could not be shown that negative consequences flow from it. It would matter because we should be careful with the words that God has given us and because failure to be careful in this way is itself a spiritual issue. But in fact, it is clear that negative consequences do flow from this large gap between the way that the Bible uses a word and the way that we use the English “equivalent”. Those conseqences are the unearthly, immaterial, unphysical, floaty, vague, boring, disembodied associations which many, many Christians have with the idea of “heaven” – and the assumption that these represent the everlasting future of the righteous.
In fact, the hope of the righteous is emphatically embodied – it is to be like Christ! AND there is a perfectly good, biblical word which is very often used in the New Testament with a future reference and which (if “new heavens and new earth” is somehow felt to take too long to say!) would serve far, far better than “heaven” as a shorthand for the eternal hope of the righteous, the other side of judgment day. That word is “glory”. (Romans 2.7, 10; 5.2; 8.17, 21; I Cor 15.40-43; Phil 3.21; Col 1.27, 3.4; II Thess 1.10, 12; Titus 2.13; I Peter 5.1, 4, 10; Rev 21.11, 23-24).
Our greatest hope is the Lord Jesus Christ – beholding, reflecting, enjoying and sharing the glory of God in Christ by the Spirit in transformed bodies in a renewed cosmos as part of a perfect humanity.
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog