What is Heaven Like?
Do
you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you
not competent to judge trivial cases? Do
you not know that we will judge angels?
How much more the things of this life?
1
Cor 6:2-3
Let’s be
careful. A basic rule of interpretation,
of the Bible or any other text, is to pay attention to context. In this part of his first letter to the
Corinthian Christians, Paul takes on lawsuits among believers. It’s unseemly and embarrassing, he says, for
Christians to take their disputes to civil courts. Rather than have one brother suing another
before unbelievers, Paul says, it would be better to be cheated. The main point is clear: settle disputes in
the church.
Having
recognized the main point of the text, let’s speculate about a side topic. Paul says Christians will judge the world
and, even more mysteriously, they will judge angels. Imagine for a moment how strange that would
have sounded in the 1st century.
The believers to whom Paul wrote were a tiny minority in the Roman
Empire. They were, as he wrote in
another place, not drawn from the upper classes or those considered wise or
powerful. How will it be that Christians
would judge the world?
The answer
is clear. Paul refers to the future,
after Jesus returns to earth. The
Christian worldview is based on the Hebrew idea that history will not always go
on as it has; rather, the “Day of the Lord” will come when God will judge the
nations. The Christians modified this
idea only slightly, in that Jesus is the Lord.
When Jesus returns, he comes to rule.
Apparently, we will rule with him.
“Do you not
know?” Paul says. It seems to be a rhetorical question,
assuming they’ve already been taught about the coming age. Latter day readers, though, might feel like objecting:
“No. We don’t know! What are you talking about?”
What will
heaven be like? Occasionally you meet
someone who says heaven sounds boring—sitting around on clouds strumming
harps—a silly caricature, based on comic books rather than Christian doctrine. But the charge is sometimes developed
philosophically. A friend of mine once
argued seriously that in an infinite span of time the activities of heaven must
inevitably become repetitive and boring.
This argument errs because it applies infinity only to time, forgetting
that God is an infinite being. There
will always be more to learn, worship, and love.
So what will heaven be like? Our answers must carry the caveat that God has
much more in store for us than we can know now.
But the Bible gives tantalizing hints.
First, we
should think not of going to heaven, but of heaven coming to earth. In Romans Paul says the whole creation longs
for the Day to come. In Revelation, John
pictures the New Jerusalem on earth. The
biblical promise is of a “new heaven and new earth.”
Second,
there is worship now in heaven
(Revelation 4), and there will be after the resurrection. In the New Jerusalem there is no temple,
because the presence of God fills the city.
Worship implies joy and praise, at least.
Third, our
bodies will be like Jesus’ body. In the
gospels, Jesus’ resurrection body was undoubtedly physical—able to eat fish,
marked with scars of crucifixion—and yet able to appear in locked rooms and
able to ascend into heaven. Such
snippets raise more questions than they answer.
What will resurrection bodies be able to do? Jesus himself said there would be no marriage
in the resurrection; what does that mean?
Fourth, there
will be community. Heaven is not just
“Jesus and me.” The Bride of Christ is
the church, all of us together. Each one
of us will learn to rejoice as fervently for the goodness of God to others as
we do for God’s goodness to us personally.
We will genuinely love others as much as we love ourselves.
Fifth, we
will be creative. We are made in the
image of God, the great creator. Our
creative activities now—cooking, gardening, writing, researching, building—will
be remembered as dim precursors to our work as creators. Notice the word “work.” In heaven our labor will not be an oppressive
curse, but there is no reason we should not have work to do.
Sixth . . .
the list could be extended. It seems
that part of our “work” will be judicial.
“We will judge the angels.”
Again, a mystery. What does that
mean? What do the angels do? Why should they need judges? Why would God entrust such judgment to us?
So much we
do not know! Should we not be eager to
find out? Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus.
