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Does anyone go to heaven?

July 22, 2007

Discussions this week over dinner at our house have raised some interesting questions about heaven. Especially about the idea that Christians go to heaven. The phrase is a well used and popular shorthand. Most of us who use it know what we mean by it. It is meant to summarise the hope we have of what will happen to us when we die.

But explaining what it is supposed to mean is not as easy as it first appears. For one thing there seems to be little evidence in the Bible that Christians do go to heaven. They go somewhere for sure – but if not heaven, where?

Part of the difficulty is that the word heaven is used in the bible with a variety of meanings. Apart from meaning the sky or the space above the earth, it is also used as a circumlocution for God, as in Matthew’s use of the term, kingdom of heaven.  In Luke 24.51 and Acts 1.10,11 Jesus is taken up into heaven (in which direction the disciples are staring). This a good example of where a spatial meaning (up into the sky) overlaps with a spiritual meaning (up to where God is).

This latter meaning occurs in John’s gospel, where Jesus is the one who has come down out of heaven – meaning from the Father. But in John the coming from and returning to the Father is the preferred way of speaking about Jesus’ movements.

In John 14 Jesus says he is going to prepare a place for his disciples and then come and take them to be where he is. He refers to rooms or dwellings, but the main idea is that he will take them to the Father. This image of rooms (or mansions in the older versions) illustrates the variety of images that are used to describe what Christians’ experience of the Age to Come will be like.

In 2 Cor 5 Paul talks about leaving the earthly tent-like body and being clothed with a heavenly house. He seems to be referring to the resurrection body which will ‘clothe’ believers in heaven. This passage helps us see another aspect of the idea of heaven. It is where God is and the life and body we will have is one appropriate for life in the presence of God.

Paul also writes to reassure the Thessalonians (1Thess 4.13) about the coming of the Lord. He says both the already dead and those still alive will be caught up to meet the Lord who comes down out of heaven – and so, he says, we will forever be with the Lord.

But what about the pearly gates? Next week.

Dale

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