Heaven On My Mind
It may be fairly stated that the frequency of our thoughts about Heaven predicts how we are living on earth.
Defining Heaven isn’t the issue here; thinking about it is.
Truth is, many people, both Christian and non-Christian, hardly think about Heaven at all.
Apathy About the Afterlife
About the only time many people think about Heaven is when someone they know dies. Otherwise, so long as they are prosperous and life smiles, they are content. They have no need for another world, and no eyes to see it.
In his book – Whatever Happened to Heaven? –Dave Hunt remarked, “No matter how beautiful, peaceful, and joyful someone believes Heaven may be, rare is the person for whom it is desirable until death can no longer be postponed.”1
G.D. Watson certainly thought this to be the case when he wrote a century earlier, “The great body of nominal believers never think about obtaining a soul fitness for Heaven till the hour of death.”2
Goethe, the famous German writer, practically sanctioned this postponement of thought when he wrote, “We may well leave the next world to reveal itself to us in due time, since we will soon enough be there and know all about it. Leave the next world to reveal itself in due time!”3
Antagonism Toward the Afterlife
Those who call themselves realists give no thought about Heaven. To them, “happily-ever-after” endings are embarrassingly trite, provoking either a raised eyebrow of skepticism or a bemused smile of condescension.
What the realist values more is the kind of observation Shakespeare made when he wrote, “The evil men do live after him; the good is interred with their bones,” and the observation Thomas Gray made when he wrote, “The paths of glory but lead to the grave.”
Such high doses of smack-down realism appear intellectually honest, uniquely urbane, impressively erudite, insightfully shrewd, and cutting-edge in its sophistication.
This is why the realist smirks at “happily-ever-after” endings by calling them predictable, simplistic, and formulaic. They say wand-waving, star-sparkling outcomes are for children.
Even Tozer took to task the fantasy view of Heaven “where we are kind of glorified butterflies waving our wings gently in the zephyrs that flow down from the celestial mountains.”4
The realist dismisses Heaven just as they do those fairy tales that once intrigued them. They may even quote the Apostle Paul as a pretext: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (I Corinthians 13:11).
Accuracy About the Afterlife
Yet, C.S. Lewis, Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, took to task this so-called realist’s perspective by pointing out that the fairy tales left on our nursery floor are much more realistic than those erudite books we later read in adult years.
According to Lewis, the beasts and witches in these fairy tales foreshadow the way evil will finally manifest; only they do so, he said, not with exaggeration but with remarkable restraint.
Scottish professor James S. Stewart agreed with Lewis, claiming:
The Gospel is quite shattering in its realism. It shirks nothing. It never seeks to gloss over the dark perplexities of fate, frustration, sin or death, or to gild unpalatable facts with a coating of pious verbiage or facile consolation. It never side-tracks uncomfortable questions with some naïve and cheerful cliché about providence or progress. It gazes open-eyed at the most menacing and savage circumstances that life can show … The very last charge that can be brought against the Gospel is that of sentimentality, of blinking the facts. It is devastating in its veracity, and its reality is a consuming fire.5
As for these scoffed-at stories that imagine endings of delight—what, with rainbows shimmering and angelic voices singing—these stories with its sugar-coated optimism aren’t really the problem. The real problem is an imagination that is too tame, too tentative, too timid.
For what could possibly stretch the mind more than marriage to the Son of God (Revelation 19:7-9)? And ascending to Heaven’s throne (Ephesians 2:6)! And becoming co-inheritors—can you imagine? —of all that God owns (Romans 8:17)!
Living in some stately castle in rural England may be nice, but to dwell where planets swirl, stars sing, and meteors flash—all with such varied and astonishing brilliance—is quite beyond what a finite mind could ever imagine!
And just think: Ever ready to do our bidding at that time will be—some silver-clad knights riding white horses? Think bigger!
At our command, Scripture says (I Corinthians 6:3), will be magnificent angels, supernatural beings more awesome in appearance and more stupendous in strength than an entire army of knights.
Why, one look at these angels will cause their knees to quiver; and one look from these angels will cause their armor to melt.
Aftermath of Denying the Afterlife
The skeptic, the pessimist, the nihilist defiantly declare no such heaven exists. For example, Bertrand Russell wrote:
No fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual beyond the grave … all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness, are destined to extinction in that vast death of the solar system … the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.6
Glaciers of gloom will chill the landscape of any person who sets aside Scripture, the Savior, and the supernatural—all of which Bertrand Russell in fact did.
Whatever may or may not be true about Heaven, the phenomenon of what happens to the skeptics who reject it must be taken into account.
After surveying all the heaped-up prizes the world had showered on him, Goethe said, “My experience has been nothing but pain and burden, the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever.”
Apparently, his was the tired tedium of a life without meaning!
Byron, the British poet, seemed to seize life with aggression, demanding its jewels of happiness. So surely he won, you say?7 Well, Byron himself said this:
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker and the grief
Are mine alone.
Napoleon became a world conqueror, a man of power and international fame. But his life ended with the lament, “This is my burnt-out hour.”8
There had been this brief burst of glory, but so soon after that … the dust of death!
It wasn’t supposed to be like that! Such sacrifice and genius! All that discipline and effort! Had not these men made their mark on the world—but for what?
Moreover, what was true for them has been true of others, though they never appeared on the world’s stage, and never garnished a headline in the newspapers or were quoted in a book.
Did you ever hear of an atheist saying at the hour of his death: “How glad I am that I can face death as an unbeliever. My soul is quietly resting upon my unbelieving views. All is light. All is joy”?
No, that’s not the way their story ends. And it need not be the way your story ends.
Assurances About the Afterlife
Think about it! Is there any promise that exceeds what the Bible says of Heaven?
The prospect of a better job, a nicer house, a new circle of friends, or even that long-awaited dream vacation can hardly compare with eons of continual bliss and uninterrupted joy.
Contemplating such a future, A.W. Tozer wrote:
The true Christian may safely look forward to a future state that is as happy as perfect love wills it to be. Since love cannot desire for its object anything less than the fullest possible measure of enjoyment for the longest possible time, it is virtually beyond our power to conceive of a future as consistently delightful as that which Christ is preparing for us.9
To be in the presence of Jesus and out of the presence of sin has to be profoundly better than any hope this world has to offer. John Wesley said, “I am a creature of a day, soon to drop into eternity; I want to know one thing, the way to heaven.”
Dave Hunt declared:
One cannot read the New Testament without seeing its heavenly orientation. Heaven was continually on the heart of our Lord, and it was the context for everything he taught the disciples. He made it clear that he was calling them to turn their attention and affection and interest from this world to Heaven, from what had been their earthly home and hope to his “Father’s house” from whence he had come and to which he would soon take them.10
Further credentialing the doctrine of Heaven are the assertions Jesus made.
In John 3:13, Jesus referred to himself as “he who came down from heaven.”
In John 6:12, Jesus said it flat-out, “I came down from heaven.”
So there you have it, from the lips of our Lord: He came from Heaven!
As Jesus speaks of it, Heaven isn’t a temporary stopover, a resting place for those about to be recycled to earth.
The doctrine of reincarnation may reward the good turtle who tried to cross the interstate with, say, a future life as a philosopher; but before Jesus was born, he—ever and always had lived in Heaven, higher than the highest in all of creation, the recipient of adoring worship from throngs of angels—ever the beloved of God!
In Revelation 1:18, Jesus speaks to John from Heaven, saying, “I am he that lives and was dead ....”
So, he came from Heaven. He returned to Heaven. His place of departure became his ultimate destination.
You see, all the grave diggers in the world couldn’t dig a hole deep enough to bury eternal life. And all the coffin makers in the world couldn’t construct a coffin formidable enough to contain eternal life.
This teaching about Heaven is more than wishful thinking or mere speculation. The doctrine of Heaven is rooted in reliable, infallible, eyewitness testimony.
Think about that! Today … and for all your earthly tomorrows!
Notes:
1. Dave Hunt, Whatever Happened to Heaven?, (Eugene, Harvest House Publishers, 1988). p. 11.
2. G.D. Watson, Holiness Manual, (Salem, Ohio, Schmul Publishing Company, 2007), p.81.
3. Herbert Lockyer, All God’s Comfort, (Peabody, Massachusetts, Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), p.124.
4. A.W. Tozer, The Tozer Pulpit, (Harrisburg, PA. 1975), Volume 6, p.171
5. James S. Stewart, Heralds of God, (Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1972), pp.33, 34.
6. James Stewart, The Gates of New Life, (Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1956), p.29.
7. James S. Stewart, Wind of the Spirit, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House, 1984), p.71.
8. These words attributed to Napoleon actually came from Thomas Hardy’s epic poem, “The Dynasts.”
9. A.W. Tozer, The Radical Cross, (Camp Hill, PA., WingSpread Publishers, 2005), p.133.
10. Dave Hunt, Whatever Happened to Heaven?, pp.40, 41.
