How Can We Understand Heaven?

How can we understand Heaven?

We know that we will be with our Heavenly Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit forever.  Jesus says he is preparing a place for us.

What we can see of Heaven from Earth is clearly different from how God sees from Heaven.  In fact, God says very little about heaven. I think he knows it will blow our mind. How could you explain to the child in the womb how things will be different when he or she comes out.   The terms we would use to explain would not make sense to the child in the womb. Every effort we made would only lead to more confusion. Thus, God says little about heaven, but leaves us with questions.

On Earth, there will always be things that don’t make sense.  Jesus helped us now to see some things here on earth but gave us thoughts of heaven in broad terms like the culture and kingdom he wants us to join.We clearly know everything God wants us to know for now. He gave us enough.

We Can Start to Live Citizens of Heaven Now

Since we seek a kingdom like Jesus describes in the beatitudes, we start to let God conform us to his Kingdom culture while we are here in earth.

Naturally, as we want heaven’s culture for eternity, we start to bring it into our lives here. See II Peter 3.

¹⁴ So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

What About Near Death Experiences?

Might I add that books about people who have had near death experiences and say they saw heaven are popular. The Muslims and the Hindus have their own such books.  Hindus see their view of reincarnation and Nirvana. Muslims see nothing as they are not allowed to have images of the creator. Each sees what they are taught to imagine. This would mean none of the near death people saw anything in actual heaven.

How Can Understand Heaven? Can We Visit and Come Back?

To see heaven one has to actually be there meaning that you died. The Bible says we die once. You cannot play with the boundary.  God does not make mistakes and send people back. In Jesus times, he raised people from the dead. Paul raised a person from the dead as did Elijah and Elisha. In all these stories, no one ever said they saw great things in heaven, and they were really dead.

Might I also add that the Bible is unclear on if we are instantly in heaven when we die.

When Will We Be In Heaven?

Two theories exist.

One is instant, and our dead believing relatives are up watching us or enjoying heaven now.

The second is we all awake from a perfect sleep and feel we instantly are in heaven, but actually the dead are all raised at once and face judgement together as occurs in Revelation. It also is shown in Matthew 25. So, when Jesus told the thief he would be in heaven today, it was a perfect picture for the thief. In fact, he would be in heaven instantly, but would not be there in our now.

In Jesus story of the rich man and Lazarus, one might say Abraham was talking to the rich man in torment. proving that Abraham and the dead man had already been judged.  Jesus often told parables and rarely explained if any were real. Clearly, most are not.  Jesus intent was not that this really happened. So, the Bible is not clear on this teaching. Thus, I would not teach on this due to it not being a main thing.

Finally at the end of all time, we will all have new physical bodies though we do not know exactly what they will be like. Jesus’s resurrection body may be an example.

Let’s end with resurrection in I Cor 15.

³⁵ But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” ³⁶ How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷ When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. ³⁸ But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. ³⁹ Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. ⁴⁰ There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. ⁴¹ The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

⁴² So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³ it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.