The relationship between evangelicals and heaven has become complicated in recent years. While the wider world has grown more interested in the afterlife – turning to near-death experiences and fictional speculation to satisfy its curiosity – many of us have begun to turn away.
The chief reason for this turning has been the response to an error. Theologians have rediscovered the truth that the Christian hope involves the earth. They’ve encouraged us to remember that our ultimate destiny is not to live as disembodied ghosts in a spirit-realm but to “reign on earth” (Rev 5:10); to share in a liberated and renewed creation (Rom 8:19-22).
This has been a valuable correction. But has it gone too far? I suspect so, and over this short series of posts I want to offer some reasons why we should keep on talking about heaven. Today it’s the idea that we need heaven to appreciate the blessings of the earth.
The Blessing of God’s Presence
In the Old Testament, proximity to God brings blessing. Eden – the first place of God’s presence (c.f. Gen 3:8; 4:16) – is the source of rivers that flow out into the world to make it rich and prosperous (Gen 2:1-14). In the Psalms the presence of God in the temple is a source of boundless delight for God’s people: “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere,” say the sons of Korah (Ps 84:10). The same Psalm speaks of pilgrims bringing rain as they journey toward Zion (Ps 84:6).
Proximity to God brings blessing. Eden – the first place of God’s presence – is the source of rivers that flow out into the world to make it rich and prosperous
But as Solomon makes clear when he dedicates the temple (1Ki 8:22-54), the earthly places where God dwells are more like relay stations for heaven. Heaven is the part of creation which has the most direct contact with God: it’s “from heaven” that God hears the prayers and receives the offerings made in the temple.
The Source of all Blessing
Because Heaven is the place where God is most present, it’s also the highest point of blessing for creation. The Bible imagines heaven as the ultimate source of all water. Heaven’s foundation is poetically depicted as a sea above the sky (Gen 1:7; Ps 104:3); its storehouses are the place from which God draws rain, hail and storms to send down on the earth (cf Deut 28:12; Jer 10:13). Psalm 104 puts it best:
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate – bringing forth food from the earth. (Psalm 104:13-14)
Heaven, as we see it here, is the source of every earthly good. This ultimate point of connection between God and the cosmos functions as the spring-point for all blessing. Thus Revelation and Ezekiel feature rivers that flow from the very centre of God’s presence: from the threshold of the temple (Eze 47:1); from the very throne of God and the lamb (Rev 22:1).
If we put these things together we see pattern that helps us meditate more deeply on both heaven and earth. The earth is good because it receives the blessings that flow out of God’s presence. Heaven is greater because it is that place where God is present. But it’s God himself who makes heaven what it is. As the psalmist puts it:
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever, (Psalm 73:25-26).
Thinking Upstream
If we grasp this pattern it will help us value the world without making it an idol. We won’t think of it too highly because we’ll know it is not the Thing or place that we really want. Yet, paradoxically, we will still see the things of this world as highly significant because they will appear to us as tokens of heaven.
Richard Baxter, in his practical guide to heavenly-mindedness, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, maintains that this is a vital key to Christian living in the world. If we can learn to see the sweet things of this life as signs of sweeter things to come then we will “have a fuller taste of Christ and heaven in every common meal than most men have in a sacrament.” [1]
If we can learn to see the sweet things of this life as signs of sweeter things to come then we will ‘have a fuller taste of Christ and heaven in every common meal than most men have in a sacrament.’
He says that this attitude can help us in good times as well as bad.
If thou prosper in the world, let it make thee more sensible of thine eternal prosperity. If thou art weary with labor, let it make the thoughts of thy eternal rest more sweet. If things go cross, let thy desires be more earnest to have sorrows and sufferings for ever cease … every condition and creature affords us advantages for a heavenly life.[2]
C. S. Lewis agrees with Baxter. He contends that the good things of this world were never intended to satisfy us, but to arouse a desire for heaven.[3] Earthly joys are “the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”[4] He also argues that this mindset will make us more effective in the here-and-now.
The great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in:” aim at earth and you will get neither.[5]
At this point, some readers might be wondering about where this leaves the renewal of the earth. We’ll return to that later. But for now we need to see that no vision of our future will ever satisfy us if it doesn’t include God himself. Earth will never be enough for us unless it is also heaven.
Yet here we encounter a serious problem… (to be continued)
Photos: ildac, flickr (main); Bill Devlin, flickr (inset)
Author’s note: By happy coincidence, this series was originally planned and written at the end of 2014 before I was aware that the 2015 Gospel Coalition Conference would follow the theme of “Coming Home: New Heaven and New Earth.” Readers who want to pursue this topic will find excellent resources from that conference here. Scott Swain’s workshop “Your Eyes Will Behold the King in His Beauty,” provides a particularly resonant exploration.
[1] R. Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest: or, A Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints, abbr. B. Fawcett (Cheapside: Cotton & Edowes, 1759), 262. Modern readers access a very helpful paraphrase edition here: http://w.preachtheword.com/bookstore/saintsrest.pd…
[2] Ibid.
[3] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1986 edition (Glasgow: William Collins & Sons, 1952), 118-119
[4] C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory” in C. S. Lewis Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity & the Church, ed. L. Walmsley (London: Harper Collins, 2000), 98-99
[5] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 116-117
