New Heavens, New Earth

Contents

Preface

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Postscript

Bibliography

About The Author

John R. Spencer, author and Co-Director of The Christus Center, is available for seminars and speaking engagements. Contact The Christus Center, 23 Black Partridge Run, Sparland, IL 61565.

Cover Photo: Sunrise at Lake Jacqueline, © 1999 Candice R. Hogden. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, © 1965, 1966, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Quotations designated (NSRV) are from the [New] Revised Standard Version of the Bible, © 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Quotations designated (KJV) are from the Authorized Version of the Bible, as revised, commonly known as the King James Version.

To my wife Candice,

whose inquiring mind inspired me to write this,

and whose love keeps me going.

But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteous dwells.

-2 Peter 3:13

Preface

To read a map, you need not only the map but its legend, the little box in the corner that explains what all the colors and symbols on the map mean. This book is like that little box in relation to the Bible. Many people find themselves floundering in a sea of misinformation and distorted truth about holy scripture. Most who call themselves Christians are persuaded they know the real truth, but we have to wonder. With so many conflicting voices competing for print space and air time, the only certainty is that not everything proclaimed as Christian truth can be trusted. Truth seems to be a purchased commodity today, and a slave to popularity.

I urgently long for the return of Jesus Christ to this world. But it seems he continues to delay—exercising his great patience—so that those of us who claim his name can call a few more souls back to the sound of his voice. I pray this book will be part of that call.

I have found it helpful at times to insert clarifying words in some quotations of scripture, marked off clearly by square brackets [ ]. I do this not to be presumptuous or to change the text, but simply to clarify passages that are often confusing to contemporary readers. My goal is not to add to scripture, but to make it plainer.

1

What will it be like? my niece asked me.

Like? I asked.

When I die. What will it be like? She was deeply concerned, and completely uncertain. After reflecting for years about her grandfather’s death and worrying about what had happened to him, she wanted to know, Where is he? Is he O.K.?

About the same time another life-long Christian asked me, What really happens when we die? A friend told me that when we die, we become angels. Is that really true?

The pat answer most Christians give is that when we die we go to heaven. But what is heaven? Where is heaven? What is it like?

These urgent and compelling questions overflow in the minds of many Christians yet most seem to go through life with no clear understanding of what scripture actually teaches on this all-important subject. When faced with the death of a loved one, or the prospect of their own, many just cringe into a mental corner and try to hide their thoughts under a warm blanket of pious platitudes. The dead have simply passed away, or gone home to the Lord. We often hear it said, they’re better off, but are they? They’ve gone to their final reward, some say. But have they?

Confusion abounds. I read this in an obituary for a Roman Catholic priest recently: The Reverend Joseph Smart entered peacefully into the fullness of life on August 5. His relatives—or whoever wrote the obituary—obviously believed that at the moment of his death Fr. Joseph instantaneously arrived at his final destiny. But had he?

Many pious Christians would say of course, believing that when Christians die they immediately ascend to their final heavenly existence for all eternity. I found this exact idea asserted in a footnote to one recent Bible translation:

Since the human spirit is the essential man, we may be caught up to heaven although our bodies are left behind on earth and per-ish…the really consecrated Christian does not go down into the grave at death, but rises to Christ and God…he has ascended to heaven (Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, footnote 1, p. 554).

Then I came across another obituary about a little child who died at the age of only a few months because, according to the family, God needed his little angel back. And not long after, I read of a woman in Chicago who was waiting for a kidney donor. Her 3 year old daughter was suddenly killed in a tragic accident and the doctor suggested taking a life-saving kidney from her dead child. The woman hesitated until her own mother said the child was an angel sent by God on a mission to save her mother’s life.

People who think in such terms talk about going home to heaven because they imagine that is where we all originally came from. But did we?

Such ideas are usually put forth by very sincere Christians who think their beliefs are based on the Bible. But are they? In reality, anyone who holds such notions about life, death, and heaven have strayed a great distance from the teaching of holy scripture. So when they try to read the Bible, they often come away thoroughly confused because it contains many passages that simply won’t square with their pre-conceived ideas about death and heaven.

The appalling truth is this: the modern Church, and our secularized culture, are widely infected with false and misleading ideas about death, heaven, and hell that flatly contradict the teaching of Jesus Christ. In the midst of this, many faithful but confused people are desperately searching for answers, for a clear and sound understanding of just what the Bible does say on the subject of life after death.

What does happen when we die? Many who think they know still become frightened and unsure when death comes knocking at the door. It’s one thing to speculate, to say I know…. It’s something else to stand and face death eyeball to eyeball. Sadly, much preaching I have heard about death, and our life after death, is shrouded in a wilderness of language that few people understand. Here’s a taste. My wife went to a friend’s funeral at a large mainline church and brought home the paltry looking service bulletin, a bad photocopy of sketchy prayers and an invitation to the luncheon. The feeble prayers consisted mainly of words about how much God loves us and how Rebecca was now in God’s hands, as if she hadn’t been before. The words offered sentimental but nebulous consolation:

Eternal God…may your Spirit comfort and strengthen us, that we may have hope of life and trust in your goodness and mercy…your love cares for us in life and watches over us in death…In our perplexity, help us to trust where we cannot understand. In our loneliness, may we remember Rebecca in love, trusting her to your keeping…comfort us with the great power of your love…In our grief and confusion, help us find peace in the knowledge of your loving mercy to all your children, and give us light to guide us into the assurance of your love…

Had I been her grieving husband, I’m afraid I would have received little from this recitation except a vague notion that God loves us, which most of us already know. But there was his wife in that coffin, laying there cold and dead. Apart from the preacher’s uncertain promise of love and consolation, what do these words speak of? Listen: Death…perplexity…we cannot understand…loneliness…grief and confusion. They are words of helplessness offered in a spiritual vacuum. God cares for us in life and watches over us in death…, but that seems to be the end of the story. Just like the dead priest who allegedly had entered peacefully into the fullness of life," we are left believing—if we accept such notions—that death really is the end! The soul just floats away into a cloud of obscure ideas and ascends into heaven to enjoy some nebulous state of existence for all eternity. The end.

It is any wonder people are confused? If we as Christians adopt such fuzzy views we have no good news to offer the world at all! Is this the Christian hope, caricatured as pie in the sky by and by? What struck me most about the prayer at Rebecca’s funeral was that it made no mention whatsoever about the resurrection of Jesus Christ or the world to come.

Isn’t that astonishing? Where has the gospel of Jesus Christ gone? Where is the Christian Church today if we don’t hear his great Good News proclaimed even at a funeral?

Desperate For Answers

Why are so many people confused on this all-important subject? The reason, I’m afraid, is painfully obvious. Instead of being the gospel proclaiming Church, we are rapidly becoming the hopeless community of the lost and bewildered. Many sincere Christians (perhaps most?) don’t even open their Bibles seeking answers because they have never been given the tools necessary to understand it. And sadly, it’s possible to go to many of our churches for years and never hear the essential truths of the Christian faith preached, taught, or explained.

Why? The answer may shock you. We don’t hear these things consistently proclaimed because there are a lot of believers out there today who don’t believe. Some, I have discovered, pastor churches. Some teach in seminaries. The Barna research organization issued a study in July, 2001, that found the following about Christians in America:

• Only 21% of America’s Lutherans, 20% of Episcopalians, 18% of Methodists, 22% of Presbyterians, and 9% of Roman Catholics affirm the basic biblical doctrine that man does not earn his way to heaven by good works.

•   Even among the Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, Foursquare, and non-denominational groups, only about 60% remain committed to the belief that we are justified by faith, not good works.

•   On the statement that Jesus Christ was without sin, only the following percentages agreed:

•   33% of Romans Catholics

•   33% of Lutherans

•   33% of Methodists

•   28 % of Episcopalians

•   And rather surprisingly, even amongst more fundamentalist groups, the survey revealed only the following numbers believed Christ lived without sinning:

•   Pentecostal/Foursquare churches: 73%

•   Assemblies of God: 70%

•   Non-denominational groups: 63%

•   Baptist denominations: 55%

The various Baptist churches of our country, according to some accounts, make up nearly half of all American Christians. Yet Barna’s study suggests that nearly half of those believers do not believe Jesus Christ was sinless. Even among the Pentecostal and Foursquare churches, who historically have held to the most literal readings of scripture, nearly one-quarter do not believe this truth that is so fundamental in the New Testament.

We could add to these figures the reports of various researchers in recent years who say that only somewhere between 40-60% of professed Christians in America believe that Christ actually rose from the grave. In some denominations, the figure is much lower.

Where has the gospel gone? Why does the Bible no longer carry authoritative weight with many who call themselves Christians? At least part of the answer to these questions is this: average Christians today are so confused by the Bible that they no longer want to base their personal faith on what it says. And when pastors try to teach what scripture says, they often hit a wall of suspicion, or rejection. Once when I was teaching the biblical view about life after death, a student objected, Do you mean if I don’t understand correctly what’s going to happen, God will send me to hell? Of course not, I assured her, God only requires that we have faith in Christ and his promises. Still, shouldn’t we try to understand what those promises really are?

We desperately need a true, biblical response to all the confusion that swirls around us regarding death and life after death. We need to sort out the truth from the fiction and get back to scriptural teaching on these key matters of faith.

Does it matter? You bet it does. Why? Because any set of beliefs built on a wrong foundation will always go astray. A structure built on a faulty foundation will either weaken and fall, or will be seriously misshapen. Error does not lead to truth. As C. S. Lewis put it, Error of its own right breeds error—if the first step in an argument is wrong, everything that follows will be wrong (The Problem of Pain, p. 116).

What Will It Be Like?

What will death really be like? The Bible offers clear answers if we will go to scripture with our eyes and minds open, and set aside our many preconceptions.

Since I was a young man (quite a number of years ago!), I have often asked Christian friends their ideas of where heaven is, and what it’s like. Most only mustered some vague answer like It’s where dead people go, or It’s nice. While they universally say they are headed for heaven, when I press them to explain what they think it’s like, they usually clam up. Most can’t actually answer what would seem to be a most fundamental matter of Christian faith. Their ideas about heaven vary greatly and often have absolutely no relation to what the Bible actually says. Many people today seem to get their understanding of heaven from television and bumper stickers. They go through their entire life trying to rely only on some fuzzy idea that they will go to heaven, but beyond this simple assertion they see nothing but a blank wall.

Now it’s not news to anyone that Christians disagree about some aspects of our faith. But shouldn’t we at least be able to agree on the basics, the foundation blocks of biblical truth on which our faith rests?

What Do We Believe?

As a Christian Educator I’ve talked with hundreds of people over the years. I’ve discovered most have never gotten beyond an over-simplified idea of heaven they learned at age 6 or 7 in Sunday School. So they always seem shocked when I assure them that where the Bible says we’ll spend eternity is not in the heavens at all.

When I’ve asked Christians of various denominations to explain their views about death and the life beyond, they wiggle and squirm. Here in a nutshell is a summary of what most have told me:

God is a majestic spirit being who lives far off in heaven, a place that is completely pure and good. The kingdom of God is in heaven. The world in which we live is essentially bad. Goodness is spiritual and the only way to become truly good is to escape the physical world by death and be reunited with God in a spiritual state in heaven. Jesus came to help us escape from this world. Our final destiny is to die and go to heaven where we will live eternally as spiritual beings like angels.

Does this sound familiar? Perhaps some of these statements reflect your own beliefs. Undeniably, they represent what a good many Christians today believe. But while such views are popular and widespread, they contradict the clear teaching of the Bible.

What Scripture Actually Says

Though seemingly innocent, the statement of common beliefs just outlined are full of wrong-headed ideas. Let’s re-examine them and compare them to what the Bible actually says.

(1) God is a majestic ‘spirit’ being who lives far off in heaven. While it’s true God is pure spirit, he doesn’t just exist far off in heaven. He is present in heaven—or the heavens as scripture usually puts it—but he is equally present on earth: Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool (Isaiah 66:1; quoted in Acts 7:49). God created the heavens and the earth and his presence fills all of his creation:

"Am I a God at hand, says the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? says the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the LORD (Jeremiah 23:23-24).

God owns heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it (Deuteronomy 10:14), yet he walks in the garden of Eden with his children Adam and Eve (Genesis 2-3). Contrary to what many would like to believe, God is not confined to some distant realm. Throughout the Bible he comes down from his heavenly realm to save his people, to shepherd them on earth. And to alter the course of history, he came down to us in a very unique and special way: he became one of us in the birth of his Son Jesus Christ.

(2) Heaven is a place that is completely pure and good. To the contrary, the Bible reveals that our evil adversary Satan was originally present in heaven and was always stirring up trouble there. He often traveled between heaven and earth patrolling the world (Job 1-2). Eventually war broke out in heaven between Satan and his angels on one side and Michael and his angels on the other (Revelation 12:7-12; Jude 6). The rebellious angels were cast out of the heavenly realms and thrown down into the earthly realm (2 Peter 2:4). Their warfare rages on here on earth, although the final victory has already been won by our Lord Jesus Christ.

(3) The kingdom of God is in heaven. The kingdom of God (or Kingdom of Heaven) is not just in heaven. God came down from heaven to save his people over many generations. Jesus Christ came down to redeem and save this world (John 3:17, John 12:47). Understood in the biblical context, the kingdom of heaven means the kingdom from heaven. God now rules in the heavens but will someday fully rule on earth as well. That is why Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:910). If we are in Christ," as St. Paul says, God has already brought us into his kingdom:

But God…raised us up with him [Jesus], and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7).

Made us sit with him… is past tense. It has already happened. We have already entered the Kingdom of God, although we have not yet experienced its fullness which will be found only in the coming ages. This is very important. As we will see in greater detail later, the Bible doesn’t predict a complete end of the world, just the end of the present corrupt world and the coming of the Messianic Age when Christ will rule over a renewed earth.

(4) The world in which we live is essentially bad. No, the world is not essentially bad, or evil. Exactly the opposite is true, according to scripture: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:1-31). Man too was very good—when first created. Evil only came into our world as a result of our own rebellion against God’s rule (Genesis 3). Evil can hold sway in the present world only as long as men give in to it.

(5) Goodness is ‘spiritual’ and the only way to become truly good is to escape the physical world by death and be reunited with God in a spiritual state in Heaven. No, we don’t have to leave this world to experience goodness. Goodness is not determined by whether something is physical or spiritual, but by whether the thing or person is in a right relationship with God, our creator (Hebrews 12:12-14).

(6) Jesus came to help us escape from this world. Jesus did not come to help us escape from the world he himself created, but to restore it to its original soundness. He came to save the world (John 3:17), to regenerate it so that evil and death would be wiped away (Matthew 19:28-29; Revelation 21:3-4).

(7) Our final destiny is to die and go to heaven where we will live eternally as spiritual beings like angels. No, contrary to what many are taught, our final destiny is not to die and go to heaven. Yes, at death we will go to a place the Bible calls Paradise (Luke 23:43), But this Paradise (as we will see further on) is not our permanent home, and to think so is one of the greatest misconceptions held by many modern Christians.

Finding The Truth

We begin to see the confusion running rampant in contemporary Christian thought. For when people speak of heaven as their eternal home, or the fullness of life, they have completely missed scripture’s promise of the very real resurrection world to come. They have lost track of the essential hope promised us by God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Christ is a gospel of hope! Whether we have lost sight of the resurrection promise through unbelief, or simply through lack of understanding, we need to do some deep soul-searching. Because if scripture’s promise of a real resurrection isn’t true, we have a much bigger problem. St. Paul, rather bluntly, put it like this:

Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?…if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain…If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).

But Paul doesn’t leave us in despair. He immediately declares the simple gospel truth:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20).

Dear reader, this is the core, the essence of the gospel proclamation. If we don’t believe this, how do we dare call ourselves Christians at all? No, the Bible doesn’t promise us pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by. It promises that God is in the business of bringing to life something entirely new (Revelation 21:5). We have been given a real hope, and a true promise:

But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).

In the resurrection world, we will not exist as spiritual beings like angels but as real but redeemed children of God in a very real world. Was that promise something cooked up by Jesus, or his disciples? No, it preceded them by hundreds of years:

For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, says the LORD; so shall your descendants and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the LORD (Isaiah 66:22-23).

This scriptural promise was the consistent message of all our early Christian fathers. They knew, as we should, that humankind can never enjoy the fullness of life God intends for us if we