If you’re a Christian like me, you probably grew up with some idea of eternal reward for those people who lead good lives. Various Christian denominations have various takes on it, but they all seem to coalesce around some concept of heaven, where the faithful will spend eternity in bliss.
The ultimate question for most people seems to be, “how do I ensure that I will get to heaven when I die?”
In fact, such a concept of heaven was fundamentally central to the entire reward structure of faith for most of us: IF we are faithful – which might have different emphases depending on the denomination – we will go to heaven.
And almost all of those belief systems agreed on a few key principles:
1) That we go to heaven. That it’s a place, a destination.
2) That it’s the true end state of the faithful, where eternity is experienced
3) That in some sense heaven is being in the direct presence of God
4) That this condition is blissful, either experienced as a personal reward, or merely enjoyed simply as part of being with God.
Part 1: Setting the Stage
I specifically want to poke at the very first of those principles: that heaven is a destination, an elsewhere. I’ve concluded that this is a wrong understanding.
I’m specifically NOT going to be arguing against an afterlife. I’m not going to argue that the faithful will not spend eternity in the presence of God. I’m not going to be arguing against resurrection. Or against the idea that God eventually is ultimately victorious over the evil that wracks this world. I believe all of those things. But the destination part? Not so much.
So instead, I’m going to be explicitly poking at a very specific set of ideas about what the afterlife will look like, that ultimately owes more to Plato, Dante, and 19th-century revivalism than to Scripture.
And I’d also like to explain, right up front, why this matters: if we have a wrong theology of heaven, it’s going to produce a misshapen emphasis here and now, in how and why we should live our lives. In particular, if we believe heaven is a destination somewhere else, and it’s a blissful destination, then it rather automatically functions in our minds as a sort of getaway plan, an escape from all this earthly pain and struggle. And that conceptualization necessarily shapes everything about how we live our lives.
I realize I’m setting a pretty high bar for this post, and it’s going to take a fair bit of explanation, and references to a lot of various scriptures, and it’s also going to necessitate looking at a lot of history. But I think that’s all valuable, when my goal is to poke at something as “fundamentally central,” as I called it above, to our faith’s reward structure. That’s going to need a lot of very careful support, and I don’t mean to do this lightly.
So let’s dig into it.
Part 2: What Heaven Actually Means in Scripture
We’re going to look closely at the Greek word “ouranos” (οὐρανός), translated often as “heaven.” And I want to specifically focus on what Jesus said about the concept of the good afterlife, in other related topics.
Because I intend to be very thorough here, I’m going to present, from the NRSVUE, many references that Jesus makes (although I won’t be doubling up when the Synoptics have the same text). And I’ll comment briefly on each verse, especially where I think there’s something unusual about the way that He uses the concepts, and how it might be a little different than our traditional ideas.
I’m going to focus primarily on the book of Matthew, rather than address ideas that recur multiple times across the Synoptic Gospels. Note that the book of Matthew prefers “Kingdom of Heaven,” while the book of Luke prefers “Kingdom of God;” there are some minor differences in how these two authors conceptualize the Kingdom, partly from their Jewish versus Gentile roots, but these two terms are effectively synonymous. I will generally stick to “Kingdom of Heaven” here, largely because this discussion is directly about heaven.
Category 1: Kingdom of Heaven as Present Reality
First, let’s observe that Jesus often talked about the Kingdom of Heaven in the present tense.
In the Sermon on the Mount, particularly in the Beatitudes such as Matthew 5:3, Matthew 5:10, and others, Jesus says that people ARE blessed, for theirs IS the Kingdom of Heaven. Not “will be,” but “is.” Similarly, elsewhere in Matthew, such as Matthew 12:28, and echoed in Luke 11:20, and Luke 17:20-21, Jesus refers repeatedly to a present Kingdom. Interestingly, in Matthew 11:12 and Luke 16:16, Jesus says that “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence” which is a very clear statement that this Kingdom has already been present and active in Jesus’ understanding.
For brevity, these verses are quoted and expounded further in the Appendix if you’d like more context; the same is true for the following categories.
Category 2: Kingdom of Heaven as Future Consummation
This second category is a little different – where Jesus is talking about something that isn’t here yet. So already we see the now-and-the-not-yet, even within the same chapters of Matthew.
In Matthew 5:20, Jesus warns his disciples about what will take to enter the Kingdom of Heaven – implying that they are not yet there. In Matthew 8:11 and Luke 13:28-29 He describes a future banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven – not evidence that it doesn’t yet exist, but definitely putting a future manifestation in view. In Matthew 13:43 and Matthew 25:34 He describes the future fate of the righteous in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Category 3: The Kingdom’s Nature and Entry Conditions
Next, let’s look at some verses where Jesus sets up some conditions for entry into, or participation with, this now-and-not-yet Kingdom.
In Matthew 18:3 and Matthew 19:23-24 Jesus explains to His listeners what it takes to enter the Kingdom – being childlike, or the difficulty if one is rich. In Matthew 13 Jesus tells numerous parables of “the Kingdom of Heaven” such as the Sower, Weeds, Mustard Seed, Leaven, Hidden Treasure, Pearl, and the Net, that all describe a hunt for the Kingdom – which implies that it can be hard to obtain, hard to find. None of these parables describes a static heavenly realm; all describe a dynamic, historical, yet partly-hidden reality; some will give their riches and lives to obtain this Kingdom.
Category 4: Eternal Life
The book of John takes things in a different direction; the author speaks frequently about eternal life, not the Kingdom of Heaven. The most famous, perhaps, is John 3:16, where Jesus says “16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” – The contrast is with perishing – the opposite of eternal life is destruction. Other verses such as John 5:24, John 6:40, John 11:25-26, and John 17:3 describe what it takes to obtain eternal life. Interestingly, Jesus frequently describes people as already having that eternal life, already having “passed from death to life.” The verbs are present or perfect – a completed transition. It has a sense of imminent and immediate eternal life, not future.
In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus addresses eternal life just a few times, in Matthew 19:16-17, Matthew 19:29, and Matthew 25:46 (and of course echoed in Mark and Luke). In the first case, where someone explicitly asks Jesus what it takes to have eternal life, it’s striking that Jesus clearly answers how to enter into eternal life now, not after His questioner dies.
The one time where Jesus clearly addresses what will happen after death is in Matthew 25:31-46. Interestingly, Jesus says nothing here about what the eternal life consists of, or where it takes place, only that it exists, and the contrast is not “eternal death” but instead “eternal punishment.”
“Life” in this context is not so much about merely being alive, but about prospering and being abundant. Also very importantly, the word translated “eternal” in these passages – the Greek word aiōnios – is not necessarily understood as “forever and all time” as much as “of the ages” or “of great duration.” It can even mean simply “an age.” In this context, Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 25 can be understood as saying that those righteous will enter into abundant life while the unrighteous will be punished – not necessarily tormented for eternity.
Category 5: The Father’s House and Explicit Heaven Sayings
Next, let’s consider some verses that seem to point to location, in some sense.
The primary text from which Christians draw the ‘going to heaven’ concept is John 14:1-3, where Jesus says “1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” The word here for “dwelling places” is monai (μονή). That word only appears in one other place, John 14:23, which describes God dwelling in the believer. While it uses spatial language, it seems to be more about relationship, not being in a particular geographic place. “Take you to myself” is not the same as “Take you to where I am.” The “where” is a function of “with Jesus.”
In Matthew 6:19-21 and Luke 12:33-34 Jesus warns His followers to store up treasure in heaven, not on earth. This functions as a contrast between transient earthly security and lasting divine approval – not a geography of the afterlife. If we take seriously Jesus’ other many references to the Kingdom already being among believers, it’s hard to read this as a far-away, other-time-and-place idea. If their heart is with their treasure, this implies some immediacy, not a future.
To me personally, The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-10 is absolutely central to my understanding of heaven, where Jesus prays “9 Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus asks that the Kingdom would come on earth, that earth would become like heaven, not that we would escape earth for heaven. In some sense, it’s asking that earth would become the new Heaven, the place where Christ abides and reigns.
In this category, although it’s not Jesus speaking directly, I think it’s worth also considering the imagery of Revelation 21:2 and the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, where God’s throne and dwelling are being relocated onto earth for eternity. This very much aligns with The Lord’s Prayer: may the Kingdom come on earth.
Category 6: Resurrection Sayings
In addition to John 11:25-26, Jesus also mentions resurrection after death in the Synoptic Gospels, in Matthew 22:23-33 and echoed in Mark and Luke, where when He is asked about what happens to married people after death. Jesus affirms resurrection by arguing from Exodus 3 that God is God of the living. This definitely implies an embodied future existence.
Category 7: Judgment and the Afterlife of the Wicked
Finally, while this isn’t about heaven per se, I think it’s useful to look at the ways that Jesus addresses the alternative to entering the Kingdom. Jesus several times discusses the fate of those who are not judged worthy of eternal Kingdom life. I’ll keep it brief here, but the verses and more discussion are included in the Appendix.
I’ve already mentioned Matthew 25:31-46 a few times, and I consider this passage very important to understanding eschatology. This long passage discusses the judgement of the sheep and the goats. The righteous sheep inherit the Kingdom; the cursed goats go to ‘eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ The same word (aiōnios) applies to both ‘eternal punishment’ and ‘eternal life.’
Also, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16:19-31 is useful; the location of both men is Hades. In Jesus’ time, the Greek idea of Hades had come into vogue, similar to the older Jewish idea of Sheol, the grave, into which all humans descended after death. Note that Lazarus was also in Hades – just a more pleasant part of it. The two men were not in heaven and hell respectively. This location was not what Jesus otherwise referred to as Gehenna, related to the final judgement; it was more like a temporary abode until judgement, more akin to the Catholic idea of Purgatory. It’s important to remember that this story is a parable; the point is the reversal of economic fortunes, not a map of the afterlife. It’s probably a mistake to build too much theology about the afterlife on a single parable.
Given the large number of statements from Jesus about the Kingdom compared to His relatively sparse comments about the afterlife, it seems hard to build a robust theology of escaping to heaven, to a place of bliss and eternal worship and forgetfulness regarding the things of earth. To what do we owe that enormously popular trope, then?
Section 3: Where the Popular View Came From
There seem to be several critical sources of this popular heaven mythology: Platonic dualism, medieval imagination, 19th-century revivalism, and 19th-century dispensationalism.
The Greek philosopher Plato, who lived from approximately 428 to 348 BCE, was strongly influential in early Christian thinking. In relation to ideas of heaven and hell, one core feature of “Platonism” was dualism, the idea that the spirit is good and matter is evil. One might readily perceive how this concept plays into ideas about the eternal: that anything of this earth is necessarily inferior to the spirit realm of the eternal. As such, it rejects any sense that a good eternity might be spent as an embodied human on the earth, and necessitates the idea that God must renew and somehow spiritualize the earth for it to be truly “good.”
However, in critique of this doctrine, note that at the very time of creation, God called everything that was created “good” and even “very good.” Surely God was not surprised that it was compromised by sin, but God still called it good. This upends the Platonic dualist idea that the earth must be discarded as inherently evil. It may require God to renew and repair it to regain its full goodness, but that does not change its underlying good nature. And scripture testifies that God had a plan to deal with this sin problem from before creation.
Another critical factor in the popular imagination sprang into being in the medieval age. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” was a huge influence on modern church concepts. Much the same as Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” shaped ideas about magic and fantastical creatures, Dante single-handedly reframed ideas about heaven and hell with his fictional treatment of the journey of a human through the nine stages of hell, the seven stages of purgatory (as a very Catholic work), and eventually entering paradise and journeying through its nine stages.
“Divine Comedy” was never meant by Dante to establish any Biblical theology, but nonetheless his vivid descriptions of the torments suffered by lost souls in hell have been particularly foundational in subsequent Christian thinking. Maybe less so than hell, but more proximate to this discussion, our views of heaven were also shaped by his description of the various levels of paradise, and a beatific vision of the final rest of the human soul in the presence of God, to gaze on and contemplate the beauty and goodness of God for eternity.
Dante’s work was hugely influential, for a multitude of reasons. It provided a coherent theological system that appealed to a growing intellectualism; it imbued that system with deeply emotional content; it provided scores of iconic images that lent themselves wonderfully to artistic depictions, perfect for a society and era with limited literacy; and it filled a psychological need in people to understand something about their future afterlife. Beyond this, and actually because of this, it endured across ages, both as a literary classic and as a system of thinking about the afterlife.
The fundamental and ironic problem with this view of heaven and hell, while overwhelmingly beautiful and rich in its theological spread, is that it is fundamentally Neoplatonic, rather than directly biblical; it is describing a permanent, disembodied, individualistic experience, against what the Bible actually teaches about heaven. The “blessed” – those who attain this state – stay forever focused on God, rather than living on a renewed earth, ruling and reigning with Christ. It’s individual – each blessed human soul is completely focused solely on God, so there’s nothing communal happening, while the Bible repeatedly portrays the richness of the unity of the Body as the ultimate goal of God for humanity. It’s disembodied – the focus is entirely on the soul’s attention to God, not a renewed resurrection body. And it doesn’t contemplate that “ruling and reigning” is inherently a messy business, dealing with challenges and imperfections that arise in a community. Instead, we’ve been taught to think of heaven as the ultimate peaceful perfect existence that lasts for eternity.
So Dante gave a stunningly beautiful vision – regarded for over 700 years as one of the best pieces of literature about the eternal. But it just doesn’t line up with the broader themes of scripture. Sometimes, excellent literature is just a story, not a depiction of Truth. But unfortunately for us, it’s a very hard picture to give up, because it’s so compelling.
Next, 19th-century revivalism: this phase of American Christian history was particularly focused on the destiny of the soul, and excelled at using the “carrot and stick” to sell Christianity to the masses. Out of this focus, and the widespread attendance at multiple church services per week, sprang countless hymns and sermons with a laser-like focus on eternity: both to terrify (hell) and thrill (heaven). As horrible were the terrors, equally compelling were the promises of eternal delight. As strong as the fear, equally potent was the rapturous relief at avoiding eternal punishment.
This language about heaven was then essentially baked into the liturgy of vast segments of the American church for over a century. And the natural result was that this language also seeped into all of the culture, to the point that the key phrases found in many hymns and a few choice sermons, like “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” took the very weight of scripture themselves.
And finally, dispensationalism. This doctrine first grew to prominence in the 1800s with John Nelson Darby and others who rapidly expanded on his ideas. Dispensationalism at the core understands that the Bible is quite literal in its prophecy, and that God has designated certain eras of church history as “dispensations” of differing graces and prophetic timings. In particular, Cyrus Scofield compiled a reference Bible with voluminous notes explaining how to understand each Bible verse, and his Bible is widely credited with advancing the cause of Darby-founded dispensationalism.
An essential part of the dispensational theology structure is a belief in the literal fulfillment of prophecy in the books of Daniel and Revelation, in particular regarding the end times and the ultimate outcome of the war between God and demonic powers. Which side a person takes, based primarily on their belief about God and Jesus and Israel, determines their fate for eternity. The ideas promoted by Scofield and numerous other dispensationalists ultimately found an almost perfect expression in the voluminous “Left Behind” series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.
The “Left Behind” series focuses, as its name suggests, on the aftermath of the Rapture – the idea that all faithful Christians will be suddenly and unexpectedly taken away and carried up into heaven to be with the Lord until the great judgement is complete, leaving those behind to suffer greatly. The impact of these books was immediate and church-altering: Jerry Falwell reportedly said regarding the first “Left Behind” book, “In terms of its impact on Christianity, it’s probably greater than that of any other book in modern times, outside the Bible.”
Notably, “Left Behind” is NOT about heaven. Rather, heaven is the “MacGuffin” in the story – the critical plot device that motivates the entire story, yet without functioning in the story at all. Alfred Hitchcock defined the MacGuffin as the thing everybody in a story is chasing, fighting over, or trying to reach – but whose actual content is irrelevant to the audience’s experience of the story. What triggers the entire “Left Behind” story series is the departure to heaven of all believers: the ultimate escape theology. And thereafter, the remaining protagonists are struggling to reach heaven themselves. Other than the early departure, the believers in heaven play absolutely no part in the plot. But in a very real sense, heaven is the carrot that’s constantly and tantalizingly dangled in front of those who were left behind.
As such, that book series, while saying almost nothing specific about heaven, cemented the focus of several generations of Christians on escaping a dying and demonic earth by going to heaven. It presented a vivid, compelling, and culturally-relevant view of the pervasive evil in society, so much so that avoiding it by wishing for the rapture was the obvious response.
The essential problem with heaven-as-MacGuffin, however, is that it reduces heaven to a goal, and leaves very little room for considering what the reality of life after death will be for the believer, or for the rest of creation. It is reduced down to “heaven good, everything else very very bad.” It ignores all the scriptures which talk about the reality of a new heaven and new earth, and the responsibilities and blessings of the faithful, and how God will actually rule and reign through them.
Section 4: What the Bible Actually Hopes For
So let’s look more broadly at what the Bible actually says about the hope of our future.
First, let me say – although I could have raised this earlier – I’m not of the opinion that the Bible is necessarily univocal. I don’t feel the need to squish all scripture into one exact picture and proclaim it the Right Theology. However, I think there is a practical reason why so much scripture does align: men responded to the eternal that they sensed, and they wrote accordingly. Truth – with a capital T – found its way into those writings because they were actually perceiving it, even if their particulars differed. So it does make sense to look at the broad sweep of scripture, even if there are elements which obviously disagree.
There are many parts of the Bible which describe the end state of the Kingdom of God; let’s review a few of the essentials.
1 Corinthians 15 describes the resurrection of the dead – clearly meant to describe a bodily resurrection, into an immortal body. The whole chapter is relevant, but in particular 1 Cor 15:53 says: 53 “For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.“ There is clearly an embodied nature to the eternal existence; why else would a body be described?
Philippians 3:20-21 says 20 “But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.” Just as Jesus demonstrated that he was truly embodied by eating and drinking in front of His disciples after His resurrection, the “body of glory” is not immaterial.
Romans 8:22-23 says 22 “We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
Even in the Old Testament there are hints of bodily resurrection. Job 19:25-26 says “For I know that my vindicator lives and that in the end he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.” Job insists that his flesh – his body – will see God, even though he suffered horrible skin diseases in the story of God’s argument with the Accuser.
Isaiah chapters 25 and 26 are a glorious vision of the future, spoken over Israel, but which might well be understood as God’s salvation of the whole world. Verses such as Isaiah 26:19-21 are particularly relevant: 19 “Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise. Those who dwell in the dust will awake and shout for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead. 20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past. 21 For the Lord comes out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth will disclose the blood shed on it and will no longer cover its slain.”
Daniel 12:2-3 says “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”
All of these passages affirm the idea of some form of embodied eternity.
Now, a challenge with understanding this embodied eternity is that quite a few passages imply a finite time where the soul is in God’s presence without a body.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 is perhaps the most visible verse in this discussion of the post-death reality for believers. And I believe it’s probably also the most misunderstood, as it’s used to promote the idea of “rapture” – which word never once appears in the Bible. Let me quote it in full here:
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. 15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. 16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever.
This in essence gives the author’s view of the immediate afterlife: those who die before the return of Christ will be immediately in the presence of God, yet in a spiritual form; at some future date they will be raised to life – a re-embodiment, if you will, and along with all who have not yet died they will greet the Lord who returns to earth as its eternal ruler.
Note here that I carefully said “returns to earth.” Nothing in those verses specifies that God will come down, meet God’s people in the air, then take them all back to heaven. The ancient audiences would have clearly understood “to meet the Lord” from the cultural context of a city’s population going out to celebrate and welcome a conquering king, in hopes of receiving favorable treatment in his new occupation and lordship over their city. The population went out to the king, to bring the king back to the city, not for the king to take them away to his capital. The king was expanding his dominion over the city, and it would make no sense to empty the city of its inhabitants, unless he needed to punish the city severely as an example to other cities. And a joyous welcome, instead of resistance, would eliminate that requirement. As such, “to meet the Lord in the air” was not to continue into the air, but to come BACK with the Lord to the earth.
If Christ is returning to establish His eternal heavenly kingdom on earth, and our destiny is to rule and reign with Christ, the obvious implication is that we are not being “raptured” to heaven, but instead raised or being given immortal bodies perfectly suited for an eternity of ruling and reigning with Christ on the new earth.
But there’s a gap there: the vast, vast majority of humans will die before Christ returns; for those, until they are granted immortal bodies, there must be some disembodied time in the presence of God awaiting this earthly resurrection. THAT is the most straightforward interpretation of the concepts we have understood as “heaven” – a temporary period in the presence of God. For some, it will be blissful. For those who hate or fear God, the exact same situation will be torment.
Addressing the Opposition
To be through, of course, we cannot cherry-pick verses out of the broader context of scripture. So we must consider what to do with verses such as found in Isaiah 65:17, which says “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” and Isaiah 66:22, which says “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” and its fulfillment in Revelation 21:1, which says “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” One cannot ignore the idea of a remaking, not just a renewal.
This is an instance where it seems that treating the Bible as univocal – that it is only saying one thing in every single verse – is confounding, and it requires us to overlook some verses in favor of our preferred doctrine. I was taught to focus on those three verses, as evidence that it truly all will burn and be destroyed and replaced with a new fresh start. But this is a case where I believe that the broader sweep of scripture is about renewal and restoration and redemption, not destruction.
There are literally dozens of verses that describe the Kingdom of God steadily expanding and taking over the earth, being brought under the reign of God. I won’t quote them all here, but you might look them up. In the Old Testament you’ll find Isaiah 65:17-25, Isaiah 11:1-9, Isaiah 35:1-10, (as explicitly referenced in Matthew 11:5 and Luke 7:22), Isaiah 60:1-3 and 19-22, Psalm 37:9-11 and 29, Psalm 72:1-8, Psalm 104, Hosea 2:18-23, Ezekiel 36:24-36, and Ezekiel 47:1-12. In the New Testament, you’ll find Matthew 19:28, Acts 3:19-21, Romans 8:19-23, Colossians 1:19-20, Ephesians 1:9-10, and Revelation 21:1-5.
Of these, I’d focus explicitly on Matthew 19:28, where Jesus clearly uses the phrase “renewal of all things.” This is unambiguous, from Jesus Himself. It’s not a replacement of Creation, it’s a restoration. And Peter, in Acts 3:19-21, echoed this same theme saying “the time of universal restoration of all things that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” Peter here is not only agreeing with Jesus, but he is appealing to those Hebrew Bible scriptures.
We might also pay particular attention to 2 Peter 3:10-13, which says: 10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be destroyed with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. 11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and destroyed and the elements will melt with fire? 13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.“
At first reading this is troubling for my thesis: it sounds pretty clearly like a complete replacement. But that would be an overly simplistic reading. The words translated “destroyed with fire” in the NRSVUE (“melt in the heat” in other translations), “lythēsetai,” is also used in Revelation 20:7 for Satan being released from prison. This Greek word is capable of meanings beyond destruction, and the context may support a reading of disclosure or purification rather than annihilation; being revealed, being laid bare, or being freed are also valid translations. The word translated “laid bare” is “heurethēsetai,” which carries a gloss of being found, being discovered, or being experienced. And it’s not the earth which Peter writes will disappear with a roar, it’s the heavens. So if we step back from the “it’s all going to burn” doctrine, and read it carefully, I think a fair reading is that on the Day of the Lord, the heavens will be stripped away, the elements of the earth will melt, and the earth and all its works will be fully disclosed to all onlookers, and thus we believers look forward to the renewal of all things.
As I’ve written in other posts, I would also note that across much of the Bible, fire is incorporated as a purifying, not destroying, agent. Much as gold is refined by fire, and impurities are removed, the earth will be refined and purified. Yes, it will be completely disruptive, but not destructive.
Before moving any further here, it’s worth noting that if we take Jesus’ words at face value, the Kingdom is here, now. It’s a present reality. But it’s also a future complete fulfillment. It’s “now and not yet.” And to Jesus, the Kingdom WAS the ultimate reality. Heaven was not a destination, and even the heavens were imperfect – because along with a new earth, there would be new heavens as well. (Some will say, that word must only refer to the skies above the earth, and the realm of the planets and stars and galaxies. But that claim is entirely without data to back it up; there’s nothing in the original languages that gives us reason to assert that. The ancient cosmology understood there to be several levels of the heavens, from air to spirit realm to God’s realm.)
So the absolute critical hinge point of what the Bible is pointing towards, or hoping for, is summed up in Jesus’ prayer that He taught His disciples: God’s Kingdom come, God’s will be done, on earth (moving forward in human time) as it is in heaven (already). Heaven should be invading earth, instead of us escaping to heaven.
Orthodoxy of the Theology of Heaven
I would not be surprised if the conclusions that I am drawing here about heaven would offend the sensibilities of most of the people who taught me Christianity. Are these ideas orthodox, or not?
In studying these topics, I learned that one of the important church fathers, Saint Irenaeus, who died around 200 CE, held much the same theology of heaven and an eternal embodied existence as is being discussed here. He wrote a massive five-book work titled “Against Heresies” in about 180 CE, arguing strongly against numerous heresies pervading the early church, including (as relevant to our case here) the Gnostic dualism idea that the physical body was ultimately evil beyond recovery, and the pure spirit was the only part of humanity which would be saved; there would be no resurrection of the body. In Book V chapter 2 he said “our bodies, being nourished by [the Eucharist], and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God.” In Book V chapter 3 he wrote “Those men, therefore, set aside the power of God, and do not consider what the word declares, when they dwell upon the infirmity of the flesh, but do not take into consideration the power of Him who raises it up from the dead. For if He does not vivify what is mortal, and does not bring back the corruptible to incorruption, He is not a God of power. But that He is powerful in all these respects, we ought to perceive from our origin, inasmuch as God, taking dust from the earth, formed man. And surely it is much more difficult and incredible, from non-existent bones, and nerves, and veins, and the rest of man’s organization, to bring it about that all this should be, and to make man an animated and rational creature, than [it is] to reintegrate again that which had been created and then afterwards decomposed into earth.” In Book V chapter 31 he wrote “The preservation of our bodies is confirmed by the resurrection and ascension of Christ: the souls of the saints during the intermediate period are in a state of expectation of that time when they shall receive their perfect and consummated glory.”
Reading from a blog post on pastortheologians.com, “Irenaeus consistently resisted the anti-body emphasis that emerged in later Christian theology. His eschatology is remarkably focused on the resurrection of the body, and the renewal of the cosmos; and he works overtime to avoid the “angelic soteriology” so prevalent in the later Christian tradition, namely the idea that humans become equal to the angels when they die. For Irenaeus, human beings, made in the image of the embodied Son of God, are at the top of the celestial food chain. Humans don’t become “equal” to angels when they die, but rather “pass beyond the angels” and ascend to God himself (Against Heresies 5.36.3). In his battle against the Gnostics, Irenaeus was keen to insist that God will one day redeem the body, restore humanity’s earthly throne, and renew the earth itself.” “According to Irenaeus’ incarnation theology, creation is not a barrier to beholding God, but is the very means by which God reveals himself to us.”” At present (because of sin and creaturely limitations) the knowledge and glory of God is muted by creation. This is why we must hold the “present world” loosely. Not because it is earthly, but because it is not yet perfected, which is to say, not yet fully instrumentalized. But a day is coming when the Son of God will be revealed, and then all of creation, man especially, will not only not obscure the glory of God, but will fully reveal it.” This revealing of the glory of God by humanity is not revealed in the Greek disembodied soul – which proceeded directly from the breath of God – but instead by embodied humans, for eternity.
The Eastern Orthodox church is also very closely aligned with this view of heaven not as a destination. In their theology, heaven and hell are states of relationship with God, not places of reward or punishment. They appeal to scriptures which describe God as omnipresent and filling all things; from this perspective, there is no place without God. If so, “hell” cannot be a place without God’s presence. Rather, how people react to God’s presence defines their experience: if they are violently opposed to God, then existing eternally in God’s presence would seem like torture, while someone who is reconciled to God would experience pleasure and joy.
Furthermore, the Orthodox church largely rejected the Platonic and Gnostic dualism, and instead insists that the Incarnation is not only proof of the goodness of the physical realm, but that the Incarnation of Christ was fully permanent – that Christ is still embodied, still human, still God-Man. From that position, the resurrection of humans into physical bodies is a continuation, perhaps even a fulfillment, of the resurrection and embodiment of Jesus as the Christ. So Orthodox theology insists on a literal, physical, bodily resurrection of the dead, not a metaphor or merely a spiritual renewal. It further insists that the resurrection body is the same body, not simply a new body. They note that Jesus bore the scars of His crucifixion, which would not have been the case with a new body; as the first of many to be resurrected, one must assume that we also would be raised back into our original earthly bodies, but transformed into physical completion.
Modern theologians N. T. Wright (in his book ”Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church”) and Richard Middleton (in his book “A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology”) come to generally the same conclusions about heaven as Irenaeus and the Orthodox Church.
Section 5: The Theological Consequences of Getting This Wrong
Now it’s time to put the rubber to the road: so what? This focus on heaven-as-escape has been a “feature” of Christian teaching for a very long time; what is important about the assertion that it’s been wrong? Who cares if people believe heaven is an escape, or an eternal place of blissful reward?
I can think of three specific problems created by this kind of eschatology: a) a self-centered reward-focused soteriology (doctrine of salvation); b) an escape from personal responsibility for the earth; and c) an escapist modality to one’s theology, as manifested in a doctrinal focus on the Rapture.
First, when our theology is focused on a reward structure for good behavior, our life here on earth becomes transactional. We do good works or believe the right things, which requires that God give us a blissful eternity. Ultimately, the works or belief are about what we get out of the transaction; the object of the works becomes a side effect of the transaction, not the focus. In other words, it’s a self-centered faith, not an other-centered faith. But this runs completely contrary to Jesus’ core theology: doing unto others, sacrificing one’s self for the benefit of the other, focusing on the “least of these,” with whom Jesus (in Matt 25:31-46) explicitly identifies with. “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”
This self-centered soteriology also even minimizes those with whom we’re walking the Way of Jesus. Our membership with a local church body ultimately risks sounding like “I’m here to join your church; what will you offer my family? Oh, not enough child care? Not the doctrine I want to hear? Not my favorite style of music? Sorry; I’ll try the other church down the road.” And once we do settle into a local church, each of us are simply walking the Way in whatever fashion best serves us; even good deeds done for our fellow church members ultimately risk being self-serving: “I love being in this church, because they help me when we’re in need (just like we help them when they’re in need.” “I love the way I get to express my gifts in service. I love singing on the worship team; it really fulfills me (okay, sure, while also serving the body).” To an insider it looks communal – and it is – but it’s a bare step away from a focus on ensuring that our own needs will be met.
Second, when we’re focused on heaven as a destination, it absolves us of any personal or corporate responsibility for this earth, and all the people in it – especially those who are unsaved. At the extreme is even the Calvinist view of predestination: “well, clearly God didn’t include them in those He called, so we did our part, and it’s not our fault that they’re going to hell.” But even absent that horrible caricature of God’s much more redemptive justice, there’s still a strong sense in many churches that “the world is going to burn up anyway, so why should we do anything to try to save it? In fact, that would even potentially delay the end times, because God might not need to step in to save His people if we correct all these problems ourselves!”
One possible outcome is a complete disinvestment from all the things of the world. “It’s going to burn, so we’ll just hole up in our bunkers of faith, and wait for Jesus to return. The world may be going to hell, but at least we won’t be polluted by any contact with it, so we’re sure to be on God’s good side when we get to heaven.” The most fundamentalist churches seem to take this approach.
The other possible outcome is the opposite: “We’re on a mission from God to take over all the mountains of influence in our culture, and force them into compliance with God’s laws, so that society looks more and more like the Kingdom – by our sheer force of will and power in the world. The sooner we do this, the sooner Jesus will return and take us believers to heaven.” Pay no mind, of course, for the damage being done to God’s holy reputation by believers with little regard for the lives of those they intend to rule by force or fear. Justifying such authoritarianism with “but we’re serving Jesus” does not forgive such awful behavior; it’s all in the name of winning and hoping that Jesus will take the believers out of this awful sinful earth sooner rather than later, not in truly spreading the reach of the Kingdom of Heaven on this earth. It does little to demonstrate the gentle, loving, eternally patient, “will not crush a bruised reed” forgiving nature of Christ to a very attentive crowd of witnesses.
Third, this focus on heaven-as-destination excessively glorifies the Rapture – despite it being a totally human-constructed reading of the scriptures. And it’s toxic for one particular reason: one explicit purpose for the Rapture, in the view of its proponents, is to remove the influence of the Holy Spirit from the world (see 2 Thessalonians 2:7), so that the remaining unbelieving humans can be judged and found worthy of a huge array of horrible physical punishments found in Revelation, followed by eternal damnation in a fiery pit. In other words, those who long for the Rapture implicitly wish for this ending, so that those who currently oppose the Gospel can be legitimately disposed of by God.
What happened, I ask, to Jesus’ call to love our enemies, to pray for and to bless them so that we demonstrate Christ’s love so tangibly, so perfectly, that they may be converted and brought into the Kingdom of God? Somehow that was polluted into giving up on them, hoping the Rapture comes soon so we don’t have to deal with them any longer, and God can simply get rid of them. It’s so horribly removed from the nature of a God that self-defines as Love Personified, who is determined that “all shall be saved” (I Timothy 2:3-6). But giving up on the unsaved is the actual, tangible outcome of a Rapture theology, which is ultimately founded in this escapist idea of heaven as eternal destination.
Section 6: What This Means for Christian Life
I’d like to pivot for a moment to share my personal testimony of what changed for me when I put aside an escapist-heaven, Rapture-focused, heaven-as-reward theology. I grew up with it, and I had no idea, until less than 10 years ago, that any other legitimate reading of scripture was possible.
On the other side of that theology now, for the last couple years, I’ve found a complete conversion in my heart towards the lost. I distinctly remember the day when God finally answered my prayer to let me see them through His eyes. For years, I’d been scared to ask that of God, I think because instinctively I recognized how dangerous that prayer might be – it might require me to change. But not long after I began rethinking a lot of my theology, I felt particularly inspired to finally surrender and ask that of God, with full integrity and no reservations.
And one day, it abruptly happened. In an instant, considering a homeless person I was serving at that moment, I found myself flooded with compassion deeper than I’d ever known possible. I’d been serving at a homeless ministry for a year or so simply because I sensed I was supposed to do so, not because I really loved them. I had started to get to know them as people, not as projects, but I was still serving mostly by duty, not love. But that day, for the briefest instant, I sensed the absolute depth of God’s holy, entirely-just, infinite love for them. It was almost more than I could bear, but the echoes of that instant live with me still today. When I encounter people I formerly despised, rejected, and did everything possible to avoid, I find a call on my heart to remember that brief instant of complete saturation of God’s love, and it requires me to engage, to serve, to love. It’s a yoke of service, but as Jesus said in Matthew 11:30, it truly is light and easy to bear.
And so I can never again look at the flawed world as something I need to escape from. Instead of thinking of all the lost folks around me as (in Jonathan Edwards’ theology) despised spiders to be dangled over the fiery pit and dropped in to be consumed if they displeased God, I cannot agree that God’s disposition is displeasure and impatience at unruly, unfaithful children. I can never again accept that God’s purpose is to burn this all down and start over. Rather, I can only see God’s infinite love, coupled with God’s infinite patience, calling me to do what little tiny bit I can to bring heaven to earth, not to try to escape earth for my own blissful, forgetful eternity.
And each time I remember that, I sense that love yet again. Something deep inside my heart, or maybe my brain, was permanently changed that day.
It calls me, more than just to serving people, to spread the gospel not just to the people who desperately need God but haven’t met God yet, but even more than that, those who believe they already know God and want to escape this earth to be with God. God is quietly yet urgently calling them to engage, to bring Heaven to earth, to see God’s will done here as it’s already being done in Heaven. It’s not that God doesn’t want them in God’s presence, but that God wants them to be God’s presence for those around them, here on earth, every single day.
Put more succinctly, what I’ve discovered is that my ability to actually walk out the Way of Jesus with integrity has been completely overhauled, in just that one instant of awareness. And it tells me something critical about the gospel, and about the true nature of heaven.
And it all started because I’d finally, reluctantly, even painfully, rejected this escapist idea of heaven I’d held for over 40 years.
This testimony isn’t proof of anything – it’s not scripture, it’s just my experience. But I feel like it illustrated for me how important this theological shift can be.
I’d grown up with the idea that “evangelism” was telling people about Jesus – specifically, how Jesus died so that they could escape eternal hellfire and live in heaven loving and worshiping God for eternity. That was the good news, the gospel I was supposed to preach.
But now, with this personal change, I’ve learned that true evangelism is focused on Jesus’ prayer: on earth as in heaven, here and now. God loves us and wants to save us right here and now, and bring each of them into the Kingdom, growing and expanding the Kingdom person by person, service by service, act by act, blessing by blessing, pushing back the gates of hell every day, until the whole earth is filled with the Glory of God, visible in each and every soul’s life. THAT is what Creation is groaning to see – the rising and revealing of the sons and daughters of God ON EARTH, IN CREATION. Not something in the eternal future, but here and now.
So this is present, and real, and tangible now. It’s not waiting for God to wipe it all out; it’s each of us doing our little bit to bring resurrection and restoration to the earth now. It’s taking care of the earth that God gave us. The renewing of all things is this ruling and reigning with Christ, here and now, on THIS earth. I no longer believe those verses refer to God starting over; nearly every testimony of God’s ultimate plan involves restoration and redemption. God promised very clearly never again to wipe it all out with a flood, and I tend to think that’s true of all the other possible ways of wiping the slate clean. God just isn’t interested in that; God raised Christ for the explicit purpose of redemption, not slaughter and reset. Jesus was God’s second great flood – one of redemption, not destruction! Remember, Jesus said over and over again that the Kingdom HAD COME already. That ruling and reigning started 2,000 years ago. The re-creation of earth and heaven has already started; it’s not some future instantaneous thing, and it requires the hard work of bringing it to pass.
What, then, do we do about the treasures being stored up in heaven for our good deeds? If we’re living in heaven already – in the sense that the Kingdom is already now-and-not-yet – then we’re bringing those treasures out of God’s storehouse into the world right now. It’s not putting trophies on the shelf for future bragging rights, or building up a pot of gold we would enjoy someday in heaven. It is pretty clear that in the Kingdom there will be no favoritism or injustice or want or lack; what would a treasure be worth there? One might argue, it’s so that we can cast our crowns – our treasure – at God’s feet for God’s glory some future day. Okay, what if that day is NOW? We’re already a couple thousand years into the future that was being written about by the authors of the various passages that make this claim. What better way to bring glory to God than to manifest God’s perfect character on earth, as in heaven, and bring more and more humans into the growing earthly Kingdom day by day? That’s a treasure worth having, and a treasure worth casting at God’s feet. God doesn’t need golden crowns.
Section 7: Conclusion – Does Heaven Exist?
So does heaven exist?
Yes. Absolutely.
Does it look like the traditional Christian view?
No. Not in any meaningful way.
What then is heaven?
It’s the Kingdom where God rules. It’s the source of every good gift that comes down from the Father of light. It’s the origin point from which the eternal Kingdom spreads. It’s the entirety of the reach of God’s authority where God’s will is done, perfectly. It’s the reference point, the ruler, the measuring stick, by which our earthly reality must ultimately be judged.
What is heaven NOT?
It’s not a destination. It’s not an escape from pain. It’s not an escape from conflict. It’s not even some eternal city with streets of gold – that’s a beautiful metaphor, but it’s just that: a metaphor. It’s not a bunch of mansions that Jesus built for each of us where we’re all going to live for eternity. It’s not a golden city a thousand miles cubed.
No, heaven is already present. Imperfectly, now-and-not-yet, but it’s here. That moment when a human expresses the genuine love of God? It’s a flash of heaven on earth. Every act which expands the Kingdom is a bit of heaven.
And so this reframes the question so often asked by those who’ve grown up steeped in the wrong ideas about heaven: “how do I get to heaven when I die?”
Maybe the question should instead be, “how do I partner with God to bring heaven to earth today? God’s Kingdom come, God’s will be done, on earth as in heaven. May I be part of that process, in each act, each decision, each moment of my day” – because that will increasingly bring heaven to earth, and when the end comes, God will welcome each of us as members of the Body of Christ. And that’s exactly the kind of question that Jesus spent His ministry on earth asking and answering.
Appendix: Detailed Verse References
Matthew 5:3 “3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” – In this verse, the poor in spirit have (present tense) the Kingdom of Heaven. Not ‘will receive’ – it ‘is’ already theirs. This present-tense claim complicates any purely future reading of ‘heaven.’
Matthew 5:10 “10Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” – This has the same present-tense construction: those persecuted for righteousness have the Kingdom of Heaven. And we’ll see that present tense, throughout the entire Beatitudes section.
Matthew 12:28 / Luke 11:20 “28But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” – The verb (ephthasen) means ‘has arrived’ – it’s one of the strongest ‘realized’ Kingdom statements in the Synoptics.
Luke 17:20-21 “20 Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”” – When asked when the Kingdom is coming, Jesus says it does not come in ways that are friendly to observation, but that ‘the Kingdom of God is among you’ (or ‘within you’). Jesus refuses a purely future-external reading, while also indicating that it’s not so easy to spot.
Matthew 11:12 / Luke 16:16 “12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and violent people take it by force.” – The Kingdom is already in motion, pressing into history. In fact, to take Jesus’ words seriously, the kingdom of heaven must have been in place in the human context for some time to have already suffered violence.
Matthew 5:20 “20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” – The language “will enter” implies a future state not yet experienced by the Pharisees.
Matthew 8:11 and Luke 13:28-29 “11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and will take their places at the banquet with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” – This is banquet imagery – it’s embodied, earthy, and set in the future. Jesus has already made it clear He understands that the Kingdom is PRESENT – but things will take place in the future of that presently-existing Kingdom.
Matthew 13:43 “43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!” – In this parable of the weeds, Jesus implies that in the future, post-judgment and transformation will occur within creation, rather than after a departure from creation. It’s possible to assign this to some non-earthly realm, but that presses against other verses where Jesus and other Bible authors describe God as having all the visible glory.
Matthew 25:34 “34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” – This inheritance language implies earth and property, drawing on Old Testament land-inheritance themes. How do we inherit something we already live within? By being designated to rule it, to own it. It’s like a father passing their wealth to their children to begin managing it directly. The children previously lived with and on that property but it was not yet theirs.
Matthew 18:3 “3 Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” / Mark 10:15 / Luke 18:17 – This is a pretty strong conditional statement, contrasting His other statements that the Kingdom of God is already among His followers – clearly some will be unable to enter what is among them.
Matthew 19:23-24 “23Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” – This saying has caused no end of speculation about what exactly Jesus meant – the camel and needle analogy is not really all that clear to modern audiences. But at the core, it’s another conditional statement, about what prevents a person from entering into this Kingdom.
John 5:24 “24 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.” – All these verbs are present or perfect – a completed transition.
John 6:40 “40This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” – Here, eternal life and bodily resurrection are held together in Jesus’ ideas.
John 11:25-26 “25 I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” – The resurrection is not just a future event but a present person – Jesus himself. The eternal life of believers is tied to Jesus.
John 17:3 “3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” – This is a fascinating definitional statement: that eternal life is knowing God. It’s relational, present, and has no spatial or temporal content. It has a sense of imminent and immediate eternal life, not future.
Matthew 19:16-17 “16 Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” – What’s striking here is that Jesus tells the rich young man about entering into life – it sounds almost present, not post-death. Luke 10:25-28 records a similar exchange, with a similar answer from Jesus.
Matthew 19:29 “29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. – Again, it’s interesting to note Jesus answering about their current life, not necessarily the life after they die.
Matthew 25:46 “46 And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.” – This is a notable instance where Jesus does explain what happens after death – at the great judgement based on what is done by people during life. But Jesus says nothing here about what the eternal life consists of, or where it takes place.
John 14:1-3 – “1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
Matthew 6:19-21 and Luke 12:33-34 – “19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 6:9-10 – The Lord’s Prayer: “9 Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 22:23-33 / Mark 12:18-27 / Luke 20:27-38 – “30 in the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels of God in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead but of the living.”
Matthew 25:31-46 – This long passage discusses the judgement of the sheep and the goats. The righteous sheep inherit the Kingdom; the cursed goats go to ‘eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ The same word (aiōnios) applies to both ‘eternal punishment’ and ‘eternal life.’ The judgment criteria here are entirely practical, such as feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger.
Matthew 10:28 / Luke 12:4-5 “28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” – The language is destruction of soul and body, not duration of suffering.
Luke 16:19-31 “22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. … 26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ This parable, while not defining anything about heaven as such, illustrates some of the ideas of the afterlife common in Jesus’ time, including an embodied post-death existence.
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