Heaven
Heaven
By: Randy Alcorn
[Fulfilled ‘A nonfiction book with a two syllable title’ for Shelf Reflection’s 2023 Reading Challenge]
“If you’re weary and don’t know how you can keep going, I pray this book will give you vision, encouragement, and hope. No matter how tough life gets, if you can see the shore and draw your strength from Christ you’ll make it.”
“No other religion, no other philosophy promises new bodies, hearts, and minds. Only in the Gospel of Christ do hurting people find such incredible hope.” — Joni Eraekson Tada
This is a very comprehensive book on the topic of Heaven. (I’m capitalizing it throughout because I don’t know how to determine when not to.) Just like Randy Alcorn’s book, Happiness, it is long and probably best read as a reference book rather than read cover to cover.
With lots of Scripture references and quotes from C.S. Lewis’ fiction and non-fiction writings, Alcorn has compiled this book to show us all the amazing adventure that is yet to come.
Heaven (and Hell) is something we should all think about. Based on the current death rates, 150,000 people die every day and go to one or the other.
If you believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for your sins and you’ve accepted His forgiveness, grace, and mercy, you’ll be headed to Heaven.
Which is pretty amazing.
Right?
Unless maybe you feel like Heaven will be boring... Aren’t we just going to be spirits floating around singing with angels and that’s pretty much it?
Maybe if that’s what you think Heaven will be, you feel like you’d rather live life on the edge and try your luck with the other ‘less shiny’ option.
Whatever you think about Heaven, my guess is you probably haven’t thought about it enough. I didn’t realize I hadn’t until I read this book. I grew up in the church and reading this I realized how many questions I never asked, how many answers I never sought, and how exciting and beautiful Heaven will actually be.
“I believe there’s one central explanation for why so many of God’s children have such a vague, negative, and uninspired view of Heaven: the work of Satan.”
“As long as the resurrected universe remains either undesirable or unimaginable, Satan succeeds in sabotaging our love for Heaven.”
Isn’t that true? Satan doesn’t want us to want Heaven. And since we’re a people of tangibility, it’s hard for us to combat the lies— some lies we’ve even heard in our own churches— about what Heaven will be like.
I can’t list them all, but here are a few questions the book answers:
Can you know you’re going to Heaven?
Why is resurrection so important?
How will we worship God?
Will we actually rule with Christ?
Will there be space and time?
Will we be ourselves?
What will our daily lives look like?
Will there be marriage, families, and friendships?
Will animals inhabit the new earth?
Will there be arts, entertainment, and sports?
Will Heaven ever be boring?
One of the main things Alcorn defends is the physicality of Heaven.
He coined the term Christoplatonism as the idea of Heaven being only spiritual, not physical. This theology has elements of Plato’s philosophy—‘soma sema’ (a body, a tomb)— which says our ultimate destiny is to be free of our body.
Alcorn lays out Scripture after Scripture throughout the whole book showing us that the Bible describes a physical Heaven— a place— where we will dwell in resurrected, physical bodies. This is the foundation of determining other things about Heaven like what we will do and how we will interact.
While the book is primarily about Heaven, there is a chapter on Hell which I think is important because it’s part of the Gospel. It’s why we worship Christ and why Jesus died on the cross. Hell is what we are saved from.
“By denying the endlessness of Hell, we minimize Christ’s work on the cross. Why? Because we lower the stakes of redemption.”
As Alcorn explores all the questions people have about Heaven, he often looks back at Eden, the original paradise, as to what Heaven may look like. What was Eden like before the Fall? There were animals, beautiful gardens, food to eat, work to do, land to cultivate, the presence of God, physical bodies, etc. So it makes sense that Heaven will be like that too.
The Earth is God’s creation. He’s not going to abandon it. He’s going to restore and resurrect it. Just like we will be restored. The New Heavens and the New Earth. Everything we love about Earth, all the good without any of the bad! Our bodies without some of the limitations we have now.
“Redemption will forever destroy the devil’s work by removing its hold on creation, and reversing its consequences. It is Satan’s desire to destroy the world. God’s intent is not to destroy the world but to deliver it from destruction. His plan is to redeem this fallen world, which he designed for greatness.”
I thought this quote was interesting:
“It’s hard for us to think accurately about the New Earth because we’re so accustomed to speaking of Heaven as the opposite of Earth.”
I think this is true. We are told so often that this is not our home and that we were made for something more and that the earth is cursed and shrouded in sin, etc, that we can’t picture Earth redeemed, we just picture Heaven as the antithesis to where we are now.
But God put eternity in our hearts, and our desire to explore nature, to commune with friends, to discover, learn, laugh, eat… those are all foreshadowing of what is to come. Those are all good things— why wouldn’t they be in Heaven?
When we hear that we will worship God in Heaven, we tend to picture just standing in rows like church for all of eternity, but why do we think that? Aren’t we worshiping God when we praise him for the things he created? He created our five senses so why wouldn’t we have music for our ears, flavors for our tongues, vistas for the eyes, the smell of flowers or bread, fields to run or dance in? Things that make us think of the Creator and give glory to Him!
If we really think about what we think about Heaven, we realize that we think Heaven is a place where things are taken away instead of a place where things are magnified and given in full!
“What we love about this life are the things that resonate with the life we were made for. The things we love are not merely the best this life has to offer— they are previews of the greater life to come.”
Another thing that was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me was when he talked about missed opportunities. I think as a people we have a big case of FOMO. That’s partly why we don’t like to think about death. We don’t like to think of incomplete lives. Things we would miss. Memories we wouldn’t make. Achievements we wouldn’t accomplish. And it makes us sad and so we avoid thinking about it. Live in the moment, do as much as you can with the time you have.
But what if Heaven is the land of missed opportunities? What if we have endless time and resources to do what we want to do, to try what we haven’t yet experienced, to make even better and more vivid memories?
“The lack of an eternal perspective sets us up not only for discouragement but also for sin. We tell ourselves, ‘If I don’t experience an intimate relationship now, I never will.’ Or ‘If I don’t have the means to go there, I never will.’ Then we feel desperate, tempted to take shortcuts to get what we want (what we think we want). We’re tempted toward fornication, dishonesty, or theft. Or we live in regret, greed, and envy. But if we understand that we’ll actually live in a new heavens and New Earth, a new universe full of new opportunities, then we can forgo certain pleasures and experiences now, knowing we can enjoy them later.”
It’s a freeing thought. We can live without the anxiety and tension of ‘fitting everything in’ or living the perfect life. Because whatever we miss, we will actually get, tenfold and better, in Heaven. As a mom, it lightens my heart a little because I want every minute with my kids to count. Which isn’t bad, but it shifts my perspective from, ‘make the most of these precious few minutes’ to ‘enjoy these minutes and anticipate the millions more to come.’
It’s not hard then to feel the urgency in sharing the Gospel with our loved ones. Don’t we want them to know the path to life eternal? Not eternal boredom, but eternal LIFE, vivacious, adventurous, beautiful, life with the Creator of all of it? As a mom, my ultimate desire for my children is not for them to go to college, get a good job, have kids, or be happy, while all of those are good things… no, my ultimate desire is for them to know the Lord and for them to be on the path to life eternal.
It’s quite mind-blowing to really ponder what is to come when we broaden our perspective. To think about diverse cultures, nations with rulers, all of humanity, the New Jerusalem, working, etc, it is so hard to imagine all of that, but also exciting to think about having it without it being tainted by sin.
That we will have desires but none that will go unfulfilled. That our view of other people will be pure. That we might see all the galaxies that God has created. That our memories will be better than ever. That we will have endless stories to hear and knowledge to learn. That we can disagree with people in Heaven. That we won’t automatically become the best at everything.
I’m not sure I followed everything he was saying about the temporary Heaven and the eternal Heaven (where we go if we were to die today vs where we will go when Jesus returns). I’ve never really thought about those places being different before, but what he says makes sense.
There is a short section on the end times and amillennialism, post-, and pre, but it’s not long and though he presents his own belief, he is not dogmatic about it.
As happy a topic as Heaven is, there is also some hard truths we will have to consider. Especially in thinking about our loved ones that may not be in Heaven with us.
I thought this quote especially was hard to consider but rings true,
“What we loved in those who died without Christ was God’s beauty we once saw in them. When God forever withdraws from them, I think they’ll no longer bear his image and no longer reflect his beauty. Although they will be the same people, without God they’ll be stripped of all the qualities we loved. Therefore, paradoxically in a sense they will not be the people we loved…I cannot prove biblically what I’ve just stated, but I think it rings true, even if the thought is horrifying.”
There are some parts where he is speculating and I’m not sure I agree with him. But he is always quick to let us know when he is speculating and never claims to have all the answers. He knows when he gets to Heaven he’ll realize the parts of the book he got wrong, so he writes with both joyful anticipation and humility.
As I mentioned before, I would not recommend reading this front to back unless you are just really interested in studying this topic in depth. It’s quite repetitive from chapter to chapter and it felt really long to read that way. I found myself less and less inclined to pick it back up and keep reading.
I don’t think he necessarily wrote it to be read cover to cover, but to have on hand when a question comes up. To reference certain topics, to use the Scripture or topic index in the back. That’s the sweet spot for this book. There are a lot of good snippets and things to ponder in this book and is probably best to digest and discuss in small pieces.
For example, I’m having a lunch with a friend to think about what books will be in Heaven and what kinds of books people will write in Heaven. Will there be thrillers and murder mysteries?
‘Heaven’ is a book that will spur your imagination. It kinda reminded me of Ted Dekker’s book The Slumber of Christianity because our minds have become numb or dulled to thoughts of Heaven as if we are in an earthly slumber. But when we wake up and think about all the possibilities and the good that Heaven will have, it livens us and makes us yearn for that place. A place filled with the person of God who is the source of all that is good and right and beautiful.
Whether you feel bored by the thought of Heaven, you’re already itching to get there, or you’re somewhere in between, read this book and rediscover God, because much of our view of Heaven tells us how we view the One who dwells there.
Realize the Heaven you’ve ‘settled’ for and replace it with the adventures that await!
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