I think a big problem for modern Christianity (and one that has been the case for some time in the West at least) has been at least in practice and to all intents and purposes a confusion and collapse in meaning of terms, where things have become flattened out and in our language and the landscape of meaning behind it case us in the West to often hear two distinct and different terms for different ideas, concepts and categories as one thing where the meaning of one (or even both of the terms) is lost.
Add this to a common practice in much of Christianity to adopt an essentially Deistic and Epicurean view of reality with some Christianized modifications and things get even worse, so God becomes something elsewhere with nothing much to do with the world once He got it started apart (depending on whether the Christian identifies themselves as more conservative or liberal etc) from some odd interventions called miracles but otherwise we and creation function by itself while God is largely somewhere else leaving us to things, but sending Jesus so those who respond can go off to be with Him in His heaven after death or the destruction of this material universe but otherwise is uninvolved in everything (perhaps apart from a few more interventions from outside in relation to prayers). The whole language of natural /supernatural and debates in which both assume this view Christian and non-Christian alike as ground for having debate, and all helps to enforce the ‘two-story’ view of reality, heaven is upstairs elsewhere, a non-material reality away from this world, for us to get in contact with if we wish, and hope to go “there” afterwards. It is the real thing and this reality is just a somewhat shabby second-rate place that is just being passed through on the pilgrimage to heaven.
And all of this whatever the official doctrinal confessions leads to this Deistic world-view and what amounts to the old Gnostic view, where the material world is bad or a project gone wrong which God has responded to by destroying it (see such things as the ‘left behind’ series for this idea in full display), in practice God is seen to destroy this material universe of matter, time and space and take us to the timeless, non-material reality out there somewhere. And all of this is so alien to the views of early Christians and most 1st century Judaism. Instead earth, matter, space and time are good things, things He will bring to completion and fulfilment, not abandon as a ‘nice try but lets try plan B’ no He created it in love, is constantly at work in it and will rescue, deliver and bring creation into full completion, being and existence and flood this other with His love and Life. In the monotheistic view yes God is transcendent and Other then creation but He isn’t away or absent, He is in and present in all things at work in everything, all is the work of God who intimately at work in all things and through all things, all things and beings grounded and dependant on His Being and Reality. He is the condition of anything exist all, and all things are functioning and operating through Him and He is present and working in and through all things. There isn’t a natural and supernatural aspect with God making strange interventions in a universe which otherwise goes along on its own steam, no it is all the work and action of God, some of which we describe in scientific terms and language but it remains founded in and is intimately the function of God’s continuous action and work. And in this God acts remarkably and clearly sometimes to us in His work in creation as part of His relation to creation which could be termed miracles, though they not to be seen as 'supernatural" as though they were other then nature or outside or contravened and invaded it, but is part and parcel of the same world and reality and God’s full presence in and at work through it, all to rescue and bring it to completion (and equally the acts and life of Jesus reflect what full humanity should look like and so represents also what we ourselves are meant to increasingly do and bring to this word, and for all our mistakes we able to do more and more to heal and restore then ever before).
And in this view there is no ‘two-story’ universe, there is just a ‘one-story’ universe, no natural/supernatural but just nature, heaven in Jewish and Christian thought isn’t some heaven out there, somewhere else but is part of reality, it is another dimension of the reality we live and exist in, where the reality of God’s purposes is seen (one reason the imagery of apocalyptic is used to relate and express the heavenly perspective on events is to translate what is seen there). It is intimately connected and within all parts of the sphere of reality that is earth, and the two are made for each other, to become one full transfigured reality. The two spheres of reality exist intertwined and within each other, we exist in heaven and move in it just as we do the dimension of earth, both intimately connected and within each other and interacting and intersecting in many areas of life and being, the reality of one aspect becoming evident to the other, what is referred to in Celtic spirituality as ‘thin places’, where the boundaries separating the perception of the dimension of heaven, the Otherworld, become thin. And these intersections can be seen in the Eucharist, in a mysterious manner the dimensions of heaven and earth intersect and meet, as we meet with the Messiah, and they do when we help the poor, the needy and sick, those captive and bound in all manner of ways, in serving them we serve Christ, and actually meet Christ in them, and is a place of dynamic interaction in which the overlapping dimensions of heaven and earth intersect and become open to each other. Christ really is there in the hurting and we really do meet and serve Him directly in them. And the eventual purpose and destiny of both is to become fully united and open to each other, for which the imagery of marriage fits in the NT, and is seen in the image the heavenly Jerusalem descending to the earth to unite with it, showing the two dimensions of God’s creation uniting fully, and becoming open to each other in the full renewal of all things in the new creation that began in Christ and His Resurrection is brought to completion.
And this background was to get into main section, the hope of God’s renewal and rescue of the whole good creation from all that oppresses it and bring it to completion, is fundamental in the developed text representing the calling of Abraham and the election of Israel, to be the one through whom God would complete His purposes and rescue the world bringing blessing to all. They are to become the renewed humanity, the ones through whom the calling of humanity to be the image of God and thereby be fully human is realized and the project began in Genesis is brought back on track, and the world restored and brought to completion through renewed humanity. This idea is continued and develops with more reflection to the images of the renewal of creation seen in Isaiah’s (or Second Isaiah) new heavens and earth, and through the later prophets of His flooding creation with His glory covering the earth as the waters cover the seas and so on. For Israel in exile it became the expectation increasingly that God would return and restore them and renew the world bringing His promises to fulfillment, as He would be faithful to the covenant He made through Abraham. And within this hope the uniquely Jewish view of resurrection appears, in Isaiah and then strongly during the Maccabean persecution in Daniel and 1 and 2 Maccabees and in various 2nd Temple literature, and of course was famously the position of the Pharisee factions over the more conservative Sadducees, and was a revolutionary doctrine that inspired revolt as it denied to conquerors and tyrants the final threat and weapon of death, God would restore and fulfill what He promised and would deliver and be faithful to them, and was why the leadership of the Sadducees opposed it so much, the view was intensely political and revolutionary, we don’t go somewhere else or else just end but God would restore them to this world and restore all that had been lost bringing justice. And it is from a reflection on these three core Jewish concepts of creational monotheism, election and eschatology that it arose, that God was just and faithful and would fulfill His promises and intentions to His good creation and His people, and the meeting of creation and God’s justice lead to resurrection, it is inherent in the meeting of creational monotheism, election and eschatology, of God being faithful to His covenant and rescuing His people and His world. There were various ways the idea was expressed, of who would be resurrected, how and what it would look like, in quite a variety of different pictures. But it was the unified view of a bodily resurrection over against the universal denial of resurrection in the non-Jewish world.
However, the idea though important, was not at the centre of expression and belief but rather only a part of it, but with the early Christians the concept moves to centre of all thought and expression, and there is a unity of conception and expression over the Jewish idea of resurrection then had ever been expressed before, as though they knew something about what it looks like, and understood it through the witness and experience with the Messiah in His resurrection. It is why it has such central place for Paul and why he knows something of what resurrection will look like, he had seen it, and his whole thought on resurrection, creational monotheism, election and eschatology is rethought around Jesus and what happened through His life, death and resurrection, which vindicated Him as Messiah and demonstrated that God had been faithful to His promises and had both returned and restored Israel and brought in His Kingdom and the renewal of creation into the world through Jesus. It had already began but in a way no one expected or was looking for, Israel became Israel in Him, and so also becomes truly Adam, which was the vocation of Israel, and rescues the world, bringing and launching the renewal of the world and all humanity, getting the Genesis project back on track, and in Himself, in His own resurrection body are the dimensions of heaven and earth already united and one in Him, so He is equally at home in both aspects of reality, and it indicates what will be the case not only for all humanity but all creation, which has already begun in Him and will be brought to completion through Him, the one through whom all things came to be in the first place and are held together. In Him we see what God is like, and therefore what a full human looks like, as be like God is to be fully human who are called to be and express God, theosis to be like God is to be fully human, to be fully the person and self in all your uniqueness you were intended to be, and how else would God come and express Himself then as the man Jesus of Nazareth as humanity was made and called to be in His image and likeness (a project which is still ongoing), in Him we see God and what true Israel, true Adam and therefore true human looks like. And we can see this in some of the hesitant language of the Resurrection accounts in the Gospel, as they are trying to describe what they don’t have the language to express, it is Jesus and yet He is different, the know it’s Him but wonder as they encounter the first part of new creation in all reality, the first part of immortal and incorruptible creation ever seen, which will take up and renew all the cosmos.
And this why the NT talks almost exclusively in terms of resurrection and new creation of which Christ is the first fruits and through whom the new age had began, and will bring it to completion when all the enemies that oppose humanity and creation are defeated and the last death is destroyed at His appearing. Only very briefly and with no real details or much interest to we get a few references to the intermediate state in Jesus reference to Paradise and the booths (or houses) in John both of which are ideas of temporary dwellings and places of refreshment on a journey to Paul’s being with Christ which is far better and the souls under the altar in Revelation, and that is it. And this is founded in the idea of continuity between ourselves as we are now to how we shall be in the future, resurrection implies continuity, even more so since it has already began and is in Christ, and we continue and grow in union with Him until at His appearing we are delivered and raised fully into His Life, so the nature is mysterious, but as He lives we continue as we await the resurrection and fulfillment of our hope, when mortal shall put on immortality, corruption incorruption knowing now death is defeated and shall be destroyed then.
And for this reason I always speak of the resurrection and the new creation and defeat of death, the phrase going to heaven is not in the NT and I don’t think the phrase can be rescued, it instantly puts the wrong and non-Jewish and non-Christian ideas and concepts in our minds (and feel similarly about the word hell, which does much the same and collapses the two-stage view and leads to practical Deism and Gnosticism). I don’t think the terms can be rehabilitated in our Western understanding of language and take our concerns away from earth and this world and its people, as seen in left behind style Christianity or the view we are just waiting to get out of this bad world and go to heaven. No, God isn’t going to destroy this world, or leave it, He’s going to rescue, complete it and fill it with His love and glory, creation and matter are good things, they are His good idea and He hasn’t changed His mind, rather in Jesus He has sealed it and rescues it, which is something He wants to bring in and anticipate through us, like it or not it is through humanity and the church, by, though and in Christ that the kingdom and new creation manifest and are bought. And of course the union we have and will have with God is shown by Christ supremely in the Resurrection is union that for us involves and is for the whole human being, mind, heart, pyche and body, and the whole creation through Him and us into union with the immortal Life of God, as through the resurrection we are brought out through and beyond death and all its effects, life after life after death.
(never written something this long from my phone, should have waited till I got home so never again lol, it was a nightmare and no doubt full of mistakes 
anyway I hope that was s little help, at least in how I view things Kate 
)
How can Christian universalists still maintain hope in eternal life when this idea wasn’t mentioned in the Old Testament either? Could Jesus have been speaking as figuratively and as situationally about “eternal life” as he was about “everlasting punishment?” In short, for the universalist, is Heaven for real?
I am so, so impressed-- Like, seriously, I cannot scratch out a sentence on my touch-screen tablet without it looking like this: I ammn resly imoresssef withh yur wrutinh skilllls. 
It’s just baffling to me. Baffling. Seriously. But the misunderstanding over the meaning of “Heaven” and of the “Kingdom of God” can doubtless carry most of the blame for the confusion.