The Evangelical Universalist Forum

What is Heaven, Anyway? And What is Hell?

Theology Biblical Theology
#1

What is Heaven?

  • Heaven is up above, where God lives. You go there when you die (if you don’t go to hell).
  • Heaven is the new earth – New Jerusalem.
  • Heaven is a state of mind.
  • Heaven is the Kingdom or sovereign rule of God in our lives in the here and now.
  • Heaven is living well and doing good works in this life.
  • Heaven is the ultimate consummation of the ages when the Father becomes all in all.

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Regarding the poll: You can choose up to 3 options, and you can change your vote if you want to. If you’re willing, please post and let everyone know what you chose and why. Thanks! :smiley:

We talk a lot (in American Evangelical churches at least) about ‘going to heaven.’ What does that mean to you? And if you want to go ‘there,’ why do you want to?

A lot of people today (okay, smart-aleck kids mostly) say they don’t WANT to go to heaven, and if I were to go by the descriptions of heaven I’ve heard from many of my fellow church people, I guess I wouldn’t want to either, especially if I were an unbeliever. But at bottom, they also don’t want to go to hell, though they may put on the bravado and say otherwise. But what is heaven?

I read a book about this once, by Randy Alcorn, entitled simply “Heaven.” I thought it was great at the time. He at least got it right that heaven isn’t cloud hopping in baggy white gowns whilst carrying a wee harp and flitting about on wee wings. (Thanks, Randy!) But I think he also got the whole heaven thing, um, well – turned around. Not that he was entirely wrong, but he made it sound like some sort of fantasy, self indulgent, sports-country club or explorers’ guild or something. I’m not saying we’re going to sit around playing harps :laughing: but perhaps there’s more to it than that. He did say that nice puppy dogs and kitty cats will make it – probably horses too, but no pigs! (Okay, he didn’t mention pigs and horses – that’s my contribution.)

Again, though, I think he missed the point. In my understanding, the Jewish concept of what Jesus spoke of as “heaven” had nothing to do with a place you go to. It was a euphemism for God’s sovereign rulership, and in that sense was as much here and now as it was by and by. The kingdom also meant more or less the same thing. The Jews didn’t like to speak the name of God directly and even mentioning Him directly made them a bit . . . uncomfortable. So they found ways around it.

Now it wasn’t like “he who must not be named,” (for all you Harry Potter geeks :wink: ) but more like He being so great and holy that even mentioning His name was a sacrament and required special circumstances; and perhaps special cleansing rituals, etc. might make it more . . . comfortable . . . to do, you know . . . to say. It might not seem so cheek that way.

So when Jesus said things like “Fear not, little flock, for it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom,” He was doing a lot more than assuring them/us that heaven was waiting for us. We can have the Kingdom operative in our lives today. We can be free from the power of this world for corruption and live by the incorruptible life of God today.

My thinking has undergone a complete flip on heaven in the last year or so, and was slowly changing even before that. Now when people talk about going to heaven, I don’t even know what to say. It would take too long and probably miss THEIR point to go into a whole long explanation of what I’ve come to believe on the subject.

“If I do such and such, will I still go to heaven, or will I go to hell for that?”

And I want to say, “You will certainly go through hell if you do that, and it will start almost immediately upon doing that.” Or “You’re missing the point. Does doing this thing move you closer to Abba or farther away? Because that’s the difference I see between heaven and hell – how close or how far away from Father are you, and which way are you pointed?”

But that’s my perception, and I’d really like to know what you all think. It’s a huge issue to many people (which is why we’re all so invested in comforting people regarding God’s ultimate intention for them), and thanks largely to the many misunderstandings within the church herself, most people don’t even begin to comprehend what it means to “go to heaven” or to “go to hell.” If we put our heads and hearts together, maybe we could contribute to one another’s pictures of this subject.

Love, Cindy

#2

It seems to me that “heaven” is a problematic term because it is seldom used in the Bible concerning a place that we go to. Its’ frequent uses include where God dwells, or the creation above the earth. But if the question is as to the nature of our future hope, I would choose resurrection life pictured as existing in the transformed creation of a new earth where ultimately God’s glory is universally known and embraced.

Here In the Bible Do People go to.doc (25 KB) is a brief page I used after a class on Hosea to outline some thoughts on where we go after death.

#3

Good question! And good synopsis, Bob!
This is a question that I’m wrestling with more frequently lately. At the very least, it seems that (once again) our conceptions of both “heaven” and “hell” are not true to the scriptural witness. I’m currently lead to the conclusion that neither is a “where”, but a “what”; a state of being, not a place. It still leaves me wondering what exactly happens after we die, and what entrance to, and (perhaps!) being (temporarily) barred from the kingdom will look like in the eschaton.

#4

Heaven by Michael English

Love without measure
Space without time
Life with no crying
Will one day be mine

Hearts never breaking
Hands that don’t fight
Days that don’t end with
The darkness of night

The lamb and the lion
Will walk side by side
In a world where freedom abides

Friends that don’t leave you
Smiles that don’t fade
Nobody’s hurtin’, no one’s afraid
No hungry children
Loved ones don’t die
No sad farewells
There’ll be no more goodbyes

I don’t know whether this is what it means but I like it.

#5

Mel,

Me too! I agree that serious thinkers are bound to be left wondering what the future that we haven’t seen will be like in literal terms. We might be more confident about values and approaches that would be consistent with God’s character, yet it seems like the clearest affirmations are the negations (e.g. of suffering evil) that many Biblical visions of our future hope affirm. But when we realize that the images typically do not appear to be literal, I suspect that we are left to know that our trust cannot be in the details, but in the victorius character of a God who is love.

#6

Indeed Bob; and perhaps that’s the point! :slight_smile:

#7

My best understanding is like this

We are told he removes our heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. Wait a minute we already have a flesh heart. So the jump from flesh to celestial is like the jump from stone to flesh. Thats a pretty big leap. We are also called beasts. But we arent. So the jump again from beast to human in intellect is similar to the jump from human to elohim.

Now i also think the rest of creation makes the jump. Beasts will be like humans and maybe rocks will become alive???

#8

Sounds a bit like Narnia… :slight_smile:

#9

i said it’s Heaven is the sovereign rule of God here and now, doing good works in this life (so as to build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth), and the ultimate consummation when God is all in all.
i think these all work together to eventually bring us to a place more classically thought of as heaven, though not the cloud hopping thing and probably not the big musical show from the end of Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life, though i do find that immensely entertaining (and am pleased that video games are there as mentioned in the song :smiley: )…and in fact it always being Christmas in heaven…well actually on second thought, that could work. imagine that expectant, warm, magical feeling forever!

but yeah, i think the pie in the sky version of Heaven as a direct reward to morality is perhaps a bit short-sighted. i think heaven is something to look forward to (more so now i believe no one is excluded), but also and perhaps more importantly as far as this life is concerned, it is something we build now, with God’s empowering and inspiration.

#10

Wow, you folks have some great things to say here. I especially liked – well, everything. :wink:

#11

I love, love, LOVE that!

:slight_smile:

#12

Hi Cindy,

I think most of us use “heaven” as a kind of shorthand for a better existence to come. There are lots of different ideas about what that better existence is in exact detail, but I think most folks would accept that simple definition. Those beautiful lyrics from Michael English fit that simple definition perfectly, I’d guess.

For me, the most heavenly thing I can think of is the reconciliation of all things In Jesus Christ, when all, quite literally, will be well.

Wow… that brief little passage is literally overflowing with meaning and power and hope!

But there’s something else in that passage that I never really focused on before right now, and that is the first part, where reconciling everyone and everything gives God pleasure. “Heaven” isn’t just **us **living happily ever after; it is our Heavenly Father being happy ***with ***us.

Man, how awesome is that? :sunglasses:

Love in Christ,

Andy

#13

Pretty darned awesome, Andy. :wink:

And yes, I agree that the term “heaven” CAN be used that way. I used to think that it WAS used that way by most people, but the truth was that most of the people I knew and met (with whom the subject came up) didn’t use it that way. Most folks around here have a pretty literalistic and legalistic view of heaven and hell. (Here is the USA west midwest, btw, which probably is significant.)

#14

Maybe it’s to due mostly with the sorts of traditions people are raised in. I grew up Presbyterian, which according to my Methodist grandmother was only marginally better than being a pagan. Just kidding… sort of! :wink:

But seriously, my boyhood church pretty much taught that belief in Jesus before you died (which meant you were elected) would get you to heaven forever (and ever!), which was really great, and not believing before you died (which meant you were reprobate) would send you to hell forever (and ever!), which was really, really bad. So perhaps that simle dichotomy remains the root of the cloudy, through-a-glass-darkly view of heaven that I seem to have. The verse I always thought of was from Thessalonians, where Paul speaks of the end times when we would find ourselves resurrected, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” But what that would actually be like… other than really grand… not much specifics.

Today, I guess I’m still a bit short on specifics, but I’m okay with that. I just know in my spirit that a better way than this world of futility and vanity and death is what we can be certain is coming, and not just for we who are now believing in the Lord, but for every broken person in such desperate need of permanent repair and healing… which, of course, includes everyone.

Love,

Andy

#15

Yes!!! I’m still so excited to know that every single broken person will be found, restored, and magnificently completed. God is soooo good. I used to feel sad watching my husband’s music videos, for example, seeing these incredibly talented people, who seemed very nice (aside from being a touch, well, blasphemous) and thinking that our Father appeared to have lost that amazing piece of His creation. Now I know He hasn’t. He hasn’t and won’t lose any of His incredible children – and those who haven’t bloomed will bloom one day. Wow! He’s something else!

One of my husband’s less-related relatives (don’t know what else describes it) killed himself last week – right in front of his family. (sigh) So much pain in the world. One of his friends wrote an opinion column, and it was so sad. This man started life so optimistic and excited to live, and life just beat him down until he gave up – and did it in such a monstrously hurtful way to his family (whom he’d already hurt quite a lot). But our Father redeems all things. It’s not that the bad things are tolerable, but they’re not insurmountable. Both he and his kids will recover and all will be well.

I’m not sure what people do who believe in ECT, when faced with something like this. But Father will surmount that, too. It just seems to me that the entire church world (nearly) thinks that heaven is a place, and you have to believe the right things, maybe do the right works, pray the right prayer (and really, really mean it), and who can possibly know whether they’ve made the grade? DID they really, really mean it? Can we ever do enough and good enough good works? And what if we honestly and in good faith believe the wrong things?

Kids ask all the time (online) things like, “If I do so and so, will I still go to heaven?” And the sad thing is that they’ve learned this from adults who share in their confusion. And all the time, heaven is a Person, and being in Christ is the key – and it isn’t all black and white, in or out, but rather an already/not yet kind of scenario. And God would NEVER let you fall beyond retrieval and redemption.

So yeah . . . just babbling here – makes me feel like I’m communicating or something. :wink:

Love, Cindy

#16

I think Heaven is simply the throne of God’s will. This definition seems to fit most uses of the word ‘heaven’ where it is not referring to (scientific) celestial space. So I think heaven can be understood, in a certain sense, by most of your definitions as they reflect God’s will.

There are countless qualifiers, but I voted for: Heaven as a state of mind, Heaven as the Kingdom or sovereign rule of God in our lives in the here and now; and Heaven as the new earth – New Jerusalem.

#17

Hi Cindy,

Oh my. What a heartbreaking circumstance. It is impossible to imagine either the depth of despair that could lead to such a thing or the trauma and devastation for those left behind in such a shocking and devastating way.

As a UR-believing friend of mine often says, this is where the rubber meets the road. And what he means is, the Gospel we have to share with people must meet people where they are when they are crying out for comfort when they are needing it most! “*Does God care?! Is He really unfailing love?! Can He reach down and touch us and comfort us even in *this ** awful circumstance?! Dear God in heaven, HELP US?!!!”

Praise be to Him that we indeed have such a Gospel to share, Cindy! May He give us opportunity and courage to declare it boldly and clearly to all those who need it so desperately.

Much love to you,

Andy

#18

I’d submit my own option;

Heaven is “God the Heaven”, in which we exist eternally, both here, after, and to come. Our experience of Heaven is another issue, as much as our experience of Hell is another issue. As for what Hell is, that too is Heaven; only experienced as our separation from its experience, or else as our experience of its purity from a position of sinfulness.

#19

I once read (do not remember where) that the transition from the life we now know to the life of heaven is something like the transition of a child nearing birth. The child probably feels safe, comfortable, secure in the womb. When the birthing process begins, the child probably is thinking NO, I do not want to leave this safe place. After, the child sees the mother and the massive world around, the colors, the sky and stars, the oceans. So, leaving this life of struggle and sorrow is greater than that of going from the womb to the world. The word clearly says it is beyond what we can hope or even imagine. As with everything else, we just trust Him who is - no more tears, no more travailing with sin, no more pain.

#20

For me, Heaven is:

The smell of freshly applied linseed oil on a cricket bat.
The sight of the Goodyear Blimp flying overhead on a clear day.
The feel of folded warm laundry.
The taste of Kendle Mint Cake on a long hike.
The sound of a cat purring in my ear.

Ah! - but, back to work!