Heaven Comes Down

What Happens When We Die?

Last week we talked about getting our hopes up about Heaven, that it's not going to be a boring, disembodied existence floating somewhere in the clouds. It's going to be better than we can imagine because God designed us for it.

This week, I want to get more specific. What exactly is Heaven? Where is it? And what does the Bible actually tell us about it? If you want to go deeper into this and don’t mind long books - reading or listening to them, both count - then Heaven by Randy Alcorn is the place to go.

Let’s start by looking at what Heaven is. 

Right at the start Genesis 1:1 says this: 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

It’s plural. So what are the heavens?

There’s the first heaven - the atmosphere directly around us, from the ground to about 20 miles in the air. Then there’s the second heaven, that’s outer space, and then there’s the third Heaven, that’s God’s eternal dwelling place. 

Let's start with a question: Where are believers who have passed away?

In the third Heaven. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:8: (NKJV)

We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Believers who are now absent from the body are present with the Lord.

I won’t go into lots of detail but we know it’s a good place. 

When Jesus was on the cross, he said to the thief who was repentant: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43 NIV)

Paradise. Heaven. God's dwelling place.

This is what we’ll call present Heaven or what some theologians call the intermediate Heaven - where believers are right now, in God's presence. And here's what we know: it's wonderful. Of course it is, it’s God’s presence. It’s better than anything we experience here. 

Present Heaven Is Not Our Final Destination

But, as wonderful as it is, this present Heaven is not our final destination, and it isn’t as good as it gets. The Bible tells us there’s something even better coming.

Revelation 21:1-5 (NIV)

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Heaven Comes Down to Earth

A new Heaven and a new earth. Does that surprise you? Did you think Heaven would change or stay as it is now forever? Heaven hasn't always existed - God created it - so He can renew it too.

And He does, and it’s going to be better than we can imagine. 

A new Heaven and earth but then notice this. 

The Holy City, Jerusalem, comes down out of Heaven. Heaven comes down to Earth. They become one place. The new earth will also be the new Heaven. And it comes down - Earth doesn’t go up.

If you thought God was going to do away with the Earth when Jesus returns, that’s not what the Bible says. Heaven is coming here. God’s plan has never been to evacuate the earth and take us somewhere else. When we look back at the garden we see God’s original plan and it still stands - for God to live with humans forever on a perfect earth.

Making All Things New (Not Making New Things)

Look at what He says: “I am making everything new”. Not “I am making all new things”. He’s making all things new. See the difference?

Some things will pass away - the old order of things - death, mourning, crying, pain, the curse of sin. I’m so thankful all of that will go. But other things will remain, they’ll just be renewed, back to how God intended. That’s the earth, our bodies, relationships, culture, work, rest. Good things God created from the beginning.

How does that work? I don’t really know. But we already see signs of it on earth. When a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, we know it’s not a completely new animal, it’s still the old one, but it's different. It’s not a new thing, but it’s been made new. I imagine it will be like that but perfect.

Shadow and Reality: The Last Battle

C.S. Lewis captured this beautifully in the final book of his Narnia series, The Last Battle. The depth found in the midst of those books written for children blows my mind. In this last book of the series, the characters think Narnia has been destroyed forever, and they're mourning its loss. They’re standing on the edge of Aslan’s country, which symbolises Heaven, but Lucy looks back at Narnia and feels loss. 

But as they go deeper into what they think is a completely different place, they start to recognise things. Lucy recognises the hills, Edmund recognises the Southern border,

“there’s Mount Pire with his forked head, and there’s the pass into Archenland and everything!”

“And yet they’re not like”, said Lucy. “They’re different. They have more colours on them and they look further away and they’re more…”

She struggles to find the words and Lord Digory finishes the sentence,

“More like the real thing.” He says. 

And then Farsight the Eagle arrives after flying high above them and he declares Kings and Queens Narnia is not dead, this is Narnia!

The characters are rightly confused. Aslan had told them they would never again go back to Narnia. And they all saw it destroyed.

And Lord Digory explains:

“When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia.”

And then the unicorn sums it all up for them, I love this bit:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.”

C.S. Lewis captures it perfectly. Anything we love about the earth is because it looks a little bit like Heaven. The relationships we have, the wonderful scenery, a peaceful morning with a coffee listening to the birds. They’re all glimpses of the new and better thing to come.

And the reason we so enjoy those moments is because we were made for them. Or more specifically, we were made by and for the One we encounter in them. They're not just glimpses of a place, they're glimpses of a Person. It's God himself that satisfies us in those moments, and it's God himself we're longing for.

Why Your Desires for Heaven Matter

And that’s why we can trust God that the eternity He has planned for us will not disappoint us. 

Randy Alcorn puts it really well in his book Heaven, speaking about why we shouldn’t feel bad that an eternity spent in the clouds doesn’t sound all that great to us:

We do not desire to eat gravel. Why? Because God did not design us to eat gravel. Trying to develop an appetite for a disembodied existence in a non-physical Heaven is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel. No matter how sincere we are, and no matter how hard we try, it’s not going to work. Nor should it.

What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth.

Our desires correspond precisely to God’s plans. It’s not that we want something, so we engage in wishful thinking that what we want exists. It’s the opposite—the reason we want it is precisely because God has planned for it to exist...Resurrected people living in a resurrected universe isn’t our idea—it’s God’s.

Isn't that so good? We don't desire gravel because we weren't made to eat gravel. What we truly desire is a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with a resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth. When we're honest with ourselves that is what we really desire. Although sometimes we know that our desires can be distorted and we can settle for counterfeits on Earth, underneath it all this is what we truly desire.

And we desire it because God has planned for it to exist. We’ll pick up on that next week, looking at what we might actually do as we spend eternity with God on the Earth.

Question

Let’s move onto our question for the week, well actually it’s more of a task:

We’ve heard that this world, as beautiful as it is, is just a shadow, the new creation is the reality.

So this week, I want to challenge you with something practical. As you go about your days, notice what brings you joy. Like, really notice it. A perfect cup of coffee. Your child's laughter. The way the light hits the trees. A song that moves you. A conversation that fuels you. I’ll stop there before I get any more cheesy, you get the idea.

And when you notice it, let it point you forward towards eternity. Pause for a moment and think: "If this is just the shadow, imagine the reality. If this broken world can produce such beauty, or such joy, what will the perfected world be like?"

As followers of Jesus we’re invited to look forward. Don't be afraid to desire Heaven. Don't feel guilty for wanting more than this world offers, because God put that longing in you. He designed you for a place where every good thing is heightened and every bad thing is removed. Where relationships have no end, where work has no frustration, where joy has no interruption, the list goes on.

Charles Spurgeon said that coming to God is coming home from exile, coming to rest after long labor, coming to the goal of our desires and the summit of all our wishes.

That's what's waiting for us. Not up there in some distant, disconnected place. But here, on this earth renewed and perfected, with God dwelling among his people, all things made new.

Prayer

Let's pray.

Father, thank you that your plan has always been to dwell with us. Thank you that you're not abandoning this earth but you are and will renew it. Help us to see the shadows for what they are, pointers to the reality that's coming. Set our eyes on eternity so that we may be of earthly good. In Jesus' name, amen.