When I was a child Heaven didn’t
sound very interesting to me. This was true even after I became a Christian at
9 years old. This is mostly because the image I had of Heaven was a place where
you sat around on white fluffy clouds strumming golden harps “worshipping” for
eons. A little later I thought of Heaven as a place filled with every sensual
delight you could ask for: a place of cream puffs with chocolate frosting and
cinnamon rolls and basketball games where everyone could slam dunk. Is that
what Heaven will be? How similar will Heaven be to this world? How different?
What will we do for the first 10,000 years? And after that?
The Bible clearly shows that there
will be great differences between this world and Heaven
ESV Revelation 21:4 He will
wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall
there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have
passed away.")
But there will also be
continuities between the experiences of Christians now and then as well.
Revelation 21:1 describes the next age this way:
ESV Revelation 21:1 Then I
saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first
earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband.”
The vision that the Apostle John has is of Heaven coming TO
us. John was not teleported from earth to a distant fluffy place. John remained
on earth and earth BECAME “Heaven” – or more precisely “a new heaven and a new
earth”. When I was childish in my thinking about Heaven I ignored the phrase
“and a new earth”.
God still cares for this place –
despite all the graffiti and mess we’ve made of it. How does this place become
“the new earth”? Until recently I thought of God destroying earth by fire &
creating a new earth from scratch. This annihilation by fire idea came from 2 Peter 3:7-10 which says:
“But by
the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire,
being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. … 10
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass
away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies1 will be burned up and
dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
The earth has fire in its
future. But is this fire one of destruction and annihilation or a fire of
purification and refinement? Is God detonating the universe’s largest nuclear
bomb on earth to vaporize everything or is God placing the earth in a furnace?
At least with respect to those creatures made in God’s image (human beings) and
our works the fire is one of refinement not annihilation. The Apostle Paul
writes,
ESV 1 Corinthians 3:13 each
one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will
be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has
done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation
survives, he will receive a reward.
Could it be that the
refining fire that tests the quality of each person and their work is a
refining fire that will sweep this planet as a whole? I’m not sure. But I do
notice this: those who trust in Christ survive. And that person’s work also
survives if it was built on the foundation of Christ (1 Cor 3:11) and with
precious materials (1 Cor 3:12).
Three provocative implications:
1) Our Savior is not a “Star Trek Jesus”. Jesus doesn’t beam us off
this dying world and out of danger. We’re not removed from danger rather Jesus
comes to us through the Holy Spirit and walks with us in the midst of danger.
2) Don’t abandon ship! Paul Marshall describes one approach to faith
as “lifeboat theology”. The idea is that the earth has hit the iceberg of sin
and is doomed to destruction. So the only meaningful thing left to do is to
abandon ship and get as many people as possible into the lifeboats. Instead of
abandoning ship we should be rebuilding it with gold and precious stones.
Christians are living stones (1 Peter 2:5) being built into a spiritual house
for the Living God (2 Cor 6:16). To some degree we bring salvation and Heaven
into the world right now. I find it interesting that enduring work is done with
gold and precious stones (1 Cor 3:12) and the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2) is also
made of gold and precious stones. What if WE were actually building Heaven
right now? Or more precisely, what if God was building Heaven in us and through
us as we put ourselves as a tool in His hand?
3) Our work matters now and it matters for the future. If everything
was going to be annihilated we should just do the bare minimum required to
survive & simply get by. But if our work is not annihilated, but refined by
fire, then we should do our absolute best work now – for only this type of work
will endure. Our current work is more than simply “rearranging the deck chairs”
on the Titanic. (more on this in my next blog)
I’m indebted to chapter 4
of Dr. Tom Nelson’s book Work Matters:
Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work for this blog.
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