Heaven (35 page)

I often think of how paraplegics, quadriplegics, and people who have known constant pain will walk, run, jump, and laugh in
the New Earth. Believers who are blind now will gawk at the New Earth's wonders. What a special pleasure for them.

Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic, says,

I still can hardly believe it. I, with shriveled, bent fingers, atrophied muscles, gnarled knees, and no feeling from the
shoulders down, will one day have a new body, light, bright, and clothed in righteousness—powerful and dazzling. Can you imagine
the hope this gives someone spinal-cord injured like me? Or someone who is cerebral palsied, brain-injured, or who has multiple
sclerosis? Imagine the hope this gives someone who is manic-depressive. 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.
²¹⁶

Joni tells of speaking to a class of mentally handicapped Christians. They thought it was great when she said she was going
to get a new body. But then she added,
"And. you're
going to get new minds." The class broke out in cheers and applause. They knew just what they wanted—new minds.

My body and mind, for the moment, may be relatively healthy. But as an insulin-dependent diabetic, I've known what it is for
both my body and my mind to fail me. They suffer under the Curse enough that I too know just what I want—a new body and a
new mind, without sin, suffering and incapacity. Every year that goes by, I long more to be a resurrected person and to live
on the resur­rected Earth, with my resurrected brothers and sisters, and above all, with my Lord—the resurrected Jesus.

WILL WE BE MALE OR FEMALE?

One book about Heaven claims, "[Tjhere will be no male and female human beings. We shall all be children of God and sex will
be no part of our nature."
²¹⁷
The same book says, "Men will no longer be men nor will women be women."
²¹⁸

Similarly, another book says of those in Heaven, "[T]hey have reached that androgynous condition in which sex distinctions
are transcended, or rather, in which the qualities of both sexes are blended together."
²¹⁹

Some people try to prove there will be no gender in Heaven by citing Paul's statement that in Christ there is neither "male
nor female" (Galatians 3:28). But Paul refers to something that's already true on Earth: the equality of men and women in
Christ. The issue isn't the obliteration of sexuality (you don't lose your gender at conversion).

Was Jesus genderless after his resurrection? Of course not. No one mistook him for a woman—or as androgynous. He's referred
to with male pronouns.

We'll never be genderless because human bodies aren't genderless. The point of the resurrection is that we will have real
human bodies essentially linked to our original ones. Gender is a God-created aspect of humanity.

In my novel
Deadline,
Finney addresses this matter with the angel Zyor;

"But I am still a man here, and everyone I see is clearly male or female, more distinctly in fact than on earth. I had thought
perhaps there would be no gender here. I had read that we would all be . . . like angels, like you."

Zyor looked surprised.

"You are like us in that you do not marry and bear children here. But as for your being a man, what else would you be? Elyon
may unmake what men make, but he does not unmake what he makes. He made you male, as he made your mother and wife and daughters
female. Gender is not merely a component of your being to be added in or extracted and discarded. It is an essential part
of who you are."
²²⁰

WILL WE WEAR CLOTHES?

Because Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, some argue that in Heaven we won't need to wear clothes. But even in the present
Heaven, before the final Resurrection, people are depicted as wearing clothes, white robes that depict our righteousness in
Christ (Revelation 3:4; 6:11). It appears we'll wear clothes—not because there will be shame or temptation, but perhaps because
they will enhance our appearance and comfort.

Wearing robes might strike us as foreign or formal. But to first-century readers, anything but robes would have seemed strange.
Why? Because robes were what they normally wore. Rather than conclude that we'll all wear robes, a better deduction is that
we'll all dress normally, as we did on the old earth. Am I saying some people will wear jeans, shorts, T-shirts, polo shirts,
or flip-flops? Well, wouldn't those be just as normal for some twenty-first-century people as robes and sandals were for first-century
people?

Robes weren't reserved for formal events; they were part of everyday garb. Of course, we might sometimes wear more and less
formal clothes, for certain kinds of events. There's no indication that we'll have only one set of clothes to choose from.

Will we all wear white clothing? The white clothes may depict our righ­teousness (Revelation 7:9), as they did Christ's in
his transfiguration. The em­phasis on white may relate to cleanliness, which was extremely hard to maintain in that culture.
Remarkably, the only person depicted in Heaven as wearing a robe that isn't white is Jesus Christ: "He is dressed in a robe
dipped in blood" (Revelation 19:13). Just as Jesus wore clothes after his resurrection on the old Earth, he wears them now
in the present Heaven, and will presumably wear them on the New Earth.

Will white be the only clothing color? No. There are angels wearing golden sashes (Revelation 15:6). Because resurrected people
retain their individuality and nationality (we'll look more closely at this later) and because many ethnic groups wear colorful
clothing, we should expect this on the New Earth.

The book of Revelation tells us we'll be priests and kings in Heaven. When you consider God's special adornment for the priests
in the Old Testament (Ex­odus 28:4-43), it's likely God's royal and priestly people will wear beautiful clothes in Heaven.

WILL WE ALL APPEAR THE SAME AGE?

Will a child who dies at age six appear that age in Heaven? Will the man who dies at eighty appear to be eighty as he walks
the New Earth?

People have asked questions like these throughout the centuries. Alister McGrath states,

This issue caused the spilling of much theological ink, especially during the Middle Ages. . . . By the late thirteenth century,
the church's emerg­ing consensus was this: "As each person reaches their peak of perfection around the age of 30, they will
be resurrected, as they would have appeared at that time—even if they never lived to reach that age." Peter Lombard's discussion
of the matter is typical of his age: "A boy who dies immediately after being born will be resurrected in that form which he
would have had if he had lived to the age of thirty." The New Jerusalem will thus be populated by men and women as they would
appear at the age of 30 . . . but with every blemish removed.
²²¹

Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval theologian, argued that we will all be the age of Christ when he was crucified, about thirty-three.
Aquinas pointed out,

Human nature is deficient in a twofold manner: in one way because it has not yet obtained its ultimate perfection, and in
a second way, because it has already receded from its ultimate perfection. Human nature is deficient in the first way in children,
and in the second way in the aged. And therefore in each of these, human nature will be brought back by the resurrection of
the state of its ultimate perfection, which is in the state of youth, toward which the movement of growth is terminated, and
from which the movement of degeneration begins.
²²²

Hank Hanegraaff suggests, "Our DNA is programmed in such a way that, at a particular point, we reach optimal development from
a functional perspec­tive. For the most part, it appears that we reach this stage somewhere in our twenties and thirties.
. . . If the blueprints for our glorified bodies are in the DNA, then it would stand to reason that our bodies will be resurrected
at the optimal stage of development determined by our DNA."
²²³

Does this mean that children who go to Heaven won't be children once they get there? Or that there will be no children on
the New Earth? Isaiah 11:6-9 speaks of an Earth where "the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and
the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. . . . The in­fant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the
young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain."

Since the larger context of Isaiah is concerned with an eternal Kingdom of God on Earth, it seems inappropriate to restrict
this passage to a thousand-year kingdom that ends in rebellion and destruction of human beings. The end of sin and the complete
righteousness of all Earth's inhabitants won't come until the New Earth. But if Isaiah 11 is speaking of the New Earth, as
does its parallel passage in Isaiah 65, who are the infants and young children playing with the animals? Is it possible that
children, after they're resurrected on the New Earth, will be at the same level of development as when they died?

If so, these children would presumably be allowed to grow up on the New Earth—a childhood that would be enviable, to say the
least! Believing parents, then, would presumably be able to see their children grow up—and likely have a major role in their
lives as they do so. This would fit something I'll propose later, that on the New Earth many opportunities lost in this life
will be wonder­fully restored. Although it's not directly stated and I am therefore speculating, it's possible that parents
whose hearts were broken through the death of their children will not only be reunited with them but will also experience
the joy of seeing them grow up . . . in a perfect world.

It's also possible that on the New Earth we will appear ageless. C. S. Lewis portrays this in
The Great Divorce,
saying of Heaven's inhabitants, "No one in that company struck me as being of any particular age. One gets glimpses, even
in our country, of that which is ageless—heavy thought in the face of an infant, and frolic childhood in that of a very old
man."
²²⁴

In my novels I suggest the possibility that in Heaven we'll see people as we most remember them on earth. So I'll see my parents
as older, and they'll see me as younger. I'll see my children as younger, and they'll see me as older. I don't mean that physical
forms will actually change but that the resurrection body will convey the real person we have known, and we will see each
other through different eyes.

The New Earth will be a place of both maturity and perfection. Regardless of what age we appear, I believe that our bodies
will demonstrate the qualities of youthfulness that Jesus so valued in children. God could easily have made a way for people
to come into the world fully developed, not as maturing chil­dren. But he didn't. He put special qualities into children,
ones we—and he—delight in. I fully expect all of us to have such qualities as curiosity, gratefulness, longing to learn and
explore, and eagerness to hear stories and gather close to loved ones.

We'll be unburdened by the Curse that shrivels not just our bodies but also our spirits, robbing many of youthfulness. Jonathan
Edwards stated, "The heavenly inhabitants . . . remain in eternal youth."
²²⁵
Heaven will be full of chil­dren . . . even if we look like adults. What we love about children is their joy, ex­uberance,
curiosity, laughter, and spontaneity. In Heaven, whether or not anyone is the size and appearance of a child, we'll all be
childlike in the ways that will bring joy to us and to our Father.

CHAPTER 30

WILL WE EAT AND DRINK ON THE NEW EARTH?

W
ords describing eating, meals, and food appear over a thousand times in Scripture, with the English translation "feast" occurring
another 187 times. Feasting involves celebration and fun, and it is profoundly relational. Great conversation, storytelling,
relationship-building, and laughter often hap­pen during mealtimes. Feasts, including Passover, were spiritual gatherings
that drew direct attention to God, his greatness, and his redemptive purposes.

People who love each other like to eat meals together. Jesus said to his dis­ciples, "I confer on you a kingdom, just as my
Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom" (Luke 22:29-30). Scripture says, "On
this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats
and the finest of wines" (Isaiah 25:6).

WILL WE LITERALLY EAT AND DRINK?

Not all Christians believe that we will eat and drink in Heaven. Some people cite Romans 14:17: "The kingdom of God is not
a matter of eating and drink­ing, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." But this passage isn't about the
afterlife. Paul is speaking about our walk with God and the impor­tance of not making other people stumble over what we eat
and drink.

If we don't have intermediate bodies, then we won't eat in the intermediate Heaven. (If we do have temporary bodies, we might
eat, but not necessarily.) However, it's interesting that manna is referred to as "the bread of angels" (Psalm 78:25). When
angels, and God himself, took on human form, they ate human food (Genesis 18:1-2, 5-8). In the present Heaven is the tree
of life, from which God says overcomers may eat (Revelation 2:7). Perhaps they won't eat from it until it's on the New Earth.
Nevertheless, the fact that a tree with possibly edible fruit is currently located in the present Heaven at least raises the
question of whether people can eat there now. However, since it's pre-resurrection, it seems likely there's no eating in the
present Heaven.

Strangely, however, many people also believe we won't eat or drink in the eternal Heaven. They assume the biblical language
about eating and drinking and banquets is figurative and that we will eat only "in a spiritual sense."
²²⁶
But how does one eat in a spiritual sense? And why is there a need to look for a spiri­tual sense when resurrected people
in actual bodies will live on a resurrected Earth? Once again Christoplatonism lurks behind this understanding.

The resurrected Jesus invited his disciples, "Come and have breakfast." He prepared them a meal and then ate bread and fish
with them (John 21:4-14). He proved that resurrection bodies are capable of eating food,
real food.
Christ could have abstained from eating. The fact that he didn't is a powerful state­ment about the nature of his resurrection
body, and by implication, ours, since Christ "will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body"
(Philippians 3:21).

Other passages indicate that we'll eat at feasts with Christ in an earthly kingdom. Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you
I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes" (Luke 22:18). On another occa­sion Jesus said,
"Many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom
of heaven" (Matthew 8:11). Where will the kingdom of God come? To Earth. Where will God's Kingdom reach its ultimate and eternal
state? On the New Earth.

An angel in Heaven said to John, "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" (Revelation 19:9).
What do people do at any supper—especially a wedding supper? Eat and drink, talk, tell stories, celebrate, laugh, and have
dessert. Wedding feasts in the Middle East often lasted a full week. When we attend the wedding supper of the Lamb, we won't
be guests—we'll be the bride!

Part of the conclusive evidence for the true physical resurrection of Christ is the fact that he ate and drank with his disciples:

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement,
he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their
presence. (Luke 24:4043)

God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses
whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. (Acts 10:40-41)

Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish you have just caught. . . . Come and have breakfast." None of the disciples dared
ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the
fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. When they had finished
eating . . . (John 21:10-15)

These passages emphatically link eating and drinking to the resurrected state. The fact that it's so often repeated means
it's not viewed as incidental. Scripture goes out of its way to prevent us from embracing the very misconceptions so many
of us have: that life in Heaven will be "spiritual," not physical, and that we will not partake of any of the basic pleasures
of this life.

Yet another biblical passage gives us insight about eating in Heaven. One day while eating in the home of a Pharisee, Jesus
said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, . . . invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will
be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous" (Luke 14:12-14). When
Jesus made this ref­erence to the resurrection of the dead, a man at the same dinner said to him, "Blessed is the man who
will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God" (Luke 14:15). Since they were eating together at the time, the obvious meaning
of "eat" and "feast" is literal. If the man who said this was wrong to envision literal eating after the bodily resurrection,
Jesus had every opportunity to correct him. But he didn't. In fact, he built on the man's words to tell a story about someone
who prepared a banquet and invited many guests (Luke 14:16-24). Clearly, both the man and Jesus were talking about actual
eating at actual banquets, like the one they were at. One translation has the man at the dinner state, "What a privilege it
would be to have a share in the Kingdom of God!" (Luke 14:15, NLT). But the Greek words do not mean "have a share in" the
Kingdom; they mean "eat" in the Kingdom.

I don't always take the Bible literally. Scripture contains many figures of speech. But it's incorrect to assume that because
some figures of speech are used to describe Heaven, all that the Bible says about Heaven, therefore, is figurative. When we're
told we'll have resurrection bodies like Christ's and that he ate in his resurrection body, why should we assume he was speaking
figuratively when he refers to tables, banquets, and eating and drinking in his Kingdom?

Speaking of eating, drinking, and the physical properties of life on the New Earth, Wayne Grudem writes, "There is no strong
reason to say these expres­sions are merely symbolic, without any literal reference. Are symbolic banquets and symbolic wine
and symbolic rivers and trees somehow superior to real ban­quets and real wine and real rivers and trees in God's eternal
plan? These things are just some of the excellent features of the perfection and final goodness of the physical creation that
God has made."
²²⁷

We're commanded, "Glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:20, NKJV). What will we do for eternity? Glorify God in our bodies.
We're told, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). What will
we do for eternity? Eat, drink, and do all to the glory of God.

An evangelical author tells us, "In Heaven, Scripture indicates that we shall neither eat nor drink."
²²⁸
But Scripture tells us no such thing. In fact, it couldn't show more clearly that we will eat and drink on the New Earth.

WILL WE EXPERIENCE HUNGER, AND WILL WE DIGEST FOOD?

Will we get hungry on the New Earth? Some people say no because we're told, "Never again will they hunger; never again will
they thirst" (Revelation 7:16). But this doesn't mean that we'll lack an appetite or desire; it means our desires will be
met. We will never go hungry or go thirsty. To find pleasure in eating as­sumes we desire to eat. Hunger and thirst are good
things if food and drink are freely available, and God assures us that on the New Earth they always will be.

Did Adam and Eve hunger in Eden? Presumably. Will we thirst on the New Earth? "For the Lamb at the center of the throne will
be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water" (Revelation 7:17). God doesn't say we won't need to drink.
Rather, he says he will lead us to drink. The natural stimu­lus to motivate drinking is thirst. We will presumably thirst
for water, as we will thirst for God. But our thirst will never go unsatisfied. God created hunger and thirst, and he intends
for them to be satisfied, not obliterated.

Paul quotes the Corinthians: "You say, 'Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.' This is true, though someday
God will do away with both of them" (1 Corinthians 6:13, NLT). Some people think God is saying here that we won't eat and
won't have stomachs or digestive systems. But in context Paul is simply saying that the old body will die, so we shouldn't
let the desires of that body control us. Naturally, if we're not embodied in the intermediate Heaven, we won't have stomachs
or eat food there. But Paul isn't saying that our resur­rected bodies won't have stomachs and that we won't eat food on the
New Earth.

Some people argue that we won't eat or drink in Heaven because they're aghast at the thought of digestion and elimination.
Could God make it so our new bodies wouldn't go through the same digestive and elimination processes they do now? Certainly.
Will he? We don't know. But no aspect of our God-created physiology can be bad. To imagine otherwise is Christoplatonism again.
Did Adam and Eve experience digestion and elimination in a perfect world? Of course. Jesus never sinned, but his body functioned
just as ours do.

HOW WILL FOOD TASTE?

Only two people lived before the Fall. This means only two people have ever eaten food at its best, with their capacity to
taste at its best.

The great wine Christ made and served at the wedding of Cana was a fore­taste of that best of wines he will provide for us
on the New Earth. Even in this cursed world, Scripture is filled with more feasts than fasts. Who created our taste buds?
Who determined what we like and what we don't? God did. The food we eat is from God's hand. Our resurrected bodies will have
resurrected taste buds. We can trust that the food we eat on the New Earth, some of it fa­miliar and some of it brand-new,
will taste better than anything we've ever eaten here.

Food isn't just functional. We could get nourishment, after all, by mixing everything together in a blender, with no regard
to color or texture or taste. Food is also for our enjoyment—not only its consumption but also its prepara­tion and presentation.
Shouldn't we expect boundless creativity in these as well? (If you've seen the marvelous movie
Babette's Feast,
you know what I mean.)

Reformer John Calvin wrote, "If we consider to what end God created foods, we shall find that he wished not only to provide
for our necessities, but also for our pleasure and recreation.... With herbs, trees and fruits, besides the various uses he
gives us of them, it was his will to rejoice our sight by their beauty, and to give us yet another pleasure in their odours."
²²⁹

We won't "need" fine meals; we don't
need
them now. But we enjoy them now for the same reason we'll enjoy them then—because God made us to enjoy them and to glorify
him as we eat and drink (1 Corinthians 10:31).

WILL WE EAT MEAT?

God's provision of food for people and animals was clearly indicated when he said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on
the face of the whole earth and ev­ery tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts
of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of
life in it—I give every green plant for food" (Genesis 1:29-30).

You are going now, said they, to the paradise of God, wherein you shallsee the tree of life, and eat of the never-fading fruit
there of.

JOHN BUNYAN

It appears that neither people nor animals ate meat until after the Flood, when God said, "Everything that lives and moves
will be food for you. just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything" (Genesis 9:3). It makes sense that people
and animals wouldnt eat meat before the Fall, when living beings didn't die. But why weren't animals eaten between the Fall
and the Flood? Perhaps it was still unthinkable so close to Eden, when animals were to be cared for, not killed and eaten.
Consider that the genealogies of Genesis 5 indicate that Noah's father, Lamech, was born before Adam died! Perhaps until after
the Flood, animals still held a remnant of intelligence not sufficiently dissipated by the Fall.

As mentioned in chapter 12, some people argue that animals died before the Fall.
²³⁰
But this conclusion seems to be driven by assumptions about the earth's age and interpretations of the fossil record, not
from biblical texts. Scripture ties all death to Adam: "Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin" (Romans
5:12). The "creation was subjected to frustration" and is in "bond­age to decay" because of humanity's sin and will be delivered
through human­ity's resurrection (Romans 8:19-23). Whether blessing or curse, whether life or death, what is first true of
mankind
then
extends to animals. This suggests ani­mal death did not precede human death.