Heaven (36 page)
Authors: Randy Alcorn
If animal death preceded human sin and death, so did animal suffering. Indeed, advocates of this position picture not only
animals devouring and killing each other before the Fall but also people eating animals. But how does this reconcile with
Genesis 9:3, where God says, "Just as I gave you the green plants, I
now
give you everything" (emphasis added)?
Would God call "very good" a realm in which animals suffered, died, and devoured one another? Surely the repeated redemptive
promise that one day animals will live in peace with each other is at least to a degree a return to Edenic conditions, though
it's certainly more than that (Isaiah 11:6-9).
If, as I believe, animal death was the result of the Fall and the Curse, once the Curse has been lifted on the New Earth,
animals will no longer die. Just as they fell under mankind, so they will rise under mankind (Romans 8:21). This suggests
people may become vegetarians on the New Earth, as they apparently were in Eden and during the time before the Flood.
How then should we understand this great text: "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)? One possibility is that this refers
to the Millennium, where Christ reigns but the world is still under the Curse and therefore animals still die. The other possibility
is that it refers to the New Earth. But we are told on the New Earth "There will be no more death . . . or pain, for the old
order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:4). The text doesn't specify "no more
human
death or pain."
So how could there be meat without animal death? Many people—I'm not one of them—eat meat substitutes and prefer the taste
to real meat. How hard would it be for God to create far better substitutes that do qualify as meat in every sense of taste
and texture, without coming from dead animals? This may stretch the meaning of "meat" and may seem unnatural, but wouldn't
it be more natural than animals dying when we're told there will be no more death?
During the Millennium or on the New Earth, or both, fishermen will spread their nets and catch fish (Ezekiel 47:9-10). Either
this is catch-and-release, purely for sport, or it suggests fish will still be eaten. Jesus ate fish in a resurrected body.
However, that was on an unresurrected Earth, still under the Curse. Hunting and killing animals is legitimate and sometimes
necessary on the present Earth. However, to the degree that hunting animals involves their fear, suffering, or death, it wouldn't
fit with the biblical description of the New Earth, where not only people but also animals live in peace and harmony: "The
wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. . . . They will neither harm nor destroy" (Isaiah
65:25). We're told animals' eating habits will change—why not ours?
The food chain may seem natural to us, but I believe it violates God's original design. No more curse and death means no
more food chain involving living creatures. As radical a shift as that may seem, it will likely be a return to God's original
design.
So, on the New Earth, we may consume a wonderful array of fruits and vegetables, perhaps supplemented by "meat" that doesn't
require death—something that tastes better but isn't animal flesh. If the product of the Curse and death can taste good to
fallen taste buds, how much better will God's specially designed foods smell and taste to resurrected senses?
WILL WE DRINK COFFEE IN HEAVEN?
I'll address this question not simply for the benefit of coffee lovers but because it's a revealing test of whether we're
more influenced by biblical teaching or Christoplatonism. Someone may say, "I sure
hope
there'll be coffee in heaven." But it's a statement that few would attempt to defend biblically.
But consider the facts. God made coffee. Coffee grows on Earth, which God made for mankind, put under our management, and
filled with resources for our use. When God evaluated his creation, he deemed coffee trees, along with all else, to be "very
good." Many people throughout history have enjoyed coffee—even in a fallen world where neither coffee nor our taste buds are
at their best.
God tells us that he "richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment" (1 Timothy 6:17). Does "everything" include coffee?
Paul also says, "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because
it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer" (1 Timothy 4:4-5). Again, does "everything" include coffee?
Given these biblical perspectives—and realizing that caffeine addiction or anything else that's unhealthy simply won't exist
on the New Earth—can you think of any persuasive reason why coffee trees and coffee drinking wouldn't be part of the resurrected
Earth?
Will the New Earth have fewer resources for human enjoyment than Eden did or than the world under the Curse offers? If you're
tempted to say, "But in Heaven our minds will be on spiritual things, not coffee," your Christoplatonism detector should go
off. It's fine if you don't like coffee, but to suggest that coffee is inherently unspiritual is . . . well, heresy. It directly
contradicts the Scriptures just cited. God made the physical and spiritual realms not to oppose each other but to be united
in bringing glory to him.
On the New Earth, we will "drink . . . from the spring of the water of life" (Revelation 21:6). God will prepare for us "a
banquet of aged wine . . . the finest of wines" (Isaiah 25:6). Not only will we drink water and wine, we'll eat from fruit
trees (Revelation
22:2),
and there's every reason to believe we'll drink juice made from the twelve fruits from the tree of life. So, along with drinking
water, wine, and fruit juice, is there any reason to suppose we wouldn't drink coffee or tea? Can you imagine drinking coffee
or tea with Jesus on the New Earth? If you can't, why not?
If for health reasons you shouldn't drink coffee now, then don't. But aside from personal preference, the only compelling
reason for not having coffee in Heaven would be if coffee were sinful or harmful. But it won't be. If drinking coffee would
be unspiritual on the New Earth, then it must be unspiritual now. And unless someone's a caffeine addict, under bondage to
coffee and not to Christ, or if a person's health is at stake, there's simply no biblical basis for believing drinking coffee
is sinful. Those who shouldn't consume alcohol or caffeine now will be freed from addiction on the New Earth. Adverse health
effects simply won't exist.
Those who for reasons of allergies, weight problems, or addictions can't regularly consume peanuts, chocolate, coffee, and
wine—and countless other foods and drinks—may look forward to enjoying them on the New Earth. To be free from sin, death,
and bondage on the New Earth will mean that we'll enjoy more pleasures, not fewer. And the God who delights in our pleasures
will be glorified in our grateful praise.
SHOULD WE LOOK FORWARD TO FEASTS?
You and I have never eaten food in a world untouched by the Fall and the Curse.The palate and taste buds were injured in the
Fall, as were all food sources. The best-tasting food we've ever eaten wasn't nearly as good as it must have tasted in Eden
or as it will on the New Earth.
The person who's eaten the widest variety of meals on Earth still hasn't tasted countless others. How many special dishes
will you discover on the New Earth? As yet, you may not have tasted your favorite meal—and if you have, it didn't taste as
good as it will there. The best meals you'll ever eat are all still ahead of you on the New Earth.
If it seems trivial or unspiritual to anticipate such things, remember that it's God who promises that on the New Earth we
will sit at tables, at banquets and feasts, and enjoy the finest foods and drinks. And to top it off, our Father promises
that he
himselfwill
prepare for us the finest foods (Isaiah 25:6).
Don't you think he
wants
us to look forward to eating at his table?
WILL WE BE CAPABLE OF SINNING?
P
eople have said to me, "Heaven will be perfect, but a sinless environment doesn't mean we can't sin; Adam and Eve proved that.
They lived in a sinless place, yet they sinned."
It's true that Satan tempted them, but he too originally was a perfect being living in a perfect environment, beholding God
himself. Not only was there no sin in Heaven; there was no sin in the universe. Yet Satan sinned. Hence, Heaven's perfection,
it seems, doesn't guarantee there'll be no future sin.
Some people also argue that being human demands free choice, and therefore we
must
have the capacity to choose evil in Heaven. If that's true, then we could experience another Fall.
Clearly, this is a question of great importance.
CAN WE KNOW WE WON'T SIN?
Christ promises on the New Earth, "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things
has passed away" (Revelation 21:4). Since "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), the promise of no more death is a promise
of
no more sin.
Those who will never die can never sin, since sinners always die. Sin causes mourning, crying, and pain. If those will never
occur again, then
sin
can never occur again.
Consider the last part of Revelation 21:4: "For the old order of things has passed away." What follows the word
for
explains Heaven's lack of death, mourning, crying, and pain. These are part of an old order of things that will forever be
behind us. The sin that caused them will be no longer. We need not fear a second Fall.
Scripture emphasizes that Christ died
once
to deal with sin and will never again need to die (Hebrews 9:26-28; 10:10; 1 Peter 3:18). We'll have the very righteousness
of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). We won't sin in Heaven for the same reason God doesn't: He cannot sin. Our eternal inability
to sin has been purchased by Christ's blood.
"For by a single offering [himself] he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14, ESV). On
the cross, validated by his resurrection, our Savior purchased our perfection_/or
all time.
"Nothing impure will ever enter it [the New Jerusalem], nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those
whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life" (Revelation 21:27). The passage doesn't say: "If someone becomes impure
or shameful or deceitful, that person will be evicted." There's an absolute contrast between sinners and the righteous. That
Satan and evildoers are cast forever into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10 and 21:8) shows an eternal separation of evil
from the New Earth. Heaven will be completely devoid of evil, with no threat of becoming tainted. Three times in the final
two chapters of Scripture, we're told that those still in their sins have no access to Heaven, and never will (Revelation
21:8,27; 22:15).
That evil will have no footing in Heaven and no leverage to affect us is further indicated by Jesus when he says, "The Son
of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom
everything that
causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace. . . .
Then
the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:41-43, emphasis added).
Hebrews 9:26 says with an air of finality that Christ sacrificed himself "to put away sin" (NASB) or "to do away with sin"
(NIV). Sin will be a thing of the past.
We'll be raised "incorruptible" (1 Corinthians 15:52, NKJV).
Incorruptible
is a stronger word than
uncorrupted.
Our risen bodies, and by implication our new beings, will be immune to corruption. Since the wages of sin is death, if we
cannot die, then we cannot sin.
"Anyone who has died has been freed from sin" (Romans 6:7). Christ will not allow us to be vulnerable to the very thing he
died to deliver us from. Since our righteousness is rooted in Christ, who is eternally righteous, we can never lose it.
WILL WE HAVE FREE WILL IN HEAVEN?
Some people believe that if we have free will in Heaven, we'll have to be free to sin, as were the first humans. But Adam
and Eve's situation was different. They were innocent but had not been made righteous
by Christ.
We, on the other hand, become righteous through Christ's atonement: "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the
many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). To suggest
we could have Christ's righteousness yet sin is to say Christ could sin. God completely delivers us from sin—including vulnerability
to sin.
Even now we may "participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires" (2 Peter
1:4). In Heaven there will be no evil desires, and no corruption, and we will fully participate in the sinless perfection
of God.
What does this mean in terms of human freedom? Some people suggest our free choice is a temporary condition for the present
life and won't characterize us in Heaven. But it seems to me that the capacity to choose is part of what makes us human.
It's hard to believe God would be pleased by our worship if we had no choice but to offer it. It's one thing for him to enable
us to worship. It's another for him to force us to do so or to make it automatic and involuntary. Christ woos his bride; he
doesn't "fix" her so she has no choice but to love him.
Imagine a husband who desires his wife's love, and to ensure that love, he injects her with a chemical to remove her free
will, to
make
her love him. This is not love; it is coercion. Once we become what the sovereign God has made us to be in Christ and once
we see him as he is, then we'll see all things—including sin—for what they are. God won't need to restrain us from it. Sin
will have absolutely no appeal. It will be, literally, unthinkable.
The inability to sin doesn't inherently violate free will. My inability to be God, an angel, a rabbit, or a flower is not
a violation of my free will. It's the simple reality of my nature. The new nature that'll be ours in Heaven—the righteousness
of Christ—is a nature that cannot sin, any more than a diamond can be soft or blue can be red. God cannot sin, yet no being
has greater free choice than God does.
Theologian Paul Helm says, "The freedom of heaven, then, is the freedom from sin; not that the believer just happens to be
free from sin, but that he is so constituted or reconstituted that he cannot sin. He doesn't want to sin, and he does not
want to want to sin."
231
WILL WE EVER BE TEMPTED?
Will we be tempted to turn our backs on Christ? No. What would tempt us?Innocence is the absence of something (sin), while
righteousness is the presence of something (God's holiness). God will never withdraw from us his holiness; therefore we cannot
sin.
We'll
never
forget the ugliness of sin. People who've experienced severe burns aren't tempted to walk into a bonfire. Having known death
and life, we who will experience life will never want to go back to death. We'll never be deceived into thinking God is withholding
something good from us or that sin is in our best interests.
Satan won't have any access to us. But even if he did, we wouldn't be tempted. We'll know not only what righteousness is but
also what sin is—or was. We'll always know sin's costs. Every time we see the scarred hands of King Jesus, we'll remember.
We'll see sin as God does. It will be stripped of its illusions and will be utterly unappealing.
Because our hearts will be pure and we'll see people as they truly are, every relationship in Heaven will be pure. We'll all
be faithful to the love of our life: King Jesus. We couldn't do anything behind his back even if we wanted to. But we'll never
want to.
We'll love everyone, men and women, but we'll be
in love
only with Jesus. We'll never be tempted to degrade, use, or idolize each other. We'll never believe the outrageous lie that
our deepest needs can be met in any person but Jesus.
Often we act as if the universe revolves around us. We have to remind ourselves it's all about Christ, not us. In Heaven
we'll see reality as it is and will, therefore, never have to correct our thinking. This will be Heaven's Copernican revolution—a
paradigm shift in which we'll never again see ourselves as our center of gravity. Jesus Christ will be our undisputed center,
and we won't want it any other way.
WILL WE REALLY BE PERFECT?
Someone e-mailed me this question: "In Heaven, will some people still be annoying? After all, eternity's a long time!" Annoyance
is sometimes caused by others' sin, our own, or both. Since sin will be eliminated, so will annoyance. That doesn't mean people
won't have idiosyncrasies, only that they won't be rooted in sin, and none of us will degrade or dismiss others.
Jonathan Edwards said, "Even the very best of men, are, on earth, imperfect. But it is not so in heaven. There shall be no
pollution or deformity or offensive defect of any kind, seen in any person or thing; but every one shall be perfectly pure,
and perfectly lovely in heaven."
232
In Heaven we'll be perfectly
human.
Adam and Eve were perfectly human until they bent themselves into sinners. Then they lost something that was an original part
of their humanity—moral perfection. Since then, under sin's curse, we've been human but never perfectly human.
We can't remember a time when we weren't sinners. We've always carried sin's baggage. What relief it will be not to have to
guard our eyes and our minds. We will not need to defend against pride and lust because there will be none.
In Heaven we won't just be better than we are now—we'll be better than Adam and Eve were before they fell. Our resurrection
bodies may be very much like their bodies were before the Fall, but we'll be a redeemed humanity with knowledge of God, including
his grace, far exceeding theirs.
Of course, Adam and Eve will be with us too, in their resurrection bodies. No one will know better than they what we've missed.
They will have lived on the original Earth, the fallen Earth,
and
the New Earth. (That's why they rank high on my list of people I want to talk with.)
How great shall be that felicity, which shall be tainted with no evil, which shall lack no good, and which shall afford leisure
for the praises of God, who shall be all in all!
SAINT AUGUSTINE
In Heaven we'll be perfectly human, but we'll still be finite. Our bodies will be perfect in that they won't be diseased or
crippled. But that doesn't mean they won't x have limits.
The term
perfect
is often misused when it describes our state in Heaven. I've heard it said, for instance, "We'll communicate perfectly, so
we'll never be at a loss for words." I disagree. I expect we'll sometimes grasp for words to describe the wondrous things
we'll experience. I expect I'll stand in speechless wonder at the glory of God. I'll be morally perfect, but that doesn't
mean I'll be capable of doing anything and everything. (Adam and Eve were morally perfect, but that didn't mean they could
automatically invent nuclear submarines or defy gravity. They were perfect yet finite, just as we will be.)
Someone asked me, "If we're sinless, will we still be human?" Although sin is part of us now, it's not essential to our humanity—in
fact, it's foreign to it. It's what twists us and keeps us from being what we once were—and one day will be.
Our greatest deliverance in Heaven will be from
ourselves.
Our deceit, corruption, self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, hypocrisy—all will be forever gone.
Theologian and novelist Frederick Buechner anticipates the new "us" on the New Earth: "Everything is gone that ever made Jerusalem,
like all cities, torn apart, dangerous, heartbreaking, seamy. You walk the streets in peace now. Small children play unattended
in the parks. No stranger goes by whom you can't imagine a fast friend. The city has become what those who loved it always
dreamed and what in their dreams she always was. The new Jerusalem. That seems to be the secret of Heaven. The new Chicago,
Leningrad, Hiroshima, Beirut. The new bus driver, hot-dog man, seamstress, hairdresser. The new you, me, everybody"
233
WHAT IS OUR HOPE OF LIVING WITHOUT SIN?
What's the hope we should live for? It's more than freedom from suffering. It's deliverance from
sin,
freeing us to be fully human. Paul says, "In this hope we were saved" (Romans 8:24). What hope? The words of the previous
verse tell us: "the redemption of our bodies" (v. 23). That's the final resurrection, when death will be swallowed up and
sin will be reversed, never again to touch us. This is what we should long for and live for. Resurrection will mean many things—including
no more sin.
Is resurrected living in a resurrected world with the resurrected Christ and his resurrected people
your
daily longing and hope? Is it part of the gospel you share with others? Paul says that the resurrection of the dead is the
hope in which we were saved. It will be the glorious climax of God's saving work that began at our regeneration. It will mark
the final end of any and all sin that separates us from God. In liberating us from sin and all its consequences, the resurrection
will free us to live with God, gaze on him, and enjoy his uninterrupted fellowship forever, with no threat that anything will
ever again come between us and him.
May God preserve us from embracing lesser hopes. May we rejoice as we anticipate the height, depth, length, and breadth of
our redemption.