Heaven (49 page)
Authors: Randy Alcorn
We're told "in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness"
(2 Peter 3:13). Yet how many of us are truly looking forward to the New Earth? Consciously? Daily? In your idle moments, when
your mind gravitates to whatever excites and interests you most, what do you think about? A new car? A movie? A business opportunity?
A chance to get rich? An attractive man or woman? A fun vacation? Or the New Earth?
Likely, you look forward to many things more than the New Earth. Yet living there with Jesus should be right at the top of
our lists.
Anticipating resurrected bodies and a resurrected Earth should greatly encourage all who live with illness, disability, and
the liabilities of old age. Some of you are bedridden, some are in wheelchairs. Others are weary, confused, unable to do
what you long to. But for those who know Jesus,
all that will change.
The Lord we long for, the world we long for, the relationships and body and mind we long for, will forever be ours.
IS THE BEST YET TO BE?
The opening lines of Robert Browning's poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra" resonate with many people:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which thefirst was made.
Unfortunately, an older couple reaches a time when those blissful words ring hollow. Disease, senility, incapacitation, or
accidents inevitably come, eventually bringing death. With death comes separation from one's beloved, a heartbreaking ending.
Then Browning's lovely words may haunt us. Old age and the "last of life," romanticized in the poem, can be brutal, devastating,
sad, and lonely.
Nanci and I both watched our dear mothers die, then watched helplessly as our fathers got old and frail, in body and mind.
From a human perspective, it felt hopeless because they'd been at their physical and mental peaks many years earlier, and
all they could do was slide. But a biblical perspective changed everything for us. Scripture reminded us that God had a purpose
for our parents and that after a brief period of deterioration, they would go to Heaven and immediately be relieved of their
hardships. Then one day God will raise them, and they'll have new minds and bodies, ready to start fresh again on a New Earth.
For believers, more accurate poetic lines would be,
The best is yet to be,
The next of lives, for which thefirst was made.
The last of our life before we die is in fact
not
the last of our life! We'll go right on living in another place. And one day, in the resurrection, we'll live again on Earth,
a life so rich and joyful that this life will seem impoverished in comparison. Millions of years from now we'll still be
young.
In our society many people look to cosmetic surgeries, implants, and other methods to remodel and renovate our crumbling bodies.
We hold to youthfulness with a white-knuckled grip. Ultimately it's all in vain. But the gospel promises us eternal youthfulness,
health, beauty, and happiness in the presence of our God and our spiritual family. It's not ours now—but it will be, in the
resurrection of the dead.
ARE WE PAST OUR PEAKS?
The following diagram illustrates the biblical view of the future for those who know Christ. The part of the graph below that
depicts life on the present Earth is the only one that takes a dip, representing the physical and mental decline of old age
that so many experience under the Curse. But at the point of death, it's followed by a dramatic upward movement in which the
believer goes immediately to be with Christ in the intermediate Heaven. However, even though that's a vast improvement, it's
not the believer's peak. We'll be resurrected, eventually living on a resurrected Earth. Our knowledge and life experiences,
certainly, and probably our skills and strength, will continue to develop. In other words,
we will never pass our peak.
I write this book well aware that I won't be on Earth much longer. Oh, I might last another thirty years. But it could be
twenty, ten, five, or one—one year, day, or hour. By the time this book goes to its next printing, I could be a true expert
on the present Heaven—as a resident. By the time you read it, I may have died years ago. Our time here is short. But when
we consider "here" is under the Curse and "there" is freedom from that curse, then why would people in their right minds want
to be here instead of there?
When I wrote the first edition of this book, Nanci's dear father was dying, falling further and further from his peak of a
very strong mind and body. I heard Nanci say to someone on the phone, "Life is closing in on him, but he's headed in the right
direction." It's paradoxical, isn't it? But true. The further we drop from our earthly peak, the closer we get to the present
Heaven—where Nanci's father now resides—and ultimately to the New Earth. For the Christian, death is the doorway to the Christ
who has defeated death and will swallow it up. Therefore, to be headed toward death is to be headed in the right direction.
Nanci's dad now has a restored mind, and one day will have a restored body, both far exceeding what he had here in his "best
days."
Understanding that our peak doesn't come in this life should radically change our view of deteriorating health, which otherwise
would produce discouragement, regret, anger, envy, and resentment. Elderly people could envy and resent the young for what
they can do. People handicapped from birth could envy and resent others for what they can do. But when the elderly and handicapped
recognize that their experiences on the New Earth will be far better than the best anyone else is experiencing here and now,
it brings anticipation, contentment, consolation, and the ability to fully rejoice in the activities of the young and healthy,
without envy or regret.
People without Christ can only look back to when they were at their best, never to regain it. Memories are all they have,
and even those memories fade. But elderly or bedridden Christians don't look back to the peak of their prowess. They
lookforward
to it.
When we Christians sit in wheelchairs or lie in beds or feel our bodies shutting down, let's remind ourselves, "I haven't
passed my peak. I haven't yet come close to it. The strongest and healthiest I've ever felt is a faint suggestion of what
I'll be in my resurrected body on the New Earth."
This isn't wishful thinking. This is the explicit promise of God. It is as true as John 3:16 and anything else the Bible tells
us.
When blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby wrote the lines "His glory we shall see" and "When our eyes behold the city," her thoughts
were all the more significant because her eyes had never seen anything. She'd tell people not to feel sorry for her because
the first face she'd ever see would be Christ's. Her sight was forever healed in 1915 when she died and left this world.
I had the privilege of spending two hours alone with Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright six months before he died. As he sat
there, tubes running to his oxygen tank, he almost jumped out of his chair as we talked about Heaven and the God he loved.
This wasn't a man past his peak but one leaning toward it. "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines
brighter and brighter until the full day" (Proverbs 4:18, NASB). This was true of Bill Bright. Although when I had breakfast
with him that morning he was nearing his death, his eyes and smile looked supernaturally young.
Dallas Willard says in
The Divine Conspiracy:
I meet many faithful Christians who, in spite of their faith, are deeply disappointed in how their lives have turned out.
Sometimes it is simply a matter of how they experience aging, which they take to mean they no longer have a future. But often,
due to circumstances or wrongful decisions and actions by others, what they had hoped to accomplish in life they did not.
They painfully puzzle over what they may have done wrong, or over whether God has really been with them.
Much of the distress of these good people comes from a failure to realize that their life lies before them. That they are
coming to the end of their present life, life "in the flesh," is of little significance. What is of significance is the kind
of person they have become. Circumstances and other people are not in control of an individual's character or of the life
that lies endlessly before us in the kingdom of God.
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The time may come when I won't be able to play tennis, ride bikes, drive, write books, or read them. I may suffer terribly
before I die. Someday my wife or my daughters may sit beside my bed, lovingly assuring me that I've been imagining things
again. I don't look forward to that.
But I do look beyond it.
I look first to being with my Jesus, second to being with loved ones, third to Christ's return and the bodily resurrection,
and fourth to setting foot on my eternal home—the New Earth. It makes me want to shout and cry and laugh just thinking about
it.
My waning years or weeks or days won't be the last my wife or daughters see of me. I'll be with them again, and one day we'll
all have bodies and minds far better than the best we ever knew here. We'll converse with a brilliance and wit and joy and
strength we've never known.
I don't look back nostalgically at wonderful moments in my life, wistfully thinking the best days are behind me. I look at
them as foretastes of an eternity of better things. The buds of this life's greatest moments don't shrivel and die; they blossom
into greater moments, each to be treasured, none to be lost. Everything done in dependence on God will bear fruit for eternity.
This life need not be wasted. In small and often unnoticed acts of service to Christ, we can invest this life in eternity,
where today's faithfulness will forever pay rich dividends.
"Thanks, Lord, that the best is yet to be." That's my prayer. God will one day clear away sin, death, and sorrow, as surely
as builders clear away debris so they can begin new construction.
HOW CAN ANTICIPATING NEW OPPORTUNITIES CHANGE US?
After Columbus discovered the New World, Spain struck coins with the Latin slogan
Plus Ultra.
It meant "More Beyond." This was a horizon-expanding message to people who'd always believed the world they knew was all there
was.
We'll constantly enjoy the wonders of the New Earth, but we're promised the new heavens too, including stars, planets, and
cosmic wonders that will thrill us.
Plus Ultra
—there will always be more to discover about our God. In his new universe there will
always
be more beyond.
God is going to enjoy his new universe, and we'll enter into his joy. Since we'll draw from the reservoir of God's being,
which never runs dry, we'll never run out of passion and joy. And God's creation will never run out of the beauty that will
be the Creator's reflection.
At 2:30 a.m. on November 19,2002,1 stood on our deck, gazing up at the night sky. Above me was the Leonid meteor shower, the
finest display of celestial fireworks until the year 2096. For someone who's enjoyed meteor showers since he was a kid, this
wasthe celestial event of a lifetime.
ln heaven 'tis the direct reverse 'tis
on earth; for there, by length of time things
become more and more youthful, that is, more
vigorous, active, tender, and beautiful.
J0NATHAN EDWARDS
There was only one problem. Clouds covered the Oregon sky. Of the hundreds of streaking meteors above me, I couldn't see a
single one. I felt like a blind man being told, "You're missing the most beautiful sunset of your lifetime. You'll never be
able to see another like it."
Was I disappointed? Sure. After searching in vain for small cracks in the sky, I went inside and wrote these paragraphs. I'm
disappointed but not disillusioned. Why? Because I did
not
miss the celestial event of my lifetime.
My lifetime is forever. My residence will be a new universe, with far more spectacular celestial wonders, and I'll have the
ability to look through clouds or rise above them.