Board index ‹ Heaven and Hell

[Jake the Writer]

I'm sure this has been addressed before, but I'd like to have my own dialogue about it with others, that is, how does heaven work (particularly if you have a loved one(s) that don't make it)?

Im an agnostic, and this current idea has been floating around in my mind as a bothersome question.

Scenario: You make it to heaven. Yet, that one person, you know who, who you've held out so much hope for/loved unconditionally/maybe even played a great deal in your path to heaven is NOT there. Sorry, they didn't make it.

The dilemma: How can this be heaven if I know that for every joy I experience in heaven (for all eternity) I would know that in every moment that person(s) is not there, and worse (much worse), is suffering eternally?

I guess what I'd like defined are:

Heaven: What is it, and how does it pervade this quandary. In my worst fears, there is a forfeit, a "tough luck" conclusion where I (or you, in this scenario) would have to suck it up. "Get over it, dude, your Mom is being tortured by Satan with a blow torch, but hey, aren't these grapes just delicious?!"

Sarcasm aside, what's the deal with this? And how do you feel about it? Thanks for reading and responding in advance!

[jimwalton]

Thanks for asking. Obviously the Bible doesn't address this specific question, so we are left to piece together principles to speculate on the answer to your question. Here are a few thoughts:

1. The older I get the more I am convinced that hell is not burning in fire (it's just a mental image to help us understand how awful it is), hell has degrees of punishment to it (all are not punished the same, but according to the works they have done [another reason to discard the literal fire part]), and hell is probably not eternal for everybody, but only for the intractable evil ones. That means: (1) being in heaven isn't just not caring about your loved ones in the barbecue, (2) the punishments in hell are appropriate and fair, and (3) there may be valid biblical understandings that people who have spent an appropriate time in hell and have paid for their sins may have other alternatives.

2. Therefore, (1) it's possible that those who are in heaven will gain a perfect understanding of this and learn to accept justice in rewards and justice in punishment, and so we deal with it in a different way than "Get over it, dude, your Mom is being tortured..."; (2) after appropriate and fair punishment, those who have "done their time" may join their loved ones in heaven, and so there is reconciliation and reunion.

Other thoughts that may enter the mix:

3. We are specifically told that when we get to heaven our minds (the way we see, think, and understand) will be changed so that we will see as God sees and think as God thinks (1 Cor. 13.9-12; 1 John 3.2-3). Therefore we will understand that the action God has taken is not only perfectly fair, but His only reasonable choice, and the only possible response of love, holiness, justice, and mercy. When we see that, we will be more accepting and not overly swayed by emotions where somehow we think should have a higher priority than what is fair and right.

4. What is heaven, you ask? Jeff the Jedi wrote this on this forum about a year ago: Heaven is a "spiritual" realm that is not tainted by sin and is where God's presence dwells. The Bible only ever discusses Heaven in abstract and metaphorical terms because it's not exactly something we can easily understand. It's very different from our physical world.

On one hand, we picture it as a place from which God rules. The main idea is that God's presence and holiness are there in their fullness. Jesus often talked about God's kingdom coming to Earth. We see Heaven as a place which is already entirely God's kingdom. And he is always being worshiped there, by angels, cherubim and seraphim. But since God is omnipresent, heaven is maybe all around. It's not a physical site.

So then, Heaven is also seen as sort of an "ideal" place. It's synonymous with God's kingdom in a more general sense. Heaven and Earth are entirely separate. When we die, we will leave earth and live in heaven, meaning we will be with God.

The truth though, Biblically speaking, is that Heaven is NOT our ultimate destination. There's this idea that Jesus didn't come to lead us away from Earth and off to Heaven. He died physically and was raised back to life as something new... but still physical. The book of Revelation talks about how there will be a New Heaven and New Earth in the end, that Heaven will descend to the earth, that God will dwell here on Earth just as he dwells in Heaven, and that we will live (in resurrected bodies like Jesus') on a New Earth. So the common equivalency between Heaven and the afterlife is a bit of a mistake. Heaven was being used in this sense to refer to God's kingdom in general, but it became twisted into this idea that we would just leave Earth and spend eternity in Heaven. That's not biblical. At first we will leave earth and live in heaven, as I said, but later heaven will descend to earth and the afterlife will be here on a redeemed and recreated Earth. There is some evidence in the Bible that suggests that the souls of God's people dwell in Heaven between the time of death and New Earth. But we can only really guess what's going on there, in my opinion. In any case, our ultimate destination is a new (perfected in some way, but still physical) Earth.

There will also be a New Heaven. We can only really guess at what will make it new or how it will be different.