You actually believe in heaven?
Are you serious?” The words of one of my non-believing buddies rang in my ears, along with his next comment. “I’ll never understand you Christians with all your imaginary friends!” By “imaginary friends” he was referring to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, along with the heavenly angels, and if I understood him correctly, Satan and his crew as well. My friend is ordinarily very respectful of my beliefs and worldview, but on this occasion, at a social gathering and with a few beers inside him, he was a little more uninhibited than usual, and I got a glimpse into his true feelings. He’s a great bloke and I love him to bits, but he has no need for “all that God stuff” (his words).
Still, he made me think. “Heaven? Are you serious?” Good question. How serious are we about Heaven? Do we really believe, and better still, do we live as if we believe? Or do we just regard it as another fairy-tale, a bit like Santa and the Easter Bunny (sorry, a belated spoiler alert there). Does our belief in heaven as a real place inform and influence our choices and behaviours in the here and now?
We might be ambivalent, but the Scriptures are not. The Bible contains more than 720 references to heaven using some 11 different words to describe it, in at least three languages. Jesus calls it His Father’s house (John 14:1-3). The writer of Hebrews calls it a “better country” that God has prepared for His people, while Paul declares that “our present sufferings” are not worthy to be compared with the glory that awaits us. Heaven’s centre piece is the great city—the New Jerusalem. I went to New York once and it’s a big city—one of the biggest. London, too. I’ve also been to Paris and Mumbai and Johannesburg. All huge cities. But this city is massive (you can read a full description in Revelation 21-22). The Bible says it’s laid out in a perfect square and is 12,000 stadia around the base. A stadia is a unit of measure equal to about 183 metres, which means that the circumference of this city is about 2200 kilometres, or 550 kilometres to a side—that’s like driving from Sydney to Coffs Harbour or from Perth to Kalbarri just along one side. It would stretch inland to Kalgoorlie, and get this ... it’s as high as it is wide. Experts estimate that around 39 billion people could comfortably live in just the city, and that’s assuming that these measurements are even literal and not some spiritual or figurative measure used in the Book of Revelation.
The point is it’s big enough for ALL who want to be there, and that’s really the point, isn’t it? Do we want to be there? Do we believe enough, and love enough to really want to be there?
Someone once told me that everyone who wants to be in heaven will be. And anyone who wouldn’t be happy there won’t be. So which are you? Are the things of this sin-damaged world calling to you so strongly that you’d prefer to stay here? Or do you hunger for Heaven, and a new, re-created earth after that?
Your choice.
Your call.
Seriously…! '
Tony Knight lives in Melbourne, Victoria, and is the Resource Centre Manager at the Australian Union Conference.
