What Makes Heaven Heavenly?

One of the memories from my childhood that comes to mind at times is watching a Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Green Pastures. That would have been in the late 1950’s, when I was 10 or 11. The Green Pastures was a play telling about creation and other biblical stories. The narrator of these stories was a Black pastor, speaking to Sunday School students. What struck me about it was that heaven was portrayed as a gigantic fish fry, with all the fish, hushpuppies, cornbread, greens, and watermelon one could ever want, along with people to talk with, games to play, and a river to fish in, all on fine summer day.
Hearing this perspective got me interested in popular ideas of what heaven is like. Since then, I have kept my eyes and ears open to various pictures of heaven over the years, as seen in short stories, movies, cartoons, TV commercials, and so on. While the picture of a bountiful, everlasting fish fry is only seen in The Green Pastures, what is common in other pictures is the idea of heaven as a place that is very enjoyable and pleasant – a setting and activities that the person for whom the picture is being made would find to be highly desirable.
Somehow, in addition to a picture of a place of beauty and enjoyment there are also usually added robes, halos, and harps, and sometimes wings. Exactly how these things fit into a place of bliss is seldom spelled out, and I have heard comments by those who say that they have no interest in heaven if it means sitting around on clouds playing an instrument they do not want to listen on earth.
I am not sure where these pictures of heaven come from. The Bible of course speaks of heaven and hell. However, Scripture does not give us many details, and I suspect that over the centuries various authors and teachers have put in a variety of details to make the concepts of everlasting joy or misery more understandable. However, it seems that the various pictures of heaven that are common have taken on a life of their own and have become detached from the statements of Scripture. It is important to go back to Scripture to see what it says is at the heart of everlasting joy, for Scripture is not the ideas and dreams of human beings but has come from the heart and mind of God so that we might know what is true about him, about us, and about our relationship to him.
Understanding what makes heaven heavenly is important so that we desire it for the right reasons, and so that we can, if needed, explain to someone else why it would be a noble and blessed goal. It is also important for another reason. In April of 2009, the Worcester Telegram and Gazette had an editorial on the narrowness of conservative Christians that was headline something like “Conservative Christians Condemn Other Faiths to Hell.” The editorial went on to say that it was wrong for conservatives to say that those who did not believe as they did would be cast into outer darkness. The editorialist said that he or she was certain that God was merciful and that anyone who was basically decent would be rewarded with heaven.
That editorial writer was trying to be welcoming and inclusive, but he or she wrote out of ignorance as well as out of concern. There are many faiths, such as Buddhism, that have no belief in any kind of heaven. The idea in many eastern religions is that we are all “drops of water” that really belong to a great “ocean” of spirit, and that over many lifetimes, we learn and so grow closer and closer to reentering that vast ocean – eventually losing our individual identity as we finally merge back into the “ocean.”. The picture given in other faiths is that after death we walk the earth as disembodied spirits. Islam says that those who enter paradise will be rewarded with 70 virgins. (This idea leave me wondering what Muslim women have to look forward to.) Some faiths have no idea of an afterlife. If heaven is open to people of all faiths, then what is heaven like? Who is the being who prepares heaven? What are the criteria for being granted entrance into heaven?
As we look at the Bible to see what it says about heaven, one thing quickly becomes clear: the focus of heaven is God himself. In Isaiah 6, the prophet is lifted in a vision to the throne room of God, where the Lord is worshiped continuously by myriads of angels, calling to one another, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (In liturgical congregations, the people join this song at every communion service, in the Sanctus.) In the last book of the Bible, Revelation, John is lifted up into heaven, and he also sees a great throne room, with Jesus Christ seated on the throne. Not only are angels gathered in worship, but so are “the saints,” all of God’s people. They surround the throne and continuously praise the Lord Jesus.
In 2 Cor. 5:8, Paul notes that to be “absent from the body” means that those who believe in Jesus are welcomed into his presence after dying. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. When Jesus speaks of paradise in the story of Dives and Lazarus, he pictures the beggar Lazarus as being “in Abraham’s bosom,” which is a picture of fellowship and intimacy. Jesus also pictures the selfish rich man as being in a pit of fire, tormented and miserable. (Jesus, by the way, speaks more often of hell and of the dangers of being condemned to hell than any other biblical figure. He makes it plain that he will be the one who decides each person’s eternal destiny. If we take his teachings seriously, we need to take this aspect seriously as well.)
The concluding chapters of Revelation speak of what comes after the end of the world. Scripture tells us that the entire creation is renewed; there is a “new heavens and a new earth.” When the earth was first created, God formed the Garden of Eden. When the earth is re-created, God brings in a city, the “New Jerusalem.” This signifies the unity of redeemed humanity. The new city is a blessed and beautiful place, filled with life-giving trees and a wonderful river. The city is filled with light – but there is no sun. The light that fills the new city and the new earth is the Light of the world, Jesus himself.
What makes heaven heavenly is the presence of Jesus Christ, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. This is in contrast to many popular pictures of heaven that amount to a “celestial Disney World.” Heaven is often thought of as a place where there are many enjoyable things to do and where one gets to be with the people one has enjoyed in this life. While I think that this is true as far as it goes, the real delight of heaven is being with God. One of the pictures used in Revelation is of a great wedding feast between Christ and his Bride, the Church. If you have been around newlyweds, you know that they simply want to be in each other’s presence. Great food and interesting activities are nice – but the real essence of their love and joy is being with one another. Thus it will be with Christ and his Bride – there will be joy in being together and enjoying one another ever more fully.
The heart of heaven is that we are with the God who made us and who, when we had fallen away in rebellion, redeemed us at great cost. The heart of heaven is knowing and enjoying the Lord. What distresses me about many of the common ideas about heaven is that it makes God into a gatekeeper of an eternal amusement park. He is somebody who must be gotten past in order to enjoy the delights of paradise. The question then becomes “how do I get my ticket into this place of bliss?” The usual answer is that if one is good enough, one may enter. It is this idea that led the editorialist of the T & G to say that God will allow people of many different faiths into heaven, for anyone who is basically decent and helpful will have earned their ticket into a celestial place of delights. Once past God as the gatekeeper, one needs no longer deal with him, but rather enjoy the everlasting fish fry.
But the Bible says that the heart of heaven and of heaven’s joy is that we are with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There are many beautiful and enjoyable things in heaven, but they pale into insignificance beside being with the one who made us and who redeemed us. If what the Bible says is true, then the only people who will enjoy heaven will be those who love and trust the holy Trinity. God does not need to be “gotten past” in some way, for he is not the gatekeeper to heaven – he IS heaven.
That is why it is important to cultivate a relationship with God in this life. We do not enter such a relationship by earning it through good deeds and obedience to his commands, for none of us can be fully obedient or do enough good deeds. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that we must be more righteous than the most righteous people of his day in order to be acceptable to God. That means that none of us can be good enough to merit a relationship with God. In fact, the only person to merit a relationship with God, whose obedience to his heavenly Father was perfect, was Jesus himself. How can we be as holy and obedient as Jesus was? We cannot. We do not have hope in ourselves – but we do have hope in Jesus. The Apostle Paul writing in 2 Cor. 5:21 says, “For our sake he (God the Father) made him (Jesus Christ) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” When we do not rely on our own goodness but on Jesus Christ, we are given the righteousness of Jesus as our own and we become fully acceptable to God. We enter into a relationship of closeness and joy, fully forgiven of our sin and with hearts open to God.
While we will never love God perfectly in this life, we can tune our hearts to enjoy him more fully as we worship, pray, read Scripture, and seek to serve others in his Name and for his sake. As we grow closer to the Lord, we will reveal his presence by developing the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on) and we will appreciate ever more fully the mercy of God in forgiving us and in giving us life eternal.
The reason we need mercy is that we are sinners, in rebellion against the God who created us. The reason behind our inability to be as good as Jesus is not that we are limited and fallible, but that we seek to take God’s place and call the shots. In his love, God has extended an offer of grace, so that if we repent of our rebellion and return to him in trust, we are forgiven and enter into friendship with God. Those who remain in rebellion will get what they want – freedom from God’s presence. They will also discover that such separation is agonizing. The hellishness of hell is not the flames, but the loss of God, for whom we were created and apart from whom we have nothing.
What about those of other faiths? That is a huge question, and one I cannot deal with properly in this brief article. We do know that God is a God of mercy. We also know that the God of mercy has given us a commission: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” It is our joy to tell others that they do not have to strive to reach some lofty spiritual goal, but rather can receive the blessings of God through Jesus Christ. God is a God of mercy. In his mercy, he sent Jesus. In his mercy, he sends us to invite people to know his Son.
The Green Pastures portrays heaven as an everlasting fish fry on a delightful summer day. There is some truth to this picture – whatever brings us joy on earth is a taste of the joy of heaven. Will there be harps and halos? I do not know – but there will certainly be music and light in abundance. The pictures we have of heaven may be helpful to some extent, but they are helpful only as far as they point beyond themselves to the real joy of heaven, God himself. In 1 John 4:8, we read, “God is love.” And in John 17:3, Jesus says, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” The joy of heaven is the delight of knowing and being known by the one who is Love itself. Heaven is heavenly because God is there. There is no heaven apart from him, for he is all we need.

Copyright May 2011
Charles Sutton