Category Archives: Heaven

Aiōnios: duration, quality, or both?

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In his book The Fire That Consumes Fudge devotes an entire chapter (chapter 4) to the meaning of the Greek word aiōnios (usually translated ‘eternal’).

The key question is this: does the word mean (a) lasting for ever, (b) characteristic of the age to come, or (c) either or both of these (depending on context)?

A key text is Matthew 25:46, which speaks both of ‘eternal life’ and ‘eternal punishment’.  Many argue that aiōnios must mean the same in both parts of the verse. …

A tale of two cities

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It is a commonplace with preachers to point out that as Christians we have two addresses, two places of residence.  This dual citizenship is expressed frequently, and in varied ways, throughout Scripture.

In writing to the Corinthians, for example, the apostle Paul greets ‘the church or God in Corinth…those sanctified in Christ Jesus’ (1 Cor 1:1).  They are ‘in Corinth’, and they are at the same time ‘in Christ’.  The same apostle writes to ‘all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi’ (Phil 1:1), and later in that same letter makes it clear where our primary home is: ‘our citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil 3:20).…

Judgment according to works

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Recent re-thinking about the doctrine of justification throws up a related question about the final judgment:-

Are we warranted to say that we are justified by faith, but are judged by works?  The very idea seems to undermine the grace of God and to take away with one hand what has so freely been given with the other.

N.T. Wright on ‘Justification by Works’

‘Here [in Rom 2:1-16] is the first statement about justification in Romans, and lo and behold it affirms justification according to works!

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Shall we know one another in heaven?

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For many Christians the prospect of being re-united with loved ones in the life to come is one of the greatest comforts in the face of bereavement.

Of course, this prospect ought not to overshadow that fellowship with our Lord which ought to be pre-eminent.  After all, the Psalmist could pray, “Whom have I in heaven but thee?’ (Psa 73:25), and Paul’s great desire was to depart and ‘being with Christ’, Phil 1:23; 1 Thess 4:17. …

The life to come

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The ultimate destiny towards which all of God’s purposes are moving is ‘a new heaven and a new earth’, Isa 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pet 3:13. Here, we can only know and understand in part, 1 Cor 13:12. However, some things are clear.

The life to come will be:-

1. An embodied life. Just as the new earth will be different from the old, 1 Cor 7:31, so the new body will be different also. Still, our future life will be experienced by the whole person, not by some disembodied spirit, Rom 8:19-25.…

Heaven revisited

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Bishop Tom Wright is a firm and frequent critic (in Surprised by hope and other writings) of the idea that ‘salvation’ equates to ‘going to heaven when you die’.

What, then should we understand to be the meaning of ‘heaven’ in Scripture?  Several answers may be given to this question:-

1.  ‘Heaven’ can mean ‘sky’, or what we would understand as the rest of the cosmos apart from the earth, Gen 1:1.

2.  ‘Heaven’ can mean the abode of God and of those closely associated with God. …

Rethinking ‘salvation’

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Most of us (writes Tom Wright in Surprised by hope, 206-213) take ‘salvation’ to mean ‘going to heaven when you die’; implying that this present body and this present world will be left behind and the ‘soul’ will fly off to some disembodied existence.

But this view scarcely counts as ‘rescue from death’.  Rather, it colludes with death by denying that God’s good creation really is good, and that he intends ‘to reaffirm that goodness in a wonderful act of new creation at the last’.…

The new heaven and the new earth

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We do not subscribe to the myth of progress – the idea, popular in earlier evolutionary thinking, that the world will get better and better.  Nor do we believe, with Plato, that we are souls in transit, passing through this illusory world on our way to to something beyond space, time and matter.

The shape of things to come is determined, in biblical thinking, by the threefold story of creation, rebellion, and redemption.  We can tell the story of Jesus as the moment all creation has been waiting for:-

Humans were made to be God’s stewards over creation; so the one through whom all things were made, the eternal son, the eternal wisdom, becomes human, so that he might truly become God’s steward, ruler over all his world.
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What’s heaven?

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Maria Shriver is an award-winning American journalist and author and she is the wife of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  A practising Roman Catholic, in 2007 she published a book for children called What’s Heaven?

In this book, children are informed that

Heaven is somewhere you believe in…it’s a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk to other people who are there.  At night you can sit next to the stars, which are the brightest of anywhere in the universe…If you’re good throughout your life, then you get to go to heaven…when your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you up to Heaven to be with him…[and Grandma is] alive in me…Most important, she taught me to believe in myself…She’s in a safe place, with the stars, with God and the angels…she is watching over us from up there…

“I want you to know” [says the heroine to her great-Grandma] “that even though you are no longer here, your spirit will always be alive in me.”

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1 Pet 1:1-12 – A living hope – sermon notes

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‘My dearest sister, I offer you no consolation, for I know of none. There are things which each must bear as best he may with the strength that has been allotted to him.’  (Aldous Huxley, writing to his sister on the death of their mother.)

‘There is a darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within.  There is no splendour, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment and then, nothing.’ (Bertrand Russell)

What a terrible thing it must be to face death without hope.…