What Do You Hope Heaven to Be?
Live from the Mecca of Mormonism SALT LAKE CITY, Utah. This is Heart of the Matter where we are learning together how to walk in this age of fulfillment. And I’m Shawn McCraney, your host.
Show 38A Your Heaven?
Prerecorded Show on September 1st 2020
Aired September 7th 2020
Different Perspectives on Heaven
What do you hope heaven to be? I think it’s a pretty good question to ask ourselves because an honest answer will tell you a lot about yourself, if you think about it. Some suggest that heaven is filled with virgins and or extra wives for the taking – if they are worthy. That says a lot about the heart and mind of the professor of faith, doesn’t it? Some suggest that heaven will be very much what earth is like – except heaven will offer a much better representation of things.
In the southern California area where I engaged in both Mormonism and Christianity I heard men from both sides of these camps describe their ideal heaven and they often included, just gnarly perfect sets of glass lining up endlessly, man. And some unfortunately might add something foolish under their breath like: I dunno. If there’s no waves in heaven I don’t know if I wanna even be there, bro. Of course the LDS see heaven as having three distinct kingdoms – celestial, terrestrial and telestial and teach that if you make it to the highest degree of the celestial you will
Live with heavenly father and heavenly mother.
Live with your own family that was sealed to you.
Have the chance to create your own worlds, universes, whatever, and
Populate those worlds which spirit children through heavenly copulation!
All that is possible, by the way if you pay the church 10% of your income because in so doing you get access to their temple where you can be sealed to spouse and kids for time and ALLLL eternity.
NT Wright's View on Heaven
NT Wright suggests, based on his assessment of the earliest Christians expectation, that we are not waiting to go to heaven but rather heaven is here on earth, as the result of Yeshua, and what we actually await is the resurrection, a time of rest, before going to the next realm with or in the Lord. Interesting.
Some people will take the Bible and let it describe for them what heaven will look and be like – and that can be helpful but because it was written in some places with language and understanding of a different time and place (like Revelation written by a Jew) the imagery is not entirely certain. We all know the rhetoric that heaven will consist of sitting on a cloud, playing a harp and or worshipping God forever – that’s idea to some people, and then there are those who see heaven as being a place where all of their family will be present, welcoming and greeting them in love and light, and everything being just an a-okay party of eternal peace.
But I will say this about the scripture in general. Heaven is mentioned a lot – like 300 plus times. It is referenced as the abode of God and Christ. Heaven is described as real, incorruptible, a place with many mansions, as being "up," as being beautiful, a place of rest, a city, as having a foundation, and whose builder and maker is God. Yeshua said it is the place where rewards are received, whose inhabitants are described as righteous (which is a huge word) and that it will abide forever. The city that is mentioned is called by scripture the New Jerusalem (which is in contrast to the Old material Jerusalem) and the only heaven a Christian would care about is what exists in that city and how to be one of its citizens. I say this because outside the city and its walls, Revelation says, the unrighteous dwell.
Impressions from Yeshua
We also know from Yeshua that there is no marriage nor giving in marriage in heaven. Now we could borrow from Revelation and get all busy with its descriptions but these are the general biblical assessments of the heavenly abode waiting the citizens of the New Jerusalem.
Now I want to share with you what I think heaven will be all about. I've constructed my view of it from my understanding of the Bible. I may be very wrong, but this is my view. We can see what heaven is about by looking at the heart and life of Yeshua and the way God his father is described. God and Yeshua are love, light,
Love, Light, and Liberty
Liberty. And I would that His children, Son's and Daughters, will be the same as their Father and Lord – love light and liberty. Love light and liberty in the purist sense of the words, describe a state of total emancipation from sin, fear, death, selfishness, anger, hate, jealousy, or woe. So in summation, heaven for the sons and daughters will be an eternal state of peaceful equilibrium.
Loving Service
The second element of heaven is that of loving service to God and Man in Jesus' name. And since I do not believe that God ever gives up on any of his creations, I think that the most amazing eternities would be spent, in a state of total balance and light, reaching out into the dark and serving as a host and representative of love to those who have yet to receive God by Christ. I believe this because at the central core of God and Christ is love, which is defined by selflessness, agape, service, giving, serving, sharing – and I could not imagine – especially since we will have shed these bodies that weigh us down – of a better way to serve and love than to share our peace and equilibrium with those who have yet to discover it.
A Missional Experience
Keep your waves, and snowboarding, and movie theaters that replay everyone’s lives over and over. Keep your multiple wives and planets full of spirit children. Keep your massive mansions on the highest hills. If you really think about it, the heavenly experience awaiting all who are his will forever be missional – bringing light into the dark recesses of a universe still in the bondage of their own souls. All on His errand, all for Him and all out of selfless love for others. If you enter heaven not loving others, I would imagine it will not be the place you hoped it to be. Write your comments below and we will cover it all tomorrow night, here on Heart of the Matter.
