Question from a reader:
In Chapter 26 of your Heavenbook, you discuss space and time. You say, “I can easily envision our inhabiting and governing other resurrected planets.” Does this lend credit to the Mormon belief that you get your own planet when you die?
The New Testament reflects much more specific revelation from God of the afterlife. Yet there are some strong Old Testament indicators, though not nearly as many.
Job had the assurance that although he was going to be eaten by worms, he would receive a new body and in that body would actually see God face to face, obviously conscious. In Job 19:25-27 he says that “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself ...
Eternity is outside the presence of time, not just from now to forever. Though eternity clearly doesn’t end, it also cannot have a beginning. It is where God Himself dwells, and therefore there is no beginning. Therefore, a person in time cannot be eternal; rather he can enter into eternity and eternal life.
Your distinction about eternity being “without time” is interesting, however perhaps not supportable. Only God is timeless. The self-existent attribute of God is called His Aseity (from two Latin words “a” and “se”, meaning “from Himself”). His personal name revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14 ...
I’ve been searching online for something to help you concerning purgatory, and I’m not happy with anything I’ve found. Some are brief, but too brief, don’t cite sufficient Scripture, and are just too shallow.
If what I provide from a couple of old systematic theologies below isn’t sufficiently helpful, or if the theology and writing style is too obscure, I would recommend Googling these words, together in one search: purgatory Bible Christian grace evangelical. Then start checking the articles. I checked a number in a different search, but as I said, I wasn’t happy ...
In Heaven, we will recall some—likely most or all—of our lives on earth.
This is among the most controversial beliefs I’ve presented in my books, yet there’s clear scriptural evidence for it.
Throughout the book, "intermediate" Heaven was changed to "present" Heaven.
Unlike God and the angels, who are in essence spirits though capable of inhabiting bodies (John 4:24; Heb. 1:14), man is by nature both spiritual and physical (Gen. 2:7).
All these questions are addressed in Randy Alcorn's book Heaven (Tyndale, 2004). Most of them have clear, though not comprehensive, biblical answers. The others that don't have clear answers can be intelligently speculated upon, based on what Scripture does tell us.
Happiness in Heaven is based not on ignorance, but on perspective. We will be with Christ, see accurately, and live in a sinless environment. Heavenly happiness cannot be based on a fundamental ignorance of what is happening on Earth or even in Hell.
The popular notion of the “sweet by and by” is often one of clouds, pain-free bliss and not much else—except for the occasional angel floating by with a harp. If one’s idea of eternity is a happy pill, such an image might be appealing.
Author Randy Alcorn, in his bestselling book Heaven, illustrates contemporary Christianity’s failure in teaching on eternal life by quoting a pastor who admitted: “I can’t stand the thought of that endless tedium. To float around in the clouds with nothing to do but strum a harp ... it’s all so terribly boring. Heaven doesn’t sound much better than hell. I’d rather be annihilated than spend eternity in a place like that.”
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