Resources by Topic: Heaven

If Christian parents remind their Christian children that the worst that can happen in death is temporary separation, it’s reassuring. 

On the one hand, because we’re told in multiple passages that our resurrection bodies will be like Christ’s, it may be possible at times for us to transcend the present laws of physics and/or travel in some way we’re not now capable of. 

Many maintain that those in Heaven cannot be aware of people and events on Earth because they would be made unhappy by all the suffering and evil; thus, Heaven would not truly be Heaven. 

Revelation 7:10 says, “They cried out in a loud voice.” This singular “voice” implies a shared language. 

A sincere young man told me that no matter what I might say, Heaven must be boring. Why? “Because you can’t appreciate good without bad, light without darkness, or safety without danger. If Heaven is safe, if there’s no risk, it has to be boring.”  

When five-year-old Emily Kimball was hospitalized and heard she was going to die, she started to cry. Even though she loved Jesus and wanted to be with him, she didn’t want to leave her family behind. 

Because we’re finite and unique and because we’ll never know everything, we may not agree about everything in Heaven. We’ll agree on innumerable matters and wonder how we ever thought otherwise. But we’ll still likely have different tastes in food and clothes and music and thousands of other things.

Question from a reader: In another article you mentioned that in Scripture some angels have wings and some may not. Why do all of the angels in your graphic novel, Eternity, have wings?

I think about Heaven a lot. Peter tells us, “you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11). God is the main welcomer, no doubt, but I think there will be a welcoming committee. 

In this culture, angels are portrayed as babies and females, both with no biblical grounds. They are also portrayed as having wings, with some biblical grounds.

Earth is unique. It’s the one planet—perhaps among billions—where God chose to act out the unfolding drama of redemption and reveal the wonders of His grace. 

Question from a reader: On the doctrine of rewards, 1 Corinthians 3:15 says some will “suffer loss” though they are saved in and in the New Earth. That’s always bothered me. Loss implies comparison, and something “bad” in Heaven. Do you think that such loss is permanent? Or might there be opportunity to work past the "loss" and improve one's lot?

This is another one of those areas where we have to speculate. We don’t have the direct biblical teaching on this, but we do have the direct biblical teaching of having real actual human bodies as created by God, not subject to sin and death and suffering.

The Bible does not teach there is no marriage in Heaven. The Bible teaches there is one marriage in Heaven: Christ married to His bride, the Church.