Heaven, Part 1

Thoughts From a Bible Reader

Last time we looked at what the Bible tells us about hell, seeing that Jesus clearly told us that it exists, along with looking at some of the behaviors that the Bible tells us will take us to hell. Today we will look at heaven, God’s kingdom. It’s a little more complicated of a discussion than you might think.

To understand it all, we have to start with a look at the book of Revelation, John’s prophetic account of how this current age will come to an end. In a nutshell, John was taken up in spirit to God’s throne in heaven, and recounted for us what he saw and was told there. A scroll with seven seals was brought out, and Jesus, the Lamb of God, was declared to be worthy to open it. When the first seal was broken a horseman went out conquering. The second seal was broken, and another horseman went out spreading war. The third seal saw a horseman spreading famine. And the fourth seal saw the fourth “horseman of the apocalypse” killing people over a quarter of the earth. With the fifth seal the souls of everyone who had ever been killed for God’s word or their testimony to God, waiting underneath the altar in heaven, cried out to God to avenge their blood. The sixth seal saw a great earthquake, the sun turning black, the moon turn red, and the stars fall from the sky. At this, the people of the earth tried to hide from God, proclaiming that He was going to pour out His anger on them for how they had disobeyed Him. But before God’s anger was poured out He marked 144,000 Jews as a sign that none of His anger was to touch them.

And then we are told, “After these things I looked, and here was an enormous crowd that no one could count, made up of persons from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb dressed in long white robes, and with palm branches in their hands. They were shouting out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels stood there in a circle around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground before the throne and worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen! Praise and glory, and wisdom and thanksgiving, and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!’ Then one of the elders asked me, ‘These dressed in long white robes—who are they and where have they come from?’ So I said to him, ‘My lord, you know the answer.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them. They will never go hungry or be thirsty again, and the sun will not beat down on them, nor any burning heat, because the Lamb in the middle of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes’” (Rev. 7:9-17). Even though the elder didn’t say explicitly so, I assume that this great crowd is the church, Christ’s bride, because they have been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and taken off of the earth before God pours out His anger and wrath on a world that has hated Him and His children. And the eternity that lies before them is to be spent residing in the presence of Christ. Some have applied a very specific meaning to “the great tribulation,” as seen here, as some preachers have told us that this refers to only the last 3 ½ years of the 7-year treaty between the antichrist and Israel. These preachers also say that Christians had been taken up into heaven several years prior to this (even though John never mentions seeing them there), and so they say that every person in this crowd was saved in those 3 ½ years, after the church was gone. But I disagree with this understanding, and I think that the number of people who will come to Jesus in those 3 ½ years, while so much of the world follows the antichrist, simply won’t be described as uncountable, because in Rev. 5:11 John had already told us about 100 million angels singing God’s praise. Uncountable would have to be far, far larger than that. I think that parts of the church have been going through great tribulation ever since the church began, even as Saul, before his conversion, brought tribulations upon the church, the Roman Empire persecuted the church severely, and more. And so I think that this uncountable crowd is made up of all Christians, from the day that the church began until the day that Christ returns.

While John had told us that he saw the souls of believers in heaven when the fifth seal was opened, he does not describe this new crowd as “souls,” but rather as “persons.” So how did we go from souls to persons? Let’s start with looking at what Paul told the Thessalonians. “Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him (back to the earth’s air) those who have fallen asleep as Christians. For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:13-18). And Paul told the Corinthians, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep....But each (will be resurrected) in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him…. But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’... It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living person’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven. Like the one made of dust, so too are those made of dust, and like the one from heaven, so too those who are heavenly. And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven…. Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:20, 23-24, 35, 42-53).

If a believer in Christ were to die today, they would be absent from their body, but present with Jesus (2 Cor. 5:8). They will be a living soul, present with God, but with no heavenly body as of yet. At the last trumpet all of those who have died in Christ before us, who are currently souls without bodies, will return to the earth with Christ. Those Christians still living on the earth at that point will join them, and every one of them, whether they are living or “sleeping,” will receive a new body, a spiritual body, an imperishable, immortal body like the one that Jesus has. Jesus was the firstfruits, the first to receive such a body. Those who belong to Christ will be the next, at the date of His return. And so with John’s crowd we see that the Church is now in heaven in his vision, both those who had been alive and those who had already died, and each and every one of them has a new, immortal, spiritual body. They have gone from souls to persons.

After God pours out His wrath on those still on the earth, who had allowed themselves to receive the mark of the antichrist (Rev. 8-18), we are told, “Then I looked, and here was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him were 144,000, who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. I also heard a sound coming out of heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. Now the sound I heard was like that made by harpists playing their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one was able to learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from humanity as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb, and no lie was found on their lips; they are blameless” (Rev. 14:1-5). We now have two groups, the church and the 144,000 Jews, each group with a different status and role in God’s kingdom. And as Christ was the firstfruits in getting a resurrected body, these 144,000 are firstfruits of some sort as well. Of redeemed Israel, receiving the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob perhaps? I’m not sure.

In Rev. 19 we see the heavenly marriage ceremony of the church to Christ, before Christ returns to the earth to defeat the assembled kingdoms at Armageddon, and then Satan is bound for 1,000 years. After that, “Then I saw thrones and seated on them were those who had been given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. These had not worshiped the beast or his image and had refused to receive his mark on their forehead or hand. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were finished.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who takes part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years” (Rev. 20:4-6). We are now encountering a third group, identified as people who had specifically been beheaded for their testimony, and who had refused to get the mark of the antichrist. These people, we are told, will reign with Jesus for a thousand years, where they will be priests. I am not certain of how they relate to the church, if they are part of the church or what. But being a part of this group certainly seems to be tied to having been beheaded. Will the antichrist bring public execution by guillotine back when he rules the earth? And did this group die for Christ after the church had been taken to heaven? I wonder about these things.

Christ’s thousand year reign, His kingdom on earth, is not heaven, not yet, but what will His reign be like on the earth? It will start with all of the descendants of Israel who are alive being returned to the land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 35:9-12, Is. 66:18-20). At that time we are told of Israel, “For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people. And there will be no need at all for each one to teach his countryman or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ since they will all know me, from the least to the greatest” (Heb. 8:10-11). Israel, at long last, will wholly serve God. And then, Isaiah told us, “In future days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will endure as the most important of mountains, and will be the most prominent of hills. All the nations will stream to it; many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple of the God of Jacob, so he can teach us his requirements, and we can follow his standards.’ For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; the Lord’s message will issue from Jerusalem. He will judge disputes between nations; he will settle cases for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war” (Is. 2:2-4). Isaiah also told us, “Justice will be like a belt around his waist, integrity will be like a belt around his hips. A wolf will reside with a lamb, and a leopard will lie down with a young goat; an ox and a young lion will graze together, as a small child leads them along. A cow and a bear will graze together, their young will lie down together. A lion, like an ox, will eat straw. A baby will play over the hole of a snake; over the nest of a serpent an infant will put his hand. They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain. For there will be universal submission to the Lord’s sovereignty, just as the waters completely cover the sea. At that time a root from Jesse will stand like a signal flag for the nations. Nations will look to him for guidance, and his residence will be majestic” (Is. 11:5-10).

After the thousand years, Satan’s release from the pit, and a final battle that sees all of God’s enemies destroyed, we are told, “Then I saw a large white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened—the book of life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:11-15). When we were attending an independent Baptist church in Pennsylvania, the “Great White Throne Judgment” was always explained to us as every person who came before it being condemned to hell. Why? Because they weren’t part of the church. But is that what the Bible tells us? There’s too much there to get into today, so we’ll dive into that next time. And at that point we’ll also look at how the Bible describes heaven to us.

Do you have questions or comments that you would like to share with me? Feel free to drop me an email (stevesuterfaithandfruit@gmail.com).

My posts come from my observations in reading the Bible literally dozens of times, always hoping to understand it a little bit better. If you want to go back and read more of what I’ve observed in my reading, click here.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® https://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved