| Andrew Lim
31 August 2008 - Revelations 21:1-8
Woody Allen once said:
“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work;
I want to achieve immortality through not dying”
The idea of immortality is found deep in the human race
Thousands of years before Christ
the Egyptians built the pyramids and mummified the dead
in their search for immortality
When we talk about eternal life we’re not referring to longevity of life
Eternal life is not necessarily mere immortality or endless existence
although it certainly includes that
Rather eternal life refers to a special quality of life
intimately connected with God
It is deep knowledge of God / intimate relationship with God
The idea of eternal life in the New Testament
“refers primarily to quality of life / and only secondarily to its quantity
The idea of immortality / on the other hand
refers primarily to the quantity of life / and secondarily to quality”
In talking about eternal life / it is natural to talk about heaven
So it is heaven / that I will be talking about this morning
and I want to address some of the most common questions asked
First let me confess that some of what I shall say this morning
about heaven / are not explicit teachings from Scripture
Little is spoken in the Scriptures about heaven
What I am sharing here are the meditations and reflections
of the best sanctified imagination on the subject
Someday in heaven when I look back to these thoughts
they will appear to me as scribbling of a kindergarten child
But Scripture never prohibits us from reflecting over things
that are not explicitly taught
In fact Scripture encourages us to think God's thoughts after him
Asking questions about heaven
is like asking questions about Kashmir and Kathmandu
some exotic place we have never seen firsthand
But asking questions about heaven is really asking about God
When we ask if we will remain single or married in heaven
when we ask if our dogs will get to be in heaven
we're really asking what kind of God we believe in
First of all / Heaven is a place / a real place like Bunnythorp
and not simply a notion like “wellbeing”
Heaven is the place where God lives / where angels dwell
It is the place where people who have died before us / live in their spirits
and one day / their bodies will be resurrected to join their spirits
It is a place where people who have glorified spiritual bodies
will actually move around / and relate and function
Would we be in our bodies in Heaven or will we be disembodied spirits?
The Greeks / Hindus / Gnostics / and Buddhists say
that finally we will all be pure spirits
This goes contrary to the teaching of Scripture
In heaven we will have transformed bodies
but they are nevertheless physical / material / real bodies
Our Lord Jesus after His resurrection / had a material physical body
His body could be touched and He could eat / walk / talk / and drink
But it will be a spiritual body
It will be restored to the natural beauty like that at Eden
When the curse of the fall is finally lifted
our bodies will be perfect / and specially suited for eternity
They will no longer suffer the ravage of diseases
like arthritis / or cancer / or Alzheimer
It will be a body that we will possess untold measure of power
With His resurrected body
our Lord could appear and disappear as He chose
He could pass through walls and doors
He was unbound by gravity / as we see in His ascension
unimpeded by distance
perhaps we can travel many time the speed of light over
Who Will We be in Heaven?
We will be who we are now
I will never not be Andrew Lim / except that I won’t be called Andrew
Revelation 2:17 / “To the one who overcomes
I will give him a new name / written on the stone”
But except for your new name / you’re going to be who you are
This far supersedes the Hindu philosophy of nirvana
in which the personality of the atman will be totally obliterated
No we will not be obliterated
Remember it is spoken of Abraham / and others in the OT
that when they died / they were gathered to their people / Gen 25;35;49
They went back to their people
This makes no sense if they could no longer retain their identity
These verses imply that they maintained their carious identities
And in 2 Sam 12:23 / when David’s little baby died
He said he can’t come to me / I will go to him
Again this would be meaningless / unless they each retain their identity
And one day reclining at the table
Jesus talked to the apostles / about the Passover / He said
“I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on
until the Kingdom of God comes”
I'll drink it with you in My Kingdom
He looked forward to being together with them again
We’ll do this again one day
You'll still be you / I'll still be me / and we'll do this again
And finally speaking about that great Marriage Supper of the Lamb
in Revelation 19 / He says / the Lamb will come
and His bride would have made herself ready
clothed in fine linen / bright and clean
and what will He say then?
“Blessed are those who are invited
to the marriage supper of the Lamb”
That speaks of a Guest List of some kind
But how could you have a guest list
unless you have faces and names / identity
If we were faceless / with no name or identity
how could we be invited or rejected
Let’s not forget that on the Mount of Transfiguration
Peter / James and John / actually saw Moses and Elijah up there
these two people died hundreds of years ago
yet when they appeared they retained their distinctive looks
so that the disciples could recognize them
And on the cross / Jesus turned to the repentant thief / and said to him
“Today / you will be with Me in paradise”
In other words / not that other one over there / who rejected me
but you / who accepted Me / You and I will be together again
Again the sense that we will be who we are in heaven
Will we be in the same body we now have?
The answer is “Yes” / we will have the very same body we now have
Our Lord resurrected in the same body he had before
that was why he could be recognised by his friends
Yet it was so different / they did not recognise him / at first
That must mean we will have the same height / the same look
People sometimes wonder if that means that the scars
of serious injuries we received in this life
will also remain on our resurrection bodies
The answer is that we will not have any scars
from those injuries and wounds / received in this life
Scripture tells us that our bodies will be made perfect
It is sown “corruptible” / it is raised “incorruptible” / “in glory”
You might ask / how was it that after Jesus' resurrection
He still had the nail prints in His hands and feet
and the mark of the spear in His side
The scars from Jesus’ crucifixion are unique
They are an eternal emblem of His love for us
So we will be made whole !
But how old will our new body be ?
Medieval philosophers say we'd all be 33 / ideal age of maturity
- the age of Christ's earthly maturity
And so the medieval scholars argue
that since we will all be fully matured
we’ll all have 33 year old bodies in heaven
And when all of us hear that / all the 20 year olds go: “Yuks!!”
And all the 60 year olds / go: “Amen!”
But seriously the prior question should be
“Will there be time in heaven?”
I’ve affirmed that eternity is not endless time
And since eternity is not endless time
there’s not going to be time in heaven
And since there’s not going to be time in heaven
there will be no age in heaven
We will not be marked by any age / and no one will grow old
Now / by any account / this has got to be an unbeatable bonus!!
Geneticists are right when they say that theoretically
the biological process of aging is not inevitable
God does not make death / He unmakes it
Will we know our loved ones ?
Of course we will know our loved ones
Jesus addressed people in Heaven by their names
Lazarus / Abraham / Moses and Elijah by their names
And our names stand for who we are / our identity
Who we are on earth / we will be in Heaven
We will not be transformed into angels when we die
We will still have our emotions / but no longer tainted by sin
God says our names are written in the Book of Life
And He will call us by our names / though our new names
So will I know my father as my father in heaven / Of course
Will I know Gloria as Gloria in heaven / Of course
But I will know my father in a way I never knew him before
- purer / deeper / more intimate
And I will know Gloria in a way I never knew her before
- purer / deeper / more intimate
Will we have emotions in Heaven?
Many questions regarding heaven falls under questions like:
Will we have this in heaven / will we have that in heaven
The best way to look at this is to see
that everything that God creates / will continue on in heaven
Nothing is simply discontinued
But neither will they continue in their present form
Everything will be gloriously transformed
Of course we will have emotions in heaven
they were designed to be a part of our being human
Emotions did not suddenly come rushing into our bodies after the Fall
they were part of the original blueprint
Our emotions will be there and they will be just as passionate
but they will no longer drive us to sin
But the emotion of fear will not be found in heaven
because perfect love casts out fear
You look at a little baby / lying there in the cot
When a criminal approaches and looks at her
she is in a state of perfect innocence / perfect love
There is no fear / because there is perfect love in her part
Will we be sad about those we've lost ?
In heaven we will not live in the past / but in the everlasting Now
We will have no memories of pain
that's part of what it means when scripture says:
“Your tears will be wiped dry”
We will have no regrets
To those who are damned Jesus says: "I never knew you" (Matt 7:23)
God will wipe our memories clean
In heaven / God will be our source of joy
and nothing will be able to interfere with that joy
God will wipe away all tears
Will we be in heaven with our various distinct ethnic identities?
It would seem that our ethnic identities would be preserved
Revelation 5:9-10 quite clearly tells us God redeemed people
in terms of their various tribes / languages / peoples and nations
But we can be sure that because there will be no sin in heaven
we will not be infected by the virus of racism and social injustice
Will there be animals in Heaven
Will my dog Chutney be in heaven? / Why not?
Isaiah 11 tells us of a child leading the calf and the lion
and about leopard lying down with the goat
The redeemed earth is for both human people and the animals
Romans 8 talks about how all of creation strains and groans
“wait on tiptoe for the revelation of the Lord”
seems to imply that in the new earth / there may be animals
Animals have a way of mediating innocence / love and goodness to us
- they are God’s wonderful creation
- just before the Great Flood came
Noah was told / to save / not just the eight people
but all those wonderful creatures
Animals did not come about as a curse of the Fall
They were created before the Fall / they’re God's wonderful gifts to us
Will there be music in heaven?
We ask “Why not!”
According to a widespread tradition / music was the first language
- the language God spoke / to create the universe
What language will we use in Heaven ?
Language now divides us / after Babel
But Babel with all its babble will be reversed
This is not impossible / You get a glimpse of this at the Pentecost
where each person understood everyone else
Pentecost then foreshadows what we will yet see
There will be perfect understanding / there will be no misunderstanding
Will we wear clothes in Heaven ?
Clothes are now half glory and half shame
In Heaven / clothes will be pure glory
Clothes came after the Fall
In heaven clothes will be natural and revealing
not artificial and concealing as we see now
for there will be no shame to hide
There will be no need for privacy in heaven
No one will want to hold back anything
for no one will be ashamed / or afraid
of being misunderstood or unloved
When sin is gone / all hiding will be gone
There will be no private property in Heaven
No one will ever say / “This is mine”
Will there be marriage and family in Heaven?
Look at Matthew chapter 22 / the Sadducees who denied the resurrection
wanted to trip Jesus up
Seven brothers each in turn died / in the resurrection
whose wife of the seven shall she be?
Verse 29 / Jesus said / “In the resurrection
they neither marry nor are given in marriage
but are like angels in heaven” / in that angels don’t marry
Because the reason for marriage
is that man needs a helper / and a woman needs a protector
and God has designed them to produce children
In heaven / a man will have no need of a helper / he’s perfect
and a woman will have no need of a protector / she’s perfect
We will be complete and fulfilled in every way
There will be no unfulfilled desires in heaven
no unfulfilled sexual tension / no need for sexual intimacy
no need for procreation
And there will be any human reproduction in heaven
because only the redeemed will be there
Marriage and reproduction may be necessary in a place
where death is a permanent factor
but in a deathless environment marriage would not be necessary
If you should say / “But what about my great marriage
I’m most happily married / I love my husband dearly
I won’t be able to live without him”
Then great / because you’ll have that great relationship
with her in heaven for all eternity
But you’ll have not only have that with her
you’ll have all that great relationship
with every other single person as well in heaven
If you have the greatest of relationships with your spouse
and it’s the most enjoyable of relationships you’ve ever have
then how much more wonderful it will be
to be able to have it equally / with every being in existence
Jesus taught that the institution of marriage would end
But He did not say that deep loving relationships of family would end
There will be no marriage in heaven because there
God fulfils and completes this human desire as life in heaven
Will there be sex in heaven?
Some of you here might think this is such an irreverent subject
when we’re talking about heaven
Some people think that sex is something too earthy / too irreligious
to be connected to heaven and they feel ashamed about this question
Others people feel the exact opposite
They feel that heaven is something too religious to connect with sex
They feel it’s a religious interference of sex
So some people don’t want heaven / if there’s no sex in heaven
Other people don’t want sex / if it’s heaven
Peter Kreeft said / it’s a difficult question to answer because
Heaven is too far away to see clearly and sex is too close to see clearly
But we can try to give it an answer
If by sex / you take to mean our sexuality / which marks us out as humans
then / the answer is yes / there will be sex I heaven
Simply because we cannot not be males and females
its like our ethnicity / our race
In the same way that our ethnicity will be retained in heaven
the fact of our maleness and femaleness will be retained in heaven
Our sexuality is an essential / un-erasable aspect of our identity
Our masculinity or femininity are not an after-thought of God
Our different sexual gender is not a mistake
that in heaven will me undone
reducing us all to some kind of sexless beings
Human sexual differences is a design of God for our humanity
Sexual differences were created before the Fall
It was in the original pure blueprint
And God saw that it was very good
Nothing that God create is inherently bad
Sexual differences is a thing to be celebrated a wonderful creation
Our sexuality will be transformed / it won't be not diminished
we will not be neutered / emasculated / spayed
we will not be genderless geldings
So sexual differences won't be removed in heaven
We will retain our sexual gender
the way Jesus remained a male after His resurrection
Humans do not come in genderless bodies
We are either male or female
If you're a woman down here
you're going to be a woman in heaven / a glorified woman
If you're a man down here
you're going to be a man in heaven / albeit glorified man
But you’re asking whether there will be sex in heaven
in the sense of whether there will be sexual intercourse in Heaven
then the answer is clearly No! there will be no sex in heaven”
One / if you’re thinking of the function of the sexual act
as that of the purpose of procreation
the answer is “There will be no sex in heaven”
for there will be no need for procreation in heaven
Peter Kreeft puts it very nicely / when he said:
“Earth is the breeding colony / Heaven is the homeland”
Secondly / if you’re thinking of the function of the sexual act
as that of the purpose of expressing intimacy of relationship
the answer again is “There will be no sex in heaven”
for we will always / all the time
be intimately related with every other being in heaven
Thirdly / if you’re thinking of the function of the sexual act
as that of the purpose of enjoying its sheer pleasure
the answer again is “There will be no sex in heaven:
for if we understand what it means
to be in the bliss of the presence of God
we will come to see that the delights and pleasure
of physical intercourse / pale to nothing
in comparison with the delights and pleasure
of spiritual intercourse with God
Thomas Aquinas believed that sexual enjoyment
was greater before the Fall / not less
because sin always harms everything good
Augustine believed that in heaven the joy we receive from God
in our souls will “overflow” into our resurrection bodies
in a “voluptuous torrent of pleasure”
So it would seem that there will be no sexual intercourse in heaven
Sex is first of all what we are / not something we do
We will simply “be” ourselves / being men and women
Will Heaven be boring ?
People think sit all day listen to heavenly music playing on harps
This imagery is not from the Bible
This is popular mythology
When it comes to heaven
we see all the imageries of joyful exciting time together
- there’s great music / there’s great food / marriage feast
great relationships / deep intimacy between people
sheer enjoyment of life with God and with people you want to be
Nothing good will be taken away from us
All the great relationships we have here will continue there
but this time there’ll be no sin to tarnish it
It’ll be perfected
We’ll be exploring the endless universe out there
There’ll be fulfilling work
work that will not involve the sweat of your brow
creative enjoyable work that’s fulfilling
And nothing of that will ever come to an end
Unlike a great vacation / comes the last day / and the next day its over
Unlike a great feast / an hour two hour / you’ve eaten too much
Sometimes you enjoy something so much / you don’t want tit to end
Like the child when asked to go to bed / says “Ten more minutes”
she doesn’t want it to end
But nothing of the great joy will end
Its joy that lasts forever / ecstasy that goes on and on
How could that ever be boring!
Can you imagine such a place to live / It would be pure Shalom
there will be no fear of the displeasure of God / no quarrelling
no fighting / no misunderstanding / no hostility / struggle / anger
horror / bickering / arguing / persecution / abuse / discord
disharmony / disunity / hate / disagreements / disappointment
weeping /
No more need for fasting / there’ll be feasting instead
No more need for weeping / there’ll be no tears
No more need for repentance / celebration instead
No more need for no confession of sin / no sin to confess
No more need to be watchful / the roaring lion will be no more
What a place / Satan will not be there
Everyone there will be living in peace with the other
Everyone will be perfect
It will be perfect joy
On this earth whatever joy we have
is often mingled with a tinge of sadness
But in heaven / our joy will be pure lasting joy
How do you get to heaven
If heaven is not in us now / we will not be in heaven
If God is not in your heart by faith / Heaven will have no place for you
Jesus is so very insistent on this / “He who has the Son has life
He who has not the Son of God has no life
but the wrath of God dwells in Him”
“He who confesses me before men / I will confess before God in heaven
He who denies me before men
him / I will deny before the Father in heaven”
Let me tie all this up this way
It is a simple fact / that we all perch precariously
on the ledge of time / over the edge of eternity
One of these days / you will be no more
You will give a final heave / and breath your last
On that day / you will fall over the ledge of time
and be swallowed into eternity
But when you make your exit out of time
your soul will wing its way through the clouds
making its path into the deep recesses of space and into eternity
And the angels receiving you / will usher you into the presence of God
At that moment / when time fades into eternity
it would have then been a trifle too late
for you to ask that you come back in time
that you may accomplish one little beautiful act for God
It’ll be too late! / It will be a wish that cannot be granted
My point is this / if eternity is so long and time so short
then the time to live for God is NOW / while we have “time”
How then / shall we live in the light of eternal life
We need to live above the petty shallow level of life
Martin Luther King Jr once said in response to a question
“Man is more than a dog / to be satisfied
by the bones of sensory pleasure and showy materialism:
He is a being of spirit / born for the stars and created for eternity
He who lives his life on the shallow level of the social set
deprives himself of life / in its fullness
and makes impossible the fulfillment
of his creative development”
Let us resolve to live for God
God does not necessarily promise us a long life
David Brainerd died at 29 / Robert Murray M’Cheyne 29
Henry Martyn 32 / Tom Dooley 34 / Bonhoeffer 39 / Eric Liddle 43
Oswald Chambers 43 / Peter Marshall 47
Each of these ones died young
And yet on the day when their time merges into eternity
they have accomplished so much for God
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