For most of my life, I paid little attention to heaven. The afterlife, the intermediate state, paradise, resurrection, and eternity were all just ideas that rolled around in the same basket. I didn't see much reason to try to understand them; there was enough demanding my attention in the present. Job, family, and church life took priority. I felt there was no need to spend my scarce resources studying something I wouldn't experience for a very long time. Besides, I wondered how studying where I would go after this life would actually change how I lived today. At the time, it seemed as irrelevant as letting the potential marriage of my two-year-old daughter in twenty years dictate what I ate for breakfast that morning. I knew heaven was the good place where followers of Jesus go when He calls them home, but beyond that, I was content. What more did I need to know?
Now that I am in my seventies, things feel different. I can look back and see what I might have done differently, or look forward and anticipate what may be. While understanding the next life doesn't help with the past, it certainly helps with the future. I can't point to a specific life event that triggered this shift—it wasn't the death of a loved one or a sudden health crisis. I think it was simply time to think about it.
I work at a biblical counseling ministry, where I occasionally write articles for our newsletter and bookstore website. Normally, my writing centers on human suffering or the problem of sin. But one day, I felt a strong desire to shift my focus. A realization hit me that I could no longer ignore; it captivated my thinking and has stayed with me ever since. That realization is this: human life is not merely a physical body that happens to have a non-physical soul. Rather, we are everlasting souls currently inhabiting temporary bodies. So, eventually the phrase "the next life" started becoming unsatisfying and incomplete. I realized there is no "next life." This life just continues with a new physical body.
Before I go further, I want to be clear that I am not intending to convince you that my specific views are the only correct ones. All I'm trying to say is that I have my ideas, but I may be wrong about them. I'm not trying to come across as one who has the answers and the authority to say others are wrong.
Though I may expand on this later, it seems clear from Genesis that God created humans from "the dust of the earth." He formed a physical body, then breathed into it the breath of life and made it in His own image. Humans are both spiritual and physical, and we always will be.
While the earthly physical part of us is temporary, the spiritual part is everlasting. In an article I wrote for our newsletter, I encouraged readers to try thinking of themselves in reverse: not as physical people with invisible souls, but as spiritual beings in physical bodies. Because we can see and feel our bodies, it is natural to focus on the physical—especially regarding sex and death, which have dominated human attention throughout history. But when you consider the amount of time we spend in these initial bodies (perhaps a hundred years) compared to the lifespan of the soul (an infinite number of years), it is a tiny fraction. In fact, mathematically, it approaches zero.
This fact alone gave me a completely different view of my life. At seventy two, it is very likely that I have less time left in this body than I have already spent in it. The end is coming. But by realizing that this "end" is merely the conclusion of my first "loaner body," I have been motivated to rearrange how I think about life and the afterlife. Driven by this curiosity, I created this space to document my thoughts and invite others into the conversation.
For most of my life, my understanding of heaven was built on a few familiar passages. If it was anything more than "going to heaven and being with the Lord," it was a brief mention of the martyrs in Revelation 6 or a few snippets from Revelation 21. Even when I engaged in deep studies of Matthew or Revelation, I rarely came away with a clearer picture. Usually, I just had a foggy image of dropping off this Earth into a state of forever-happiness. To be fair, those who taught me may have had more to say on the subject, and it may simply be my own fault for not receiving it. For a long time, that simple picture was enough.
As I've begun to wake up to what is actually there, I've discovered a remarkable gap between popular portrayals of heaven and what the Scripture actually provides. There are brief but potent glimpses—the story of Lazarus and the rich man, the thief on the cross, and the martyrs in Revelation 6. I intend to unpack these more later. Depending on how these passages are presented, one can come away with either very little information or a great deal.
In my research, I discovered that some people question the value or propriety of imagining the afterlife. I remember hearing that it is presumptuous to speculate about life after death, and that it is enough to simply trust that God will take care of everything. I don't know if I ever held that view strongly; I just didn't think about it.
However, I believe thinking about the afterlife is a good thing, and that God is pleased when we do. We need only look at the Gospels to see Jesus doing exactly that. Why would He tell us about what is coming if He didn't expect us to think about it? Many times Jesus said something "is like" something else. Usually it related to understanding the Kingdom. But the point is He was encouraging us to use our imagination. Paul did the same by guiding us to "Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth." Why "dangle the carrot" of heaven if we aren't intended to imagine it? Thinking about something is imagining it. God gave humans a powerful imagination, allowing us to envision things far beyond what we can currently make or do. While I refuse to build doctrine on human logic alone, I believe that if Jesus dropped seeds of information about heaven into our minds, He expects us to reflect on them.
Of course, our imagination needs to be checked by what has already been revealed. It would be wrong to try to imagine things that contradict what God has told us about Himself or about heaven. My intent here is to inspire imagination where facts aren't present. I don’t intend to speak authoritatively about something I envision. Books that speak of visits to heaven can be interesting and entertaining, but we need to recognize such stories don't supersede Scripture in what they portray about the heavenly realm.
My hope is that this will move you whether you are a Christ follower or not to begin your own reflections on life after Earth. In Scripture, thinking about the future is a major theme. The goal of the New Testament is to get us thinking about where we’re going.
You may have stumbled across these words by accident. My hope is that you will find something here that prompts you to imagine your own future. That train of thought should lead you to Jesus, because He is the Creator of heaven, earth, and human life. If you are afraid of dying, ask yourself why. What’s your understanding of heaven built on? Do you know who God is? Do you know that He created heaven and sent Jesus to make a way for all people to reach it? Those are the best places to start.
Ultimately, where we go when this body dies is a matter of what we do with Jesus. We only have as long as this earthly body lives to decide that. As it was clearly stated long ago: "And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life." All of what I'm talking about regarding Heaven rides on who "has God's Son."
In this series of articles, I intend to explore the glimpses Scripture offers into the part of human existence that should be the important. Folks, we are currently in the "nursery stage" of our lives. Life as it was meant to be is yet to come. I want to be ready and looking forward to it, and I want that for you as well. I hope to suggest plausible answers and mental images of what we can expect and why.
So, as I near the end of body number one's life cycle, I look forward to being issued body number two. Then at the resurrection receiving the everlasting, imperishable body number three, ready for life on the New Earth.
Do you?
There’s more coming!
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Scripture List
Luke 16:19-31
Luke 23:43
John 14:2-3
2 Corinthians 5:1-8
Philippians 1:21-23
Colossians 3:1-2
Revelation 6:9-11
1 John 5:11-12
Hebrews 11:13-16