This morning we are beginning a new five-part series looking at the Bible’s teaching on the subject of heaven. Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 and 2 helps us understand part of my reasoning for doing so. Paul says to the Colossian Christians, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” In other words, heavenly-mindedness is a Biblical duty. It is an imperative, a command. “Set your minds on things above.” In 1911, a songwriter called Joel Hill wrote a snide parody of the hymn, “In the Sweet By and By,” in which to describe heaven he coined the now nearly ubiquitous phrase, “pie in the sky when you die.” And that is, isn’t it, very often how the world still views the Christian teaching on heaven. It’s “pie in the sky when you die.” It’s an absurdity that these weak Christians hold to as a form of escapism; a way to help them endure, perhaps, the misery of this life by clinging naively to the illusion of bliss in an imaginary afterlife still to come. It’s really rather pathetic.
And I have to say that that perception is not helped or challenged by the fact that much Christian talk about heaven is saccharin and sentimental, silly and sensational, and not very Scriptural at all. And so it just can’t stand up against the cynicism of the world. Actually, what’s far worse is that our poor theology of heaven doesn’t really even grip our own hearts. Our views of heaven are oftentimes so indistinct or unappealing even to us that we don’t particularly care to go there. Our shallow, sentimental ideas about heaven just do not move us to set our minds on things above. But heavenly-mindedness is a vital spiritual discipline without which it is impossible to live the Christian life well. Heavenly-mindedness. We sometimes hear people warning Christians not to get so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly use. “Don’t get so heavenly-minded that you’re no earthly use!” I wonder if you would agree with me that that is not really our problem. That’s not our issue – that we’ll become so heavenly-minded that we’ll be no earthly use. No, I think we need to hear Paul again, don’t you? “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above not on things on earth.” We must all learn to be much more heavenly-minded than we are because in Paul’s view, heavenly-mindedness is the only way to be any earthly use.
And so to help us become more heavenly-minded, to learn to seek the things that are above where Christ is, to long with the apostle Paul “to be with Christ, which is far better,” we’re going to take the next several weeks together to meditate on some of the Scriptural data concerning heaven. So with that in mind, would you take your Bibles in hand please and turn in them with me to one important place that teaches us about heaven – 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 1 through 10. Second Corinthians 5:1-10; page 966 if you’re using a church Bible. Before we read it together, let’s bow our heads and pray and seek the Lord’s help. Let us all pray.
Our Father, we want to be heavenly minded, to set our minds on things that are above, to seek the things above where Christ is, seated at Your right hand. So give us, we pray, the Spirit of Christ to open our understanding, to incline our hearts, to awaken an appetite for heavenly things, to long for more of Jesus. And would You do it as You work by this portion of Your Word in all our hearts, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Second Corinthians chapter 5 at the first verse. This is the Word of God:
“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened – not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
Amen, and we praise the Lord that He has spoken in His holy and inerrant Word.
Well, we all have our ideas, our notions about life after death. Some people talk a little naively about becoming an angel – getting your wings and wafting around on a cloud, idly plucking at your harp. Others imagine something more prosaic – entering at death upon a lush world, much like this one, but without pollution or politics or cats. One professor of neuroscience, Dr. Michael Graziano, begins an editorial I read this week with his vision of how things might be. “Imagine scanning your grandma’s brain in sufficient detail to build a mental duplicate,” he says. “When she passes away, the duplicate is turned on and lives in a simulated video game universe, a digital Elysium complete with Bingo, tv soaps, and knitting needles to keep the simulacrum happy. You could talk to her by phone, just like always. She could join Christmas dinner by Skype. E-Granny would think of herself as the same person that she always was, with the same memories and personality, the same consciousness transferred to a well-regulated nursing home and able to offer her wisdom to her offspring forever after.” There are lots of ideas about heaven out there, some of them more plausible than others – although I’m pretty sure there won’t be cats in heaven. Dogs, maybe, but not cats. But whatever you think about heaven, we need to let the Bible discipline and determine our convictions, not “90-Minutes in Heaven” best-sellers, not Hollywood fantasies, not even dystopian neuroscientific guesswork. The Word of God, the Word of God needs to determine and shape our convictions about heaven.
And so let’s turn our attention then to the portion of Scripture we read a few moments ago, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and seek to be led by God’s Word in the writings of the apostle Paul here to think clearly about what happens next. Look at verses 1 and 2 first of all. Paul is looking forward to the day when his body is going to be raised to newness of life in the resurrection at the end of the age. That’s the context. And that’s why he talks about his present body – do notice this language – as though it were a “tent.” Do you see that? It is a tent, he says. In other words, this body is temporary accommodation. “For we know that if this tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.” If the present body, this tent, is only temporary accommodation, well then he says there is a building to come – a building from God, a heavenly dwelling that He will one day give me. He’s talking about the resurrection of the body at the end of history. The resurrection body, he says, will be permanent; “a house not made with hands.” A home for a Christian soul, he says, “eternal in the heavens.”
And so that is his focus in these first five verses of chapter 5. He’s looking far away down the long ages of human history, stretching out ahead of him toward the moment when the heavens split with glory and the trumpet sounds and the dead are raised. The Christian hope, let’s remember, is not ultimately fixed on what happens immediately after death – we’re often confused about this, aren’t we? Ours is the hope, rather, of a coming new creation, of a glorious resurrection, of the permanent and indissoluble reunion of a perfected body with a sinless soul that will reflect fully the mirror image of the exalted Christ Himself. That is the hope for which Paul says he is groaning and longing here in our text.
You probably groan and long for that day too, far more maybe than you realize. Think about it for a moment. If you have a body that gives out, a back that hurts, lungs that won’t fill like they used to, eyes that don’t work as they once did, a heart that beats irregularly, all your syndromes and your illnesses, your weaknesses and your wearinesses, they’re all preaching a message to us, aren’t they, every day. They’re saying to you, “This isn’t it.” Aren’t they? “You were made for another world.” And if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, one day you are doing to have the body you instinctively already know you are going to need, made to fit in that new world perfectly at last. That is our hope and our expectation as believers. The Lord Jesus already possesses a resurrection body and He is the firstfruits of that great resurrection harvest into which we all one day will be swept. And so in the meantime with the apostle Paul, we groan, don’t we? We long. We look forward, perhaps with more than a few aches, to that great and coming day.
Paul says, though, “I know that there is a condition, a state of being for me, between my death and that final day.” Do you notice the language he uses in verses 3 and 4 of being found naked and of being unclothed? He’s talking about the existence of his soul without his body. He says, “I know after I die, I will be unclothed, a soul without a body. But that’s not where my sights are fixed. That’s not what I’m longing for. I’m looking forward to the day of resurrection.” That’s his big point in these opening five verses. This is what we all ought to look forward to and long for as Christians.
But don’t miss verse 6. “All my groaning and longing for that final day, notwithstanding,” he says, verse 6, “We are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith and not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.” So here’s what he’s saying. What we tend to call heaven – heaven right now, heaven after death – that is not yet the heaven of the age to come.
It’s not the final condition of the Christian in the new creation, in the new heavens and the new earth with a resurrected body that Jesus is going to give us when He returns. But rather, when you die as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the heaven to which you go involves what Paul calls being unclothed. So it’s less than the completed state. There is something better for which we will still have to wait – this new heavens and new earth; this new creation to come. But that doesn’t mean that going to heaven now is not something to look forward to. “I’m groaning,” he says, “Yes I am groaning for the day when all things will be made new. I’m aching for the resurrection, for sure. But even being unclothed from my body in death is going to mean an existence for me far better than my very best days here. After all, while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. So we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. It’s not what heaven will be, and yet what heaven is already right now is something I can’t wait to see. I will be at home with the Lord. At home with the Lord – who wouldn’t want that?” That’s Paul’s perspective. And so as he puts it in Philippians 1:23, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. Far better! It’s going to be glorious, and I can’t wait.” That’s what he’s saying.
Heaven is a Real, Created Place
Now as we try and process all of that and to help us take it in, let me just highlight three things, three implications from Paul’s teaching here just to be sure we haven’t missed what he is saying. Implication number one – very clearly, Paul is teaching us that heaven is a real, created place. Heaven is a real, created place. It is where the Lord Jesus is right now. Paul wants to go there, he says, “to be present with the Lord; to depart to be with Christ which is far better.” Colossians 3:1 that we mentioned earlier in the message – “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” This is the place that Jesus told the dying thief on the cross, Luke 23:43, you remember, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.” So it is the place where Jesus is. Crucially, the glorified human body of the exalted Christ, the same body in which He was crucified and in which He rose again from the dead on the third day, is there right now, locally present in heaven.
Now think about that for a moment. Do you see some of the implications of that amazing fact? It means, among other things, heaven is a created place. After all, the Son of God, the second person of the blessed Trinity still has a human body, doesn’t He? A glorified, exalted body, to be sure, but it remains a thing of dimensionality and physicality and sensory perception. His deity as divine Son, fills the universe, but His humanity is not everywhere at once. It has the properties of a creature and it exists as all creatures must – in one particular place in the created realm in heavenly glory. Heaven, where Jesus is, belongs to the created order. So Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” God created the heavens. Heaven, you may know, in Scripture, has three senses. Sometimes the word “heaven” or “heavens” refers to the sky; to the place of clouds and sunshine and rain. Isaiah 55:10, “The rain and the snow come down from heaven.” Sometimes the word “heaven” refers to the realm of the heavenly bodies – we would call it outer space – where the sun and the stars spin and shine. Psalm 19:1 is talking about it in those terms. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above His handiwork.” But then sometimes “heaven” refers to the special dwelling of God. Hebrews 9:24 says, “Christ has entered heaven itself.” Second Corinthians 12:2, Paul calls it “the third heaven.” Second Chronicles 2:6, “the heaven of heavens.” Isaiah 63:15, the prophet prays that the Lord would “look down from heaven and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation.”
So heaven, in one sense, is just the sky, in another sense is outer space, but in the most profound sense, is the place of God’s special dwelling; the place that He has made at the dawn of all things for His glory to shine and His presence especially to be known. Of course God is not contained in heaven – 1 Kings 8:26, Solomon prays, “Behold heaven and the highest heavens cannot contain You.” And yet, God is especially ordained to make His glory shine there. And that glory shines brightest now in the face of the exalted humanity of Jesus Christ. He is seated there, right now, reigning over all in the highest heaven, in God’s holy and beautiful habitation. And that highest heaven, where God’s glory dwells and where Christ reigns, Paul says, “That’s where I want to go!”
Christians Go to Heaven where God Dwells and Christ Reigns
And that brings me to the second thing I want you to see. Implication number one from Paul’s teaching – heaven is a real, created place. Implication number two – Christians go to the created realm of heaven where God dwells and Christ reigns after death, but they do not receive a resurrection body until the end of the age. In question and answer 37, the Westminster Shorter Catechism sums up the Biblical teaching beautifully. It asks, “What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?” And it answers, “The souls of believers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory. And their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection.” Paul says he wants to depart to be with Christ, which is far better. He would rather be absent from the body and at home with the Lord. So he can say Philippians 1:23, “For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.” It’s gain.
We even get a mysterious glimpse of the life of heaven, the life of believers after death, in Revelation chapter 6 verse 9. John sees a vision, he says, of the souls of those who have been slain for the Word of God. They are under the altar. Being under the altar, of course, is a symbol of the believer’s security under the sacrificial atoning blood of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s actually where every Christian believer lives, isn’t it, in this life and in the life to come. We all dwell under the altar. There’s no life anywhere else. Jesus has died for us and we are together under His altar, recipients forever of His self-giving love at Calvary, both here and now and far more fully and wonderfully here after when we go to heaven.
And notice in John’s vision, the believers under the altar are conscious. They’re calling out to God for justice. Which means, by the way, that the Bible rules out any notion of soul sleep. You may have come across that idea – the idea that Christians die and they are unconscious of the passage of time, only to all awaken together simultaneously at the resurrection at the last day. That’s not the Bible’s teaching. No, the Biblical picture has a conscious existence for believers in heaven and for unbelievers in hell forever after death. And the believing dead in John’s vision are given white robes. That is to say, they enter into purity. And they’re told to rest. There’s relief and release. It’s a place of purity and peace. And of course it is, because Jesus is there and sin is not. No purgatory, no soul sleep; just the bliss of being with Jesus, which is far better.
The Heart of Heaven is the Presence of Jesus Christ
And that’s the third implication from Paul’s teaching that I want you to see here. Number one, heaven is a real created place where Christ’s physical body now resides and lives and reigns. Number two, Christians go there at their death but they do not receive a resurrection body till the end of the age. And implication number three – What is the heart of heaven, the thing that makes it wonderful, something worth longing for and seeking, and seeking to be ready to enjoy when at last our time comes? Well none of the furniture. It won’t be the magnificent vista that opens upon your gaze. It won’t be any of the paraphernalia of glory that adorns heaven. It won’t even be the glorious reunion with those who have gone ahead of us for which we doubtless long and are right to expect. The thing that will make heaven, heaven, will not be the dazzling sight of radiant angels. It won’t be the fact that the apostles and the prophets will all be there and all the great heroes of the faith that we so long to interrogate and understand and get to know. That’s not what will make heaven, heaven.
The heart of heaven, without which it would not be heavenly, is the presence of Jesus Christ. “Set your minds on things above where Christ is.” Paul says he would rather be “away from the body in order to be at home with the Lord. He wants to “depart and be with Christ, which is far better.” You see his point? With Christ – better than your highest joy here. With Christ – sweeter than your happiest moment or your deepest pleasure in life. With Christ – more precious than all your earthly treasures. With Christ – more thrilling than the end of sin at last or the cessation of sorrow at last, or even the undoing of death. With Christ – more wonderful than taking your place in that great congregation of the redeemed which no one can number, from every tribe and language and nation, to sing praises to God. With Christ – we will be with Christ, and that will be glory to eclipse every other glory.
Revelation 21:23 says of the final new creation something that I think we can say equally truly of the present heaven into which we will enter at death. John says there will be no need of sun or moon there, “for the glory of God will give it light and the Lamb will be its lamp.” Isn’t that a beautiful expression? The Lamb will be the lamp of heaven. His brightness will irradiate every inch of heaven. His beauty will fill our gaze no matter the direction in which we care to look. You know when the sun comes out, it makes everything look more beautiful, doesn’t it? When the sun really shines, “It’s a beautiful day,” we say. Jesus’ light, His glory, makes heaven glorious. It makes it beautiful. The beauty of Jesus.
In Ted Donnelly’s excellent little book, The Biblical Teaching on the Doctrines of Heaven and Hell, which I warmly commend to you, he tells the story of his own father and his father’s millionaire best friend, a man by the name of Noble. “He had not always been a millionaire, for as young men they had both been poor. But after he became wealthy, their friendship continued. He regarded my father as his best friend; the one man who did not want anything from him, who liked him simply as himself. On one occasion, however, he persuaded my father to accept a gift. It was a holiday on which he wanted company. In the early 1950s, the two men traveled by ocean liner across the Atlantic to the United States and then throughout that country. It was an unusual journey for those days; the experience of a lifetime. Afterward, when speaking of that trip, my father would rarely say, ‘When I went to America.’ It was usually, ‘When I was with Noble.’ The trip was so completely his friend’s gift and provision that he could not think of it without remembering the one who made it possible. And we should never think of heaven apart from thinking of Jesus, for we owe it utterly and in every conceivable way,” says Donnelly, “to Him.”
In Richard Baxter’s words, “Let ‘Deserved’ be written on the door of hell. But on the door of heaven and life, ‘The Free Gift.’ “How then is it possible to distinguish between the gift and the Giver? Christ,” says Donnelly, “is central, because it is Christ alone who brings us to heaven.”
And now maybe you’re beginning to see the great difference all of this ought to make to our hearts and to our Christian lives. If you’ll turn for a moment to Psalm 73, look at verses 23 through 26 – just one place where the connection between heavenly-mindedness and our present life becomes a little clearer. Psalm 73:23-26. Asaph is making this connection for us. He’s been through trials, and yet he says, verse 23, “Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.” So that’s Asaph’s expectation, his great hope; much as it was the hope of the apostle Paul. He knows that by the grace of God, whatever trials he passes through here, glory lies ahead. And as he contemplates that, do you see what it does in his heart? Do you notice how it affects how he thinks about what really matters in life? “I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Here’s the difference this kind of hope really makes. Do you see it? Here’s what happens when we brush away the cobwebs of our fuzzy, homespun ideas about heaven and get sharp, clear, focused views of what is to come from the Word of God. Here it is. If the Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel’s Land, if the Lamb is the lamp, if death is gain, if being with Christ is far better, how can we expect to obtain the blessedness that is promised if we do not cherish and love Jesus Christ as the pearl of great price here and now? If afterward You will receive me into glory, if I have no one in heaven but You, well then it follows, surely, that there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail; You, O Lord, are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” How could it be otherwise? If as He promised, Jesus will bring me one day to be with Him where He is, well then I will trust Him and I will live for Him here where I am now in all the days He leaves to me. That’s what Asaph is saying here in Psalm 73, isn’t it? Or as Paul puts it, when we see something of the wonder of the fact that we have been given new life and one day glory to come in the Lord Jesus Christ, well then while we remain here, we will begin in earnest to seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. We will begin to set our minds on things above and not on things on earth. We will work hard to be heavenly-minded because it fits us for a heavenly life to come.
Listen, if Jesus is not your heart’s desire here, why in the world would you hope to go to heaven when all heaven is, is more of Christ, closer to Christ, an unfiltered view of the glory and goodness of Christ? Were you to find yourself there, how unhappy a place heaven would be for you and how miserable you would be in it if you are altogether indifferent to Jesus here. The Lamb is the lamp. He is the sun and the moon and the brightness of heaven. He is the only way to get there. He is the only reason to go and the only source of joy when you arrive. And so it really matters how you think about Him here. How are you with Jesus Christ? Who is He to you? That’s the big question. He cannot simply be your insurance policy. He must be your Savior and your Redeemer and your Lord. He must be the only object of your trust and the grounds of your hope. He needs to be your treasure.
You know we come now to the Lord’s Table. That’s actually what we are doing here, isn’t it? We are treasuring the Lord Jesus Christ. We are saying to Him, “You are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” We are practicing the discipline of heavenly-mindedness, seeking to commune with Him who reigns at the right hand of God, rejoicing that we are one together with each other and even with those who have gone ahead of us. The other end of this Table, planted firmly in glory, and all the people of God are seated around it on earth and in heaven, adoring the Lamb who is the great host and the substance of our feast. He nourishes us with Himself. Here is the tool of heavenly-mindedness. Come then, believer, to the Lord’s Table, and feast on Him who is coming again soon to take you home to be with Him. Let us pray.
Our God and Father, we bow before You. We thank You for the promise of heaven, the assurance of it, that is provided for us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, that He lives and reigns at Your right hand, guarantees that one day we will be there also. How we long for that day. Forgive us for accommodating our convictions to the trivialities of the world. Instead, help us, please, to cultivate the discipline of heavenly-mindedness. Awaken in us a longing to be with Christ and so a commitment, a renewed resolve here and now, to feast upon Him by faith, to know Him and delight in Him, knowing that if we will not delight in Him here, how can we hope to delight in Him hereafter. So come to us and help us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.