What Will Heaven Be Like?

If you were asked to write a paragraph describing Heaven, what would you write? What do most people think of when they think of Heaven? If spoken of as a place, where is that place where Heaven is? Is it a place that incorporates all of the positive things of earth and leaves out all the negative?

Heaven is the abode of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is the realm of righteous angels, 2 Peter 2:4. It is where His Righteous children will live in eternity with God. There is no place for fleshly concerns and those who live after the flesh will not be in Heaven, Gal. 5:19-23.

The focus of Heaven is God, Isaiah 6:1-4. If you are Godly, you will be in Heaven. God is holy, Lev. 19:2. If you are holy, you will be in Heaven. God is love, 1 John 4:8. If you are loving, you will be in Heaven. God is righteous, 1 John 2:29. If you are righteous, you will be in Heaven. Nothing will be in Heaven that does not belong there. What does not belong in Heaven are unGodly, unholy, unloving, unrighteous people. Nothing will be left out of Heaven that does belong there. What belongs in Heaven are Godly, holy, loving, righteous people.

Their purpose and activity will be praising and worshipping God and they will enjoy it more than we can understand. Many people are enamored with “gates of pearl,” and “streets of gold,” and when they think of Heaven, that is where their thoughts go. Because pearls and gold are greatly desired physical objects, God uses them to appeal to a physical being, mankind, in descriptions of Heaven. But Heaven is not about physical objects, it is about God, and God is a spiritual being.

Humans have a dual nature. We are both spiritual and physical. We have a body and a soul. But we are placed for this (physical) life in a physical world, matching our physical body. Our physical body and our spiritual soul are at constant war with each other (Romans 7 and Galatians 5,) but we are so much a part of the physical world that we are sometimes unaware of the battles.

In fact many (most?) people are unaware of their spiritual nature completely. In a physical world, our physical body experiences all the attributes of a physical life, and that is how many people see themselves. They are a physical body in a physical world, and that’s it. Consequently, they find happiness and satisfaction in doing those things that benefit and supply the physical body with its desires, blissfully unaware that they even have a soul, or at best ambivalent to the soul’s needs.

Yes, the soul has needs. But in a physical world the soul can not easily announce its desires to the physical body in which it lives because those needs are foreign to a physical body. So it is that the soul is neglected while the physical body is pampered and indulged. As explained in the Trying to Walk article, “Elevate and Subdue,” the Christian’s goal in life is to elevate the spiritual nature and subdue the physical. The individual described above is doing the opposite. They are elevating the physical and subduing the spiritual. This is how an individual becomes unGodly, unholy, unloving, and/or unrighteous.

Just as Heaven is described in desirable physical terms, gold, pearls, no sickness or sorrow, hell is described in horrendous physical terms, a lake of burning sulfur with eternal worms, and torment. But hell is also a spiritual place for spiritual beings. (Note: the word “spiritual” is often thought to mean good, holy qualities. Its use here, consistent with its definition, depicts a state of existence outside of a physical body, a being that is a spirit, not a body, not material.) Perhaps, as there aren’t real streets of gold in Heaven, there isn’t burning sulfur in hell.

Imagine a child young enough to be totally/absolutely dependent on and accustomed to loving parents on whom it depends for all its needs to be satisfied. At the same time, the child is old enough to realize its dependence on those loving parents. Now imagine a large building, the size of a large commercial warehouse that is “can’t see your hand in front of your face” dark. There is zero light in this building. The child is released in the middle of the building and the doors are all shut tight. Think seriously about the emotions this lost, lonely, helpless child experiences as it cries out to no one and receives no response.

The child is the human soul. The dark building is eternity without God, the creator and sustainer of the soul. It is the receptor of all souls of unGodly, unholy, unloving, unrighteous people. Without a physical body in a physical world, that soul, that spirit that is actually the person that used to live in a physical body, is fully aware of its dependence on God. It realizes its need for God. It realizes the futility of the physical life it catered to for all its time on earth. It is fully aware that the only thing that ever mattered, its relationship with its loving creator, will never be and it will be lost and alone throughout eternity. That soul is in hell.

For the Godly, holy, loving righteous soul, the one that paid attention to its relationship with God, its creator, it also can be represented by a little child, Matt. 19:14, but not one that is lost and alone. That soul is with the God it loves and delights in, praising Him and singing His praises, worshipping Him eternally and always. That soul is in ecstasy to finally see God face to face instead of looking through a dirty window, 1 Cor. 13:12. That soul has a personal relationship with the One upon whom it depends, and has always depended, for sustenance and comfort and all of its needs. That soul is in Heaven.

The souls in Heaven will be forever praising God because that is what they want to do, not only what God wants them to do. They will not be asking Paul about his shipwreck, or Peter about his betrayal, or Noah about the ark because there will be no memories or connection to anything that could produce sorrow. They will have identities, if Michael and Gabriel, (and even Lucifer at one time), are any indication of how it will be. But the relationships they have with each other will not be as they were on earth, Matt. 22:30. If there are any activities they are involved in and/or concerned with other than praising and worshipping God, those activities are not mentioned in the Bible.

Contemplating what Heaven, and even hell, may be like can produce some interesting thoughts and discussions. God has not seen fit to spell it out definitively in the Bible. That surely means it is not something we need to know, and of course, that is true. We should simply trust that whatever God has prepared for His faithful followers will be worth (Trying to) walk-ing the strait and narrow way. When we get there we will find the answer. I have given my thoughts on the matter. I don’t claim infallibility.

One thing is certain. The only way it will matter to us what Heaven is like is if we arrive there as our final destination. If that is not the case, then all our worrying and fretting about it was pointless. How sad that situation will be. It would be far better for us to spend our time studying what it takes to get to Heaven and then behaving and thinking in a way that will enable God to accept us in.