Beyond Heaven
What could be better than heaven? It is an indescribable paradise. No one who goes there ever regrets dying. Their souls are saturated with God’s very emotion of love. They enjoy perfect friendship, masses of anointing, and electrifying encounters with El Shaddai forever. What a beautiful and awesome place! However, this book is about a place beyond heaven…
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“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God…”
Revelation 21:1-2
John had a revelation about somewhere better than heaven! The last two chapters of the Bible are not about heaven. The climax of the Bible is about a place that comes out of heaven. God chose to close the canon of scripture with the description of a city coming down from heaven onto to the new earth. Not much is spoken about the new heaven or the new earth; but this Holy city, the Heavenly Jerusalem, where the Triune God is enthroned, is the focus of attention. I want to go to heaven, but I also want to go to a place better than heaven. It is a heavenly city but it comes down out of heaven (Rev 21.2) onto the new earth.
Do you want to only go to heaven forever? Several times in the Bible it says that when the Lord comes, He will bring all His angels with Him (Zech 14.5, Mat 25:31 1Th 3:13). If all the angels come with Him, then none are left in heaven. So when He comes, the Lord empties heaven. If you want to be in heaven forever, you may be alone! We are waiting to go to heaven, but it seems all of heaven is waiting to come down onto the new earth! The angels and God Himself are eager to come out of heaven and down onto the new earth: ‘And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.” ’ (Rev 21.3) God and all the angels come down to earth which is somehow joined together with the heavenly realm (Eph 1.9,10) - a very real physical earth saturated with the supernatural. A new or renewed earth, totally transformed; resembling some of the features of this world, but perfected and anointed somehow - one with heaven - joined together, brought into unity. Why are they joined and for what purpose are all the angels coming here?
When we die, we born-again believers go immediately into the presence of God, to be with the Lord (Phil 1.23, Luke 23.43). To be with the Lord in heaven is so fantastic it would seem like this would be the ultimate experience, never to be beaten. It would seem like we would want to stay with Him there forever. But since He is returning to this earth, if we want to stay with Him, we will have to come with Him. Heaven is eternal, but our initial time in heaven is temporary, at least up to the second coming, when we shall return with the Lord to the earth for a thousand years and beyond. When we go to be with the Lord, we are in a sort of temporary experience awaiting a further glorification to something even better: the resurrection. Again, we will be alive waiting for another new beginning; in training for a one-thousand-year assignment on the renewed earth. The wait is for our new body - the resurrection body. But why will we need another physical body? Why will our heavenly and spiritual experiences not be enough?
We are a trinity: spirit, soul and body, made in the image of God who is a trinity: Father Son and Holy Spirit. We will not be complete until we are back into the image of God. As a spiritual being with a soul in heaven, we will be ‘missing something’. When we receive our resurrection body, we will then again be fully what God originally and eternally intended for us to be in His image. We need the glorified body to interact with our eternal dwelling: the new earth. For a full experience in the capital city of the new earth we need to again, have three parts. Therefore, our time after death until the resurrection will be perfect but incomplete. When false cults emerge, almost always they deny some aspect of the trinity; humanizing Jesus or denying the Holy Spirit to their own destruction. We can never remove one person of the trinity without introducing heresy, destroying salvation, faith, or massively limiting our experience of the power of God. God is eternally three in One. In the same spirit, God does not want to remove one part of the trinity of man.
Though we die and lose our bodies, it is only temporary. Jesus overcame death, showed His hands and feet and ate with His disciples to prove He was not just alive, but that He had flesh and bones (Luke 24.39). He was not just a spirit and soul; He was not a ghost! “Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” ” (John 20:27). The ladies clasped His resurrection feet (Matt 28.9), Thomas was invited to touch the nail marks in His resurrection hands. God wants us to have the full experience. He designed us to be fully spiritual and fully physical. In a heavenly place, yet down on the new earth: the New Jerusalem. We will have resurrected eyes, feet, noses - physical yet supernatural, able to walk through walls and buildings, jump over buildings or pick them up! Jesus chose when to visit His friends to specifically emphasize His physical resurrection. Jesus came to His disciples after His resurrection not while they were praying fervently, but usually while they were eating or ready for breakfast. He made the point clear. In the New Jerusalem there are metal streets, gold crowns, material robes and diamond walls. God makes a new earth as well as a new heaven. In the next chapter we’ll look at awesome reasons why a physical aspect to eternity is even better than just a spiritual one alone. John got this revelation.
Second Temporary Life before Eternity?
Sinners who love darkness have a temporary life here, and then they die. After they die they have another temporary experience awaiting the second death to a far worse eternal state in the lake of fire. All are resurrected eventually. (John5.28,29; Acts 24.15). We die, and then live in heaven awaiting a resurrection to an even better life. They die, and live in death awaiting resurrection to a much worse death. "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death." (Rev 21:8 ). We get a resurrection to experience life even more. They get a resurrection body to experience death and pain more.
The Return of the King
The Lord is not visiting the earth - He is coming back to the earth. He is coming to reign here. To set up His throne and headquarters on the new earth. He is shifting His headquarters from heaven to earth. “{4} On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, …Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with Him. …{9} The LORD will be king over the whole earth..." (Zec 14:4a,5b,9a ). He wants to reign on the earth, forever. "Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the LORD Himself will dwell forever?" (Psa 68:16). There are awesome spiritual truths to be grasped when we interpret the last two chapters of the book of revelation spiritually or symbolically. However, in this book I want to focus on interpreting them literally, to get a beautiful revelation of Jesus’ plans for us.
Heaven on Earth
Some people are tempted to be disappointed that we are not staying in heaven permanently. But remember heaven is coming and combining with earth. Jesus wants to bring the two together with no veil or sea between the two realms. Heaven and earth are combining: "And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, {10} to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ." (Eph 1:9-10) With the two together we will live in the New Jerusalem, a heavenly city on the new earth, regularly having heavenly experiences. We will slip between the heavenly and earthly realms seamlessly - more heavenly experiences every week than Paul and John had in their entire lives. In the same sentence, Jesus said that the meek will inherit the earth and that the poor in spirit would be blessed and inherit a heavenly kingdom. Which will it be: heavenly or earthly? The answer is both. And we need to understand why the earthly part is so vital to God’s purposes.
But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, (Heb 12:22)
Heavenly Adventures
We have to sacrifice many experiences and pleasures as we devote our current lives to God’s purposes and the urgency of His calling. However, from the eternal perspective we will miss out on nothing. We will live again in a utopia, far beyond anything Hollywood or Bollywood have created in fiction. Our fun and pleasure at His right hand, or the resurrection-body sports on the new earth will make the world cup cricket final look totally boring in comparison. Important projects, heavenly adventures, childlike enthusiasm, continual success, freedom from all bondage, pain, debt, and everyone so beautiful are just a few examples. Enjoying face-to-face worship and ease of spiritual life, we will still passionately pursue more of God for eternity: ‘pleasures forevermore’. (Psalm 16.11)
As soon as we entered into an intimate relationship with the LORD, heaven and eternity became so real to us. As you read some of the details of eternity set forth in this book, I believe the Holy Spirit will turn up the fire of this hope of eternity. More knowledge poured in will increase this vision. The temporal priorities will fade more easily and the quest to know Him will throb louder in your heart. Automatic spiritual growth, more eternal focus, and greater confidence will come through the increase you’ll get in the knowledge of the ultimate purposes of God.
Changing Our Eternity
However, there is an even higher purpose for this written presentation. It is to awaken longing in your soul to change eternity itself, your own eternal destiny; to open your mind to conceive the ultimate prize in the next age, to give you a new goal, a fresh challenge, an achievable, lifetime aim which when attained will have consequences throughout the ages after the second coming. These consequences are easy to understand as set forth in John’s revelation. Heaven-bound, saved, born-again believers do not all have the same destiny in the resurrection. There are very different callings and ranks in the eternal kingdom. Once we grasp the awesomeness of the high calling we will never be willing to let anything rob us of this ultimate prize.
Ultimate Questions
Having peered into the glory of the heavenly city, let’s ask some questions. Will all of God’s children enter into the New Jerusalem? Why is it surrounded by walls with only a few gates? If there is only limited access, what are the qualifications to enter? Will all saved believers who have eternal life be allowed inside? Will some live forever inside the kingdom of heaven but outside the New Jerusalem? If so, what caused them to be disqualified? How do they react when they find out that they are saved yet eternally disqualified to enter the capital? What can we do now in our walks with God to prevent this catastrophic loss? How should we pursue the Lord and live now to prepare our lives for the encounter with the Holy One inside the New Jerusalem? We are on our way to heaven; fear of hell is tenderly and tentatively lifted. But are we on our way into the Most Holy Place? Inside of God Himself, face-to-face with Jehovah? Or will He have to keep us at a little distance? Do we realize what we will forfeit for eternity if we believe in His cross for our salvation, qualify for eternal life with true repentance, but overall waste most of our lives, lose our first fiery passion, cool down, withdraw from team ministry and activity or let go of our godly disciplines and compromise with the little foxes?
The rewards for faithfulness are clearly laid out in the scriptures, but we need to unleash the yearning for them in our spirits through being presented with the understanding of the possibility of not inheriting them. Seeing God’s intense desire to lavish these eternal blessings on us engraves on our hearts the understanding of why He permits and sends such tough challenges and obstacles in the path of our spiritual quest. The complaint or confusion summed up in the cry ‘Why Lord?’ will be silenced substantially through an impartation of awareness of the purpose of this brief season: preparation to see His face. The concept of intense enjoyable training for our destiny on thrones will hopefully be seared on your soul if you make it to the end of this book and share its truths with your believer friends. As you actively share this perspective, you will be given a full understanding of what the Lord is trying to communicate to you here. Immediately, positive words of courage will begin to arise in your soul even when you are bombarded with tough circumstances. Your reactions will be permanently altered, fuelling a new life-long passion to be an overcomer who inherits a place with the holy.
The activity of the first thousand years of eternity is a mystery revealed by John. It is called the millennium and now we are going to study the adventure and challenges of that time. How does heaven begin? What has God prepared for the first hundred decades of eternity…
