Essay 18 (1-31-04)

QUESTIONS ABOUT HEAVEN (2)

In our last we began a study of heaven by way of questions and answers. We continue that study in this essay.

Yes. The Bible makes it clear that "The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption" (1 Cor. 15:42) and "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44). In that context the apostle is insistent that There is a spiritual body! That answers our question, for if there are spiritual bodies, they are suitable only for the spiritual realm. In that chapter Paul develops the theme that our physical bodies will be transformed into spiritual bodies. He does this by comparing the two Adams -- the first Adam is of the earth, the second Adam is from heaven. Then comes a remarkable promise: "As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man" (1 Cor. 15:49).

It is equally clear that this occurs when Christ returns in glory: "Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body,, according to the working by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself" (Philip. 3:20-21). Here we have the two bodies referred to above: the natural body (lowly body) and the spiritual body (glorious body). Paul could hardly make it plainer that those whose citizenship is in heaven will experience transformation when Christ comes -- their weak, physical bodies will be changed into the likeness of Christ's glorious, spiritual body.

It is important to notice that Christ now has a body in heaven. That is why we can think of him as our man in heaven. We can be reasonably certain that this is his resurrected (not resuscitated) body in which he appeared to witnesses following his rising from the dead, and his ascension body. The apostle is saying that the way Christ is now -- with a glorious body in heaven -- we will one day be. The apostle John puts it succinctly when he writes of what happens when Christ comes -- We shall be like Him (1 John 3:2).

It is a mind-boggling promise. It led C.S. Lewis to venture that if we could see ourselves as we shall one day be, we would be tempted to worship ourselves!

If we take on the likeness of Christ's spiritual body only when he comes -- and if we go to heaven immediately upon death -- then are we disembodied spirits in heaven until the time of Christ's coming? It might seem so, but Paul appears to say in 2 Cor. 5:3 that we will never be without a body, whether on earth or in heaven. Being a person is to have a body, either a physical one or a spiritual one. We will never be floating ghosts -- never be found "naked" as the apostle puts it.

Notice that Paul says, "We know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1). In the next verse he refers to "earnestly desiring to be clothed with out habitation which is from heaven," and then "having been clothed, we shall not be found naked." Is he not saying that when we are no longer in our earthly body we will have a heavenly one? And is he not saying that we will never be without a body -- that is, never be found naked?

This being the case, we may conclude that we will have temporary spiritual bodies in heaven -- until we receive our glorious bodies that are like unto Christ's body -- at the time of his coming. It appears to be Paul's thinking that to be a person is to have a body. There is no such thing as a disembodied soul/spirit (person). We are never naked. On earth we have transitory bodies that are subject to decay. In heaven (at first) we have temporary spiritual bodies. When Christ comes we come with him in those bodies (1 Thess. 4:14). We then receive our ultimate, Christ-like bodies.

This is a glorious, heart-warming promise. No wonder John would say, "Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure" (1 John 3:2). It is a promise that makes us "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). It sustains us as we grow old and feeble. It is hope that I often share with those who are bedfast or in wheelchairs. I can tell them that one day it will be different.

One poor soul I visited in a nursing home -- John was his name -- was so pitifully wasted away that he would ask me to pray that he would die. Since he was a believer, I would instead tell him -- over and over at every visit -- that one day it will be different, one day he would have a brand new body -- made in heaven just for him! When John at last died, I conducted his servide at graveside in a country cemetary in west Texas. I spoke to the few family members who had survived him not only of new heavens and new earth, but of new tenantries as well: "The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakenes, it is raised in power" (1 Cor. 15:42)

So basic to our faith is the hope of the redemption of our bodies that the Holy Spirit is given as an assurance that it will come true. After all that Paul says about receiving "a building from God," he adds in 2 Cor. 5:5: "He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee." He is equally forceful in Eph. 1:13-14: "You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession." 1 Cor 6:19-20 tells us that the purchased possession is our body.

Not only are there the multiplied millions of souls who die in infancy, but there are the countless millions -- if not billions -- more who are miscarried, stillborn and aborted. They are all precious souls to God, but are we to think of them in heaven in such an undefined state?

It is significant that the Bible makes not the slightest reference to babies or children in heaven. Yes, we do have the likes of David saying of his deceased child, born of his sin: "He cannot come to me, but I can go to him." But after death did David see his son as a baby?

It is reasonable to suppose that such premature souls go into God's presence in a more mature state. An aborted fetus will surely not be a fetus in heaven -- and even a ten-year old might not be a ten-year old in heaven. There is likely no age in heaven, no time, no spacial limits -- not as we think of those things. Heaven is of a different dimension, and we cannot think of it in earthly terms.

We can't know, of course, but from what information we do have about heaven, I would guess that a parent who loses a child in death, will see that child in spiritual maturity and in a glorious body that will in some way reflect the likeness of what that child would have been in maturity on planet earth. It will surely be unspeakable joy to that parent -- not to see the child as an infant in the arms of an angel, but to see it in service to God in glorious maturity -- and yet recognize it as her child!

The question of whether there will be infants and children in heaven raises another question -- what will do in heaven? -- which we may consider later. But if we will be praising God and serving God -- perhaps in countless regions in an ever-expanding universe -- we are left to wonder what role babies and children might have -- and the fetuses, the miscarried, the stillborn, the aborted. If heaven is a glorious workplace, then those who are there are at work, or so it would seem.

It should be comforting to those who agonize over the multitudes of children who are aborted all around the world -- and those who die young -- to believe that a sovereign God will not be mocked. Every such soul is embraced by the Father's tender loving care, given a spiritual body and maturity according to each one's uniqueness, and assigned duties in some part of God's endless universe. There will always be plenty of work to be done -- all of which will be of indescribable joy. And those there will have the maturity to experience such joy.