What is heaven like?
Heaven is not a distant fog of floating spirits: it is the presence of God, and it leads to the new heaven and new earth where God dwells among His people forever. The Bible paints it in pictures, a city, a garden, a feast, a river, a wedding, because it is too good for plain words, and at its center is always the Lamb on the throne, not the scenery.
This question arose from studying What happens when I die?.
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What the Scripture says
Heaven is first about God's presence
The heart of heaven is not a place but a Person: in your presence is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore, and Jesus prays that we may see His glory and be with Him where He is. In the new creation the loud voice announces the whole point: the dwelling of God is with people, and God himself will be with them. If heaven were only a perfect beach or a golden city without God, it would not be heaven at all.
You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.
I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
It is a real place, prepared for us
Jesus calls it the Father's house with many homes and says He goes to prepare a place for us. The heroes of faith sought a better country, a heavenly one, and God is not ashamed to be called their God because He has prepared a city for them. Heaven is not a mood or a state of mind: it is somewhere we go, with rooms, a city, and foundations.
In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
For he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
It is bodily and whole, not disembodied
The final hope is not escape from creation but its renewal: a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells, and our lowly bodies are transformed to be like His glorious one. Paul says this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and creation itself waits for its liberation. Heaven begins at death as being with Christ, and it is completed at the resurrection in a whole new creation.
But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.
For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body.
I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more.
It is rest, feasting, and restoration
The images Scripture stacks up are images of abundance and rest: a feast of rich food and choice wine, springs of living water, the tree of life with fruit and healing, and the promise that death, mourning, crying, and pain are gone forever because the first things have passed away. God himself wipes away every tear, and His servants serve Him without weariness. Heaven restores what sin broke and satisfies what we were made for.
In this mountain, Yahweh of Armies will make all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of choice wines, of fat things full of marrow, of well refined choice wines. He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken it.
Therefore they are before the throne of God, they serve him day and night in his temple. He who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle over them. They will never be hungry, neither thirsty any more; neither will the sun beat on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shepherds them, and leads them to springs of waters of life. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”
“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.
What we know now is only a glimpse
Paul says no eye has seen or ear heard what God has prepared for those who love Him, and John says it is not yet revealed what we will be. The pictures in Revelation are true pictures, but they are pictures: the reality is greater than the words can carry. We do not need a full map of heaven to live in its hope, because the hope is a person, and He is already risen: we await Him, and His appearing is the whole of our inheritance.
But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.
looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ;
He who testifies these things says, “Yes, I come quickly.” Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus.
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Verses to meditate on
I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”
In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.
They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.
We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.
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