Is heaven a real place?
Few questions press harder than this one, and the answer cannot come from guesswork or imagination — only from what God has said. Scripture speaks of heaven as a real place, with a real Man in it, and a real home prepared for those who belong to Him.
Where the evidence comes from
We have no telescope that reaches heaven and no traveller who has mapped it. One writer points out that our knowledge rests entirely on one source, and that accepting it commits us to more than we may want:
A. J. PollockHow do we know there is a heaven? Our only source of information is the Bible. We cannot logically receive the revelation of heaven without receiving all that the Bible teaches, and the Bible as clearly tells us there is a hell.
Not a picture we paint ourselves
Most people's idea of heaven is assembled from the best things they know here, polished up and enlarged. That method fails at the first step, because the raw material is wrong:
H. Forbes WitherbyMan's thoughts about heaven are too often shaped from earthly moulds. We take the things around us, put what we have gathered through a mental cleaning process, and cast it into a shape our imagination has formed out of the clay of this sin-stained earth — and then we call what we have made heavenly! Such thoughts are empty. No mere man has ascended up to heaven. Ideas of heaven without a divine revelation are only things of earth, painted in earth's colours — the paradise of our own preferences, the satisfying of the wishes of our fallen selves. Heaven is the dwelling-place of God, and can only be grasped as God Himself is known.
A home with room in it
Jesus described His Father's house as having many dwelling places, and said He was going there to prepare a place. The word translated "mansions" in older versions means abodes — and the point is not luxury but permanence and capacity:
Hamilton SmithA home which, once it is reached, will never be left again — there we shall stay. On earth we have "no lasting city." We are pilgrims and strangers here. Our lasting home is in the Father's house. What is more, in the Father's house there are "many" abodes. On earth there was no room for Christ, and little room for those who are Christ's, but in the Father's house there is room for all who are Christ's — the great and the small. If it were not so, He would have told His disciples. He would not have gathered His disciples around Himself, and led them outside this world, if He were not leading them into a place of blessedness well known to Him as the Father's house.
A Man is there now
The strongest argument against heaven being a mist or a mood is that a human body is in it. Christ did not shed His manhood when He went up:
J. G. BellettHe entered the light of the highest heavens; but He entered it glorious Himself: and there He now is, a glorious body, the pattern of what ours is to be. The real manhood is there, in the highest heavens; but it is glorified... Jesus is in the same body in heaven in which He lived here on earth... That individual nature in which He suffered all kinds of insults, contempt and misery is now unchangeably seated in glory beyond our understanding. The body which was pierced is that which all eyes shall see, and no other.
Seen and entered by people we can name
Heaven has been looked into from earth. Stephen, while being stoned, saw it opened and saw the Son of Man at God's right hand. Paul was caught up there and could not tell whether he went in the body or not. Writers link these accounts together to fix where heaven is and who is there:
William KellyThe apostle in verse 2 refers to his being caught up to the "third heaven," before he speaks of Paradise (v. 4)... it is Paul caught up to the third heaven and Paradise at that time. There Christ's Spirit went after death; there He is glorified now; there go the spirits of departed saints, as the robber's did, and Stephen's, and where we go if we depart this life.
Real — but not automatic
If heaven is real, the next question is whether you would belong there. One writer puts the problem in terms of nature rather than merit:
F. B. HoleIf you do not know God, if you are unconverted... unless this sin question is settled, unless you are put right with God, you do not have the nature that would enjoy heaven. We talk about the poor fish out of water; it breathes water, not air, and so being out means death for it. It is not in the sphere it lives in.
And when the Lord told the dying criminal beside Him that he would be with Him in paradise that very day, He gave the plainest definition of the place available:
Andrew Miller"Today," said the dying Jesus to the believing thief, "you will be with me in paradise." Notice, not only in paradise, but "with me." That precious "with me" defines so sweetly where the departed spirit is, where heaven is, and what heaven is. It is simply to be with Christ.
Summary
- Revealed, not reasoned. Heaven is known only because God has told us; our own imagination can only repaint earth and call it heavenly.
- A place, not a feeling. Christ spoke of His Father's house with many abodes and room for all who are His — a lasting home for people who have none here.
- A Person, not a scene. The same body that was pierced is in the highest heavens now, and it is the pattern of what ours is to be.
- Witnessed, not theorised. Stephen saw it opened; Paul was caught up into it; and commentators identify it as where the spirits of departed believers go.
- Entered by faith, not by fitness. Being "with Him" is what heaven is — and only those given a new nature through Christ would be at home there.