What is heaven according to the Bible?

Heaven is regarded as God's dwelling-place — His throne; and whether the present or the future be treated of, heaven is only viewed as the source and depository of influences which affect the earth. That heaven should be in part peopled by inhabitants chosen from among earth's ruined race; and that in those glorious days to come, when the heavens shall so beneficially influence the earth, it should be by men, not angels, that these influences should be applied — these were truths, the revelation of which was reserved for another and brighter economy than the last. It is to us that it is now made known in the words of the Apostle: "For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak" (Hebrews 2:5). (From an old magazine.)

Man's thoughts concerning heaven too often are fashioned from earthly moulds. We take of things around us, and, subjecting what we have gathered to a process of mental purifying, cast it into a shape, which our imagination has formed out of the clay of this sin-stained earth, and then we call that which we have fashioned heavenly! Vain are such thoughts! No mere man hath ascended up to heaven. Ideas of heaven without a divine revelation are only things of earth, painted with the colors of earth — the paradise of our inclinations, the fruition of the wishes of our fallen selves. Heaven is the dwelling-place of God, and can only be apprehended as God Himself is known; "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." What is known of them is by revelation: "God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." (1 Cor. 2:9-10.) The earthly things of the kingdom of God may well interest true believers, but they do not directly pertain to us. Since Christ went to prepare a place for those who love Him, our place is where He is. We have to do with the heavenly part of God's kingdom, or we have no lot in the matter. A christian is not a Jew; he has not an earthly but a heavenly inheritance.

The state of the soul after death is a subject which deeply interests us all. The rejection of the coming again of Christ to receive the saints, and to judge the earth, before the end of the world, and the losing sight of the distinctive importance given to the resurrection in the New Testament, has given in the common evangelical faith, and that where sound in the main, an absolute character to the vague idea of going to heaven, exclusive of all other conception of happiness and glory. But Scripture spoke too plainly of the Lord's coming and the resurrection of the saints, to allow the thought of going to heaven when we die to maintain the absorbing place it held in the minds of the pious. Strange to say, going to heaven is not spoken of in Scripture, unless in the one case of the thief upon the cross going to be with Christ in paradise. Not that we do not go there; but the scriptural thought is always going to Christ. Since He is in heaven, of course we go there; but being with Christ, not being in heaven, is what Scripture puts forward, and this is important as to the state of the spiritual affections. Christ is the object before the soul, according to the word, not simply being happy in heaven, though we shall be happy and in heaven. I speak of it only as characterising our habits of thought. Poor human nature is apt to fall into Scylla to avoid Charybdis. It is apt, too, to follow its own thoughts, not simply to receive the word of God. There was a reaction, and the recovered truth of the Lord's coming and the first resurrection obtained an importance in some minds, which eclipsed the going to heaven when we die, too vague, and too little formally scriptural, to satisfy those awakened to search the word. It was stated that the soul sleeps, is unconscious, till the resurrection, even by some who, in the main, were sound in the faith; while with others this notion carried them on to deny not only the immediate bliss of the departed, with Christ, but that we ever went to heaven, and what constitutes distinctive Christian hope. Alas! soon very many were led to deny the fundamental doctrines of the gospel.

My object now is not to enter into controversy with these last, who deny the immortality of the soul; it has been done, and done very effectually, by more than one; my object is to give a plain scriptural statement and proof from Scripture, that there is immediate happiness with Christ for the departed Christian. It is an intermediate state, and so, as to His position as a man, is Christ's though He be in glory. The departing Christian waits for the resurrection of the body — and then only will he be in his final state in glory. Men speak of glorified spirits, Scripture never. The purpose of God as to us is, that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." "As we have borne the image of the earthy, so also we shall bear the image of the heavenly." This was exhibited for a moment when Moses and Elias appeared in glory with Christ at the transfiguration. (See Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2; 1 Cor. 15:49; Luke 9:28-36.) This, and to be for ever with the Lord, received to Himself in the Father's house, is our eternal state of joy and glory. This latter part is seen also in the account of the transfiguration, in Luke, where they enter (Moses and Elias) into the cloud whence the Father's voice proceeded. (See also 1 Thess. 4:17.) But this is our eternal state, when Christ shall have come and received us to Himself raised, or changed into His likeness, when our poor earthly body shall have been fashioned like His glorious body; Phil. 3:21. God hath wrought us now already for this selfsame thing, and given to us the earnest of the Spirit; 2 Cor. 5:5. To be with the Lord and like the Lord for ever is our everlasting joy, and that the fruit of God's love, who has made us His children, and will bring us into the mansions prepared in our Father's house. Two things belong to us: first, to be like and with Christ Himself; and, secondly, to be blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Him. Redemption has made this ours; but we are not in possession. We have only the earnest of the Spirit, though God has wrought us for that selfsame thing.

A positive description of such a scene is found in what the Apostle tells us in 2 Corinthians 12, of how he was caught up to the third heaven. The first heaven refers to the atmospheric heavens the home of clouds and winds; the second heaven is the stellar region, where there are hundreds of millions of stars; the third heaven is the dwelling place of God.

Here, in 2 Corinthians 12, we read of “the third heaven,” which cannot be, of course, either of the two physical heavens of which we have been speaking. May we not, then, regard this third heaven as the heaven of God, the home of God? And if His dwelling place be an eternal home, it is an immaterial, uncreated heaven. I think we cannot question that, and that this is what the apostle refers to in 2 Corinthians 13, when he speaks of this “man in Christ” being caught up into the third heaven.

And who would not dwell even here in heaven's own atmosphere, and live in the cloudless light of that sun that never sets - those rays of divine love that finds its delight and satisfaction in diffusing blessedness untold on all around? Truly has it been said that heaven is the scene not only of displayed glories, but of gratified affections, and these last are surely the far richer portion of our eternal inheritance. Even here it is not display that gratifies the heart; its deepest joys are not found in what is outward and visible to others, but it is when its longings are satisfied, its yearnings stilled, its affections gratified - then, and then only, the heart rests. But there - there - it will be the prerogative of the blessed God to pour out a wealth of love, a flood-tide of infinite joy, a river of unutterable gladness flowing from the exhaustless ocean of His own fulness. There will He find His eternal delight in giving, and as we range those fields of glory, and scene after scene of inconceivable blessedness opens out before our gaze, enhanced as all will be by the sense of the depth of the ruin from which we have been brought, and the infinite price paid for our redemption, how shall we bow down in rapturous wonder before our God, and adore the love that has satisfied itself in the accomplishment of our full eternal blessing - the everlasting gratification of every holy affection of which we shall be capable. Then in a fuller, deeper way than in millennial days, will it be true that God "will rest in His love."

God, resting in the complacency of omnipotent love, will welcome them to Himself. His own immediate presence will be their rest. His unclouded glory, the sphere of their worship. God and the Lamb, their light and their temple: He will dwell in their midst; they be His people, and He their God.

It is a state undoubtedly. "Heaven" suggests the thought of a place. We shall be taken there, but may now have the consciousness of being before God in the revelation of Himself in Christ for His pleasure, to praise and worship with adoring hearts. This is being in the Holiest! The word, "The vail that is to say His flesh," is surely meant to guard us against materializing these holy things.

Heaven's glory only is commensurate to the vast desires of an immortal soul. The soul is never satisfied till it has God for its portion, and heaven for its haven. The glory of heaven is pure and unmixed. There gold has no alloy. There the rose of Sharon grows without thorns. There is ease without pain, honour without disgrace, life without death. Physicians there are out of date: no distemper there, no passing bell, or bill of mortality. "Neither can they die any more" (Luke 20:36).

Nor was this all. He whose presence here had been the revelation of a place so new to the thoughts of His people, was now going to take His place as man, as the revealed and known centre of all the joy and blessedness and glory of that place. For "I go to prepare a place for you" — Himself the home-link, so intimate and precious, of their and our hearts with the place, as His going there was all the preparation possible or needed, to give us our place there in spirit with Him, till He comes to receive us to Himself. Hence the word never speaks of our going to heaven, but to Christ. The person makes the place, even in natural things, how much more in divine!