My plans have changed on this. I had originally planned to write about the various chapters in Rob’s book with my comments on his comments. I intend to tone it down now and just give some passing comments. Several items have led me to this.
First, there are some pretty smart cookies who are actually discussing the book in fair honest critical terms while not attacking the man who wrote it. That is all anyone could ask for. Here are two excellent examples of writers who are doing this:
You will have to go to previous posts, but you can and should go there to read what they have written.
Secondly, the conversation is getting a bit out of hand, and I don’t want to go on ad nauseum.
Finally, my ideas are simply to add to the discussion while not engaging too deeply in the debate aspect of it.
My comments are not going to be handled in the chronology or structure of the book, but instead in the order I wish to discuss them. In the book Rob says, “First heaven, now hell.” I am going to do just that. So at least for now, I am going against my own statement.
Christians have gone for so so long, evangelical Christians especially (and I am in that camp) speaking of heaven as if it were a place to escape to. We talk as if God had given up on this world totally and we are “out of here!” On that point, we are guilty as charged. I have done it myself in the same extreme as many reading this have done, or perhaps are doing.
In following up on Rob’s questions I wonder have we really done heaven a disservice? Have we lowered heaven to where it is created in our likeness and not in God’s likeness? Have we missed the point? To coin Rob’s phrase, “Have we lost the plot?”
I think so. Let me explain it with one passage and one illustration.
At almost every funeral I have attended and certainly every one I have officiated, at some point we read the passage in John 14, “In my Father’s house are many rooms.” (It may read "dwelling places" or something else but the concept is the same. The AV “mansions” is a poor translation for today at best.) I would speculate that most folks reading this have heard exegetical comments about this passage where it is explained how in the first century Jewish family after the formal toast for marriage and the acceptance by the bride, the groom would the spend many months “preparing a place.” In almost every case I have read, he was going to his Father’s house and building an addition, and extra room as it were, for his bride and himself, and then he would claim his bride and take her to the father’s house. The groom was doing exactly what Jesus says he is doing.
This is where we get side tracked quite often. We go into great arguments about what the rooms are like, or what he is doing in the preparation phase, or what, when or how will he return.
I think those questions miss the point. The point is that the bride will be with the groom in the father’s house. The other incidentals are not the issue. The issue is (if indeed he is speaking of heaven here, and I think he is) that we will be with Jesus in the Father’s house. The point is not where or how or when or for what purpose. The point is WHO, namely Jesus and the Father and us (however you wish to define the “us.”)
Now an illustration for “where” heaven is.
The screen (or paper) where you are reading this is a two dimensional piece. It has height and width. It has no depth. The depth is what makes our world three dimensional. It adds an element that a two dimensional world cannot grasp and cannot even see or perceive or understand.
Suppose this page you are reading is a living world. The letters on the screen are the creatures living in this world. Suppose two of the letters, say the “t” and the “e,” were to be in dialogue about another world they could not see. Does it exist? Where is it? Where are the creatures who inhabit that world? You and I as the three dimensional readers seeing and hearing them may say, “Here! I am right here.” Now try as we might we are above these creatures and they can never comprehend our world. If we could become “incarnate” and visit their world, we could try to explain to them our world in terms they would understand, but would they really get it? Probably not. They cannot. This third dimension is beyond their ability to grasp. It is outside of their realm. Try as they might, they could never understand depth. They may see traces of it if we were push our finger through the page and they would then see this world as something intersecting their world, but they could never grasp it in total. The “t” may say to the “e,” "Where is Terry this three dimensional person?" I could say, “Here! I am right here!” But they could not comprehend it because it is beyond them.
As Rob, and other have mentioned, folks who study physics and especially those who accept “String Theory,” have identified eleven separate dimensions. These include space, time, etc. and numerous dimensions in the sub-atomic world.
Here is my point. They do not even consider a “spiritual dimension.” When we die, whatever death is (James says, the “spirit” leaves the “body”) we enter the “spiritual dimension.” Forget how you get to heaven, or how many will populate it, it is without doubt at that moment (until the “New Heaven and the New Earth and the New Jerusalem”) in the spiritual dimension. How can we in our three dimensional existence ever fully comprehend this spiritual dimension? The answer is: we cannot.
Maybe while we are asking, “WHERE is heaven?” God and those in the spiritual dimension could be saying, “Here! I am right here!” But we cannot comprehend it any more than a two dimensional creature could comprehend a three dimensional person. Their presence is so close they can touch you and intersect your world, and yet you are not aware of it. Is this partially what is happening with the “cloud of witnesses” cheering us on in Hebrews 11? Is this why we feel God as if we could touch him, and almost see him, but . . . not . . . quite?
Maybe when we talk about heaven, we are simply using the wrong language.
God has told us a lot, but we really do not fully understand it. We cannot grasp it. It is beyond our ability to understand. I for one am comfortable living in that paradox. You see, I want a God that is WAY bigger than me. I want a God that is so large I cannot get my mind around the concept. I do not want or need a God who is just about two feet taller than me. Larger than me, but still small enough I can comprehend. I want a God that is so big I cannot wrap my mind totally around him. That is the God I want to pray to, and server and worship.
Maybe when we talk about heaven, we need to change the way our brain functions, change the imagery we use, change the language we use and change the thoughts we think. Maybe, just maybe then, we can get a bit closer to really appreciating heaven and God and what awaits us.
