HEAVEN

John Martin, The Plains of Heaven.

I have been writing about The Four Last Things: the traditional subjects of the four Sundays in Advent – Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. The third of the four last things is the theme of Heaven.

St. John receives a vision in Revelation 21 that assures him that the future is in God’s hands and that he is going to make everything new. There is going to be a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth, and a new Jerusalem, the Holy City. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” All that caused sorrow will be no more. The promises of Isaiah 65:17ff. will be fulfilled.

Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create,

for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.

I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people;

The sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.

Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days,

Or an old man who does not live out his years.

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

What will this new life look like? It is indescribable in human terms but St. John saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. The Holy City shone with the glory of God and is brilliant like that of precious jewels. It is massive as well as beautiful, and it is filled with light. It is filled with all the splendor of the kings of the earth. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

If we are to be made new in the resurrection, what shall we look like? Who else shall be there? St. Augustine, in The City of God, speculates about the form of the resurrection bodies of all those who were chosen in Christ before the creation of the world. He asks about the bodies of those who were aborted as unborn babies, or those who died in childhood? He ponders whether all bodies will have an equal stature or strength, or whether there will be differences in size? If we are all to come to the measure of the fullness of Christ, and be conformed to the image of God’s Son, does that mean that the stature and size of Christ’s body shall be the measure of the bodies of all those who shall be in his kingdom? If all are to be equal what about those who were fat or lean? Shall some gain weight and others lose weight? What about those whose bodies were destroyed by accidents, fire or drowning? Will every deformity of the body be preserved in the new heavens and the new earth?

He does not see why those who died in their mother’s womb should not be resurrected and renewed. He argues that all infants have their perfect form potentially, though not in actual size. In this seminal principle of every substance, there seems to be the beginning of everything which does not yet appear, but in the process of time will come into being, or rather into sight. In the resurrection of the body we need fear no bodily loss. Christ said that not a hair of their head should perish. He maintains that every man and woman when they are made new shall receive the size which they had, or would have had, in their youth, though they died an old man or woman, or died before their prime. All shall rise neither beyond nor under youth, but in that vigor and age to which we know that Christ had arrived. He contends that the world’s wisest men have fixed the bloom of youth at about the age of thirty; and when that period has passed, man begins to decline towards the defective and duller period of old age. All shall rise in the stature they either had attained or would have attained had they lived to their prime, although it will be no great disadvantage even if the form of the body be infantile or aged, while no infirmity shall remain in the mind nor in the body itself. St. Augustine’s conclusion is that in the new heaven and the new earth the body shall be of that size, which it either had attained or should have attained in the flower of its youth, and shall enjoy the beauty that arises from preserving symmetry and proportion in all its members. There shall be no deformity, no infirmity, no weakness, no corruption – nothing of any kind which would ill become that kingdom in which the children of the resurrection and of the promise shall be equal to the angels of God, if not in body and age, at least in happiness. Whatever has been taken from the body, either during life or after death, shall be restored to it, and, in conjunction with what has remained in the grave, shall rise again, transformed from the oldness of the animal body into the newness of the spiritual body, and clothed in incorruption and immortality.

 “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, no mind has conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him, but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.” (1 Cor.2:9,10)

The book of Revelation portrays every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea joining the saints who surround the throne of God to sing God’s praises (Revelation 5:9-14). If such redemption comes, it will be God’s doing. In a world where what lies behind us has actually managed to happen, almost anything can happen….The same God that lured protozoans into persons may still work on scales that we cannot imagine scientifically….The miracle of a new heaven and a new earth would be a lesser miracle than the fact that this past and present heaven and earth are and have been here in the first place.” (Does Nature Need To Be Redeemed? Holmes Rolston, III, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 29 (no.2 1994: 228)

“I am making everything new!” God is the creator of everything new. He is capable of creating us new again. What a prospect to look forward to! Be glad and rejoice in what he will create.