Heaven
• Heaven: where the police are British, the cooks French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized and run by the Swiss.
Hell: where the police are German, the cooks British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, and it is all organized and run by the Italians.
Here is an ad from the Bible: Free beautiful homes to be given away in a perfect city! With 100% pure water free, no electric bills, perpetual lighting, permanent pavement, nothing undesirable, everything new, perfect health, immunity from accidents, the best of society, beautiful music, free transportation. Secure a contract today for the new Jerusalem.
Standard ideas of heaven. Much we do not know and cannot comprehend. But we will not be eternally bored; the biblical image of heaven is connected to the person of God Himself).
• Eternal life has begun in this life (John 6:47; 1 John 5:13). We are already citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20-21; Eph. 2:6). Our blessings there are incorruptible and indestructible; no flaws, blemishes, sorrow, pain.
Reincarnation versus resurrection.
Nature of the glorified resurrection body.
• Revelation 21-22
Imagery of peace, rest, security and protection, beauty, intimate fellowship (each person will uniquely display God's beauty).
Heaven is real and substantial. It is both a place (where Christ is) and a state (intimate knowledge of God). It will be a place of great activity. Multifaceted. Service to God. The beatific vision. Praise and worship. Collective fellowship. A context of continued growth. Fallen creation will be redeemed by God's new creation. A sinless, righteous world for a redeemed and perfected people. We will not be able to sin, because that would be contrary to our nature; we will be free to become what God created us to be.
Longing. Romans 8. Hope. Ecclesiastes 3:11; Hebrews 11:13, 16, 26, 35.
"Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object. . . . If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy. . . . [the beautiful things we have experienced] are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. . . . Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. . . . The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely . . . the promise of glory . . . becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgement, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last."
"We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects. And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life. At present, if we are reborn in Christ, the spirit in us lives directly on God; but the mind, and still more the body, receives life from Him at a thousand removes—through our ancestors, through our food, through the elements. The faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the world are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy.
• "Heaven will be so vast, its beautiful valleys, its foothills and lofty mountains so extensive, its crystal clear streams and rivers, its vegetation with its marvelous forests so wonderful that it will be even far beyond our wildest imagination to conceive. I believe that it will take an eternity of years to see but a small part of God's wonderful Heaven; to meet and fellowship with the multitudes of the Redeemed who will be there."— John Zoller
There will be time, but a different quality and experience of time. On earth, kairos is controlled by chronos, but in heaven, kairos will be measured by eternity.
Sex in heaven? Animals in heaven? Chocolates story [•Heaven]
There are degrees of blessing; the rewards or crowns probably relate to capacities, further spiritual development, learning, and service to the Lord. The Bible assures us that they are well worth working and sacrificing toward (Matt. 6:19-21; 1 Cor. 9:25-27; Col. 3:23-24; 1 Tim. 6:17- 19).
"When I get to heaven, I shall see three wonders there: The first wonder will be to see many there whom I did not expect to see; the second wonder will be to miss many people whom I did expect to see; the third and greatest of all will be to find myself there."—John Newton