Journal 10
Paul Enns, an evangelical church pastor, once said, “Heaven is where God dwells. It is a specific place; a place of unparalleled tranquility and beauty. It includes the new heaven and new earth.” At the end of creation, heaven will not be some place far off that our bodiless souls float off to, but rather God and heaven will come down to merge with a restored earth. This glorious merge will be the beginning of the new heaven and new earth that believers will inhabit for an eternity. From a reading of three separate articles/passages, it is possible to get a better idea of just what is heaven and what is the new heaven and new earth.
The first article is an article titled Heaven: Not Just an Eternal Day Off by Anthony Hoekema. In his article, Hoekema begins by dismissing the notion that our eternity with God will be spent as bodiless souls flittering up in heaven’s clouds. While this is not what eternity will be like, Hoekema does write that, for those who pass away before Jesus’ second coming, this is a temporary existence. A temporary existence where, “we shall eagerly await the resurrection
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Wright. In his article, Wright references Revelation 21-22. In Revelation 21-22, the merge of heaven and earth to create the new heaven and new earth is compared to a marriage. “The New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.” Like Hoekema, Wright further cements the idea that earth will not be destroyed but will rescued from its current state of sin and decay on the day Jesus returns to reconcile everything back to himself. Upon Jesus’ second coming, God will dwell with believers in the new heaven and new earth as his believers, “will be agents of his love going out in new ways, to accomplish creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love.” As with Hoekema, humans will not sit idly in eternity but will be occupied inhabitants who are busy doing God’s