You might ask: “Where has heaven gone?” John Lennon in 1970 wrote a song called “Imagine” where he promoted an Eastern mystical philosophy of life and wrote: “Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try, no hell below us.”
Well it is not so easy to forget about heaven, but our understanding of it has become clouded. We live in a culture now that carries with it a number of different concepts about life, death, and the after life. The gospels are quite clear in their presentation of Jesus’ conviction that not only is there life after death, but there is a place where we dwell eternally with God (that has traditionally been referred to as heaven). Jesus’ concept of life beyond the grave, as well as St Paul ‘s, is that we, as personal living beings, continue our existence beyond death holding onto our particular personality and nature, but replacing this mortal body with an immortal body. Our soul and spirit continues after death and takes on an entirely new body. In John 5 & 6 Jesus in a number of verses refers to His coming to raise us up at the last day. He says:
- John 5:21: For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will;
- John 6:39: and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day;
- John 6:40: For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day;
- John 6:44: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day;
- John 6:54: he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
These are profound statements made by Jesus that indicate His relationship with God the Father and His authority to bring us eternal life. His own resurrection is the beginning of new life for us that takes us beyond death into an eternal life with God. This understanding of life after death contrasts with other philosophical concepts such as reincarnation and our own ocker version of life after death.
In reincarnation, which comes out of a pantheistic understanding of God, we are told that we keep coming back in different life forms, or different persons. Our previous life determines the state of the next life. If we have been evil in the previous life then our karma determines a pretty bad lot for us in the current life. If we have been pretty good then it determines a good time.
This has had a disastrous effect in some cultures that treat the poor and needy with disdain. It also doesn’t explain really what happens if your good times turn sour in this life, as it has for many people in the current global economic crisis.
There is also a question of whether our personality continues on as well, because we do not remember just who we were in the past life. Another extension from pantheism is panentheism that holds the concept of an evolutionary God that not only sees humanity evolving, but God as well. God too is growing up and is caught in time. From this perspective our existence after death ceases. But not all is lost, because the good things we have done continue on in the memory of God.
Our own ocker version was presented clearly to me one night when I had been introduced to a gentleman, with a can of beer in his hand, at a cast party of a dramatic play we had seen. My friends introduced me as their minister, Fr Andrew. The gentleman held up his can of beer, pointing to it and said: “When I die I am going to hell where there is boozing, gambling and plenty of women.” I responded by saying that was a pity, as I thought all the good booze was going to be in heaven. He was dumbfounded at that point.
Jesus tells us He will not drink of the vine until we join Him at His banquet table in heaven, where there will be feasting, joy, peace and love.
