"WHAT WILL OUR LIVES BE LIKE?"
Look Up: Job 19:26-27
(Copyright 2006)
Most
of you who have been here last several weeks have probably heard more on the
topic of heaven in these past 6 weeks than in all your previous study.
Why? Because the topic of
heaven is not often addressed in the church today.
As a result, many of us are scared of the idea of heaven – it is such
an unknown place.
We
then moved into looking at some of the common questions that are asked about
heaven: what will the new earth be like – what will the new Jerusalem be like?
Last week Don spent some time looking at the questions surrounding our
relationships in heaven – what will our relationships be like, will we know
each other, will there be marriage in heaven?
Given
that there will be relationships in heaven, I want to look at three main topics
this morning: What will we be like
as individuals – what will we think, feel desire, experience; what will our
bodies be like; and what will we spend all that time doing in heaven?
First
– What will we be like? Unless we
grasp the resurrection – what it means for you and me that Jesus was
physically raised from the dead – we will have a very hard time believing we
will continue to be ourselves on the new earth.
We are physical beings. If
heaven is a disembodied state of some form our identity as a human being will be
diminished or transcended – either way we will never be ourselves again after
we die.
A.
So we must understand - how
will we be raised?
Look
at Job 19: And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in
my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not
another. How my heart yearns within
me!
We have already looked at how Jesus was raised – Luke 24:39
People are called by name in heaven, including Lazarus, Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. A name denotes a
person. The fact that people in
heaven are called by the same name they had while on this first earth
demonstrates they are the same person.
The Bible tells us we will sit at a feast with Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob – that means particular people, not just people in general
Jesus tells the disciples that he will eat and drink with them in
heaven
What makes a person unique? It
is more than a physical body – it is personality, memory, thoughts, passions
and interests. I think it would be
odd for the final resurrection not to include those things, purified and
cleansed from the curse
B. Will we become angels?
A lot of early art painted this concept – that we will sprout wings and
become angels. Some, supporting this
idea quote the verse Don looked at last week – Matt 22:30
At the
resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be
like the angels in heaven.
But notice – it does not say we will become angels – it is
referring to the question of marriage and that like the angels, marriage will
not be an issue for us as we will be married as a family to Christ
Paul, in I Cor 6:2-3 tells us that we will in some aspect govern
the angels, not become angels
Do you not know that the saints will
judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to
judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more
the things of this life!
We
will not become angels, we will be who we are now, only purified and freed from
the curse
C. Will we maintain our own
identities?
Think about this for a
moment. Alcorn gives an example like
this: If I am Clay Barnes, a man on
earth, but I am no longer Clay in heaven, then Clay, I myself, did not go to
heaven. If I don’t arrive in
heaven with the same identity, same memories, same history, then I didn’t get
to heaven.
Following
that same line of thinking – If we are not ourselves in heaven, then we can
not be accountable for what we did in this life and the judgment seat of Christ
would be meaningless. I can not be
rewarded for my works nor held accountable for the lack of them – for it
wasn’t me.
As
Alcorn states: “The doctrines of judgment and eternal rewards depend on people
retaining their distinct identities.” There
is no judgment if the people in heaven are not the same people as on earth
The
resurrected Jesus did not become someone else:
Mary knew it was Jesus at the tomb – even though at first she thought
he was a gardener. It was Jesus the
two disciples on the road to Emmaus saw and ate with.
Thomas stuck his finger in the side of a real physical Jesus.
It was Jesus whom John recognized while he and Peter were fishing. It is
Jesus whom John sees in heaven throughout the Revelation
2. Second major
question: What will our bodies be
like – what will we look like, what will our bodies need?
A. Will we have beautiful
bodies?
I do not believe the resurrected body will be defined by what the
world says gives us a sense of value; the sculpted, washboard, tanned body or
the Barbie doll one. What we can say
with certainty is that we will be healthy, with no disease or disability.
The Bible does not say we will all look the same or be alike
Remember, the Bible is clear – there will be racial identities in
heaven Rev 7:9 tells us that people from every tribe, language and nation will
be in heaven. That means some
genetic carryover into the new earth will be there.
Given that, I suspect some will be short and others tall.
Some will be smaller boned and others larger boned, all freed from the
curse – healthy with no sense of envy for a different body mass or type.
We will not be looking in a mirror yearning for something different.
Joni Erickson will have no need of a wheelchair – as Drew Scism
does not now. Ryan York has no
mental or physical disabilities any more nor does James Greenleaf have a 3 year
old body riddled with cancer. Caroline
Vance is freed from the cancer that took her life
B. Along with the marriage
question some ask: Will we be male and female in heaven?
Remember, God created us that way, said it was very good and there is no
biblical evidence to the contrary. It
was Moses the man and Elijah the man who appeared with Jesus – not some
composite of male and female. It was
Jesus the man who rose, not some composite.
Paul’s reference to neither male nor female in Gal 3:28:
There
is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus.
Is not about heaven but about what is already present in the body of
Christ…
We will never be genderless, because human
bodies are not genderless.
C. One of the most asked
questions: Will we be the same age?
This questions is often asked from several different perspectives.
What about an infant that dies at birth or early childhood…?
What about someone who dies at 95 years old with a worn out body?
Much
of the prophecies of Isaiah are dealing with the new earth.
Isa 11:6-9:
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the
goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will
lead them. The cow will feed with
the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like
the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put
his hand into the viper's nest.
I
believe this shows us there will be children in heaven, however I do not think
it out of line to presume that they would grow.
D. Will we eat and drink in
heaven? Much joy for us on this
earth is found around the table. Many
times in the Bible the food table is a central part of a story…
There are meals and feasts mentioned throughout the Bible.
And I confer on you a kingdom, just as
my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my
kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Rev
2:7 …To
him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is
in the paradise of God.
God
tells us we will eat from the tree of life.
3.
Third major area of discussion: What
will we do in heaven? What will we
do with all that time? What will we
know; will we learn, will we work?
A. Will we know everything?
Emphatic NO! Omniscience
belongs to God alone.
In heaven we will be flawless, but not knowing everything is not a flaw.
The angels do not know everything. They
do not know the timing of last days for example.
The people under the altar of Rev 6 ask
– How long O God
B. This leads to the natural
follow-up: Will we learn in heaven?
According to Alcorn – a
Jonathan
Edwards – great preacher and scholar and student of heaven said this:
“The saints will be progressive in knowledge to all eternity…”
Will
we have different abilities and knowledge in heaven?
Again, the Bible never teaches sameness in heaven.
We will be individuals with our own memories and God-given talents.
Anne
as a skilled gardener – she probably has forgotten more about gardening than I
will ever learn. Will that skill be
for naught or purified and used in heaven. I
know this – there won’t be any hard rocky soil.
I
do not believe I will have the same knowledge as her when we are in heaven…
We
will be learners forever with none of the disabilities.
What a joy it will be for some of Ellen’s students to learn without the
ravages of Autism. What a joy to
read without dyslexia or ADD.
There
is so much to discover about our universe and the people of history with so
little time to do it. I have a long
list of books unread…
Alcorn
states it this way: “At the end of
each day I’ll have the same amount of time left as I did the day before”
The
people I will not have met with in one day will not be going away
CS
Lewis – again in “The Last
As
Rebecca Springer states in Intra Muros (pg 96)…