What is Heaven?

(And When Will I Gain Entrance?)

Short Answer Version

The word "heaven" today suggests hope for eternal life. Jesus was the first to introduce this use of the word, according to history. You can read about it in the New Testament.

Jesus urged people to turn to God because the kingdom of heaven was in their midst. When He first started teaching this, I don't think any human but Jesus had a clue what that phrase meant.

As time went on, He unwrapped this concept in great detail. We'll cover that more below, but I'd like to give you the short version here. Heaven was in their midst because Jesus was in their midst.  Jesus is the King of Heaven. When the King is in our midst, heaven is also present.

Long Answer Version

The teaching that God inhabits heaven was not new with Jesus. Jesus prayed, "Our Father who are in heaven." Later in the prayer He taught us to pray "Let your kingdom come, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." That was a very new concept to the people.

Roughly 2,000 years before Jesus, Moses told the people God had said, "You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven." About 1,000 years later, King Solomon repeatedly used the phrase "Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive."

Most people do not need to be convinced that heaven is thought of as the best place to go when we die. Jesus first taught that. He urged people to turn to God because the kingdom of heaven was in their midst. Modern culture often leaves that part out. It has a tendency to skip over the teaching that God does not only live in heaven. Instead, some people intentionally picture God as aloof, distant, and uncaring about the everyday affairs of humankind.

When Jesus said "the kingdom of heaven is in your midst", it was contrary to the mental picture that heaven is "up there", and we are "down here". It flew in the face of God being far away and unconcerned. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Kingdom of heaven" is used as a way of saying the "kingdom of God", which carries the idea that a kingdom includes the rule and reign of a king.

Heaven can be thought of as a place as well as the presence of a person, the king, God. The place conveys the Person and the Person conveys the place. You can't order heaven with a "side of God". They come together.

When God does something wonderful in our current locale and time, the kingdom of God is extended to earth. It is an answer to "Let your kingdom come."

Jesus gave new insight when He said, "if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you." This was an interesting choice of words -"come upon you". The presence and power of God's Spirit are involved with the kingdom of heaven coming upon people. This takes place by the action of Jesus to set a person free. But in this statement by Jesus, it is not only the demonized person that the kingdom comes upon. He clearly said it comes upon "you", the people who were listening to Him teach this.

Similarly, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a person is born again, he or she cannot see the kingdom of God." That is another quote from Jesus. He meant that in order to go to heaven, we must be "born again", born of the Holy Spirit.

When we are reborn in this way, God gives us a new start. He gives a new awareness that He is in the center of the picture, and heaven is the hope for our eternal well being. How does a person become born again? By believing in Jesus as their Savior. Jesus is the One who died on the cross to make entrance to heaven free for anyone who would let God give it to them.

Heaven includes living in a much better state of mind, in a much better place, and with a much clearer understanding and appreciation of our loving God.

The phrase "kingdom of God" appears about 70 times in the New Testament. Additionally, "Kingdom of Heaven" appears about 36 times. I mention this because, it helps illustrate how prominent and recurring the concepts of heaven and God as its king are. They were at the front of Jesus' mind, and those of His apostles. For believers, it is presented as our calling and destiny.

Heaven is widely thought of as a place of inexpressible beauty, peace, love, purpose, and meaning. It reflects the glory of God. Jesus said from the cross, to a thief being crucified "you shall be with me in paradise". Jesus gave us this picture of heaven being a paradise. God's loving presence fills heaven in a way that is very tangible and enjoyable, or so I am told by Scripture.

A Slight Twist To The Story We Are Used to Hearing.

I'm about to tell you something out of the ordinary to most people. This includes those who don't read the Bible, and even many who do, but have not yet put the pieces together. What most people don't understand is that technically our "entrance" to heaven does not take place when we die, or sometime later. It takes place when we are born again - when we first become saved by believing in Jesus as our Savior. I will show you how this is true.

We obtain entry when we believe. That concept might bewilder you, but it is right in the Bible - in several places. In human logic we ask, "How can that be?" But, hopefully you will see how, based on the following examination.

The apostle John gave relevant insight about this to his readers, telling these believers that they had already "passed out of death and into life". Notice John was speaking about something that happened in the readers' past. We can easily deduce from other scriptures that the past occurrence was when the believers were born of God. It could not possibly be about the end of their physical lives, which had not yet occurred. We can make this statement because of the many other scriptures attesting to this profound claim.

The apostle Paul had many things to say about this. In his letter to the Colossians, he wrote that God "has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." Again, notice the past tense.

Paul wrote many things that showed how he assumed eternal life began at the point of believing in Jesus. For example, he said about believers in Jesus living at the time, "For our citizenship is in heaven". Citizenship in heaven, is good. Even better is "inheriting heaven", or "our inheritance with the saints in light." Paul taught us that we inherit the kingdom, not just become citizens. We inherit because when we are born again, we are experiencing the "spirit of adoption, by which we call out Abba, Father". Abba means "Daddy".

Paul talks about this spiritual adoption by using the word-picture of a branch being grafted into a tree. Jesus earlier had said "I am the vine and you are the branches". Grafting is a similar word-picture for our adoption, our new birth, and our relationship with God. We stand to inherit all the goodies of heaven.

Paul also wrote:

"after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; . . . having believed (in Jesus), you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance". We were sealed into heaven when we first believed. This "guarantee of our inheritance" is another way of saying believers will receive their inheritance as adopted sons and daughters.

In Paul's time, the word translated "guarantee" was also used in a way similar to our concept of an engagement ring. In the same chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul elaborated: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ",

and

"the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power" By the way, "saints" in the above passage, means everyday believing Christians.

You might have noticed that none of these amazing promises to believers were in the future tense. John also said that whoever is born of God overcomes the world. Ultimately, overcoming the world is belonging to heaven. John associated this with being born of God. John was also referring to the way God brings His kingdom rule and reign to overcome the turmoil in our lives as believers. Even on a daily basis, our heavenly citizenship leads to heavenly help through the struggles and challenges we face.

Earlier I used the word "technically" when referring to how we enter heaven when we are born again. Please allow me to give examples that might help. If you walk into the embassy of your home country, situated within a foreign land, you are technically on your own country's soil. Similarly, if you walk into a foreign country's embassy in your own land, you are technically no longer in your own country.

The word "technically" means "according to fact". When you are in a nearby foreign embassy, it is a fact that you are on the ground of a far-away foreign country. Citizenship in heaven while physically living on earth is a fact than can be real to us now, though the full experience awaits us.

Another example is dual citizenship. If your parents are from a foreign country, and they gave birth to you in this country, both countries can consider you to have dual citizenship based on your birthplace, and your parents' nationality. This is the law in many nations.

You may have never been to your parents' home country. But you are a citizen there. When you travel there, you will be accepted with all the rights of a natural born citizen. When you are born again, you are given another citizenship. You have citizenship on earth and in heaven. When we are done with the earthly citizenship, we can enjoy all the privileges of heavenly citizenship.

Jesus told His disciples "you are not of this world." He understood that His disciples were "of heaven" in eternal fact, and no longer of their earthly locale. When we know our primary citizenship is of heaven, we start to develop a heart to seek heaven. Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

The letter to the Hebrews touches on this when it says about believers: "But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country." God can confirm to our hearts that He is real, heaven is real, and we are really adopted for citizenship, and inheritance, from God our Father.

We often get hung up on the issue of seeing time as a line, a timeline. Eternal life is far more dynamic, in my opinion. God created time, and lines, and nearly everything else. He knows more about it all than we do. He knows what the facts really are.

It might be useful to think, "Because I am saved, I am positionally in heaven, while experientially I am on earth until my body dies." If that doctrinal explanation does it for you, then fine. We can start our experience of heaven here on earth, not just positionally, but experientally. We do this by seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Paul wrote:

"If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." (Colossians 3)

That passage is part of a much larger discussion, but you can see it appears to say an earth-based believer's life is hidden (present tense) in heaven with Christ, and believers living on earth have already died, and been raised from the dead.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul explained how physical baptism symbolizes spiritual baptism in which the Holy Spirit indwells us. It involves God spiritually merging the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus into the believer. Paul graphically depicted this:

"Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

It seems logical that Paul was explaining to the readers in Rome the concept we just saw in Colossians, when he wrote, "you died, and your life is hid with Christ."

I can interpret this as meaning, God sees you right here, right now, and simultaneously sees you as who you will be long into the future in heaven. Everything about that is good.

About heaven, the Bible says things like:

''Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.''

The apostle Peter wrote,

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been in heaviness because of various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.

When Peter wrote about the genuineness of his readers' faith, he was being very positive. He was telling us that genuine faith is cause for great rejoicing. The testing by fire is referring to physical gold as an object lesson. It is an analogy associated with the experience of heaviness and pain during the trials we encounter living on earth. The promise is that each believer will be seen as one who praises, honors, and glories at seeing Jesus revealed. He was in a sense telling us to cheer up because the trials that seemed fiery did not, and will not, succeed in bringing us down.

Paul writing from a more "here and now" perspective said:

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God."

Perseverance through suffering leads to the blessings of heaven, thereby validating to everyone that we are adopted by God. Earthly suffering experienced by believers is a faint downside compared to the magnificent upside of heaven forever. Once Jesus saves a person, they have been rescued from death and into life. Glory will someday be revealed in the sons and daughters of God. This revelation is expected and eagerly awaited.

When we who are alive on earth today talk about heaven, we tend to look forward to it as if it is a picture of something beautiful. We call everything that will happen in eternity heaven, as if we are looking at one canvas of art. From what we read in the Bible, our life in eternity appears much more dynamic and changing. Our life on earth is that way, so we can guess heaven won't be boring! It is best to look at eternity as an ongoing adventure, rather than a painting.

We see glimpses in the Bible translated into limited human terms, but still seeming mysterious to most readers. The apostle Paul said, we now see through a glass darkly (dimly), but after this life, we will see face to face. I like to think that means we will have clarity. Things we wondered about will fit into place. We will see Jesus face to face. And then the awesome adventure takes off from there. Heaven will be filled with righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is a place of God's power manifested to people. Seeing that believers already have citizenship there, we have access to many blessings from heaven as we each grow in our relationship with Jesus.