Heaven Is

These are seven attributes of "heaven" gleaned from a host of scriptures as I have understood them. These negate some of the stereotypes of the medieval view of this other unseen realm of reality and can fuel our hearts to imagine the amazing Life we will enjoy eternally in that age.

1. Heaven Is Perfect
.. The realm in which God's glory is fully manifested and His will is fully done by all of its inhabitants
.. No evil or even temptation to sin is present
.. A sweet society of extravagant love, exquisite peace and exuberant joy

2. Heaven Is Nearby
.. No sense of "remoteness" from the earth is ever implied in scripture
.. It is the presently invisible universe right next door
.. "Portals" of heaven are sometimes temporarily opened to people on earth
.. Believers who die immediately go to be with the Lord

3. Heaven Is Soon
.. Our earthly life is actually very brief, even if the Lord does not return in our lifetime.

For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. James 4:14

4. Heaven Is Forever (I used to teach this to my kids when they were very young and blow their minds with the thought about how they would live on infinitely now that they existed. Existing forever is hard to imagine, but I think ceasing to exist at some point is even more difficult!)
.. Life on earth is the womb of LIFE

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26

5. Heaven Is Physical
.. We will recognize one another
.. We will eat food
.. We will receive new glorified physical bodies at the Second Coming
.. Heaven is high tech...colors, lights, music, displays of power, ultimate arts and sciences, strange creatures

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Matt 27:50-53 (This passage implies that some, though not all, OT believers physically ascended to heaven with Jesus after receiving their resurrected bodies--like "firstfruits" that is a token of the larger general bodily resurrection that awaits the second coming of Jesus.)

C. S. Lewis Quote on the ultimate "physicality" of the age to come:
.. When Nature and Spirit are fully harmonized...when Spirit rides Nature so perfectly that the two together make rather a Centaur than a mounted knight...there will be no more room to get the finest razor-blade of thought in between Spirit and Nature. Every state of affairs in the New Nature will be the perfect expression of a spiritual state and every spiritual state...one with it [Nature] as the perfume with a flower or the "spirit" of great poetry with its form.

6. Heaven Is Lively
.. Meaningful work, friendship, really anointed worship and awesome transportation. "rest" is not "inactivity"
.. Personal development and growth..progressively experiencing the knowledge of God and the mysteries of His universe(s) and the impact of others
.. The opposite of anything that "bums us out" in this world...Sorrow, Sickness, Fatigue, Boredom, Time pressures, Limited space, Dissatisfaction, Anxiety and Fear, Regret, Rivalry, Failure, War, Racism

7. Heaven Is Connected to the Earth
.. More "continuity" than most imagine...ongoing purpose, calling, nature of work, family and friends
.. There is an accountability that relates to how we live out our earthly lives..the judgment seat of Christ
.. We will be rewarded for our faithfulness to Jesus...primarily relates to personal capacity to experience and serve God and explore heaven's mysteries
.. Heaven is keenly interested in earth's history and anticipating its destiny
.. Heaven and Earth are Destined to Interface

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Rev 21:1-2

Heaven is "perfect", but it is not yet "perfectly perfect" in that it awaits the fulfillment of the Father's will for the earth before the "new heavens" and the "new earth" come about. Heaven anticipates the earth coming into it's destiny and is, in a sense, not complete until that is accomplished. N. T. Wright calls this "life after life after death", and this is what the hosts of heaven are also awaiting.