What do different denominations say Heaven is like?

[LunarRise]

There are so many different interpretations about what Heaven looks like. (I'm thinking about it because I'm watching the episode of Supernatural where Sam and Dean die and run around heaven haha)

Anyway, I just wonder how different people think Heaven is like. My boyfriends description of Heaven, for instance, is very depressing in my opinion. He has been taught that our loved ones don't look down on us from Heaven. They aren't watching over us. They don't even remember us. He has been taught that, because there is no such thing as sadness in Heaven, that people who go there cannot look back on their loved ones on Earth and be saddened by what we go through.

He has been taught that when we go to Heaven, we don't remember our lives. We don't remember our family members, or our children, or or lovers. No pets. We are just....there. Happy, but there's nothing to reconnect us to each other.

That sounds incredibly sad! I'm really hoping he's wrong on this matter. I hate the thought that my little brother doesn't hear me tell him I love him and miss him each night. I hate the thought that the connections I make in this life will mean absolutely nothing in the next life.

Do all Christians believe this? Or is it just a person by person kinda thing?

 

[grasping the after wind]

I think that there as many different conceptions of Heaven as there are Christians. So no not all Christians, not even a significant number of them IMO, believe that Heaven is a place reserved for those with no memory.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Depends on what you mean by "Heaven".

Popular modern religion and culture tends to have a view that there is a place called "Heaven" where the souls of people go after death and are there spending eternity in a blissful disembodied state. People dressed as angels on fluffy clouds playing harps etc.

Historically Christianity has said that what Christians look forward to is the bodily resurrection of the dead and life in the age to come (that's in our Creeds). That is, we believe that when Christ comes again the dead will be restored to bodily life, God will make new all creation ("a new heavens and a new earth") and we shall live and be with God in His new creation forever.

Some call this "Heaven", though that's a bit confusing and misleading.

"Heaven" more usually refers euphemistically to "where God is", such as when we say that Jesus after He had been raised from the dead ascended into heaven, and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. And, likewise, Christianity has taught that between death and resurrection the saints are "in heaven"--that is, with God in a state of comfort and rest--until they are raised bodily from the dead to eternal life.

The term "Heaven" can and sometimes is uses to describe both things, thus making things a little confusing. Further, as many theologians from many different denominations and traditions note, popular Christian religion in the modern era has been very ill-informed on matters of historic Christian teaching in this area. And so many Christians in churches which while teaching the historic Christian view on resurrection have managed to learn something else--namely the idea that souls go zipping off into the everafter for all eternity as disembodied spirits.

This makes the whole issue a lot more complex than maybe it should be, and also makes it necessary to untangle a lot of modern misconceptions from actual, historic Christian teaching--and that historic Christian teaching is found throughout mainstream churches: Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Orthodox, Anglican, etc.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

With all that said...

Some Christians have an idea that those with Christ in heaven right now are somehow completely unaware and ignorant of the affairs of the world. That isn't what Christians historically have thought. Instead the historic Christian thought is that not only are they aware of the affairs of the world, but that they continue to pray for us day and night.

In the Revelation of St. John, in one of the visions John receives, he sees the martyrs in heaven looking down upon the earth from God's throne and praying for their brothers and sisters on the earth. While the Revelation is highly graphic apocalyptic imagery, it's still a profound image of the saints who presently reside with God looking upon us below, caring for us and praying on our behalf.

This however usually demonstrates a divide between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians on one side, and many Protestants on the other; as because Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians believe the Saints in heaven can pray for us and we can ask for their prayers many Protestants have not only abolished the practice of asking the Saints to pray for us, but have generally sought to move away from the idea that the Saints pray for us at all. That isn't true of all Protestants, but it's true of many.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[2PhiloVoid]

There are so many different interpretations about what Heaven looks like. (I'm thinking about it because I'm watching the episode of Supernatural where Sam and Dean die and run around heaven haha)

Anyway, I just wonder how different people think Heaven is like. My boyfriends description of Heaven, for instance, is very depressing in my opinion. He has been taught that our loved ones don't look down on us from Heaven. They aren't watching over us. They don't even remember us. He has been taught that, because there is no such thing as sadness in Heaven, that people who go there cannot look back on their loved ones on Earth and be saddened by what we go through.

He has been taught that when we go to Heaven, we don't remember our lives. We don't remember our family members, or our children, or or lovers. No pets. We are just....there. Happy, but there's nothing to reconnect us to each other.

That sounds incredibly sad! I'm really hoping he's wrong on this matter. I hate the thought that my little brother doesn't hear me tell him I love him and miss him each night. I hate the thought that the connections I make in this life will mean absolutely nothing in the next life.

Do all Christians believe this? Or is it just a person by person kinda thing?

Hi Lunar,

I'm sure each of us entertains a slightly different concept of Heaven. Some people may think of it as a kind of mystical obstacle course where we jump from cloud to cloud, (although the 'cloud' metaphor always has seemed a bit childish to me). Other people might think of heaven as their being given the opportunity to explore space by riding beams of light and boldly going where noo.... [Yeah, I won't push the "Star Trek" metaphor any further, although I have always been partial to a "Sound of Music" metaphor where I envision me and my family having a picnic on the green hilltops with Jesus, while Julie Andrews sings oh so sweetly in the background under beautiful blue skies ).

Actually, Lunar, the Bible doesn't give us a comprehensive picture (or understanding) of the Eternal state yet to come. However, what we do know from Scripture is that the Resurrection and/or Heaven will DEFINITELY provide us a joyous existence and a happy place to be, and I think we'll recognize our loved ones, but within some kind of transcendent mode of being. It will be much BETTER than we can imagine, not worse. And until then, we can use our imaginations to fill in some of the sunny details ...

Peace
2PhiloVoid

 

[paul1149]

I can only give you some impressions I have gleaned about heaven and our current relationship to it.

Revelation 6.10 has the spirits of martyrs crying out for justice over their deaths. Evidently heaven currently struggles along with us until "this present darkness" is finally dealt with decisively.

Hebrews speaks of a communion of the saints that spans the two dimensions:

you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,
and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,
and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. -Heb 12:22-24 ​

Jesus gives more insight when He is questioned about marriage:

Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. -Mark 12:24-25 ​

Finally, Revelation 21 and 22 is an absolutely beautiful passage on the new heaven and new earth, showing the city of New Jerusalem descending from heaven and alighting on earth, God himself "wiping away every tear from their eyes", and renewed access to the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

 

[Albion]

There are so many different interpretations about what Heaven looks like. (I'm thinking about it because I'm watching the episode of Supernatural where Sam and Dean die and run around heaven haha)

Anyway, I just wonder how different people think Heaven is like. My boyfriends description of Heaven, for instance, is very depressing in my opinion. He has been taught that our loved ones don't look down on us from Heaven. They aren't watching over us. They don't even remember us. He has been taught that, because there is no such thing as sadness in Heaven, that people who go there cannot look back on their loved ones on Earth and be saddened by what we go through.

He has been taught that when we go to Heaven, we don't remember our lives. We don't remember our family members, or our children, or or lovers. No pets. We are just....there. Happy, but there's nothing to reconnect us to each other.

That sounds incredibly sad!

What he's reflecting is the absence of anything in Scripture that would support those ideas, however much they appeal to us--pets, looking down on loved ones, etc. In the end, no one knows much about the nature of heaven except that it's perfection and bliss with God, so our imaginations are unrestrained.