What Will The Saved Be Doing For All Eternity?
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I think everything I just said indicates everything will be different, but specifically what we can do as part of being eternally happy with God.
As to whether the earth returns to some prior recorded surreal vision of Creation, I don't know. I tend to doubt that aspect of the story was a real image anyway. I do think the damage we have done as well as the corruption our sin has caused will be undone. Am not sure I agree the entire world has to be destroyed to accomplish that.
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- Aug 8, 2004
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Do you have a verse in mind that actually shows the entire resurrected human race in Heaven in robes singing for the rest of eternity?
Look, never mind about the verse, I know what it will be. I realize and heard in all of my youth that this is so, and allegedly supported by verses in the Revelation. Even then I can remember thinking, when hearing that God said we could not even imagine how wonderful it will be, that such a picture falls far far short of what I can imagine as being wonderful. So no, that can't be right.
Even a small child can think way bigger than that. So to me something does not jive there between that imagery and Jesus Words of what Heaven will be like. Which was part of the point of the book I linked earlier.
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Yup.
Rev 21:25 In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed (NASU)
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Deadworm
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This thread might be better entitled "The Purpose of Heaven." Most Christians unconsciously speak as though this life is our career and the afterlife is either a rather static glorified nursing home in the sky or a heavenly Disney World with endless delights and eternal lodgings. But ask yourself what happens if we reverse that imagery and think of this life as a spiritual school and the imagery of the New Earth, Paradise, and Heaven as symbols of our true career. This is the true biblical view. But to see this clearly, one must first confront 5 issues:
(1) Let's concede up front that the potential for boredom is a universal fact of human nature and it is the engine that drives us to emotional and intellectual self-improvement and the quest for novelty and creative self-expression. Even most of us who love church are eager to leave after 90 minutes or less. So the thought of sitting around on clouds playing harps and even the thrilling thought of gathering around the Throne and praising God for eternity strikes as inevitably unbearably boring after a while.
(2) In the afterlife, our core self remains basically the same. The wicked are wicked still and the redeemed arrive in Heaven with all their character flaws intact. Built into this notion is an implicit idea of spiritual progress in Heaven. 1 Corinthians 13:10 in no way undermines this crucial point.
(3) "Paradise" is an Old Persian word meaning "park" or "garden." Paradise is the preferred point of arrival in God's postmortem Kingdom (e. g. Luke 23:42-43). But Paul locates Paradise in "the 3rd heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)" and this implies a first and 2nd heaven. Intertestamental Judaism shares this view and describes the first 2 inferior heavens. This perspective presumes a model of several heavens, though there is no agreement in Jewish thought about just how many heavens there are. Still, multiple heavens seem compatible with the idea of postmortem progress through various heavens.
(4) Jesus offers this promise in John 14:2: "in my Father's house are many "dwelling places" or, better, "resting places" (Greek: "mone"). The translation "mansions" in the KJV is inadequate to the Greek. Origen (c. 225 AD) rightly construes this promise to refer to several resting places on our long journey towards an ever fuller union with God. Again, we have the concept of a journey involving stages and progress.
(5) Paul teaches that the righteous will exercise jurisdiction over the "cosmos" (Greek for "world, universe") and angels (I Corinthians 8:2-3). In the Parable of the Pounds Jesus implies a reward of jurisdiction over 5 or 10 cities, depending on one's earthly faithfulness to one's mission (Luke 19:11-26). Revelation 21:25 implies eternally open heavenly gates, an image that implies traffic coming and going. To what purpose? Unspecified missions outside of heaven. 1 Peter 3:19 and 4:6 implies the possibility of postmortem repentance and restoration for the damned and 2nd century Christian apocalyptic construes such teaching to imply a role for the righteous in soul retrieval ministry.
(1) Let's concede up front that the potential for boredom is a universal fact of human nature and it is the engine that drives us to emotional and intellectual self-improvement and the quest for novelty and creative self-expression. Even most of us who love church are eager to leave after 90 minutes or less. So the thought of sitting around on clouds playing harps and even the thrilling thought of gathering around the Throne and praising God for eternity strikes as inevitably unbearably boring after a while.
(2) In the afterlife, our core self remains basically the same. The wicked are wicked still and the redeemed arrive in Heaven with all their character flaws intact. Built into this notion is an implicit idea of spiritual progress in Heaven. 1 Corinthians 13:10 in no way undermines this crucial point.
(3) "Paradise" is an Old Persian word meaning "park" or "garden." Paradise is the preferred point of arrival in God's postmortem Kingdom (e. g. Luke 23:42-43). But Paul locates Paradise in "the 3rd heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)" and this implies a first and 2nd heaven. Intertestamental Judaism shares this view and describes the first 2 inferior heavens. This perspective presumes a model of several heavens, though there is no agreement in Jewish thought about just how many heavens there are. Still, multiple heavens seem compatible with the idea of postmortem progress through various heavens.
(4) Jesus offers this promise in John 14:2: "in my Father's house are many "dwelling places" or, better, "resting places" (Greek: "mone"). The translation "mansions" in the KJV is inadequate to the Greek. Origen (c. 225 AD) rightly construes this promise to refer to several resting places on our long journey towards an ever fuller union with God. Again, we have the concept of a journey involving stages and progress.
(5) Paul teaches that the righteous will exercise jurisdiction over the "cosmos" (Greek for "world, universe") and angels (I Corinthians 8:2-3). In the Parable of the Pounds Jesus implies a reward of jurisdiction over 5 or 10 cities, depending on one's earthly faithfulness to one's mission (Luke 19:11-26). Revelation 21:25 implies eternally open heavenly gates, an image that implies traffic coming and going. To what purpose? Unspecified missions outside of heaven. 1 Peter 3:19 and 4:6 implies the possibility of postmortem repentance and restoration for the damned and 2nd century Christian apocalyptic construes such teaching to imply a role for the righteous in soul retrieval ministry.
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Firstly, we will not be in heaven for eternity. Eternity will be spent on a new earth.
A new heaven, a city, will descend to earth and reside on earth.
Man and God will co-exist on this new earth with it's new heaven.
We will fellowship and worship God.
The only way I can say for certain is that every day will be like a new day. We will never want for anything. Never fear anything, it will be living in a world consumed by love, surrounded by love and our present physical minds cannot comprehend it.
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There comes a point in describing the life to come when the only sensible answer to such a question is, let's wait and see.
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Well, I'm not at all sure as so much of Scripture is hard to fathom, however what I do wonder is that as the Bible says that God is/will create a new heavens and earth and we will be raised imperishable, and also presumably we will have total access to God, then we might live kind of on earth and in heaven simultaneously (maybe like two parallel universes at once???..sort of). Certainly it would seem that we may be able to access God totally easily like walking through a door (as perhaps in the gates never being closed).
Not very well explained, I'm afraid, but then obviously I certainly don't understand anything much
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Sorry, not quite understanding...support whom? I can give bible verses to support what I posted (though what I said I am in no way saying is theologically correct, just vague wonderings)
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I don't know about anyone else, but I will be happy just polishing the streets of gold.
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Deadworm
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JacksBratt, your post is stymied by 7 objections:
JacksBratt: "Firstly, we will not be in heaven for eternity. Eternity will be spent on a new earth."
(1) You are drawing a false distinction. You overlook the fact that the image of the New Jerusalem is clearly metaphoric. This imagery is based on various OT texts like Isaiah 54:11-17, which in Jesus' day is understood in purely allegorical terms (See e.g. the Dead Sea Scrolls commentary on Isaiah 54:11-17 [4 QPIs]). John's allegorical imagery should come as no surprise, given Paul's insistence that the future domain of the righteous is beyond the capabilities of the human imagination to express and describe (1 Corinthians 2:9). God is not one "item" in the New Jerusalem; rather, God is for John the eschatological reality that embraces all things and in 21:3 the descending city means God's dwelling with humanity.
(2) The image of the new earth includes the symbolic detail that it lacks a sea (22:1)--a symbolic observation, not a geographic descriptive. For John, "sea' symbolizes the forces of chaos (see 13:1; cp. 4:6), in contrast to our status as the water planet.
(3) Your misguided view of the new earth also overlooks the fact that "the wicked dead" lie outside the permanently open gates (22:15). "Outside" refers not to a place on the new earth, but to a spiritual realm for the evil dead. Thus, it attests the status of the new earth as a spiritual realm, not as a physical realm in our universe.
(4) "Paradise" which means "park" or "garden" is itself an earthlike realm and cannot be confidently distinguished from "the new earth." Yet Paradise is located in "the 3rd heaven." The new earth is not a remodeled old earth. That earth has passed away in John's vision (22:1). This fact raises the question of whether the new earth exists in our universe or in another spiritual dimension. The latter is the more plausible image for various reasons, including the fact that the old earth is mostly sea and the new earth lacks any "sea."
(5) More basically, you seem to misunderstand the meaning of Jesus' phrase, "the kingdom of heaven." Our ultimate abode is "the kingdom of heaven." In Aramaic" the word for kingdom means both "reign" and "realm." In that sense our future abode is the realm of heaven and hence heaven.
IacksBratt: The only way I can say for certain is that every day will be like a new day."
(6) On the contrary, "there will be no night there (21:25)" and therefore no days.
(7) Nor can John's vision of a new earth be clearly distinguished from his vision of a millennial reign (19:4-6), which lasts only 1,000 years (clearly a symbolic number), but not an eternity.
JacksBratt: "Firstly, we will not be in heaven for eternity. Eternity will be spent on a new earth."
(1) You are drawing a false distinction. You overlook the fact that the image of the New Jerusalem is clearly metaphoric. This imagery is based on various OT texts like Isaiah 54:11-17, which in Jesus' day is understood in purely allegorical terms (See e.g. the Dead Sea Scrolls commentary on Isaiah 54:11-17 [4 QPIs]). John's allegorical imagery should come as no surprise, given Paul's insistence that the future domain of the righteous is beyond the capabilities of the human imagination to express and describe (1 Corinthians 2:9). God is not one "item" in the New Jerusalem; rather, God is for John the eschatological reality that embraces all things and in 21:3 the descending city means God's dwelling with humanity.
(2) The image of the new earth includes the symbolic detail that it lacks a sea (22:1)--a symbolic observation, not a geographic descriptive. For John, "sea' symbolizes the forces of chaos (see 13:1; cp. 4:6), in contrast to our status as the water planet.
(3) Your misguided view of the new earth also overlooks the fact that "the wicked dead" lie outside the permanently open gates (22:15). "Outside" refers not to a place on the new earth, but to a spiritual realm for the evil dead. Thus, it attests the status of the new earth as a spiritual realm, not as a physical realm in our universe.
(4) "Paradise" which means "park" or "garden" is itself an earthlike realm and cannot be confidently distinguished from "the new earth." Yet Paradise is located in "the 3rd heaven." The new earth is not a remodeled old earth. That earth has passed away in John's vision (22:1). This fact raises the question of whether the new earth exists in our universe or in another spiritual dimension. The latter is the more plausible image for various reasons, including the fact that the old earth is mostly sea and the new earth lacks any "sea."
(5) More basically, you seem to misunderstand the meaning of Jesus' phrase, "the kingdom of heaven." Our ultimate abode is "the kingdom of heaven." In Aramaic" the word for kingdom means both "reign" and "realm." In that sense our future abode is the realm of heaven and hence heaven.
IacksBratt: The only way I can say for certain is that every day will be like a new day."
(6) On the contrary, "there will be no night there (21:25)" and therefore no days.
(7) Nor can John's vision of a new earth be clearly distinguished from his vision of a millennial reign (19:4-6), which lasts only 1,000 years (clearly a symbolic number), but not an eternity.
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