Will Heaven be Awesome?

[Jersey]

The bible doesn't actually say much about "hell", and what it does say is through metaphor, symbol, and convention. Likewise it doesn't say much about "heaven" (in the sense of where people go when they die). What it does say quite a lot about is the New Heavens and New Earth into which all God's people will be one day resurrected.

So maybe there really isn't a literal heaven and hell then right? It's just a parable?

So long as you talk about heaven vs hell you are discussing something that has much more to do with Dante and Michelangelo than the bible.

 

[ebia]

So maybe there really isn't a literal heaven and hell then right? It's just a parable?

To say it's just parable would be far too much of a simplification in the other direction.

Firstly heaven has it's more proper sense as 'God's space - God's throneroom....'. That's not parable, though the descriptions of it will necessarly be symbolic and metaphorical in nature because that's the only appropriate language.

Secondly one needs some language to talk about the "place" where people are between death now and the future resurrection - though "paradise", or "with Christ" or "asleep in Christ" are more biblical ways of doing that than "heaven".

Thirdly its convenient to have a language to talk about the fate of those who choose not to be part of God's redemption. Biblically that's "Gehenna", usually translated as hell. The trouble comes when one thinks that replacing the metaphors and symbolic language of the bible with (any) doctrine supposedly derived from them is getting closer to the truth. We simplify the picture and then pretend the simplification is more accurate than the biblical complexity and ambiguity.

Finally I need to make it clear that the "New Heavens and New Earth" is definitely not parable - though again it's so unlike now (while being in full continuitiy with the current creation) that the only language one can use to talk about it is metaphor and symbol.

Most of the standard picture people have of heaven and hell isn't biblical at all - it's the product of medieval fantasy that was the popularised by the literature of Dante, the paintings of Michaelangelo, etc. But it's now been part of the western european (and derived) cultures for so long that it's hard for people to realise that.

 

[Jersey]

To say it's just parable would be far too much of a simplification in the other direction.

Firstly heaven has it's more proper sense as 'God's space - God's throneroom....'. That's not parable, though the descriptions of it will necessarly be symbolic and metaphorical in nature because that's the only appropriate language.

Secondly one needs some language to talk about the "place" where people are between death now and the future resurrection - though "paradise", or "with Christ" or "asleep in Christ" are more biblical ways of doing that than "heaven".

Thirdly its convenient to have a language to talk about the fate of those who choose not to be part of God's redemption. Biblically that's "Gehenna", usually translated as hell. The trouble comes when one thinks that replacing the metaphors and symbolic language of the bible with (any) doctrine supposedly derived from them is getting closer to the truth. We simplify the picture and then pretend the simplification is more accurate than the biblical complexity and ambiguity.

Finally I need to make it clear that the "New Heavens and New Earth" is definitely not parable - though again it's so unlike now (while being in full continuitiy with the current creation) that the only language one can use to talk about it is metaphor and symbol.


Most of the standard picture people have of heaven and hell isn't biblical at all - it's the product of medieval fantasy that was the popularised by the literature of Dante, the paintings of Michaelangelo, etc. But it's now been part of the western european (and derived) cultures for so long that it's hard for people to realise that.

Thanks for the update.