Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven by Ignatius Press

Author:Ignatius Press [Press, Ignatius]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Books & Bibles, Theology, Eschatology, Religion & Spirituality, Religious Studies, Religious Studies & Reference
Amazon: B002UZ5K08
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2009-10-29T06:00:00+00:00

Part II - Heaven and Earth

Chapter 5 - Does Heaven Begin Now?

Is Heaven now or after death?

If "all that seems earth is Hell or Heaven," then Heaven is now, for earth is now.

But "is that all there is?" Is Heaven only another name for earth? Then it is only a deceptive naming, a camouflage, a trick. What most people mean by "Heaven" is not just earth, however perfectly understood and appreciated. For one thing, they mean by "Heaven" an immortal life, but the life we have on earth is mortal. If Heaven is only earth, then Heaven dies.

On the other hand, if Heaven begins only at death or after death, then it is not true that Heaven is now and it is not true that "all that seems earth is hell or heaven."

The escape from both alternatives consists in denying their common premise: that time measures Heaven instead of Heaven measuring time. Both the "here and now" view of Heaven and the "after death" view of Heaven implicitly assume that Heaven is chronologically dateable. But Heaven is eternity, and eternity measures time, not time, eternity.

Eternity is neither part of time nor apart from time (both alternatives, you see, are measured by time), but all of time is present in eternity. From the viewpoint of eternity nothing was or will be; everything is.' From Heaven's point of view we simply are in heaven, as 2 and 2 simply are 4; from our earthly point of view we will be, or hope to be, in Heaven. From one point of view a tiny baby is fully human (not an onion or a turtle!); from another, the baby has yet to become fully human. From one point of view that da Vinci sketch is the Mona Lisa; from the other point of view it has a long way to go to become the Mona Lisa.

This is why God says to us from the viewpoint of His eternal now something that to us is true only in our future, our destiny: "You are all fair, my love; there is no flaw in you."2 That is why Jesus prophetically calls sandy Simon "Rocky" (Petros) long before he has become a rock.' That is why God is constantly changing names (that is, identities) throughout Scripture: Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Saul to Paul.' He is touching earth's time with Heaven's eternity. He is showing the plan of His finished masterpiece to the clumsy human brush that He is using.

So from the viewpoint of eternity, both the "here and now" and the "after death" views of Heaven are wrong-if taken literally. But they are both metaphorically right, since we may look at time as a kind of metaphor of eternity. We should not take our metaphors literally, but we should take them seriously.

We must also remember, when we ask when Heaven is, that Heaven is not first of all a place but a life, a spiritual lifeblood. The New Testament calls it Zoë, "supernatural life," "divine life," "eternal life," "the Kingdom of Heaven.

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