How is heaven

The Jews had lined the streets with their cloaks, waving palm branches and praising God for the miracles they had seen Jesus perform Luke Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! The King of Israel!

In heaven, there will be no confusion about the Prince of Peace. Every saint, from every tribe and tongue will be clothed in robes of white, waving palm branches of genuine praise. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters.

Those who have come out of the great tribulation will remain before the throne of God forever. With pure joy and adoration, they will serve Him night and day.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, will lead them to fountains of living waters, never to thirst again. Every tear will be wiped away by the merciful hand of God and they will rest in the shade of His presence. I imagine the saints will have just as much joy, after ten thousand years of serving God, as they had on the first day. Just like the old hymn says….

There is something absolutely majestic about watching a storm from afar. His voice will thunder throughout the heavens. At last, the temple of the Lord will be opened and the ark of the covenant will be seen again. For His covenant is everlasting and His kingdom will have no end. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.

He keeps the good grain, but tosses the weeds into a fiery furnace. They are consumed by fire and then are no more. Still other passages may seem to suggest that Jesus believe in hell. Most notably Jesus speaks of all nations coming for the last judgment Matthew Some are said to be sheep, and the others goats. The good sheep are those who have helped those in need — the hungry, the sick, the poor, the foreigner. So the punishment is annihilation.

Because the fire never goes out. The flames, not the torments, go on forever. Because it will never end. These people will be annihilated forever. And so, Jesus stood in a very long line of serious thinkers who have refused to believe that a good God would torture his creatures for eternity. But the torments of hell were not preached by either Jesus or his original Jewish followers; they emerged among later gentile converts who did not hold to the Jewish notion of a future resurrection of the dead.

These later Christians came out of Greek culture and its belief that souls were immortal and would survive death. From at least the time of Socrates, many Greek thinkers had subscribed to the idea of the immortality of the soul. Even though the human body dies, the human soul both will not and cannot. Later Christians who came out of gentile circles adopted this view for themselves, and reasoned that if souls are built to last forever, their ultimate fates will do so as well.

It will be either eternal bliss or eternal torment. It was a strange hybrid, a view held neither by the original Christians nor by ancient Greek intelligentsia before them. Socrates himself expressed the idea most memorably when on trial before an Athenian jury on capital charges.

Socrates openly declares that he sees no reason to fear the death sentence. On the contrary, he is rather energized by the idea of passing on from this life. For Socrates, death will be one of two things. On one hand, it may entail the longest, most untroubled, deep sleep that could be imagined.

On the other hand, it may involve a conscious existence. That too would be good, even better. It would mean carrying on with life and all its pleasures but none of its pain. And so the afterlife presents no bad choices, only good ones. Death was not a source of terror or even dread. Most of us have some concept of heaven, even if it is one formed by movies like What Dreams May Come, The Lovely Bones, or think it involves meeting Morgan Freeman in a white room.

And while not as complicated as biblical ideas about hell , the biblical concept of heaven is not particularly simple either. As New Testament scholar Paula Gooder writes :. Yet heaven and paradise were originally more about where God lived, not about us or our ultimate destination.

The words for heaven or heavens in both Hebrew shamayim and Greek ouranos can also be translated as sky. It is not something that exists eternally but rather part of creation.

The first line of the Bible states that heaven is created along with the creation of the earth Genesis 1. Heaven is a place of peace, love, community, and worship, where God is surrounded by a heavenly court and other heavenly beings.

Biblical authors imagined the earth as a flat place with Sheol below the realm of the dead and a dome over the earth that separates it from the heavens or sky above. To learn how to have your name written in the Book of Life see our topic on Salvation.

The realities of heaven and the new earth can be only a prayer away. You may wish to learn more through the Discover Bible Lessons on our Bible studies section.

Languages Study in More Languages. Heaven is a real place where the people of God will live one day. In fact, heaven is where God and the angels live. Browse topics about heaven What is heaven like? Will we have new bodies in heaven? How do you get to heaven?

What does the Bible say about heaven? The Bible is clear on the following: After Jesus was raised from the dead, He went to heaven. What is heaven like? See Second Coming , Millennium How do you get to heaven? See Death , Hell , Resurrection The entrance to heaven is not automatic for people who have simply tried to be good. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter.

Do dogs go to heaven? What is the fruit of the Spirit? Support Bibleinfo.