The Christian’s Hope for Eternity

A college friend and I once debated whether there would be soccer in Heaven. He steadfastly maintained we would all play, while I insisted that believers would surround the throne for eternity, praising God. No time for sports.

Freshman roommates rarely achieve advances in theology, and we were no exception. Our curiosity often gives rise to speculation: white-robed angels on clouds playing harps is an image deeply rooted in our culture’s collective imagination, even if those of us who are determined to test all things by Scripture know this isn’t an accurate picture.

What will eternity be like for the Christian? The apostle Peter says it clearly, even though most American Christians seem to have missed it.¹ We should be anticipating “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Pet. 3:13). Many Christians have read right over this passage without letting it register, and even some theologians dismiss the possibility that Peter really means “new earth.” Donald Guthrie comments on Peter’s statement: “This appears to be a material interpretation of the heavenly state, but it is probable that it was no more intended to be taken literally than Revelation 21:1.”² Guthrie argues for “the absence of any materialistic conceptions of heaven.”³

Part of Guthrie’s problem is hermeneutical: he blithely dismisses the literal interpretation of end-time passages without sufficient warrant. He also assumes that Scripture equates eternal life with Heaven.⁴ For instance, he says that in Heaven humans will not be married,⁵ but Matthew 22:30 and Mark 12:25 simply say that in the resurrection humans, similar to the angels in Heaven, will not marry. The texts do not say that humans will be resurrected to Heaven.

Many Christians, however, make the same assumption. It is easy to see why. Colossians 1:5 says the Christian hope is “laid up . . . in heaven.” First Peter 1:4 says the Christian inheritance is “in heaven” (cf. Luke 12:33). Hebrews 11:16 says Abraham and those like him seek a heavenly country. And in John 14:1–6 Jesus said that He was going away to His Father’s house to prepare rooms for His disciples. It is clear that the Father is in Heaven (cf. Matt. 5:45). Jesus will come again and take His disciples to be with Him—presumably to Heaven.

Nonetheless, none of these texts actually say Heaven is the eternal destination of believers. The Christian hope and inheritance are currently being prepared and preserved for us in Heaven, but that does not mean that they will stay there. John saw “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven” (Rev. 21:2). Likewise, the country Abraham sought is heavenly, but it is not necessarily in Heaven. Genesis 17:8 promised Abraham the land of his sojourning as an eternal possession, and we should expect Abraham to receive precisely what God promised: eternal possession of the land in which he sojourned.⁶ The country Abraham looked forward to was heavenly not because it was located in Heaven but because it would one day be characterized by Heaven.

The hope for an “earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:13) finds its roots in the Old Testament expectation of a physical, earthly kingdom of the Messiah. Isaiah speaks of the Spirit-empowered Davidic Messiah righteously ruling over an earth in which both animal and human aggression are put to an end (Isa. 11–12). Amos ties the rule of the Davidic Messiah to the abundant fruitfulness of the earth (Amos 9:11–15). Joel also emphasizes the abundance of the earth, and he connects this to Yahweh’s ruling from Zion (Joel 3:17, 18). The Psalms anticipate that Zion will be the location of future salvation (Psalms 2:6; 14:7; 53:6; 110:2). Isaiah envisions Zion as the location where Yahweh will rule the world in justice (Isa. 2:1–4; cf. Mic. 4:1–7; Jer. 31:1–12). He also connects a future Jerusalem with the new heavens and new earth (Isa. 65:17–19). Of this rule of the Messiah “there shall be no end” (Isa. 9:7; Luke 1:33).⁷

The New Testament presents the same hope found in the Old. The future hope of an earthly kingdom ruled by the Messiah remained the expectation of the disciples. Though Christ told them they could not know the time of the visible arrival of the kingdom, he did not deny their understanding of its earthly nature (Acts 1:6–8).

Revelation 21:1 and 2 Peter 3:13 provide the most explicit revelation of a new heavens and new earth.⁸ John says he “saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.” Peter said that the new heaven and the new earth are the hope to which Christians are looking forward. And Romans 8:18–25 teaches that the creation is also awaiting redemption. When our bodies are redeemed, the creation will itself be set free from its corruption.

Less directly, we have the promise that the meek will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5), that Abraham will be heir of the world (Rom. 4:13), and that humans will enjoy food and drink in the eternal state (Luke 22:16, 30).

The emphasis on the bodily resurrection of the saints on the new earth is important because sin affected not only man’s spirit but also his body. First Corinthians 15 discusses the role of the Second Adam in the context of the resurrection of the body. When Adam and Eve sinned, they died in their inner man. Eventually they would also die in their body. The reverse is true in salvation. Paul says that the Christian’s inner man is being renewed day by day even as the outer man wastes away (2 Cor. 4:16). At the resurrection the outer man will be renewed also (2 Cor. 5:1–5). Paul calls this resurrection “the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23). The Bible does not draw a line between the spiritual which is worthy of being saved and the physical which is unimportant. Paul says if Christians do not have the hope of the resurrected body they are of all men most miserable.

Romans 8 connects the resurrection of our bodies with the restoration of the world. The Fall affected every aspect of creation, and God intends for redemption to reverse the effects of the fall on every area that it affected. Eternity will surely be a place of tremendous worship and praise of God in speech and song. (Though it precedes eternity, Revelation 4 and 5 probably give some glimpse of eternal worship.) But Christians also have the hope of serving God forever in His marvelous unfallen new earth for all eternity in glorified bodies free from the effects of the fall (Rev. 22:3). And as we go about our service on the new earth, we will no doubt praise God for His marvelous re-creation. In the present fallen world, we revel in the beauty of clear mountain streams, we savor the taste of fresh fruit, and we marvel the complexity of ecosystems. How much more will we rejoice at the beauty of the river that flows from the throne of God and savor the twelve kinds of fruit that will grow each month on the tree of life and marvel at the wisdom of God in all His creation. In eternity the world will no longer groan with the burden of the Fall, and we will be glorified in body and spirit to see what God has done so that we rightly give Him glory for all that we see.

Brian Collins is a Bible integration assistant at BJU Press and a Ph.D. candidate at Bob Jones University Seminary.

(Originally published in FrontLine • May/June 2010. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.)

1. This is not to claim that the ideas presented here are novel. The basic concept can be found in the Reformers, Candlish, Bavinck, Pentecost, McClain, Hoekema, Blaising, and others. [↩]
2. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1981), 884–85; cf. 887. [↩]
3. Ibid., 879. [↩]
4. Ibid., 881. [↩]
5. Ibid., 877. [↩]
6. How can Abraham receive the Promised Land if the earth is destroyed and re-created? Perhaps the best analogy is the resurrection body. Resurrection bodies are clearly different than the bodies Christians now have, and there is no indication that God is going to re-create these bodies using the same molecules. Nevertheless, there is a clear continuity between the dead person and the resurrected person. Likewise with the new earth: there will be enough continuity for God to fulfill the land promise to Abraham. [↩]
7. Old Testament passages that describe the future messianic kingdom are often seen as millennial. Some passages such as Zechariah 14 which speak of the Messiah ruling from Zion are clearly millennial since they include elements that cannot be the case in the eternal state. Isaiah 65–66, however, contains a mixture of elements, some of which only fit the eternal state and others which only fit the Millennium. Prophetic books mix time periods in this manner. Other prophetic passages that refer to future blessing on earth centered on the Davidic Messiah ruling from Zion could well refer to both the Millennium and the New Heavens and Earth. [↩]
8. The mention of “heavens” in “new heavens and earth” should be understood to refer to the created heavens. The point of comparison is Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven[s] and the earth. [↩]