For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked. For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.
Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:1-8 (WEB)
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 11:38-12:3 (NIV)
I went to another funeral yesterday.
I recognized at that event, once again, how much I still emotionally reject the idea that those I love, who have departed my physical sight “in Christ,” are, in fact, still present with me “in Christ.” And I think I know why, too.
The reason I want, emotionally, to keep the departed in a distant and isolated “Heaven,” while simultaneously wishing desperately it were otherwise, is that my old, sinful nature also wants the keep the Christ they have gone to be “with” in “Heaven” also, not all around me interfering with my plans!
I strongly suspect this is also the main, underlying reason that both organized Christianity and folk Christianity have worked hard for centuries to keep both the departed and God in a distant heaven–although a list of other reasons is given when any challenge is made.
The truth is that those who have left my sight in Christ are, in fact, more present with me now than they were when I could see them. They are more present now than they were before because their focus and priorities are now undivided, focused solely on Christ, who is building his Kingdom all around me and who lives within me. They are also more present now because they lack the limitations imposed on us who remain by our physical bodies in our present plane of existence.
I know, from my study of the Scriptures and from God’s assurances of the presence of his Kingdom here, all around me, that the Kingdom is all around me. It is invisible, spiritually discerned, but always and everywhere present. Jesus is the King, the Head–and also the heart–of that Kingdom. He is also God, an indivisible component–traditionally called a “person” (though this language is not strictly scriptural)–of the “Godhead” (another traditional term), the God who is Three–and also many–diverse–yet indivisibly one. And even those Christian theologians who most strongly insist that “Heaven”–the place of those who departed this existence in Christ–must be someplace else, entirely separate from our present existence also insist that he is omnipresent. If God is omnipresent, he is in this room with me.
So is the Father omnipresent, while his Son and those who have gone to be with him are not omnipresent, but are limited to an infinitely distant and isolated “Heaven?” This seems completely inconsistent.
But, in reality, this inconsistency is exactly what we humans normally seem to want. We want a god (the small “g” is intentional) who is just close enough to sometimes answer our prayers when we are in great need and show ourselves worthy, and who will someday–well beyond our lifetimes (2 Kings 20:19)–“return” to bring justice and set the world right. But we also want a God who isn’t right here with us meddling with our plans!
Keeping those who have gone to be “with the Lord” at that same distance from us serves the same purpose.
I have also had other reasons-none of them at all original–for thinking the “Heaven” where deceased believers go must be far, far away, but none of them really hold water. The one that has proved the biggest hindrance to me is this: it is said there will be “no more death, or mourning or crying or pain” in Heaven–something that is certainly true of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:4). Wouldn’t it cause my loved ones grief if they had to watch my failures here?
But there are two problems with this argument. The first is that, in time as we now see it, the “old order of things” has not “passed away” yet, and God is not yet visibly dwelling among his people on Earth (Revelation 21:3-4). So the time for “no more tears” has not yet come. The other problem is that those who are with Christ are fully with him, including being with him in his view of time. So any grief they feel for us, they feel along with Jesus, and they already know that the end of what they are seeing in our time will be very good.
