On March 19, 2021, my father passed away. He was larger than life. Nobody who met him ever forgot him. And since his passing, I’ve thought more deeply about death and the afterlife.
One pervasive misconception is that we’ll spend eternity in heaven, gathered around God’s throne with the angels. Of course, this is a present reality—deceased saints are indeed worshiping God in heaven. Scripture is clear on this point (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; Rev. 6:9–10). But the church is often ignorant about what will transpire in the future after Christ’s second coming.
For the last hundred years or so, evangelicals have expended more energy on what precedes the eternal state—the nature of the tribulation, the millennial kingdom, and so on—than on the eternal state itself. Let’s examine what Scripture says about the new heavens and earth and consider a few points of encouragement.
New Cosmos
We find the most detailed account of the nature of the eternal state in Revelation 21–22. The challenge, though, is that John reveals his climactic vision using Old Testament symbolism drawn from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 1 Kings, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. To understand Revelation 21–22, one must understand the Old Testament.
John envisions “a new heaven and a new earth” (21:1; see Isa. 65:17; 66:22), but then he immediately sees a “holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven” (Rev. 21:2; see Isa. 52:1; 62:1–2). While these two images may strike us as odd, the progression from cosmos to city is natural. John isn’t describing two different realities but one. Notice the interpretation of these images in Rev. 21:3: “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man’” (see Lev. 26:11–12; Ezek. 37:27).
John equates the “new heaven” and “new earth” with the “new Jerusalem.” But that isn’t all. John later drills down into some specifics of the new cosmos: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life . . . also, on either side of the river, the tree of life” (Rev. 22:1–2; see Gen. 2:8–9; 3:22, 24; Ezek. 47:12). This cosmic city contains Edenic features. It’s a city-cosmos-garden! The readers of Revelation would’ve immediately connected the dots, as each image recalls the Old Testament, especially Genesis 1–2.
Creation of the Cosmos as God’s Sanctuary
The creation account in Genesis 1–2, one of the richest and most influential texts in all of Scripture, reveals that God intended the cosmos to function as his habitation, his sanctuary. Psalm 78:69 explicitly states, “He [the Lord] built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever” (see also 1 Chron. 28:2; Isa. 66:1–2). Michael Morales rightly concludes, “The cosmos was understood as a large temple and the temple as a small cosmos.”
We mustn’t miss this point: God created the world to function as his sanctuary—for heaven and earth to be one location—but this intention never came to pass. It’s like building a dream house and never moving in; God’s desire to dwell fully with humanity and creation never transpired in the way Genesis anticipated. On account of sin and disobedience, a great gulf separated heaven from earth. Yet God promised he would, at the end of history, bridge this gulf (see Isa. 40:1–5; 65:17; 66:22).
God created the world to function as his sanctuary—for heaven and earth to be one location—but this intention never came to pass.
Christ and the Beginning of the New Cosmos
John’s Gospel devotes considerable attention to Christ’s relationship to the temple and the new creation. For example, according to John 1:14, Jesus “became flesh and dwelt [eskēnōsen] among us.” The verb “dwelt” (skēnoō) should be rendered “to tabernacle.” The wording recalls texts such as Exodus 25:8–9, 33:7, and 40:34–35 that describe the construction of Israel’s “tabernacle” (skēnē). The idea is that God is now dwelling with his creation in the person of Christ. God’s presence in the backroom of Israel’s tabernacle and the later Solomonic temple foreshadowed Christ’s presence among his people. Heaven has come down.
Jesus claims in John 1:51 that Nathanael “will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Invoking the narrative of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28:10–19, Jesus claims to be the portal between heaven and earth. Christ has begun to unite heaven and earth.
Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus encourages his disciples by reminding them that his “Father’s house” has “many rooms” and that he must “go to prepare a place” for them (14:2). While it’s tempting to interpret Jesus’s words as a general reference to heaven, the language narrowly refers to the ingathering of redeemed humanity into the temple at the end of history (Ex. 15:17; Isa. 2:2; see also 2 Macc. 2:17–18; 1 En. 39:4; 71:16). Steve Bryan persuasively argues that “Jesus’ words . . . are not so much concerned with the removal of his followers from earth to heaven as they are about the dissolution of the divide between heaven and earth. . . . Jesus displaces the earthly dwelling place of God and also goes to the Father to prepare the heavenly dwelling of God to be the dwelling place of his people.”
Let’s synthesize John’s material: After Jesus’s death and resurrection, he ventures into the heavenly realm to construct the new cosmic temple; this new cosmic temple began with Jesus’s life—and especially, his resurrection—and extends to all those who believe in him. John’s Gospel underscores the new creation and Jesus’s departure. Whereas Matthew, Mark, and Luke accentuate Jesus’s ascension to the Father’s throne as the Son of Man to rule over creation, John underscores Jesus’s present and future role in creating the cosmic sanctuary. Christ promises to “come again” and “take” his disciples so they “may be” where he is in the eternal state (14:3).
Be Encouraged
The implications of Scripture’s teaching on this subject are immense. We will not spend eternity floating on clouds. We’ll enjoy something far better: life in the new earth ensconced in God’s glory. We’ll finally see him face to face.
Rather than saying we’ll “spend eternity in heaven,” it’s far more biblical to state we’ll “spend eternity on the new earth.” When I talk about death and the afterlife with my kids, I find they understand the concrete expression “new earth,” as the phrase communicates continuity and discontinuity.
It’s far more biblical to state we will ‘spend eternity on the new earth.’
My dad will remain in heaven, his soul only, until the resurrection. Then, when Christ comes a second time, at the end of history, he’ll give my dad a new body and my dad will be everything God created him to be. He and I, together with the saints, will inherit the new earth. My dad and I will once again enjoy each other’s company, play sports, laugh, and build all sorts of things. I miss him, of course, but I can’t wait to join him.
The Gospel Coalition