Ep. 278: Heaven

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio conversation.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the indoubt podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week, we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s Word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca, or indoubt.com.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt. My name’s Daniel Markin, And today I’m joined by Dr. John Neufeld. Dr. John, it’s good to see you. It’s been a while since we last spoke. You’ve been busy, up to a lot of things, including sipping Starbucks coffee from your leaky cup, and writing a book.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. I’ve got a leaky cup from Starbucks.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah.

Dr. John Neufeld:

That’s right. Starbucks gave me a cup that actually leaks out the bottom. So Daniel, it’s not a perfect world, after all.

Daniel Markin:

It’s not a perfect world, after all. But you do have to admire the cleverness in Starbucks, to get you a come back. Right? “My cup leaked.” “Oh, I’m sorry. Well, would you like to purchase a sandwich now?” That’s how they get you in the end, right? That’s how they get you.

Dr. John Neufeld:

That’s right.

Daniel Markin:

They lure you in. Oh man. Fantastic to see you, though. And our paths crossed like a month or two ago; you were popping by West Side, doing some filming.

Dr. John Neufeld:

I did. I did.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. I enjoyed the time I spent with you. It wasn’t long enough, but we just connected a bit, and it’s great to see you again, my friend.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, it was. So listen, we got a great show planned ahead, because you have some great work that you’ve been working on. And I don’t want to give it all away, but you’ve written a book. So would you tell us, the people, what have you written? What have you been doing? And are you excited right now, to tell us about your new project?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. It’s the second book I’ve written, now. So I guess in my old age, I don’t know, I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks, after all. Right? But this one is called Heaven and Hell. It’s a biblical perspective of the life to come. So, Heaven and Hell, and some pretty stark realism, as to what the Bible teaches in both of those cases.

Daniel Markin:

Wow. And so this topic, heaven and hell, I haven’t spent a ton of time thinking about it since doing my masters. Because we studied Francis Chan’s book, Erasing Hell, and Rob Bell’s book Love Wins. But that to me, the heaven/hell discussion really signifies almost back to, I feel like early 2010s; 10 years ago, that was a real hot button discussion. Why did you feel the need to write this book now? Do you think that we’ve just kind of forgotten?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. That was a hot discussion back then; however, it was a hot discussion in some circles. So if you’re reading Francis Chan, if you’re reading Rob Bell, you are on board with that. But I’m going to say that the majority of people that just went to church on a Sunday morning probably had never heard a sermon on either subject, at least in depth. Every once in a while I get someone say to me, “The last thing we need is another sermon on the horrors of hell.” And my response always is, “Tell me when the last time was that you heard a sermon on it.” And most everybody says to me, “Actually, I’ve never heard a sermon on it.”

Dr. John Neufeld:

So, when people say we don’t need another hellfire and brimstone preacher, well, they’ve never had one. That’s in another era. And if I could add one more thing to it, those things that we stop preaching about in one generation, we stop believing in the next generation. So I would argue that Rob Bell’s book made the news because Rob bell, I think, was at a place where he was saying, “Look, nobody’s talking about it anyway. So maybe it’s time, as Francis Chan said, just to erase it.”

Daniel Markin:

I think you’re right. A lot of churches tend to avoid this issue. And I think we’ve really, as the church, made the mistake of trying to woo people, and get them to come into our buildings, to get them to be in the church, to like church. And teaching about heaven would be a good thing. But teaching about hell, which I think the two are very intertwined, as we’ll get into here. But that’s something that, if you’re bringing a new person, trying to win them to Christ, as we think in our kind of evangelistic win-some way, that’s not a discussion that we want to be having.

Dr. John Neufeld:

No. I think one of the reasons why we don’t want the discussion, is because a lot of people haven’t figured out in their own minds, “How could the God that I believe in actually send someone to hell?” So there’s a disconnect in their minds. And so, I’m going to argue that one of the reasons that disconnect actually exists, is because I think that we actually have a wrong concept of God. So, the altogether, righteous God, who’s filled with wrath because of the unrighteousness of the world. We don’t want to talk about that. We think that if we actually mention that, as you said, to unbelievers, they’d say, “You know what? I don’t think I’d be interested in that.” So we’re filled with, “Can we change the narrative of scripture? And if we do, won’t we be better at reaching people, than if we simply leave the narrative as it is?”

Daniel Markin:

Absolutely. Well, I want to talk today then, about heaven. Tell us, what are some of the popular misconceptions about heaven right now? Because I’ll give you a few; and especially in popular media, right, you imagine people floating on the clouds, that’s heaven. Or, for example, if anyone has watched Lost, everyone kind of wakes up on the other side, and it’s all bright and white; but everyone’s there, and they’re all happy, happy to see each other. We get various different, I think there was even a show recently about people who go to heaven. And it was kind of a popular sitcom that has just emerged.

Daniel Markin:

So people do think about it. It does take place in our culture. We will say, “Oh, they’re going to a better place. Oh, people are looking down on us.” What are some of the misconceptions that people in our society today, largely a unbelieving society, you could even argue, a pagan society. What are they saying about heaven? And what does the Bible then teach, in contrast to heaven? Do we get some things right and some things wrong, or are we completely wrong as a society?

Dr. John Neufeld:

That there is a life to come, we’re right about that. So, after that, I’m not sure; because a couple of things. Number one, I think in the popular modality, heaven is seen as the default position of everyone. In fact, study after study shows that there are more people that believe in heaven, than actually believe in God. So, if you believe anything about the life to come, the popular modality is, “We’re all going to heaven.” Now, if you lived in the Middle Ages, the popular modality is, “We’re all going to hell.” So I’m just simply saying, it might be time to actually say, “What does scripture actually teach?” So I think that’s one of the misconceptions of heaven. It’s just the default position.

Dr. John Neufeld:

The second misconception of heaven is, as you’ve mentioned, is that it in some way is other-worldly. What I mean by that, is it’s not physical. It’s not filled with sights and sounds and smells. And even among Christian people, I sometimes hear them say, “Well, we’re going to know everything in heaven.” As if heaven is some kind of a static experience, in which there’s no growing, experiencing, there’s no learning, there’s no actual projects that we are called upon to complete. And the idea of sight and sounds and smells, and of an eagle crying in the sky, and of the experience of nature; we don’t think of heaven in that fashion. And because we don’t, I’m going to say, we are physical beings, and because we don’t think in physical terms, we tend not to want it, because we think that this life actually is more suited to our humanity than the life to come.

Daniel Markin:

Right. This life is more physical than the life that is to come.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. So the idea of a resurrection of the body doesn’t occur to a lot of people.

Daniel Markin:

So let me ask you on that first piece, because you were talking about there was a shift from the Middle Ages, where the default position was to hell; and now, we have a default position to heaven. What event in history shifted that?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Well, I think historically, we went through the Enlightenment, where we began to question the church’s supremacy to dictate what society should think. And so, we moved from that to let’s say, a more scientific mentality, which is not a bad thing. That’s a good thing, I would argue, because science is nothing other than the observation of nature. But at the same time, we move from that, to the idea that God is not the center of the universe, but we are. Even if you think about how theology often gets played out in people’s minds, it’s really all about, “How can I be fulfilled? And how can I reach my, whatever thing that I want to have? I want to reach some kind of a goal or objective in my life.” So we tend to think of religion that way.

Dr. John Neufeld:

But I said, first of all, I think it was the Enlightenment. And then, consequent naturalism, and then the belief that human reason was supreme, and we were not dependent on revelation. In the end of the day, we began to say, “Yeah, that sounds like what it should be.” But the problem with naturalism is, that naturalism is the extinction of personality at death. And that’s just way too frightening for most people to come to terms with. We don’t like it.

Dr. John Neufeld:

And secondly, let me say on that issue, that the belief that there is a life after this one, is so pervasive in the human race, there is not a culture or a history, in human history, in which the afterlife did not play a major part of human beings’ thinking; and it continues to do so. So, we’ve stopped believing in God, but we haven’t stopped believing in heaven. So the Western society has shifted dramatically; but the belief in heaven is there, because I’m going to say it’s a part of being created in the image of God.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. I like that. I think we desire. Was it CS Lewis who said, “If you desire something beyond what this world can offer, right, then you’re clearly, your desire is for something greater, and it must be only something God can provide.” And I think an aspect of that is, you look at our physical world, which is under a curse, by the way.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yep.

Daniel Markin:

And we do long; there’s a longing, a righteous longing, especially in believers, for that to end. And there’s a righteous longing to be with Christ, and to be with Him, in the person. Because every one of us, unless you have been blessed with the opportunity in a moment, to actually see the Lord in a dream, or in a vision, right? To experience that, a lot of us aren’t going to see Him; and we can know Him, but I think deep down, we want to, again, experience that relationship that the apostles experienced. And so, heaven is a promise of that.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. It’s a promise. It’s a promise that there is an eternal future awaiting each one of us; and the Bible does affirm that. Now, I want to say something about that. It’s not as if being human means that we go on forever. We only exist moment by moment, because Christ wills us to do so. We will continue to exist in eternity, because Christ wills us to do so. I say that, because we shouldn’t have a view of heaven as if we are eternal beings, simply because we are eternal beings. Only God is a non-dependent being. So, He depends on nothing for His own existence. He exists as a necessity. We don’t.

Dr. John Neufeld:

So I’m going to say, being human means we don’t know everything, being human means we’re vulnerable, being human means that we only exist because of God’s permission. So, that is a part of what it means to be human; and the fact that God has prepared a life to come for every single human being, is because God has declared it to be so. So, this being in the image of God, and this belief that we will outlive our own death, it is just basically rooted into the system because God has put it there; but it’s not by necessity. It’s there because of the will of God.

Daniel Markin:

That’s a really interesting perspective on that. And I think that’s something that we would’ve missed, because it’s actually important to know that, “Yeah. God has a complete plan in this, and He’s completely sovereign over it. All the world is Christ.” So every… If we talk about this idea of dominion, we are ambassadors of the kingdom of God, as He exercises dominion on this earth. And so, He wants to bring His kingdom forth. He wants people to experience His kingdom, and He wants His people to know Him as the king. And so, it sounds like an invitation, which is something that’s fantastic. Not that it’s like this default place, but it’s Christ wills it, and we get to be part of His Supreme plan, to His Glory.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. This is not only true of ourselves, but it’s also true of the natural order. Now, 1 Peter says that, “The natural order is going to be burned up.” And, “However, that God will create a new heavens and a new earth, and that the new heavens and the new earth, like our body.” So if I can put the two as an analogy to one another, we are going to die, and our body is going to be put into the earth, and it will decay. However, God will raise our own physical body, and it will be like the body that we have now. It will have fingers and toes, and it’ll have a sense of interacting with the world; that’s physical. In the same way, the universe itself will be rolled up as a scroll. It will be burned. And yet, God, out of that, will recreate the universe, and it will exist for all of eternity.

Dr. John Neufeld:

And so, the life to come; and here’s what I’m going to say about the life to come. We are called upon to rule and reign with Christ, which means that we are called to rule and reign over all the works of God’s hands, which is, I’m going to say, it’s a science fiction, it’s an interstellar, it’s a job description, that we are involved in for all of eternity. And heaven really is earthly; it’s physical, it’s, as I’ve said before, with sights and smells and sounds. And it also comes with learning, growing, creating, and extending the rule of Christ over all things. So, the connection between this world and the world to come is very real. It’s in this world that we learn how to rule and reign with Christ, so that in the next world, having been faithful in a little, we are put in charge over much. Those are Jesus’ words.

Daniel Markin:

Wow. It sounds a lot like sort of the task that was given to Adam and Eve in the garden; they were to rule, to tend, to cultivate the garden. And we understand those as good things, which ultimately became corrupted out of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. So, in the New Heavens and New Earth, it’ll be that, but so much greater, because now we rule and reign with Christ. Because my understanding is that yes, Adam and Eve walked with God; but I would love to hear your thoughts on this. What we will experience is much greater, because we will walk not only with God, but with Christ, himself.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. Now see, there’s so much in what you’ve just said. And I could pick it up at a number of different places. So let me just give a shotgun blast at everything that you’ve just said. So, Adam and Eve were given a charge; Adam’s first charge was to name the creatures. And the naming of the creatures, I think, is the beginning of the scientific enterprise. Because to name, is to understand. So he’s given the task to understand the creation, itself. I think, that in heaven, that’s one of the tasks we’ll be given: understand the creation. The curious human mind will want to know even how our redeemed human bodies work. I can conceive of, we’re not going to practice medicine to heal a diseased body, but we may practice it, to understand the human body. We’re human, so we seek to know.

Dr. John Neufeld:

So having said that, however, you mentioned a number of other things. Adam and Eve also walk with God. That’s a part of their humanity. And when we read the book of Revelation, the 22nd chapter, we read about, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to earth. So we live on the New Earth, but the New Jerusalem comes out of heaven. And the passage actually says, “And there was no longer any sea.” Now people have often wondered why that statement is there. And there’s two possible reasons, but one of the reasons is that, in the ancient world, the sea was an uncrossable barrier. And that’s how we experience the distance between ourselves and God now. But then, there is no sea, so the barrier between God and ourselves is erased. The New Jerusalem comes down to earth. And the Bible actually explains, “The nations of the earth journey into Jerusalem to worship the great king.”

Dr. John Neufeld:

And I conceive of heaven exactly that way. We live on earth, but will regularly make pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem. And we will easily go there. The gates will never be shut. We will see the king as He actually is. And then after we have spent that season of worship, we will go back to the place where we have, and continue the work that God has given us to do; which we will do without envy, which we will do without warfare, which we will do without competition with another, but rather cooperation, so that we are creating something of the glory of God. And slowly, gradually, incrementally, over all creation, we are learning how to rule with Christ over all things.

Daniel Markin:

So, putting this in the perspective of eternity though, is there a point where we actually accomplish all of that, because we have an eternity to do it? Right? Yeah. Is there an end point?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Well, I don’t know, outside of this. It’s fascinating to me, when I see images of the Hubble telescope, for instance. And I remember the first time that actually was brought out on computer format. And I remember seeing it on my computer screen, some of the Hubble images. And then it was an interactive screen, so you’d look at what looked like a star, and you’d click on it, and you’d go closer. And you’d realize, “Oh, I’m not looking at a star. I’m actually looking at an entire solar system.” And then you recognize there are solar systems beyond number, and you begin to say, “Oh, my land sakes, we live in a solar system, the Milky Way. And yet, I don’t know how many more of these there actually are.” So, eventually, eternity means, “Do we actually plum it all?”

Dr. John Neufeld:

I don’t know. Perhaps the work of God’s creation, we’re not told, carries on; but it doesn’t seem like when you think about out the creativity of God, that it knows any end. And so, I don’t know. After we’ve been in heaven for a million years, and we have progressed; and I’m going to say progressed. We won’t have sinned; we won’t struggle with sin anymore, but there are things that we will learn and grow, and learn how to rule and reign with Christ in a more efficient fashion. I don’t know where that’ll all take us. But I do think we need to see the life to come in those terms; not static, but dynamic, growing. And if eternity itself can encompass that, I don’t exactly know how that works, but that’s the vision that we’re given.

Daniel Markin:

Hmm. I like what you’re saying about the old creation, and then obviously, Christianity teaches this New Creation. And I think it’s an important way of explaining it. There’s the Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration paradigm, right, that we will often use. I’ve often found it really helpful to say, Creation, Fall, Redemption, Recreation, because I think that helps to bring that all together, that, “No, it’s going to be the created order, but recreated so much better, without folly, without any sort of error. There’s no brokenness, there’s nothing. It’s the New Heavens, the New Earth.

Daniel Markin:

Here’s my question, though. That is an event that’s going to be happening in history. And from what I can tell, at the moment of this recording, Christ has not returned. We are still sitting in our little respective studios. We’re not currently with Him in glory. So what happens to everyone who has died, gone to heaven, before this return of Christ, and the ushering in of the New Kingdom?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. That’s a great question, because that is the question by the way, that leads to the writing of 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians, because in the Thessalonian church, that’s probably the first letter that Paul has written; perhaps Galatians is before that. But nonetheless, the question is, Paul has been there for a short period of time. He has told them something about the hope that they have. And now, some of the people have died. And they’re in a panic, and they want to say, “Well, what happens now?” So, the Bible has given us a wonderful map of that already.

Dr. John Neufeld:

So, we know that Paul, on a number of places, says, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” So when when we die, we know that the body dies, and the act of death is to tear the soul from the body. So in that moment, something happens to us that’s never happened to us before. At our creation, we were created body and soul together. And now, this is the most unnatural of events, that our soul and our body are torn from each other. And yet, Paul says, “To be absent is to be present with the Lord.”

Dr. John Neufeld:

We have images; Jesus tells a parable of the rich man in Lazarus, and immediately after death, and before the second coming, both of them are already experiencing a life in the world to come. We also have, in Revelation, “The souls who are under the altar, who are crying out, ‘How long until you avenge our blood?'” So they have a question. Even in the Old Testament, you remember Saul, he calls upon a witch, and she resurrects Samuel, and is shocked, because she’s a huckster, and never expected Samuel to actually show up; and Saul cries out in terror, as well. And so, clearly, Samuel is experiencing a life before the Second Coming, before the resurrection of the new body.

Dr. John Neufeld:

So, the question that we’re often asked is, “In this interim period, what is the life of the believer who has put their hope in Christ, and who has now had experience of their soul being torn from their body?” Well, one, we know that they are consciously present before the Lord. But what’s the nature of that experience? And the Bible tells us precious little; but here’s what I think. You might remember in 2 Corinthians, Paul says, “He was taken up into the Third Heaven.” And then he adds, “Whether in the body or out of the body, I don’t know.” In other words, the experience was so vivid, and now that he thinks about his experience of being taken into the dwelling place of God, he’s wondering about, “What was the nature of that? Was I actually, bodily there, because it felt so real, and yet, I’m not sure at the same time.”

Dr. John Neufeld:

So is this intermediate period, in which believers immediately going to the presence of God, does the experience of it feel bodily, even while we await for our final body? I tend towards that view, although I can’t say it with an absolute assurance; but I can say also with Paul, however, “It’s better by far.”

Dr. John Neufeld:

So here’s my analogy. Imagine you’re living in Tuktoyaktuk in January; and if you don’t know where that is, it’s way up north, right? And it’s in the Land of the Midnight Sun, but it’s also in the Land of the Midnight Darkness. But you’ve been told, “You’ve got a beautiful house that’s been purchased for you, on the shores of Maui.” And that’s where you’re going. So the day comes, and you catch your flight, and you’re on the way. But you have a layover in Vancouver; and Vancouver, compared to Tuktoyaktuk, is better by far; but Maui in January, well, that’s way better than that.

Dr. John Neufeld:

So I think it’s an analogy that might work. I’m not saying that when we die, it’s not perfect, because heaven has got to be perfect. But yet, we await for the resurrection of the body. And yet, we experience a life that is far better. Daniel, given that we are created as physical beings, you’ve got to say to yourself, “Well, physical beings live physically. So how is it that we haven’t received a resurrection body, and yet, we are experiencing life as so much richer than we’ve experienced it before. How does that actually work?” So the best analogy that I can think of is, it’s probably similar to what Paul has experienced when he went to the Third Heaven.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. That’s a fantastic illustration of that. We say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” And we hope that’s now, but it’s going to be, like you said, it’s the upgrade, in that sense, from Tuktoyaktuk to Vancouver. And ultimately, that being the upgrade of being with Christ, now in person, is going to be amazing. So John, we’re coming to the end of our time here. I’ll give you the last word, just as we are kind of closing up our program. But where can people get your book?

Dr. John Neufeld:

Yeah. As far as I know, just get onto Back to the Bible website, backtothebible.ca, and order it right here, at Back to the Bible, and you’ll be sent a copy. And you’ll find on our website that the book is being offered, in the month of November, for free. So you’ll be able to get that simply by either getting on the website, or you can contact us as well, just on the phone.

Daniel Markin:

Perfect. So, we will include all that information as well in the show notes, or you can find it on the website. But John, thank you for your time, and we look forward to speaking again soon.

Dr. John Neufeld:

Thanks for having me, Dan; always a delight.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes or Spotify, or visit us online at indoubt.ca, or incoubt.com. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.