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Intermediate (Present) Heaven vs.
Eternal Heaven
.
What is
the distinction between the intermediate (present) Heaven and the eternal
Heaven (the New Earth)?
When a Christian dies, he or she enters into what theologians call the intermediate state, a transitional period between our past lives on Earth and our future resurrection to life on the New Earth.
Usually
when we refer to “Heaven,” we mean the place that Christians go when they die.
When we
tell our children “Grandma’s now in Heaven,” we’re referring to the
intermediate Heaven.
By definition, an intermediate
state or location is temporary.
Life in
the Heaven we go to when we die, where we’ll dwell prior to our bodily
resurrection, is “better by far” than living here on Earth under the
Curse, away from the direct presence of God (Philippians 1:23).
Still,
the intermediate Heaven is not our final destination.
Though
it will be a wonderful place, the intermediate Heaven is not the place we are
made for. It’s not the place God promises to refashion for us to live in
forever.
God’s children are destined for
life as resurrected beings on a resurrected Earth.
We must
not lose sight of our true destination. If we do, we’ll be confused and
disoriented in our thinking about where, and in what form, we will spend
eternity.
Will we live in Heaven forever?
The
answer to the question depends on what we mean by Heaven.
Will we
be with the Lord forever? Absolutely.
Since
Heaven is where God dwells, we’ll always be in Heaven.
But
will we always be with God in exactly the same place that Heaven is now?
No. In
the intermediate Heaven, we’ll be in Christ’s presence, and we’ll be joyful,
but we’ll be looking forward to our bodily resurrection and permanent
relocation to the New Earth.
It bears repeating because it
is so commonly misunderstood: When we die, believers in Christ will not go to
the Heaven where we’ll live forever.
Instead,
we’ll go to an intermediate Heaven.
In the
intermediate Heaven, we’ll await the time of Christ’s return to the earth, our
bodily resurrection, the final judgment, and the creation of the new heavens
and New Earth.
If we
fail to grasp this truth, we will fail to understand the biblical doctrine of
Heaven.
Everything
hinges on the resurrection. God does not abandon our bodies, nor does he
abandon the earth itself.
It may seem strange to say that
the Heaven we go to at death isn’t eternal, yet it’s true.
“Christians
often talk about living with God ‘in heaven’ forever,” Grudem writes.
“But in
fact the biblical teaching is richer than that: it tells us that there will be
new heavens and a new earth — an entirely renewed creation — and we will live
with God there... There will also be a new kind of unification of heaven and
earth... There will be a joining of heaven and earth in this new creation.”
Let me suggest an imperfect
analogy to illustrate the difference between the intermediate Heaven and the
eternal Heaven.
Suppose
you lived in a homeless shelter in Miami.
One day
you inherit a beautiful house, fully furnished, on a gorgeous hillside
overlooking Santa Barbara, California.
With
the home comes a wonderful job doing something you’ve always wanted to do. Not
only that, but you’ll also be near close family members who moved from Miami
many years ago.
On your
flight to Santa Barbara, you’ll change planes in Dallas, where you’ll spend an
afternoon.
Some
other family members, whom you haven’t seen in years, will meet you at the
Dallas airport and board the plane with you to Santa Barbara.
You
look forward to seeing them.
Now, when the Miami ticket agent asks you, “Where are you
headed?” would you say “Dallas”?
No. You
would say Santa Barbara, because that’s your final destination.
If you
mentioned Dallas at all, you would only say, “I’m going to Santa Barbara by
way of Dallas.”
When you talk to your friends
in Miami about where you’re going to live, would you focus on Dallas?
No. You
might not even mention Dallas, even though you will be a Dallas-dweller for
several hours.
Even if
you spent a week in Dallas, it wouldn’t be your focus.
Dallas is
just a stop along the way. Your true destination — your new permanent home — is
Santa Barbara.
Similarly, the Heaven we will
go to when we die, the intermediate Heaven, is a temporary dwelling place, a
stop along the way to our final destination: the New Earth.
(Granted, the Dallas analogy
breaks down big time, since being with Jesus and reunited with loved ones in
the intermediate Heaven will be immeasurably more wonderful, to say the least,
than a lay-over in Dallas! But hopefully you get the point.)
Another analogy is more precise
but difficult to imagine, because for most of us it’s outside our experience.
Imagine
leaving the homeless shelter in Miami and flying to the intermediate location,
Dallas, and then turning around and going back home to your place of origin,
which has been completely renovated — a New Miami.
In this
New Miami, you would no longer live in a homeless shelter, but in a beautiful
house in a glorious pollution-free, crime-free, sin-free city.
So, you
would end up living not in a new home, but a radically improved version of your
old home.
This is what the Bible promises
us — we will live with Christ and each other forever, not in the intermediate
Heaven, but on the New Earth, where God — Father, Son (eternally incarnate) and
Holy Spirit — will be at home with his people.
Of course, God will no more be
confined to the New Earth than He is now confined to the intermediate Heaven.
God is
everywhere present. But his special dwelling, what he regards as his home (and
ours) will be on the New Earth, where He will dwell with His people.
Revelation 21:1-3 is
explicit on this point: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth... I saw
the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God... And I
heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with
men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will
be with them and be their God’” - (Revelation 21:1-3).
Heaven, God’s central dwelling
place, will one day be with his resurrected people, on the New Earth.
For more
information on the subject of Heaven, see Randy Alcorn’s book Heaven.
Randy Alcorn (@randyalcorn) is the author of fifty-some books and the
founder and director of Eternal
Perspective Ministries.
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