Most folks believe in some sort of afterlife. And after you boil things down, our beliefs fall into a predictable narrative. There’s a “good place” and a “bad place,” and the determiner of our fate will be the merits of our life. If we’re a good person, we’ll go to the good place. And if we’re not … uh-oh!
Most people think of heaven as a place where anybody would love to spend eternity as long as they’re allowed in—a notion that is more the product of the movies and literature than it is the Bible. For the Bible pictures heaven as something very different. Heaven is life with God. In fact, it will be impossible to avoid God in heaven.
Which makes me wonder: Why do people who don’t have time for God right now think heaven will be such a wonderful thing? My guess is many of them will be miserable. I think it was Dallas Willard who said, “I am thoroughly convinced that God will let everyone into heaven who, in his considered opinion, can stand it.”
It’s a statement that elicits a chuckle upon first hearing. But it also resonates with truth. For the Bible teaches that eternal life is not just about the future and our destiny, but it’s also about the here and now. It makes a difference in the kind of life we live.
To use terms that were part of my vocabulary when I was doing the research for my doctoral dissertation, eternal life is every bit as much qualitative as it is quantitative. For the “gospel” that Jesus preached wasn’t just, or even primarily, about a delightful destination when our time on this planet is over. It was every bit as much about a manner and quality of life that begins the moment we embrace Him by faith. His Kingdom isn’t something that we will experience someday when our earthly experience concludes. His Kingdom is something that ordinary people like us can live in right now.
I’m convinced all of us have some “good news” we build our lives on and believe can redeem our experience. Maybe it’s money … or success … or reputation … or health … or our family. In that sense, we all have a “gospel.” But Jesus’ gospel says God is present here and now and you can experience His favor and blessing within the parameters of this life.
My fear is that, in some circles, the church has distorted the gospel into nothing more than an all-access pass to heaven. It is primarily about our eternal destiny and the conditions of our afterlife. And here’s the fallout: If we don’t proclaim the gospel that Jesus taught, we’ll end up furthering and promoting some ideas He didn’t espouse.
The gospel is not just about eternity, as wonderful and as thrilling as that provision is. It’s also about the here and now—salvation for the despairing … hope for the desperate and forlorn … care for the disenfranchised … the addressing and healing of systemic injustice.
A lot of Christians live with what I call a “Beam me up, Scotty” approach to life. “God—get me out of this messed up place and whisk me off to heaven.” But in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said we should pray that what’s up there would come down here … “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10b). The gist of Jesus’ prayer is that the standards and principles of heaven would invade our families, our neighborhoods, our countries, our relationships, and our places of employment. And the only way that can happen is if people like us embrace the here-and-now dimension of our salvation and live out those values so they can come to bear upon those places.
Maybe—just maybe—salvation isn’t primarily about us getting into heaven. Maybe it’s just as much, if not more, about heaven getting fully and completely into us. And if that’s the case, eternal life isn’t an escape to some pristine and immaculate environment that can free us from the restraints of our current existence. It is, rather, an extension of the life we already live but in a setting where the presence of God is not intermittent and sporadic but, instead, constant and unmistakable.