Not Just A State Of Being

Not Just a State of Being

Excerpted from “A Prepared Place for a Prepared People” Sermon #2751, May 25, 1879

When some people think of Heaven, they imagine disembodied souls floating around among the clouds. But that’s not the picture the Bible paints of the New Earth. We, as both physical and spiritual beings, will inhabit a literal Heaven on Earth. The Bible says so!

He arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to celebrate. Luke 15:20-24

Spurgeon • When the prodigal son came back to his father, there was the preparation of the fatted calf, the music and dancing, and the gold ring and the best robe. Then what will be the preparation when we come home not as prodigals but as the bride prepared for her husband or as the beloved children, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, returning to the Father, who shall see his own image in us and rejoice over us with singing?

It is a grand place that Christ prepares for us, for never was there such a royal host as he is. It is a mansion of delights that Christ prepares, for never was there another architect with thought so magnificent as his. Never were other hands so skilled at quarrying living stones and putting them one upon another. This thought ought to cheer us much. It must be something very wonderful that Christ prepares as a suitable place for his people.

And it must be something very sweet when it is finally prepared. An honored guest cannot help observing that he is being treated with special recognition. That guest room appears newly furnished, and everything that was possible has been put there to do him honor. If you were such a guest, you would take pleasure in the fact that so much had been prepared for you. When you get to Heaven, you will be astonished to see this and that and the other joy that was prepared for you because Christ thought of you and provided just what you would most appreciate.

You will be no stranger there, beloved. You will say, “There has been over here a hand that helped me when I was in distress. There has been over here, I know, an eye that saw me when I was wandering far from God. There has been, in this place, a heart that cared for me—that very same heart that loved me and bled for me down below upon the cross. It is my Savior who has prepared this place for me!”

If Christ is preparing Heaven, then it will be what our Scotch friends call “a bonny place.” And if it be prepared for us, when we get there, it will exactly fit us. It will be the very Heaven we wanted—a better Heaven than we ever dreamed of. A better Heaven than we ever pictured, even when our imagination took its loftiest flights. The Heaven of God, and yet a Heaven exactly suited to the happy creatures we shall then be.

Jesus Christ has gone to prepare a place for his people. Does this not refer, if we keep it to its strict meaning, to the ultimate place of God’s people? You see, Christ mentions a place, not a state. And he speaks of going to it and coming back from it: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3). Christ is speaking of himself as fully human, without any figurative meaning to his words. He means that he is going, with all his human nature, away from this world and that he is going to prepare a place for us, intending to come again with all that glorified human nature to receive us to himself.

This does not mean his spiritual coming in death. I am persuaded that the clear meaning of the words involves our Lord’s second advent, when he will come to receive us. Not you or me as individuals who, one by one, will enter into rest, but to receive his whole church into the place he shall then have prepared for her. After the Resurrection, you must remember, we shall need a place to live in—a literal, material place of residence. For these bodies of ours will be alive as well as our spirits, and they will need a world to live in, a New Heaven and a New Earth.

Christ is preparing a place not for disembodied spirits, for they are already before the throne of God perfectly blessed. No, a place for the entire personhood of his people, when spirit, soul, and body shall be again united and we as complete people shall receive the adoption—that is, the redemption of our bodies. Then the complete personhood of every believer shall be perfected in the glory of Christ.

Alcorn • We shouldn’t be surprised when Scripture speaks of Heaven in tangible and material ways. Nor should we feel it’s necessary to take such references figuratively. Spurgeon says, “After the Resurrection, you must remember, we shall need a place to live in—a literal, material place of residence. For these bodies of ours will be alive as well as our spirits, and they will need a world to live in, a New Heaven and a New Earth.”

Countless interpretations of Heaven have stemmed from an erroneous view of the eternal state, with the result that passages with clear, straightforward meanings, such as eating and drinking together in the eternal Kingdom, are viewed as metaphorical references to the communion of spirits. But Scripture is unwavering in its physical descriptions of the New Earth.

The writers of Scripture present Heaven in many ways, including as a garden, a city, and a kingdom. Because gardens, cities, and kingdoms are familiar to us, they afford us a bridge to understanding Heaven. When Marco Polo returned to Italy from the court of Kublai Khan, he was describing a world his audience had never seen, so he had to appeal to people’s imaginations. China was not an imaginary realm, of course, but it was very different from Italy. He used Italy as a reference point to help people understand China. But if in the end his listeners thought China wasn’t a literal place, Marco Polo’s communication would have been in vain.^a

We cannot anticipate or desire what we cannot imagine. That’s why, I believe, God has given us glimpses of Heaven in the Bible to fire up our imaginations and kindle a desire for Heaven in our hearts. Rather than ignoring our imaginations, I believe we should fuel them with Scripture.

Our misguided attempts to make Heaven sound “spiritual” (i.e., nonphysical) merely succeed in making Heaven sound unappealing. As human beings, whom God made to be both physical and spiritual, we are not designed to live in a nonphysical realm. We are not, as Plato supposed, merely spiritual beings temporarily encased in bodies. Adam did not become a “living being” until he was both body and spirit (Genesis 2:7, NIV). We are physical beings as much as we are spiritual beings. That’s why the bodily resurrection is so central in God’s plan of redemption—it is essential that God endow us with eternal, righteous humanity. In doing so, he sets our minds and bodies free from sin, the Curse, and death and equips us to fulfill God’s purpose for our lives. Only those with bodies can walk on and rule over the New Earth. A material world is occupied by material beings.

As Spurgeon puts it, “Christ is preparing a place not for disembodied spirits . . . [but] a place for the entire personhood of his people, when spirit, soul, and body shall be again united and we as complete people shall receive . . . the redemption of our bodies.”

^a Alister E. McGrath, A Brief History of Heaven, 5.