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Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. We want this podcast to equip Christians with a better understanding of the rich theology that undergirds our faith. And hopefully along the way, we'll be looking at some that have even been misunderstood or maybe threatened in the church's history. We'll point out the biblical evidence, the arguments, and work together to reshape our thinking, be transformed by the renewal of our minds with scripture and reason as we think theologically together. Because, as the title of the podcast tells you, Doctrine Matters. As we continue to think about eschatology, and in particular, personal eschatology, I want us to think about a glorious topic. Heaven. Last week we talked about hell. We need to. Jesus says a lot about hell. The whole Bible talks about God's wrath, but we also want to talk about heaven. How many of us in America, especially of a certain age, grew up with a big fat Norton anthology book of world literature, American literature? I know I did, growing up in the public school. And in that 1500 page book with paper thin pages, we always had an entry from Jonathan Edwards, sinners in the hands of an angry God. And well, that's true, they preached that sermon. But the, the, the not so subtle implication was always, this is what Puritans believe. This is what Puritanism was about. This is what Calvinism was about. This is what early America was about. This is what traditional Christianity is like. It's all fire and brimstone. Well, we ought to ask the question whether the Bible has fire and brimstone. It does. But as many people pointed out, Jonathan Edwards, who famously preached that sermon, also preached sermons like, heaven is a world of love. And there was just as much about the excellencies of Christ, more in fact, in Edwards, in the Puritans. And when we come to the Bible, we have to, we get to look at not only what it says about God's wrath, but about the wonders of heaven. Do believers go to heaven when they die? That may seem like an obvious question, but in recent years I have found some Christians expressing concern and maybe with a little bit of their nose turned up. Well, the evangelical church has been too concerned with, quote, going to heaven when we die. This has trickled down. Some of this angst from perhaps missional theologians who worry that traditional Christianity does not have a place for total cosmic renewal. It's all just escaping this world. And we've imagined some ethereal eternity where we strum on harps and we float around and we are disembodied souls. And so there's a desire to want to correct that. Well, to the degree that there's a lopsided view or a caricature, then it ought to be corrected. We don't want to reduce our hope to some heavenly, beam me up into the clouds. We do wait. All things to be made new. And yet, as a pastor and really just a Christian who has to talk to people in their final days or in the hospital bed, you are very quickly going to have to decide whether you think people, quote, go to heaven when they die. Do Christians. Do dying saints go to heaven? Now? They. They may need to be taught all throughout their life that all the cosmos will be renewed and what a glory it will be to have a resurrected body and heaven coming down to earth. That's great, but they're going to come and breathe their last, and they want to know, what is that next moment going to be like. The good news is that God's promises are fulfilled not only in the distant future, but the near future. And for dying saints, in their very next breath. Paul talks about the heavenly dwelling waiting for him once he died, Second Corinthians 5, the joy he would have to depart and be with Christ. Yeah, some Christians may have an underdeveloped eschatology that doesn't touch on New Testament themes, but many of these same Christians have a sweet, simple longing for heaven. And that is even more important. A. Yes, to die and go to a better place. It's not just a better place where we. We just have our family and we get to play football. It's. We need to have Christological New Testament categories for it. But, yes, there is wonderful good news that believers go to heaven when they die. Now, to talk a little bit more inelegantly about this theology, this is often called the intermediate state. That's not a great title because, boy, that sounds boring and drab. There's something really good coming. And first we have to go to the intermediate state. But what theologians mean by this term is the condition of blessedness afforded the righteous and the condition of punishment experienced by the wicked. Here's how the Westminster Larger Catechism puts it. The communion in glory with Christ, which members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death, is in that their souls are then made perfect in holiness, received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue united to Christ and rest in their graves, as in their beds, till at the last day they be again united to their souls, whereas the souls of the wicked are at their death cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, and their bodies kept in their graves, as in their prisons, till the resurrection, the judgment of the great day. So that's what theologians mean by the intermediate state. Now, notice the Catechism there denies the doctrine of purgatory, so there's no thought that the dead undergo further purification. This Catholic doctrine, along with the selling of indulgences, prayers for the dead, finds no support in the canonical Scriptures, and it's frankly not consistent with the finality and sufficiency of Christ's atoning work. Notice also the larger Catechism rejects any notion of soul sleep. We don't hear much about that today, but the idea has been around for a long time that souls simply sleep. They go into a state of unconsciousness in between death and the final resurrection. Well, the examples of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, as well as the numerous passages expressing the joy that believers will experience after death, this rule out. These rule out a belief in soul sleep. Catechism looks forward to the resurrection of the body. So there is a final hope. We understand that there is more to come. And yet this intermediate state, as long as we are not ignoring what is final, is a state to be longed for and is one filled with blessedness. And notice, the Catechism does not hesitate to speak about souls and bodies. Yes, it is hard to fully understand, but there is some immaterial part of us that goes to be with Christ and other believers in heaven. It's hard to know exactly what this means. We can't quite fathom bodiless existence, but we see in Scripture that we're waiting for our bodies. That is the final hope. But even as our souls long to be clothed with embodied immortality, there is at the same time a great glory, a joy. So if you're at a funeral and you say, you know somebody, well, meaning person or pastor says, you know, grandma's up there in heaven now and she's dancing around with her new legs, okay, that's not quite right. We don't have resurrected bodies yet. But if the pastor says, grandma's up there and praising Jesus around the throne and reunited with loved ones, and she's having the best day of her life, all of that is wonderfully true and we ought to preach it. Those of us who are pastors, we ought to believe it, hold on to it, all of us, that heaven is going to be at the time of death. And finally in the new heavens and the new Earth, more than we can possibly fathom. When we think about that ultimate expectation, the coming down of heaven to Earth, we realize there's some continuity and discontinuity. So the continuity is with the consciousness that we have a continuity of consciousness. If we didn't, then it's hard. It's not even us in that new world. We also see that the. It's not like this present Earth is obliterated, like, you know, the death star at the end of Star wars, and it's just into atoms and smithereens. And yet there's discontinuity that the language, now it's apocalyptic language, it describes a cataclysmic event, a burning, a sky being rolled up. Probably the best way to think about the continuity, discontinuity of the new heavens and the new Earth with this one is the analogy that Peter uses with the flood. So the flood destroyed the earth, but it didn't annihilate it. And that was a destruction with water. And the one that's coming is with fire. So the heaven that we see, though we might want to know lots of specifics about it, what we are given are glimpses of what make life here on earth good, and then to an extreme, blessedness in heaven. So there's a picture in Isaiah 65 of Peace, Prosperity, domestic happiness. Heaven is a zenith of uninterrupted, uncorrupted perfection. And then the heaven that comes down to Revelation 21 and 22 will tell us a lot about what God is like and what it's like to be in his presence. Most of Revelation is an extended description of the church in her beauty. So the heavenly New Jerusalem, we want to know well, are there waterfalls? Will I see my dog? What will food be like? What will we wear? And what the Bible wants to tell us is what this New Jerusalem will be. Glorious. As lovely and pure as the whore of Babylon was ugly and defiled, she will be safe. She has walls of strength and gates that never shut because there's no threats. And she will be holy. The dimensions of the New Jerusalem are cubic, like the holy of holies in the Old Testament. And let us not overlook the promise that the saints will reign with Christ. Can't be sure of all that this means. It may mean that we affirm the judgments of Christ, or we, along with the angels, form a heavenly council, or the imagery is meant to convey that those who are trampled in this life will be vindicated in the next but at the heart of the promise is the restoration of the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve to their rightful place as image bearers exercising dominion on the earth. We were made to be creation kings over God's creation kingdom. And if we are called by Christ to accomplish his work here on earth, how much more can we expect as glorified saints to participate with his work in heaven? Yes, there'll be work, good, glorious work to do in the new heavens and the new earth for all time with all joy, no sinning, no threats, all safety and Christ. Thanks for listening to Doctrine Matters with me, Kevin Deyoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters through Spotify, Apple Music or Hover. You listen to your podcast and if you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book Daily Doctrine, which is available in print or audio@crossway.org until next week. Thanks for being with us.