In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, N. T. Wright challenges us to rethink our notions of heaven and the implications of the doctrine of heaven for the entire Christian faith.
In Chapter Two Wright begins by surveying the two extremes regarding the way Christians tend to view death. At one extreme, Christians view death as a “horrid enemy” which stalks us and overcomes us–though in the end death is defeated. At the other extreme, Christians view death as a “welcome friend” who is “coming to take us to a better place.” This second view of death tends to be the most common within the church.
As a result, many Christians also believe that the primary image of heaven is “the place to which the saved will go after their death.” That is, we escape the death and decay of this world and of our bodies by going to heaven after we die. Wright shows how this belief is reflected in many Christian hymns (e.g., “Abide with Me” has a line describing how “earth’s vain shadows flee” and “How Great thou Art” has a line which sings “And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.”)
Though popular, Wright argues that this is not the biblical image of heaven. He writes that “Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden, dimension of our ordinary life–God’s dimension, if you life. God made heaven and earth; at the last he will remake both and join them together forever.” In other words, heaven is not some place we go to escape the death and decay of our bodies and of this world, as if God just gives up and abandons our bodies and our world. Instead, heaven (and earth and our bodies) is the recreated heaven (and earth and our bodies) toward which God is already working. Heaven is not us escaping earth–it is the fulfilment of God’s recreating of earth. Heaven, Wright suggests, is the ultimate answer to the Lord’s Prayer of “Thy kingdom come, on earth as in heaven.” This prayer was answered powerfully at the first Easter and will answered fully when heaven and earth are joined in the new Jerusalem. Put another way, heaven is not the place we go to from earth, it is what God is bringing to earth.
