Randy Alcorn. Heaven. Tyndale, 2004. See here to purchase the book.
In Heaven, Randy Alcorn fields questions about what heaven
will be like. “Heaven” here refers to the hope and destination of
Christians: where they will go after they die. Immediately after death,
their souls go to heaven, where God is. After the eschatological
resurrection, God will bring heaven to earth, and the saints will be
there in glorified physical bodies. Alcorn extensively consults and
engages the Bible as he addresses the topic of heaven.
Here are some thoughts:
A. I grew up in an offshoot of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide
Church of God (WCG), and, in this item, I will use Armstrongite
teachings on the hope of Christians as a point of comparison with those
of Alcorn. There are similarities and differences. Armstrongites mocked
common Christian conceptions of heaven, as if most Christians taught
that people would be stringing a harp for all eternity while sitting on a
cloud. What kind of hope is that? Armstrongites taught that, instead,
Christians would be divine beings with responsibilities. They would be
creating and ruling planets and working on projects. Alcorn, too,
rejects the idea that Christians will be sitting on a cloud stringing a
harp. Alcorn also believes that resurrected Christians will be ruling,
since there are a plethora of biblical passages that indicate that (i.e.
Luke 19:17; II Timothy 2:12; Revelation 2:26); maybe they will rule
each other, Alcorn proposes, or God will create other beings for them to
rule. Alcorn does not think that the saints will be divine beings,
however, but will have physical bodies. This brings me to the next item.
B. Alcorn seems to maintain that the resurrected saints will depend
on food for nourishment and sustenance. Revelation 22 depicts people in
the new heavens and the new earth partaking of the tree of life, echoing
the tree of life in Genesis 3. Just as Adam and Eve partook of the tree
of life in the Garden of Eden to live, Alcorn contends, so will humans
eat from the tree of life to live in the new heavens and the new earth.
Revelation 7:16-17 states that people in the new heavens and new earth
will not hunger and thirst, but Alcorn does not interpret that to mean
that people will not get hungry or thirsty, but rather than, when their
bodies do hunger, they will have an abundance of food to eat. Alcorn
does not appear to think that the resurrected bodies of the saints will
possess inherent immortality. He even expresses doubt that the
resurrected bodies of the saints will be exactly like the risen body of
Jesus, which was able to walk through walls and disappear (Luke 24:31;
John 20:26). A number of scholars (i.e., Richard Hays), however,
interpret I Corinthians 15 to be saying that the resurrected bodies will
not be animated by the soul but rather by God’s Holy Spirit: that
arguably implies that the resurrection bodies will differ from natural
bodies and will possess immortality because they are animated by a
different principle. In addition, in light of Alcorn’s highly physical
conception of resurrection life, how would Alcorn interpret Jesus’s
statement that the resurrected will be unable to die because they will
be like the angels (Matthew 22:30; Luke 20:36)? Alcorn does well to
highlight that the Bible contains physical presentations of
eschatological paradise, especially in the prophets; the New Testament,
as Alcorn argues, echoes that and maintains that God will not give up on
the earth but instead will renew it (Acts 3:21). The Bible does depict
physical, flesh-and-blood people in eschatological paradise, but one can
make the case that it also presents people with inherent immortality,
who shine as the sun (Daniel 12:3; Matthew 13:43). Alcorn chooses to
focus on the former, but some hold these two concepts together in other
ways. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, think that there will be saints
who will have immortal spiritual bodies, but that there will be others
who will have physical bodies in paradise.
C. Alcorn takes the Bible’s depictions of heaven and eschatological
paradise literally, and he attempts to harmonize them when they seem to
contradict each other. For example, will people eat meat in the new
heavens and the new earth? On the one hand, Isaiah 25:6 depicts an
eschatological feast on the best of meats, and Ezekiel 47:9-10 holds
that fishing will exist in the time of eschatological paradise. On the
other hand, Revelation 21:4 affirms that there shall be no more death,
and Alcorn interprets that to mean no more animal death, not just no
more human death. Isaiah 65:25 states that animals shall not hurt and
destroy, and Alcorn states: “We’re told animals’ eating habits will
change—-why not ours?” (page 296). Alcorn proposes that people might eat
meat “that doesn’t require death—-something that tastes better but
isn’t animal flesh” (page 296). Alcorn deserves credit for offering a
solution, but many might understandably see his resolution as a stretch.
A rabbinics professor told me a while back that the rabbis wrestled
with the apparent contradictions among the biblical depictions of
eschatological paradise, and some concluded that they are not to be
interpreted literally.
D. Will people learn in heaven? Alcorn thinks so. This will be the
case in the intermediate heaven, for saints in heaven in Revelation 6:10
ask God a question, indicating that they do not know everything. But
does not I Corinthians 13:12 affirm that saints know in part now but
will know in full in the eschaton? Alcorn states that saints will see
God clearly but not comprehensively, and he argues that the Greek word
in I Corinthians 13:12 that is often translated as knowing fully,
epiginosko, does not refer to comprehensive knowledge. Indeed, I would
like to think that God can never be known fully, for there are biblical
passages about God’s thoughts being deep (Psalm 139:17; Romans
11:33-34). But Alcorn’s case would have been stronger had he addressed I
Corinthians 13:8, which appears to state that love will last forever,
whereas knowledge will pass away. Is Paul saying this because people
will not be teaching each other in the eschaton, since they will know
everything? Is there an alternative way to interpret this passage?
E. Many Christians have argued that Christians will be given a
mind-wipe in the eschaton, since Isaiah 65:17 states that people will
not remember the former things. Some find comfort in this if they have
unsaved friends or loved ones: will they enjoy heaven while their
unsaved friends and loved ones are burning in hell? No, some Christians,
respond, since they will forget their friends and loved ones! Alcorn
disagrees with this interpretation. He points to Revelation 12:12-14,
which refers to memorials to the twelve tribes and apostles in the new
earth; memorials imply memory of what took place on the old earth. Not
remembering the former things refers to comfort, and comfort implies
memories of the bad things: “If we had no memory of the bad things, why
would we need comfort? How would we feel it?” (page 331). Alcorn’s
interpretation makes sense to me, for I have long wondered why people
are on earth building character for heaven, when they will forget
everything in heaven, anyway. It makes more sense that the afterlife
will build on this life. Will the saved know about their friends and
loved ones in hell, then? Alcorn believes so, but he says that the
saints will have an appreciation for why their friends and loved ones
are in hell, and that what made the friends and loved ones good (on some
level) on earth will be erased in hell. This statement on hell, along
with others by Alcorn, was disturbing, but this is a struggle that I
have long had with Christianity, period.
F. Alcorn argues that heaven will be a place of work and social
interaction. What about people who do not want to do these things? At
times, Alcorn is like a drill sergeant: get used to it! That’s what it
will be like! Most of the time, though, he empathetically engages why
people might feel that way and reassures them that their inadequacies
and fallenness on earth will not continue into heaven.
G. Alcorn’s book is informative about the history of interpretation
regarding heaven. Medieval Christians viewed heaven in spiritual and
intellectual terms while dismissing the possibility of physical
pleasures there. John Calvin did not believe that humans in heaven would
interact with each other, for they would be enamored and preoccupied
with their vision of God.
I checked this book out from the library. My review is honest.