Heaven (the book) isn’t what I thought

I have been trying to work my way through Randy Alcorn’s book “Heaven” as part of a small group study. Several friends recommended the book, so it’s surprising to me that I’m having a bit of a struggle with it.

The stated purpose of the book is to describe heaven in the fullest sense possible from the Biblical narrative. I suppose I should have been warned by this sentence in the preface, “I believe that most of my conclusions, even those that significantly depart from current evangelical thinking, will stand up to biblical scrutiny.” (italics added)

The first thing that hit me as we started the study was that Alcorn’s understanding of heaven was different than what I had been taught (and understood) to date. Not different in the sense that he was adding much more detail to my incomplete understanding, but different in fundamental substance. So right away I had red flags and I wanted to carefully understand how he arrived at and supported his conclusions, check his scripture references, and cross reference his interpretations of those scriptures with other theologians.

It seems to me that his understanding of time in heaven is basic to his thesis. If his understanding of time is wrong, then his concept of a present, temporary heaven, and a future eternal heaven is wrong. It is exactly at this point that Alcorn’s teaching is counter to what I’ve been taught in the past.

Roger Lewis, our pastor from several years ago, taught us that in heaven there was no time, only an eternal NOW. Since Roger was an avid follower of the teachings of Ray Stedman, I expect Roger’s ideas were not original. In fact, Stedman devotes a chapter to this subject in his book “Authentic Christianity.”

The problem these strange answers propose to solve is really no problem at all. It arises only when we insist on projecting the concepts of time into eternity. We constantly think of heaven as a continuation on a larger and perfect scale of life on earth. Locked into our world of space and time, we find it very difficult to imagine life proceeding on any other terms. But we must remember that time is time and eternity is eternity and never the twain shall meet. We experience something of the same difficulty in dealing with the mathematical concept of infinity. Many people imagine infinity to be a very large number, but it is not. The difference is that if you subtract 1 from a very large number, you have one less, but if you subtract 1 from infinity you still have infinity.

Dr. Arthur Custance, a Canadian scientist who is also a remarkable Bible scholar and author of a series of biblical-scientific studies called Doorway Papers, has written something very helpful on this:
The really important thing to notice is that Time stands in the same relation to Eternity, in one sense, as a large number does to infinity. There is one sense in which infinity includes a very large number, yet it is quite fundamentally different and independent of it. And by analogy, Eternity includes Time and yet is fundamentally something other. The reduction of Time until it gets smaller and smaller is still not Eternity. Nor do we reach Eternity by an extension of Time to great length. There is no direct pathway between Time and Eternity. They are different categories of experience. (Doorway Paper No. 37. Published by the author)

The thing we must remember in dealing with this matter of life beyond death is that when time ends, eternity begins. They are not the same, and we must not make them the same. Time means that we are locked into a pattern of chronological sequence which we are helpless to break. For example, all human beings sharing the same room will experience an earthquake together. While there are varying feelings and reactions, everyone will feel the earthquake at the same time. But in eternity events do not follow a sequential pattern. There is no past or future, only the present NOW. Within that NOW all events happen. An individual will experience sequence, but only in relationship to himself, and events will occur to him on the basis of his spiritual readiness. No two individuals need, therefore, experience the same event just because they happen to be together.

All this may sound quite confusing, and it is true it contains great elements of speculation. But let us return to the Scriptures and the problem of what happens to the believer when he dies. Holding firmly to the essential point that time and eternity are quite different, then when a believer steps out of time, he steps into eternity. What was perhaps a far-off distant event in time is suddenly present in eternity if one is spiritually prepared for it. Since the one great event for which the Spirit of God is now preparing believers here on earth is the coming of Jesus Christ for his own, that is the event which greets every believer when he dies. It may be decades or even centuries before it breaks into time, but this particular person is no longer in time. He is in eternity. He sees “the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones,” just as Enoch did when he was permitted a look into eternity, and at a time when he was the seventh from Adam and the population of the earth was very small (Jude 14).

While both Alcorn’s and Stedman’s descriptions contain speculation, I still feel Stedman’s fits the rest of scripture better than Alcorn’s. So, with the feeling that the book is a bit shaky in it’s interpretation, I determined I’d research some of Alcorn’s scriptural references.

In chapter 9, Alcorn is building a case that God will renew the earth itself. He lists several verses that talk about new heavens and a new earth (Is 65:17; Is 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Rev 21:1). As best I can tell from checking references, the Greek and Hebrew words are correctly translated “new”, not “renew.” Furthermore, the full text of Rev 21:1 is, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” A new earth without a sea is so different in substance from the first earth that I have difficulty seeing how “renew” applies. Because he seemingly left out this part of the verse because it didn’t support his thesis diminishes my trust of him correctly interpreting scripture.

On page 90 of chapter 9, Alcorn argues that the new earth is the old earth restored. Referencing Acts 3:21 he says Christ remains in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything. “He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.” But is the time for God to restore everything referring to the establishment of the new earth, or to the millenium kingdom? The Bible Knowledge Commentary, edited by Walvoord and Zuck note that this verse anticipates the restoration of the kingdom to Israel—that is, when Christ rules here on this present earth. So Alcorn mistakenly applies the description of the earthly kingdom of Christ to the new earth in the heavenly kingdom.

Again, on page 92 Alcorn references Matthew 19:27–28 to bolster his argument that this present earth will be renewed to become the new earth in heaven. “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Other theologians interpret this time as the re-establishment of Israel and the rule of Christ during the millenium.

On page 95, Alcorn begins interpreting Isaiah 60 as a description of the new earth in heaven. This is unlikely. It is far more reasonable to interpret this passage as referring to the restoration of Israel in the end times on this present earth. For example, vs 2 says, “See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples,” but the description of the new earth in Revelation 21 says “There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.”

Verse 5 of Isaiah 60 says “the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,” and and verse 9 says “in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your sons from afar.” But Revelation 21:1 says of the new earth, “there was no longer any sea.”

Isaiah 60:12 implies conflict, “For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly ruined.” How can this kind of conflict occur in heaven?

Likewise, how can the attitude as expressed in Isaiah 60:14 exist in heaven? “The sons of your oppressors will come bowing before you; all who despise you will bow down at your feet.”

Besides these issues of how Alcorn interprets prophetic passages, there are, in my opinion, a couple of other issues with the book. First of all, our study group has noted that the book is too wordy and repetitive. I have noted other similar observations on the web. Secondly, it seems to me the book deals far more with the things of heaven and our interaction with them, than with the LORD of heaven and our relationship with Him.