What Will Be Familiar to Us in Heaven?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - This week we are honored to have Randy Alcorn with us
00:00:08.480 | as a special guest and lined up are several
00:00:11.360 | of the most common questions about heaven we have.
00:00:14.040 | Randy has written a large book on heaven.
00:00:16.400 | He's an expert in the topic
00:00:17.840 | and no, he has not been there and back.
00:00:20.200 | So let's get this week underway with Randy
00:00:22.680 | who joins us over the phone from his home.
00:00:24.360 | I presume Randy, much of the fully revealed new earth,
00:00:29.360 | what we often refer to as heaven,
00:00:31.680 | will be completely unrecognizable to us.
00:00:34.120 | The new earth will be recreated
00:00:36.880 | but there will be some continuity too.
00:00:38.400 | So how much of it will be familiar to us?
00:00:41.280 | For example, will the Himalayan mountains remain
00:00:44.320 | or will every visible feature
00:00:46.140 | of this creation be completely changed?
00:00:49.400 | - Well, the short answer would be,
00:00:51.160 | I think the Himalayan mountains could very easily remain
00:00:55.640 | and I would not expect every visible feature
00:00:58.600 | of creation to be changed.
00:00:59.640 | And the reason for that would be
00:01:01.440 | that I think our proper understanding
00:01:03.840 | of the new earth has to be based on some kind of model.
00:01:08.080 | And what would that model be?
00:01:09.320 | Well, it's the new earth in the same way
00:01:12.840 | that in the resurrection, we will have new bodies.
00:01:15.400 | So resurrected bodies, resurrected earth.
00:01:18.600 | So what do we know about our bodies?
00:01:22.880 | Well, we know that our bodies,
00:01:24.720 | Christ's body is the prototype for ours in his resurrection.
00:01:28.400 | We know that he was recognizable as such.
00:01:32.400 | His features were the same.
00:01:34.960 | The great majority of times that he,
00:01:37.280 | in the recorded appearances that he's seen by the disciples,
00:01:40.800 | they know immediately who he is.
00:01:42.960 | Now, a lot of people focus on the two or three times
00:01:46.860 | where he wasn't immediately recognized
00:01:49.300 | but there were special conditions in those cases.
00:01:52.680 | Mary at the tomb, it's dark, it's early in the morning,
00:01:57.720 | a modest woman doesn't look into the eyes of a man
00:02:00.920 | who she doesn't know or she thinks she doesn't know.
00:02:03.880 | And that's why she thinks it's the gardener.
00:02:05.920 | And Jesus, her Lord is dead and she knows that.
00:02:08.420 | So of all times, you could easily explain
00:02:12.800 | her not immediately recognizing him.
00:02:14.880 | And as soon as he says her name, she recognizes his voice.
00:02:19.880 | Likewise on the Emmaus road, some people say,
00:02:24.320 | well, look, they didn't even recognize Jesus.
00:02:26.520 | So he must not have looked like he did.
00:02:28.560 | But actually in verse 16 of Luke 24,
00:02:31.880 | we're told they were kept from recognizing him.
00:02:35.400 | And as soon as that veil was pulled back,
00:02:38.180 | they did recognize him as such.
00:02:39.880 | The same thing when he's on the shore fixing breakfast,
00:02:41.920 | the saplings are in the boat, they're a long way away,
00:02:44.420 | but then all of a sudden they realized, wait, it's the Lord.
00:02:46.960 | And it's just, they knew it was the Lord.
00:02:49.520 | So you got the continuity of the nail prints in his hands.
00:02:52.660 | You've got a lot of different aspects
00:02:54.980 | and theologian Herman Baving said,
00:02:58.440 | God's honor could consist precisely in the fact
00:03:02.000 | that he redeems and renews the same humanity,
00:03:05.360 | the same world, the same heaven,
00:03:08.320 | the same earth that had been corrupted and polluted by sin.
00:03:12.040 | So in other words, it's the importance of that continuity.
00:03:15.360 | So I think there's a new Jerusalem.
00:03:17.400 | Well, there was an old Jerusalem.
00:03:19.580 | Since there's a new Jerusalem and we're told
00:03:22.200 | that people will bring their treasures
00:03:24.580 | from all over the earth.
00:03:27.100 | The kings of the nations of the earth
00:03:28.540 | will bring their treasures in the new Jerusalem.
00:03:30.500 | It says that at the end of Revelation 21.
00:03:34.600 | Well, why would those people not look like
00:03:39.600 | the people of those nations?
00:03:42.460 | And why would the treasures they bring in,
00:03:45.640 | perhaps as tribute to the king, not have a continuity
00:03:49.420 | to the kinds of handmade cultural treasures
00:03:53.880 | that we would have today.
00:03:55.040 | So I think there's every reason to expect
00:03:57.120 | that in the majority of cases,
00:03:59.280 | that there would be a continuity between old earth,
00:04:02.480 | new earth, if there's a new Jerusalem,
00:04:04.160 | why not a new Los Angeles?
00:04:05.440 | Why not a new Chicago, a new Paris, a new London?
00:04:08.800 | - Fascinating.
00:04:10.200 | Grace restores nature as old Herman Baving like to say,
00:04:13.200 | which seems to have big ramifications for heaven.
00:04:15.680 | Thank you, Randy, for that.
00:04:17.160 | And for more on this and so many other topics,
00:04:19.000 | see his bestselling book simply titled "Heaven."
00:04:21.600 | Also check out Randy's ministry,
00:04:23.280 | Eternal Perspective Ministries online at epm.org.
00:04:27.620 | Speaking of heaven, a question we get often
00:04:29.760 | in the Ask Pastor John mailbag is this,
00:04:32.060 | will there be sports in heaven?
00:04:33.940 | And we'll ask Randy that tomorrow.
00:04:35.920 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:04:36.760 | Thanks for listening to Heaven Week
00:04:38.820 | on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
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