(upbeat music) - This week we are honored to have Randy Alcorn with us as a special guest and lined up are several of the most common questions about heaven we have. Randy has written a large book on heaven. He's an expert in the topic and no, he has not been there and back.

So let's get this week underway with Randy who joins us over the phone from his home. I presume Randy, much of the fully revealed new earth, what we often refer to as heaven, will be completely unrecognizable to us. The new earth will be recreated but there will be some continuity too.

So how much of it will be familiar to us? For example, will the Himalayan mountains remain or will every visible feature of this creation be completely changed? - Well, the short answer would be, I think the Himalayan mountains could very easily remain and I would not expect every visible feature of creation to be changed.

And the reason for that would be that I think our proper understanding of the new earth has to be based on some kind of model. And what would that model be? Well, it's the new earth in the same way that in the resurrection, we will have new bodies. So resurrected bodies, resurrected earth.

So what do we know about our bodies? Well, we know that our bodies, Christ's body is the prototype for ours in his resurrection. We know that he was recognizable as such. His features were the same. The great majority of times that he, in the recorded appearances that he's seen by the disciples, they know immediately who he is.

Now, a lot of people focus on the two or three times where he wasn't immediately recognized but there were special conditions in those cases. Mary at the tomb, it's dark, it's early in the morning, a modest woman doesn't look into the eyes of a man who she doesn't know or she thinks she doesn't know.

And that's why she thinks it's the gardener. And Jesus, her Lord is dead and she knows that. So of all times, you could easily explain her not immediately recognizing him. And as soon as he says her name, she recognizes his voice. Likewise on the Emmaus road, some people say, well, look, they didn't even recognize Jesus.

So he must not have looked like he did. But actually in verse 16 of Luke 24, we're told they were kept from recognizing him. And as soon as that veil was pulled back, they did recognize him as such. The same thing when he's on the shore fixing breakfast, the saplings are in the boat, they're a long way away, but then all of a sudden they realized, wait, it's the Lord.

And it's just, they knew it was the Lord. So you got the continuity of the nail prints in his hands. You've got a lot of different aspects and theologian Herman Baving said, God's honor could consist precisely in the fact that he redeems and renews the same humanity, the same world, the same heaven, the same earth that had been corrupted and polluted by sin.

So in other words, it's the importance of that continuity. So I think there's a new Jerusalem. Well, there was an old Jerusalem. Since there's a new Jerusalem and we're told that people will bring their treasures from all over the earth. The kings of the nations of the earth will bring their treasures in the new Jerusalem.

It says that at the end of Revelation 21. Well, why would those people not look like the people of those nations? And why would the treasures they bring in, perhaps as tribute to the king, not have a continuity to the kinds of handmade cultural treasures that we would have today.

So I think there's every reason to expect that in the majority of cases, that there would be a continuity between old earth, new earth, if there's a new Jerusalem, why not a new Los Angeles? Why not a new Chicago, a new Paris, a new London? - Fascinating. Grace restores nature as old Herman Baving like to say, which seems to have big ramifications for heaven.

Thank you, Randy, for that. And for more on this and so many other topics, see his bestselling book simply titled "Heaven." Also check out Randy's ministry, Eternal Perspective Ministries online at epm.org. Speaking of heaven, a question we get often in the Ask Pastor John mailbag is this, will there be sports in heaven?

And we'll ask Randy that tomorrow. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to Heaven Week on the Ask Pastor John podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)