Humans have always lived with the threat of virus epidemics. Spreading by contact, they can move from person to person, infecting more and more people with every hour. You can almost watch it spread through an office of workers or a classroom of children. First one is sick, then another, then another until it seems like everyone is off to see the doctor.
But today, a new kind of virus spreads faster than any before. It can move at blinding speed from one end of the world to the other without so much as a pause for breath. And when it hits, it can bring its target down almost instantly.
Nothing threatens us more often today than a computer virus. In a world where so much of what we do depends on computers, a destructive computer virus can throw the systems we depend on into chaos.
One of the first viruses to spread to other computers by itself was the Melissa virus, unleashed in 1999. Every time it infected a computer, it sent itself out to fifty other computers by e-mail. It spread so fast that even companies like Microsoft and Intel had to temporarily shut down their servers.
In 2000, the ILOVEYOU virus hit computers. It also spread by e-mail, deleting files and opening the infected computers up to an unending f low of junk e-mail. It infected more than fifty million computers in just nine days. Several military sites had to shut down their networks completely until the virus was cleaned up. (http://www.technewsdailycom/2909-10-worst-computer-viruses-history .html.)
Though it’s not always true with humans who are infected, computers can be completely restored to health. When the virus is gone, everything is just like it was before the infection.
Cleaned and reset
In some ways, that’s what happened to the earth. In its original state, creation was beautiful and perfect, with no sickness, no pain, no death. Then it was infected with the sin virus — the rebellion against God. Quickly, the results of that infection spread until plants were rotting, insects were biting, and people were dying.
But the God of Creation is a God of relationships. He created humans with special gifts, gifts that made them like Him. He didn’t create unthinking robots — He created free, curious, and clever people to be His companions and friends. When the sin virus spread, His — no, Their (God the Father and Jesus) — five-part plan went into action. When Jesus came to earth to show what His Father was really like, when He died to pay the price for the human rebellion, the sin virus was defeated. When He returns to earth at the end, the sin virus will be wiped clean.
We’ve imagined the scene when Jesus returns. The sky is lighted with His glorious appearance, as the dead who followed Him rise up to meet Him in the air. And His followers who are alive rise up to join them. That leaves only those who chose to stay in rebellion against God left on earth. That is when God destroys sin. Those who hold on to it are destroyed also.
The Bible talks about a millennium — a thousand years of peace in heaven for the followers of Jesus while Satan is bound to this earth (see Revelation 20:1–6). At the end of this time, Jesus moves His home — His city, the New Jerusalem — to earth, and Satan is destroyed forever.
That is when creation is reset and restored to what it had been in the beginning. In the Bible book of Revelation, the prophet John describes what God showed him:
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
(Revelation 21:1, 2)
A new earth! Earth re-created, and this time God will live right there with His people. And none of the evil from the old earth will be there. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
What is heaven?
Close your eyes. Imagine the most peaceful spot in the world. Is it on a beach, soothed by the endless dance of the waves? Or next to a mountain stream, with a breeze stirring the nearby leaves? Maybe it’s in the middle of a snow-filled meadow, with nothing above you but a blazing carpet of stars.
All of those places sound heavenly. But how long can you rest there? An hour? A day? Maybe a week, with good food and good friends? Maybe longer, but sooner or later, you’ll be bored. Humans weren’t meant to do nothing for long. We were meant to do things, to go places, to achieve goals.
Many times when people talk about heaven, they talk about sitting on clouds, or playing harps, or singing in choirs. Is that what heaven is like? How does the Bible describe heaven? Writing during a time when the Jewish people had been taken from their homes and forced to live in a distant country, the prophet Isaiah describes this distant future in words that met the longing in their hearts:
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. . . . They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.
(Isaiah 65:21–23, NIV)
Heaven to them was a home to call their own, the ability to work in their own fields and harvest the fruit of their labor. A place where their children would be safe. Isaiah goes on to describe a place where even the wild animals would not be feared.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, The lion shall eat straw like the ox, And dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain . . . .
(Isaiah 65:25)
A safe place. A place to call home. No worries about thieves or murderers or any dangers. Knowing that your family would always have enough food. How does that sound? But what about being healthy and strong? Isaiah wrote about that as well:
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing.
(Isaiah 35:5, 6)
Will there be a need for rest in heaven? Perhaps there will be if we are tilling our own vineyards or harvesting our own fruit. But whether or not there is a need for rest, it seems that the seventh day Sabbath rest will still be available.
“For as the new heavens and the new earth Which I will make shall remain before Me,” says the LORD, “So shall your descendants and your name remain. . . . And from one Sabbath to another, All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says the LORD.
(Isaiah 66:22, 23)
We will still have a special time set aside to spend on our relationship with God. This reminder of the first creation will be with us forever, it seems.
Heaven for us
What would heaven be to us if we could describe it today? What is the longing of our hearts? Besides of a place of peace and safety, with no injuries, no pain, no sickness, what would we wish for?
Think about the wonders of the universe we looked at earlier. What would it be like to visit Betelgeuse in Orion? To study a nebula from close range? To stare into a black hole? What would it be like to travel the universe, seeing things we’ve only imagined — and things that are still beyond our imagination?
Maybe you’ve only wished that you had time to learn about astronomy and the stars? Or maybe you’ve always wondered about geology and rocks? Maybe you’ve stared at clouds, wanting only to understand how they form into such interesting shapes? Heaven would be a place where you had time to study and learn and explore any subject or object about which you were curious.
Your interest might first be more personal. How much time would you spend with your loved ones — the ones you lost to death too soon? Now you can be together again. Or those who lived too far away or whom you rarely saw? Now you have all the time in the world!
And take it a step further — what about those relatives that you never met? Your great-grandparents or their great-grandparents? How many questions would you have about their lives and the times in which they lived? You could spend time with every ancestor who was there, all the way back to Adam and Eve!
Maybe you want to learn more about special moments in human history. What would you ask Galileo or one of the first people to have stared up at the stars with the first telescopes? How would they describe how they felt as they began to realize how large the universe must be? What about the first person to see a whale, or a komodo dragon?
Or maybe you’d have deeper questions. What about the first time Jesus’ follower Matthew realized that his Friend and Teacher was really the Son of God? Would you have questions for a person who saw Jesus die on the cross, or saw Him burst out of the grave, alive again?
Would you like to hear the story of how a person like you realized that there really was a God who loved them? Would you have a story to share with others?
Questions for God
Remember the most amazing part of the scene described in Revelation. God brings His city down from heaven to earth — so He can live here with humans forever.
God will be living right down the street from you!
How many questions will you have for Jesus?
What happened with Lucifer? How did he become so angry, so rebellious? Jesus might need to answer those questions through His tears. Perhaps these sad questions can be answered during the thousand years in heaven so that there won’t be any tears on the new earth.
Would you ask Jesus to tell you more about creating the earth? Maybe He could explain how He balanced it just right — not too close to the sun, but not too far away. How He gave earth just enough atmosphere to protect life but not so much that it would be too hot. How He used the same DNA pattern over and over for life; how He could make just a little variation in the strands to add up to very different animals.
What happened with Lucifer? How did he become so angry, so rebellious? Jesus might need to answer those questions through His tears. Perhaps these sad questions can be answered during the thousand years in heaven so that there won’t be any tears on the new earth.
You’d certainly have questions about His favourite creatures — humans. Did He plan all the variations of skin, hair, and eye color? Did He know how different we could be from each other.
You could ask Jesus about our special gifts! How can we be both logical and creative? How important was it to Jesus that we have free will? Or maybe ask Him, How do we best reflect “Your image”?
His answer to that question might be easy to guess: “Your ability to love each other.”
And sooner or later we must ask, “Why do You love us so much?”
“Because you are My children. I created you so that I could be with you. And I will do anything so that I can.”
Conclusion
The writers of the Bible who tried to describe the last days, heaven, and the new earth sometimes used descriptions that barely make sense to us. They were trying to grasp something that they were only getting a glimpse of, something beyond their ability to understand. They could only express what heaven meant to them, or what it would mean to their people.
We can only imagine those times and those places. Humans have a really hard time grasping the meaning of eternity or life without pain and death. We are limited so much by what we know, by what we have experienced.
But what lies ahead for us in God’s heaven is truly beyond imagination. As the Bible book of 1 Corinthians says it:
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
(1 Corinthians 2:9)
The content of this post is taken from Beyond Imagination — There is more to life than we know, by John T. Baldwin, L. James Gibson and Jerry D. Thomas.
