There is no Heaven

Here is an excerpt from another talk by Wright on the same subject.

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The Collect for Ascension Day speaks of Jesus being ascended into heaven, and of us ”in heart and mind thither ascending, and with him continually dwelling’. Today’s Collect speaks of Jesus having been exalted with great triumph to God’s kingdom in heaven, and of the Holy Spirit being sent to comfort us and exalt us to the place where he is gone before. And this image is so familiar, so obvious, so deeply rooted in the whole tradition of western Christianity both Catholic and Protestant, that unless we have our wits about us we may fail to realise that it is profoundly unbiblical.

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I have just finished writing a small popular-level commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. And I was struck right from the start by the fact that Acts, which of course begins with the story of the Ascension, never once speaks in the way those Collects - and the whole tradition which they embody - so easily does. At no point in the whole book does anyone ever speak, or even sound as though they’re going to speak, of those who follow Jesus following him to heaven. Nobody says, ”well, he’s gone on before and we’ll go and join him’. And for a very good reason. When the New Testament speaks of God’s kingdom it never, ever, refers to heaven pure and simple. It always refers to God’s kingdom coming on earth as in heaven, as Jesus himself taught us to pray. We have slipped into the easygoing language of ”the kingdom of heaven’ in the sense of God’s kingdom being ”heaven’, but the early church never spoke like that. The point about heaven is that heaven is the control room for earth. Heaven is the CEO’s office from which earth is run - or it’s supposed to be, which is why we’re told to pray for that to become a reality. And the point of the Ascension, paradoxically in terms of the ways in which generations of western Christians have seen it, is that this is the moment when that prayer is gloriously answered.

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Paradoxically, of course, because we have been used to seeing ”heaven’ as a place separated from earth, somewhere far away, way beyond the blue. But that’s not how the Bible sees it, not at all. Heaven is God’s space, and earth is our space. ”The heavens belong to YHWH,’ declares the Psalmist, ”and the earth he has given to the human race.’ But the point of God’s split-level good creation, heaven and earth, is not that earth is a kind of training ground for heaven, but that heaven and earth are designed to overlap and interlock (which is, by the way, the foundation of all sacramental theology, with the sacraments as one of the places where this overlap actually happens), and that one day - as the book of Revelation makes very clear - one day they will do so fully and for ever, as the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven to earth.

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Here is the link to the whole talk.
On Earth as in Heaven

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Hi ICANT,
The various quotes you cite from revelations are all irrelevant. Not one, NOT A SINGLE ONE of those passages mentions the "kingdom of god". Not one. The II Peter quote is also completely irrelevant and does not mention the kingdom. I am not interested reading your regurgitation of the Bible. If you have some way of backing up your assertion that only the right kind of believer will be allowed to enter heaven, please provide it. Otherwise, just shut up. What on Earth is that supposed to mean? There is a clear difference of opinion between you and Bishop Wright. Do you consider that he will be allowed into heaven? Or is it lake of fire time for the good bishop? Oh yawn...You are playing pathetic and childish word games. Go ahead and pretend that there is no such thing as a Christian if you like. I'm not playing.

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Mutate and Survive

GDR, I have read some of Wright's stuff. He is right in that there is a larger emphasis on resurrection, but imo, he is wrong in that the Bible does talk of heaven and of being there when one dies, if in the Lord.We are come to the city of the spirits of just men made perfect. We are seated in heavenly places right now. God is the God of the living, not the dead. He that believes in Christ will never die. We all go through a process of putting off this cloak, but the idea we die, imo, is incorrect.....not that there aren't other scriptures on sleeping, and this idea has been around for awhile. But trying to get the right biblical emphasis doesn't mean we should overstate some things.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

The question that begs to be answered is why did an Omnipotent God go through all the trouble of making a 'split-level' creation to begin with if the goal is to eventually reunite the two levels? An Omnipotent being certainly could have created beings capable of existing in the 'heavenly' realm from the start. The 'split-level' Earth seems rather redundant.

Tennyson put it well in Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur: --Percy

I think that you haven't understood him completely. He wouldn't have a problem with saying that if you are in the Lord that you go to be with him when you die. What he says though, is that it isn't a permanent situation. He talks about life after life after death.He writes in Simply Christian:

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After you die, you go to be "with Christ" ("life after death"), but your body remains dead. Describing where and what you are in that interim period is difficult, and for the most part the New Testament writers don't try. Call it "heaven" if you like, but don't imagine that it's the end of all things. What is promised after that interim period is a new bodily life within God's new world )life after life after death").

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Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

None of us truly know the mind of God so what I'm giving is just my best guess as to the answer. For whatever reason God wanted the creatures that bear His image to have the freedom to choose both Him and His message of justice, love. mercy etc. Sin is not a part of New Creation. In the end we have to choose between love of self and love of God and what He represents. Definitely JMHO.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

OK, but that's really no different is it from what nearly all Bible-believing Christians believe, namely that there will be a resurrection and a new heaven and a new earth. However, that doesn't discount the idea of heaven, right now, after one dies.I may need to read him more, but "in the Lord" and in heaven are the same thing, no?

Well, perhaps it wasn't "split-level" as much at one point. Sin separates and so in a sinful universe, we see more distance than would be otherwise.

I think that there is a large body of opinion out there that sees Heaven and New Creation as being one and the same. They see us living a temporal existence here on Earth followed directly by Heaven or Hell for eternity. When you used the expression "In the Lord", I understood you to mean someone who professed the Christian faith. I accept Wright's views on heaven as described earlier in the thread.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

This is how I would view things myself largely. I picture fallen time/space/earth as a rebellious sin-consisting bubble within realm of God, the kingdom of God. The skin of the bubble can be pierced in various ways so that the kingdom of God can leak and leech into this sinful realm. The bishop points to sacraments - which is one way this leakage occurs - baptism by the holy spirit places brings Gods kingdom to earth via ourselves. Christs coming is another obvious kingdom coming. And yes, finally when the bubble is completely burst and Gods kingdom floods with Christs second coming. I am not disagreeing. However I think the split level creation, once fallen, happened to assist in the provision of a choice (of sorts) offered to all men whereby all could effectively decide upon their eternal destinies. Which might be a secondary and not insignificant reason for implementing a split level creation

Here is an ABC interview with Wright on the same subject. N T Wright with ABC

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

This is a very good point, but at the same time reinforces the idea to be in the Lord is to be heaven. The more we walk in the Lord, the more the kingdom of heaven is manifest in the earth, and to pass from the earth in Christ is then to be fully in heaven.

I understand that "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Kingdom of God" are different ways of expressing the same thing and are old Hebrew terms. I don't see "Kingdom of Heaven" and Heaven itself being one and the same. To be in the Lord means to be part of "THe Kingdom of God" as established through the death and resurrection of Jesus and maintained by His Holy Spirit and is for here and now.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I think Wright was saying that the kingdom of heaven and heaven are indeed the same thing, and I agree to a degree. I would just qualify that there are layers or levels of this kingdom and realm.....there are heavens.