Dr Paul Allen

There are more significant questions beneath this question, making this an essential issue to many. As we move toward an answer, here are three pivotal concerns behind the question that can help us understand why this gnaws at many people’s hearts. 1. What do we mean when we talk about heaven? Generally, when people think about heaven, they refer to what theologians more appropriately call “the intermediate state.” When a believer in Christ dies, their soul leaves the earth, and they go into the presence of Jesus until the second coming of Christ. Here, we are liberated from physical pain, sin, the presence of evil, and all effects of the fall. We shall see the face of Jesus and experience unfettered communion with him. We will be, ideally, euphorically and eternally happy. The intermediate state, though, is temporary. At the second coming of Christ, we will descend with Jesus to the earth, where heaven will become a place on earth. At that point, the resurrection of the dead will occu...

Of all the misconceptions we have about Heaven, which is the most destructive? That’s a difficult and important question to tackle. Once, while preaching about the New Earth, I cited passages about feasting together in our resurrection bodies. Afterwards, a veteran Bible student asked if I believed we would eat and drink in the afterlife. I told him yes since Jesus said so. Visibly shaken, he replied, “Engaging in physical activities in heaven sounds terribly unspiritual.” Standing there with a body God promised to raise, he was repulsed by the thought of living forever as a physical being in a material world. And he’s not alone. Many Bible-believing Christians would die before denying the doctrine of the resurrection—yet they don’t fully believe it. I’ve dialogued with lifelong evangelicals who don’t understand what resurrection means. They really believe they will spend eternity as disembodied spirits. God’s revelation concerning the resurrection and the New Earth—our forever home—el...

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” ( Isaiah 65:17 ) There is a glorious future awaiting the redeemed. Although God ’s primeval creation of the heavens and the earth is eternal (note Psalm 148:6 , etc.), these are now groaning in pain under the effects of sin and the curse. When the Lord returns, they will be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into . . . glorious liberty” ( Romans 8:21 ), and God will make them all new again, with all the scars of sin and death burned away by His refining fires ( 2 Peter 3:10 ). There are four explicit references in the Bible to these “renewed” heavens and Earth . In addition to our text, which assures us that they will be so wonderful that this present earth and its heavens will soon be forgotten, there is the great promise of Isaiah 66:22 : “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed a...

An angel prevents the sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham and Isaac, Rembrandt, 1634 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) What, if anything does the Scripture say about burial? The answer might surprise you. The earliest account we have of burial has to do with Abraham and his immediate family. Having given Abraham promises of blessing and inheritance--which were all dependent on the coming of the Redeemer--the Scriptures reveal to us that all of God's dealings with Abraham have--in some sense or another--to do with the prospect of redemption.  God promised Abraham land, but--contrary to the opinions of many--this was a promise of the inheritance of the New Heavens and the New Earth that believers get in union with Christ. Abraham actually never inherited any of the land. He did, however, become heir of all things in Christ.  The promise, the Apostle Paul tells us, was that Abraham and all his spiritual offspring would inherit the world (Rom. 4:13) through the righteousness of faith. ...

Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative by Sam Storms - Described by Kevin De Young as "the standard bearer for Amillennialism for years to come.” Kingdom Come offers an alternative and a biblical rationale to the widely held view of Premillennialism : that Christ ’s return will be followed by 1,000 years before the final judgement . This book reveals that this is not the only option for Christians . This is a substantial work which will challenge and encourage. Storms explain the belief that the 1,000 years mentioned in the book of Revelation is symbolic, with the emphasis being the King and his Kingdom. So that even those who remain unconvinced will need to reckon with the powerful case made for Amillennialism by reading this work. Questioning Premillennialism Upon graduating from The University of Oklahoma in 1973, I began my studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. My professors were a Who's Who of dispensational premillennialism: John Walvoord (then president of DTS...

English: Jesus Christ - detail from Deesis mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Heaven is only heaven because it is the place where God dwells. To “go to heaven” is to be ushered into the presence of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:8). In the same way that eternal life is more about a quality of fellowship than a quantity of lifespan (John 17:3), so heaven centers around a Person more than a place. Jonathan Edwards aptly summarized that truth in these words: The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows, but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean. Above all else, it is God’s personal presence that makes heaven what it is. It is not heaven because it is ...

The Aleppo Codex is a medieval manuscript of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), associated with Rabbi Aaron Ben Asher. The Masoretic scholars wrote it in the early 10th century, probably in Tiberias, Israel. It is in book form and contains the vowel points and grammar points (nikkudot) that specify the pronunciation of the ancient Hebrew letters to preserve the chanting tradition. It is perhaps the most historically important Hebrew manuscript in existence. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "And he built his sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which he hath established for ever." ( Psalm 78:69 ) There are a number of passages in the Bible which state unequivocally that the earth, in some form, is going to continue eternally. "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever" ( Ecclesiastes 1:4 ). However, this present earth and its atmospheric heavens must first be purged of all the age-long effects of sin and the curse, wh...

C.I. Scofield popularized dispensational premillennialism through the Scofield Reference Bible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Although I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and was regularly exposed to Scripture, I can't recall ever hearing anything about a "millennial" kingdom, much less the variety of theories regarding its meaning and relationship to the second coming of Christ . Like many of my generation, my initial exposure to biblical eschatology was in reading Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth   during the summer of 1970. Not long thereafter I purchased a Scofield Reference Bible and began to devour its notes and underline them more passionately than I did the biblical text on which they commented. No one, as I recall, ever suggested to me there was a view other than that of the dispensational, pretribulational, premillennialism of Scofield. Anyone who dared call it into question was suspected of not believing in biblical inerrancy. Questioning P...

Image via Wikipedia "So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts." ( Psalm 104:25 )   The oceans of the world are indeed great and wide and comprise essentially one sea, in contrast to the Seas of the pre-Flood world ( Genesis 1:10 ), which were probably relatively narrow, numerous, and distributed more or less uniformly around the globe, as inferred from the marine fossil deposits laid down in those basins by the Flood. The present oceans, however, now contain the vast reservoirs of water poured out through the fountains of the great deep--all of which were broken up in one day--plus the torrents coming from the windows of heaven, which were opened that same day ( Genesis 7:11 ). The Flood not only destroyed everything on the land ( Genesis 7:22 ), but also great numbers of marine organisms.  After the Flood, however, with the vastly enlarged oceanic environments available, the surviving marine organisms quickly spr...