On the Edge of Eternity

Isaiah 65:17-25; John 14:1-20

We often think of heaven in terms disconnected to this life. We think of heaven as a destination. We perceive it as different from our present reality. While heaven is distinct from our present experience, must it be so different that we cannot hope to grasp and experience its reality within the bounds of this life? Perhaps we picture it as a reality too far removed from life, while simultaneously equating it with the wrong aspects of our present life. Do we have a grasp on the fact that our lives hang on the very edge of eternity? Can we learn to allow heaven into our present, as well as being our future?

Isaiah’s vision of a new heaven and earth was rather different from our concept of eternity. He did not view messianic promise with our concepts of spiritual and eternal. Rather, he looked for the earthly establishment of a messianic paradise. Isaiah held with the understanding of the day that paradise was an earthly and material possibility. His words record no sense of eternity, nor of paradise as a spiritual existence. His words are extremely earthly and physical. Unlike John in Revelation, he did not intend that they be read as earthy symbols of spiritual reality. Rather, Isaiah understood the messianic paradise as God’s ideal material blessing on this earth.

We should feel justified in discarding Isaiah’s perspective as falling short of the superior spiritual nature of Jesus’ concepts of heaven. We look at the limitations of his language and understanding. It is so simple to brush his concept aside to make room for our superior understanding. Heaven is, after all, a spiritual reality. It is a sphere of eternity, where we might live in God’s very presence beyond the limits of time and space. So we spiritualize Isaiah’s words, reading them in light of a greater revelation, casting aside his earthly concepts as too limited. Perhaps we jump too quickly to critique his words, but then, we have the witness of Jesus and Isaiah did not.

John offers a record of Jesus’ words regarding eternity in a spiritual sphere. Like Isaiah, Jesus’ words relate to earthly existence, but here they are symbols of a greater spiritual reality. Jesus speaks in anticipation of his death, reminding the disciples that death will not be the end of it all.

We take comfort that we have accepted this further revelation in Jesus Christ. The disciples were still floundering in that old mindset shared by Isaiah. They were still struggling to grasp that Messiah was not to be an earthly ruler. They desperately wanted to understand Jesus’ teaching, but they were too steeped in the tradition of an earthly Messiah and an earthly paradise. They could not grasp the fact that Jesus spoke of a non-earthly reality. They looked for heaven on earth, not living for eternity in heaven.

We see so clearly in Jesus’ words that the reality of heaven is not the earthly realm, but the spiritual. Jesus was going to prepare a resting-place for the disciples in the Father’s house. He was going in order that they might fellowship with God forever. Why could they not see what is just so clear to us? Jesus speaks of the heavenly, and the dense disciples could only think of the earthly.

Perhaps we need to take a closer look at Jesus’ words. Maybe there is something here that we are missing. Jesus speaks of preparing for continued fellowship in the heavenly realm. His words do not stop there, however. He goes on to speak of the intermediate future—our present earthly reality.

Philip did understand that Jesus spoke of heaven. He grasped Jesus’ words about the Father, pleading that Jesus show them the Father. Philip wanted to see God. He wanted to experience that spiritual reality Jesus promised, but he wanted that reality in the context of his immediate earthly life. Philip wanted God to become a tangible presence in the here and now. Oh, he did not understand heaven as simply a future reality in the spiritual sphere. He did understand the desire to fellowship directly with God. This was the point of his request. Philip wanted heaven in the here and now. Jesus’ words point to Philip’s failure to grasp the whole of the reality before him. “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” Jesus was the Father. Before Philip and the others was God in flesh and blood, living in their midst, somehow akin to Isaiah’s vision of God physically present within Israel. Heaven had come to earth, but Philip had not grasped the extent of God’s presence and action among the people. He wanted some fuller or different manifestation.

Poor Philip. The disciples just could not seem to grasp Jesus’ full identity and the implications of his presence in their midst. He was looking for something more. Jesus went on to explain. He didn’t speak of a spiritual eternal reality, however. Jesus spoke of life in the earthly sphere. He had spoken of the spiritual aspect of eternity in heaven. Philip had grasped that. Now, though, he speaks of God’s continued presence in our earthly existence. At Jesus’ death, the Father’s physical presence would not be lost. Another expression of God’s comforting presence would be with the disciples. God’s presence would be maintained through the Spirit of Truth.

Jesus mentioned this as a continued expression of God’s presence. He cast this as a superior manifestation of God’s care and blessing. While Jesus stood among the disciples, he could not live within them, but the Spirit would be present in them in a more personal way. This is no spiritual reality in the ethereal bye-and-bye. This was not Isaiah’s physical and material manifestation of divine blessing limited to the temporal world. This was neither, yet more than both.

Jesus’ words are both other-worldly and this-worldly. He speaks both of God’s blessing in the spiritual heavenly eternity, as well as amid our temporal existence. Perhaps we should look again at Isaiah’s concept of Messianic reign. There is in Jesus’ words sufficient emphasis on the Messianic within our earthly existence to retain aspects of Isaiah’s vision. God has come to earth. God was in Christ 2000 years ago, reconciling the world. God is yet on earth among and within believers through the Spirit within us.

This life on earth is not all there is, but God is present in our current reality. Heaven does not simply await our arrival in some celestial sphere. God is already here, inviting us to experience heaven while we await its eternal fulfillment. After all, heaven is not so much an other-worldly sphere of existence. It is communing with God, beginning in the here and now. Maybe Isaiah did not have such a distorted view after all. He was looking for God’s intervention in the daily life of his people. God was present, but the people had not grasped the heavenly reality before them.

Will we allow eternity into our present lives? We live on the edge of eternity with God. God wants to bring eternity to bear on our present as well as our future. We life on the edge of eternity, yet we are offered eternity in the here and now. Will we hold eternity at bay to await the end of our earthly lives? Why make heaven wait, when we can experience God’s presence now?

—©Copyright 2006 Christopher B. Harbin

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