Heaven is Neither Happy nor Perfect—Not Yet
Heaven is not what you think, nor is Satan where you think.
Howdy!
The following piece, at least in part, was first published in the Bible Student’s Notebook #1070, a publication by Clyde Pilkington.
However, for those who have already read the piece, I have substantially expanded it here, so as to make it worth your while to read once more. The heavens, or, literally, space, has always been an object of my fascination, since I was very young.
The Christian Heaven
For millennia, Christian doctrine has claimed that heaven is happy, and perfect. They insist that it is a place of pure, unalloyed bliss.
So happy, so blissful, in fact, that its perfection only awaits our immediate arrival upon passing from this life.
Only, Scripture never teaches that, once you die, you immediately go to heaven.
To our soulish sensibilities, it is attractive to believe that our loved ones, once they pass away, are immediately embraced by our Father.
There is something repulsive about the idea that those we love are, essentially, annihilated, without existence, until they are resurrected in the future. And, it is my position, that that is on purpose.
Death separates us from God.
That is why, through the work of Christ, we have hope, and expectation, of a resurrection, after we take our last breath here on Earth.
But, in 1 Timothy 6:16, we are plainly told, by Paul, that:
16 Who alone has immortality, making His home in light inaccessible, Whom not one of mankind perceived nor can be perceiving, to Whom be honor and might eonian! Amen!
No one, not one, who has walked the Earth, in the flesh, has immortality right now, save for Christ.
We are told, in Colossians 1:18, that Christ is the “Firstborn from among the dead.” No human before Christ, or after Christ, has attained immortality.
Our hope is resurrection, and vivification. (1 Corinthians 15:22-23; 15:44; 15:50)
Where is Satan Today?
Some of the most impressive paintings made by Christian hands have portrayed heaven as a place of pure bliss, where harp strings are continuously plucked, and cherubs endlessly meander through the atmosphere.
Concerning this issue, A.E. Knoch (1874-1965) writes:
Most men imagine that heaven is a synonym for happiness. If we only had not lost contact with the angels, they think we would still be living in the garden of Eden. All they want at death is to be carried above and with the angels dwell, and play their harps the praise of God to swell.
But what do the Scriptures really teach about the state of heaven right now? Do they teach that heaven, as it is right now, is perfect? Does it teach that only the good guys are there?
Job gives us a big clue.
There was a day when the sons of Elohim would come to station themselves before Yahweh, and the Adversary came also in their midst. (Job 1:6)
The Adversary, Satan, according to Job, was in heaven, because he was counted among the entities who had access to Yahweh. This should be enough, in itself, to give every Christian pause, especially those who are convinced that Satan currently hangs out in a hellhole somewhere.
While in heaven, Satan made his pitch against Job, arguing that the man from the land of Uz had not been properly tested. (Job 1:7-12).
Even though Christianity insists that Satan dwells in a place of hellfire and doom, Scripture tells us the precise opposite.
In fact, Satan, throughout Scripture, only occupies the heavens and the earth. These are the only two realms God created at the start (Genesis 1:1).
However, he, Satan, also has a future in the abyss, and Lake of Fire.
Here is a list of the locations where Satan appears in Scripture.
The Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).
In Heaven (Job 1; Revelation 12).
On Earth (Job 1; Matthew 4; 1 Peter 5).
In Celestial Realms (Ephesians 6).
In the Abyss (Revelation 20:1-3).
Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:10).
Not a single time is Satan described as occupying a place of eternal hellfire.
Even though Scripture teaches that the Adversary has access to heaven, this is virtually never portrayed in Christian depictions.
Why is this the case?
Could it be that tradition, Christian tradition, has whitewashed the current state of heaven, in exchange for a depiction that appeals to our soulish desires, and daydreams?
The Current State of Heaven
The heavens are, undoubtedly, beautiful, and awe-inspiring.
One need only glance up at the stars on a clear night, or look at the wondrous images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
(The image below is one of my favorites.1)
One of the joys of my life was, while living for a short time in Pemba, Mozambique, sitting on the beach, and peering up into the heavens on a clear night.
The galactic disk of the Milky Way was visible, slashing through the night sky. Millions, billions, of stars glittered against the black expanse.
The beauty, and grandeur, that I witnessed on those evenings, while on the southeastern crust of Africa, was beyond anything I have ever experienced before.
Furthermore, it is estimated that there are, at least, hundreds of billions of galaxies, just like our own, each of which contains hundreds of billions of stars, more or less similar to our own sun.
The mind reels at the estimated size of the empyrean.
But it would be an error to mistake the beauty I witnessed on those clear nights for happiness, or perfection.
The heavens, or space, is also the scene of unimaginable destruction.
Stars explode, collapse, and fold into blackholes, devouring everything that comes near. Planets smash into one another, sending shards of immense rock tumbling through space, only to collide with other celestial bodies.
The heavens, just like Earth, has not been reconciled, or brought into perfect harmony with its Creator. Scripture teaches as much. And science confirms it.
The magnitude of this material destruction in the heavens mirrors the unrest mentioned in Revelation 12:7-9, which precedes the Millennial Kingdom:
7 And a battle occurred in heaven. Michael and his messengers battle with the dragon, and the dragon battles, and its messengers.
8 And they are not strong enough for him, neither was their place still found in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, the ancient serpent called Adversary and Satan, who is deceiving the whole inhabited earth. It was cast into the earth, and its messengers were cast with it.
Again, we are told the Adversary, along with his messengers, were in heaven before being “cast out” of heaven.
If the Adversary is not in heaven, how, then, can he be “cast out” of it?
This casting out has not yet happened, meaning that the Adversary is still in heaven.
Consequently, heaven is in utter disarray, just as Earth is. No one is euphorically plucking harp strings in heaven, or waving at cherubs as they zip through the atmosphere.
Nothing is Perfect Yet—Not Even Heaven
If heaven, and all the spiritual entities that dwell therein, were already perfect, as Christendom teaches, there would be no reason for Paul’s declaration that members of the Body of Christ put on the “panoply of God,” to defend against the wiles of the “spiritual forces of wickedness among the celestials” (Ephesians 6:11-17).
While the Adversary and his messengers continue to heckle heaven and earth, everything is progressing as it should, according to God’s perfect will.
Everything will be made anew at the consummation (1 Corinthians 15:24), including Satan himself, when God will be All in all.
But not a second before.
Before you go…
It is, in my view, profoundly important to understand what Scripture teaches about the nature of heaven, and, by extension, Satan, or the Adversary. Too much has been buried beneath assumption, and tradition.
If you’re interested in further study, consider the following: “God and Satan,” “The Spirit World,” and “Two Studies on Heaven and Hell.”
For those interested in the heavens, or space, I highly recommend checking out the images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. They are, truly, awe-inspiring. God’s handiwork is something to behold!
With Grace,
Concordant Student
This photo was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope is a joint project by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Here is a brief description of the image:
“What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth.
“Called the Cosmic Cliffs, the region is actually the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, roughly 7,600 light-years away. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image. The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away.”