I recently preached a funeral message about heaven and it reminded me of a post I put on Facebook ten years ago. In 2011, Rob Bell openly questioned the existence of hell in his book Love Wins. More important than debating the reality of hell, I wrote the following about meditating on heaven!:
After listening to a debate on whether there is a hell or not, I was impressed to ponder the realities of heaven.
Examining the heights and marvelousness of heaven is certainly much more faith-affirming and works-inspiring than musing the travesties of hell.
Don't get me wrong. Not even the depths of Dante's descriptions of hell, however misguided, could ever possibly begin to grasp the horrifying possibility of missing heaven, experiencing the eternal and everlasting presence of God and coexisting forever in His intimate knowledge through and in and of the Lord Jesus Christ. See John 17:3.
Perhaps just as Jesus said you must "hate your mother and father" (in contrast to your love toward God), the most opposite of heaven could be only described to our finite mortal minds as that which is eternal torment not because of abhorrence of hell, but rather the magnificence of an otherwise unattained heaven.
So unfathomable is the gloriousness of heaven that missing it by comparison it would be as tortuous as hellfire and brimstone would appear in this life, just as the ever appropriate and natural love for our parents and even ourselves pales in comparison to our unmatched love for God.
John Piper wrote about the realities of heaven and about "what eye has not seen, nor ear has heard."
Citing the passage of Romans 8:20-23, Piper said: The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, [namely, God, since only God can subject the creation to futility in hope] in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. [There will be a great renewal someday and it will happen so that creation joins the children of God in their glorious renewal.] For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." (Piper's parenthetical commentaries)
Piper writes the following on the implications of regeneration but I see in it further on our eternal regenerated state and how highly it would be above our present understanding of reality; therefore to miss eternal life with God could not be explained in terms vulgar enough and visions vile enough and descriptions course enough. Read:
"So if we put it all together, the picture seems to be something like this: God’s purpose is that the entire creation be born again and to fail to be born again is unimaginably horrifying.
"That is, the whole universe and not just humanity will replace its futility and corruption and disease and degeneration and disasters with a whole new order—a new heaven and a new earth. This will be the great, universal regeneration. The great, universal new birth.
"When Paul uses the word regeneration in Titus 3:5, he wants us to see that our new birth is a part of that which we call heaven. The newness we have by virtue of our regeneration now is the first fruits of the greater newness we will have when our bodies are made new as a part of the entire universe made new. Romans 8:23, “We . . . who have the first fruits of the Spirit [because we have been born again by the Spirit] groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
"Being born again is like the first installment of what is coming. Your body and the whole world will one day take part in this regeneration. God’s final purpose is not spiritually renewed souls inhabiting decrepit bodies in a disease and disaster ravaged world. His purpose is a renewed world with renewed bodies and renewed souls that take all our renewed senses and make them a means of enjoying and praising God.
Regeneration in Titus 3:5 is big. “[God] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” When he says in verse 7 that the aim of the new birth is “that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life,” he means heirs of everything included in that eternal life—new heavens, new earth, new body, new perfected relationships, new sinless sight of all that is good and glorious, and new capacities for a kind of pleasure in God that will exceed all your dreams.
That’s the unusual signal of what the new birth is: It’s the first installment of the final, universal regeneration of the universe.
Then there is a clear signal why we need this regeneration. It’s found in verse 3: “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” That is not a description of the material creation. That’s a description of the human heart. Those are all moral evils, not physical evils. Foolish. Disobedient. Led astray. Slaves to sinful pleasures. Malice. Envy. Hated and hating. We are all in there somewhere. "
The reason we need regeneration is that God will not welcome such hearts into His new creation.
Jesus said, "unless we are born again, we will not see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).
This is why all of us must be born again.
See also a devotional on John 14 from The Gospel of John One Day at a Time.
