Blake Long

Imagine heaven with me. Imagine eternity. Imagine never-ending bliss. Imagine worshipping God in a glorified body forever.

One of the best things we can do for our spiritual growth is imagining heaven, or setting our minds on heaven. To be sure, when we imagine heaven, we want to imagine it biblically. That means we shouldn’t imagine flying around with harps or having immaterial bodies or not truly being ourselves. Those are false ideas of heaven. To imagine heaven, we must do with biblically.

Imagine the reality of glorified, physical bodies. Our bodies in Heaven are going to be like our bodies here on earth; the only difference, thankfully, is there they will be perfect. Even the most “perfect” body on earth is still not perfect. A person might have an incredible physique, work out like nobody’s business, eat well, and have a flat stomach. They still feel the effects of the fall (Genesis 3). They still taste the stench of sin as their body gradually decays. They still are prone, even if less than others, to disease and sickness and perhaps bodily injury. Accidents happens.

But in Heaven we won’t deal with any of that. No more injuries. No more diseases. No more cancer or Alzheimer’s or dementia. None of that to worry about. What will our bodies be like in Heaven? Not sure. But two things we do know from Scripture: (1) they will look like our earthly bodies, and (2) they will be void of sin.

Imagine a new heaven and new earth. “Scripture is clear that Heaven is going to be a physical place,” Stephen R. Morefield writes in Always Longing, “wholly redeemed, perfected, and submitted to the rule and love of God.” When we imagine the new heaven and new earth, we shouldn’t imagine floating around or a bodiless existence. The new earth, our ultimate eternal dwelling, is going to be as physical as the one we current live on.

There are myriad questions that spring up, of course. How old will we be? Will our pet(s) be there? Will we go to sleep and eat and do all the other things? Sometimes we can answer yes—to eating!—but most of these questions are simply speculation. We don’t know. But what we do know is this: Heaven is going to physical. We are going to work and play and eat and get to know everyone else for all eternity. We’re going to reconnect with loved ones who died before us; we’re going to build relationships with heroes of the faith; and so much more!

What we must remember, of course, is that the new earth is going to be like the one now, but fully restored, without sin.

Imagine no more sin. We will have a plethora of things and people to enjoy in Heaven. The best thing, though, apart from being in the unhindered presence of God (we’ll get to that) is no more sin. Long gone will be the days of fighting tooth and nail with that pesky sin in your life. There will be peace among all, so you can take comfort in not dealing with family strife.

Apart from the next section, this is what I look forward to the most in Heaven. I hate sin.

Imagine being with the triune God. Above all else, Heaven will be Heaven because we will be with our God. We will be face-to-face with our Creator and Savior. Our eternal home will be full of worship to the one true God who saved us by pure sovereign grace. “Heaven means Jesus Christ, that is, being with Jesus,” Geoff Thomas wrote at Banner of Truth. “That is the only heaven there is. It is Christ’s home and he is never away from his home for a moment.”

We should imagine Heaven because we will be with Jesus in Heaven.

We were made to be in rich, unhindered, eternal communion with the triune God. Sin, of course, destroyed that. But, by His grace, God saved us and brought us back to Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Now we can experience communion with our God for all eternity. It would be good for us to imagine what that will be like. So imagine!