Does scripture teach that the saved go to heaven forever when they die? Surprisingly, the answer is no. Christians are confused about the Afterlife and confusing translations of bible passages about heaven and hell certainly don’t help anything.
Protestant scripture teaches that the saved will live out their days on an earth remade. This is a holy new earth, so there is a sense in which one can call it heaven – but that’s not really what most Christians mean by heaven. They mean some twelfth dimension floaty place (words of Doug Wilsons). And when you ask Christians what this twelfth dimension floaty place will be like, they’ll use the language that Revelation uses to describe the New Earth – streets of gold, crystal sea, no more pain, sorrow, tears. This heavenly Kingdom, New Jerusalem, descends out of heaven in Revelation 22, onto the earth.
Since the old testament all the way through the new, the prophets and disciples taught that the dead will be physically resurrected on the last day, and everlasting life in the Kingdom of God is what follows,
"But at that time your people -- everyone whose name is found written in the book -- will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt"
Daniel 12:1-2
In Matthew 22:30, Jesus teaches that the resurrected will not marry or be given in marriage. The question the Sadducees asked was about the resurrection, a specific one I believe on the last day, not a generic one.
For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.
Matthew 22:30
When Lazarus dies, Jesus tells Martha that he will rise again. She confuses his meaning, thinking that he’s referring to the resurrection on the last day.
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.
John 11:23-25
When under trial by Felix, Paul’s words are recorded in Acts. He speaks of the universal resurrection of both the just and the unjust. The un-just are thrown into the lake of fire, while the just remain to see the Kingdom of God.
I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.
Acts 24:15
Paul wrote to the Corinthians that baptism doesn’t make sense if the dead are not raised,
Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?
I Corinthians 15:29
After all, according to Genesis, God puts man on the Earth and it was very good. The purpose God put man on the Earth for, can’t be undone by the introduction of sin. What God sets out to accomplish, he will accomplish (words of Steve Jeffrey).
Habakkuk teaches that the day will come when the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. If the Earth is going to hell in a hand basket, and the saved are going to some twelfth dimension floaty place, then that day will never come.
A Heavenly Earth and a Temporary Stay in Heaven
There are two senses in which the truly might “go to heaven”. One sense is that the Earth is going to be a heavenly place. God makes everything new and this place is empty of both moral evil and natural evil. If one wants to call that physical place on earth heaven, then be my guest. Some say that the earth will be a part of heaven that we live on. However, it is not what most people think of when they say heaven, because they’re not ghosts, they’re not in the clouds, and things will still be made of matter. Moreover, it is not what most people call heaven because heaven for them is so great it is unimaginable. An earth without moral evil and natural evil (and perhaps some other differences – no sea?) is very imaginable. It is also not what some theologians call the beatific vision of God they imagine heaven must be. It is not ultimate direct unmediated static existence in God’s presence.
The other sense in which the saved might to to heaven is in what is called the intermediary state. There is a state between death and resurrection, and there’s some dispute about what this state is comprised of. Some think it is soul sleep – the dead remain unconscious until they are resurrected. Others believe that this intermediary state consists of a spiritual temporary stay in heaven with God for the saved, and some spiritual temporary stay in a not-so-great place for the unsaved. Regardless of which of these options is true, they are both an intermediary (temporary) state, to be followed by the final state which most believe to be either in the lake of fire or the Kingdom of God. Scripture might teach that the saved go to heaven, but eventually they’re going back to where God made their home – the earth.
By the way, Here is a very good conversation between three evangelical theology minded bible-believing Christians who all have different eschatological differences. What is relevant about it is that at one point they are all asked whether they believe that scripture says the saved will live out their days on a material Earth, and they all answer with a very clear yes.
