FALSE NARRATIVE: WHEN WE DIE,
WE ARE GONE FOREVER

Similar to the “accidental little lumps of something” (the false narrative discussed in chapter three) is the narrative that “when we die, we are gone forever.” This narrative teaches that we are only a memory when we are no more, and that the same is true for all of our loved ones. This is one of the deepest fears humans have and have had for all time. Nonexistence is unconscionable; we simply cannot conceive of it.

This narrative exists because no one, except Jesus, has died and returned to tell us about an afterlife with any real credibility. There are certainly a lot of people who have had a near death experience (NDE), who have “died” for a time (a minute or two or more) and come back to life with stories to tell about what they saw. There are many such experiences, and they witness to something about life after death, though there is not a lot of consistency. Though stories about NDEs offer a kind of hope, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight cautions us not to put too much stock in them. Perhaps NDE stories offer a peek into the afterlife, McKnight acknowledges, but he says, “I don’t believe in Heaven on the basis that people have been there and come back. I believe in Heaven because God promised it.”

Still, the idea of dying creates dissonance in our embodied souls. Perhaps this is because our souls know that we were not made to die. Perhaps that dissonance we feel about death comes from the fact that we actually are unceasing spiritual beings, people who will not be gone when we die, but will be glorified.

TRUE NARRATIVE: WHEN WE DIE,
WE WILL BE GLORIFIED FOREVER

The teaching of the New Testament offers a very different view of death. In writing to the Thessalonian Christians, in what is thought to be one of the earliest epistles, Paul encourages them in their concern about Christians who have died. Many of them believed Jesus would return soon—so what happens to those who died before the second coming? Are they “okay,” so to speak? Paul says this to them:

Paul affirms the fact that they are grieving, but does not want them to grieve as others do. He wants them to grieve with hope because of one important truth: Jesus died and rose again. Jesus’ resurrection, in addition to imparting new life, as discussed in this book, is also the foundation of the hope of our resurrection after death.

Paul knows that grief is real. And he knows that it is easy for us to lose heart when those we love die. This is why he tells the Corinthian Christ-followers that even though our bodies age and die, we are being prepared for “an eternal weight of glory”:

Outwardly we waste away—we see the wrinkles in the mirror—but there is a deeper reality, a spiritual renewal that is happening each day. The life we are living now is preparing us for something greater than we can imagine. That is why Paul says we must look not at what can be seen, which is temporary, but at what cannot be seen, which is the eternal kind of life that is in us when we are born from above.

This kind of life is in us and is also “hidden in Christ.” Paul tells the Christ-followers in Colossae to have hope, because “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4). We have already died, died to the life we had before Jesus. And we rose with him—we have been made alive together with Christ. And that life is now safely hidden in Christ. When Christ, who is our true life, is revealed—when Jesus returns to establish the new heaven and new earth—we will be revealed with him in glory. Put simply, we are going to glow. That is our destiny. Our hope of heaven is built on what Jesus has done.

Jesus abolished death. He simply did away with it. What the false narrative assumes—that we die and no longer exist—will never actually happen to those who have entered into Jesus’ eternal kind of life, as he promised. This is because those who are loved by God will not be allowed to cease to be. God will not have this. Those who live in fellowship with God are his treasures. What else would God do with his treasure? Let it no longer be? God delights in us, and intends to keep us forever.

Jesus said he was preparing places for his human sisters and brothers to one day join him. On the day he was crucified, he told the thief on the cross next to him that he would be with him that very day in a place Jesus called “paradise.” Jesus even said, “Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death” (John 8:51). It is crucial that we see that none of this is dependent on what we do to merit or accomplish this. Just as we did nothing to enter life, we do nothing to destroy death—it is all the work of God, in Christ. In the song “Smitten, Pt. 2” by the group Penny and Sparrow, Death comes upon the manger and, foreseeing the emptying tomb, says to Jesus, “When You’re old enough to speak, You will undo me.” Death has been undone by the One who came in a manger and rose from a tomb.

Jesus was casual about death. He brought people from death to life in several places in the Gospels. This is a foreshadowing of the general resurrection. Each healing—when the blind could see and the lame could walk—was a sign that God, in Jesus, had power over the natural world as we know it. Jesus could be dismissive about death because he knew the power of eternal life. All of the miracles were signs that point to something else. Jesus could turn water into wine and a sack lunch into a banquet for the masses. The hope of heaven is built on the work of Jesus then, and now, and in the life to come.

THE RELIABILITY OF HEAVEN

How can we know that heaven is the destiny of those loved ones who have died, and our destiny as well? If NDEs are not reliable sources in which to place our confidence, what is? Scot McKnight, in his marvelous book The Heaven Promise, offers five elements that establish the reliability of the promise of heaven. They are:

• God is making the promise.

• God’s promise is heaven.

• God makes this promise to us and for us.

• God has entered into a covenant with us to make the Heaven Promise good, a binding covenant on which he stakes his life and integrity.

• We are asked to trust God’s promise.

It is not the amount of our faith but the object of our faith that matters. The object of our faith is God. God is the one making the promise.

And the promise is about heaven. God is saying to us, in Jesus and through the Spirit, that we are destined to rule and reign with God in glory. The emphasis is on God, not us. We are not the ones establishing this reality. It is not created by us, or dependent on us. It is not based on our promises—thanks be to God, because our promises are unreliable. It all comes down to trust. We trust in someone when we have experienced their reliability. The God who has not failed us in the past, the God who is faithful to us in the present, is the same God who will not fail us in the future—on this we can rely.

In contrast to the dissonance we feel in our embodied souls at the thought of death, I have found a great deal of consonance in the promise that those I love are safe, and that I also will not die but will be glorified. This sits very well in my soul. When I think about being reunited with those I have lost, my heart is strangely warmed, and my soul is glad.

THE SOUL IS NOT AFRAID

John O’Donohue was a Celtic Christian author whose writings have always moved me. This is no more true than his writing on the nature of the soul in light of death. He makes the point that while our mind cannot process death, our soul is understanding and hopeful and unafraid. He writes,

Death cannot touch the soul, because the soul has no frontiers, no border it cannot cross. The mind cannot comprehend the wilderness of life after death, a place we have never been. But it is not too much for the soul. Our souls easily pass over borders.

Our soul knows that death is not the end but the beginning, not a departure but a homecoming. O’Donohue writes,

He is saying that, instead of something to be feared, physical death is “an adventure for the soul,” filled with excitement and joy. What a sharp contrast to how we often think about death. True, we will feel sadness as we withdraw from this world and all of its wonder, but something greater awaits us. And our souls know it.

THE WEIGHT OF GLORY

All of us live with what C. S. Lewis called “an inconsolable secret,” a hidden longing for glory: “Glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment and welcome into the heart of things.” This longing will be met, he says, when the “door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” Every time we enter a room longing to be welcomed, or hear about a party to which we hope to be invited, we are touching this inconsolable secret. I love surprise birthday parties for this reason. When the birthday boy or girl suddenly realizes a whole party has been planned for them, and that people have done so because of how much they love them, there is a look of joy on their faces I have found unmatched.

This is what it means to be glorified. When Paul tells the Colossians that when Christ is revealed they will also be revealed in glory, he has in mind this sort of welcome—a birthday party on steroids, a grand celebration of who we truly are in the eyes of God. I like to think about this, not so much for me, but for those I love. Lewis points out that it is good for us to think about the future glorification of others:

The weight of glory that awaits our brothers and sisters in Christ is something we do well to ponder. When I think about the future glory of my wife and children and family members, of the women and men who have been so important to me, I am moved to doxology. And to a deep sense of humility, as Lewis notes, which is required if I am to see them rightly.

Every time we see suffering there is dissonance in our souls. Every news feed that tells a story about violence and abuse and death makes our souls recoil. Our souls know that this is not the way it is supposed to be. The pain of the pandemic caused by Covid-19 will last for a generation. It is something we cannot unsee or unfeel. The dissonance is unbearable, but the hope of a time and a place when sorrow is ended causes a consonance in our embodied souls that cannot be denied.

GLORIFYING GRACE

Throughout this book I have been writing about the grace of God in every chapter. Grace is God’s action in our lives—a gift we do not merit or deserve or earn, but that is freely given to us by God. Grace imparts to us what we could never achieve on our own. So far I have been writing about the three classic theological works of grace: prevenient grace, justifying grace, and sanctifying grace. We come into this world with a “spark” of grace on our souls—a transcendent longing for God, and a soul that longs to be desired and loved. That is prevenient grace—it comes previous to our birth, a gift we are born with. But we are born under the power and penalty of sin, so we need more grace! Justifying grace (sometimes called justification) breaks the penalty of sin by Jesus’ work on the cross—Jesus frees us from the penalty of sin. But that is not all there is to saving grace. Jesus’ resurrection imparts new life, or regeneration, in believers. This is sanctifying grace, whereby the power of sin has been broken.

There is a fourth work of grace—namely, glorification, which is the focus of this chapter. Glorification refers to the final state of believers upon Jesus’ return. Our bodies will be physically resurrected, and we will receive a resurrection body—a body just like Jesus’ resurrection body. Jesus’ body after resurrection was both physical and spiritual. Mysteriously, Jesus could eat fish on the beach with his disciples and also walk through a wall. Our bodies will be bodies—we will not be ghosts. And we will be recognizable to those who knew us on this earth, though not perhaps immediately, as in what happened to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They only recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread.

While justification frees us from the penalty of sin, and sanctification frees us from the power of sin, glorification frees us from the presence of sin. In the new creation—the new heaven and new earth—there is no more sin. That is why there will be no more suffering and sorrow, which are byproducts of sin. So what will we be doing—will we have any fun if there is no “sin”? In the new creation we will be engaged in all kinds of work, we will be endlessly creative. We will not be wearing angel’s wings and playing harps while sitting on clouds, as depicted in medieval artwork. We will not be standing forever in a worship service that never has a benediction.

Rather, we will merge with everything that is beautiful and good, and we will discover then what we only glimpse occasionally now: that all of life can be an act of worship, and that the absence of sin brings true joy and completely transforms the very nature of life and work. We need to have a robust view of heaven in order to live with the anticipation it deserves. God designed you and me with incredible capacities to dream, imagine, and create. Without the pull of sin, imagine what we can do! God would love nothing more than to assign each of us something magnificent to do—perhaps you will be assigned to run a galaxy.

WHAT WILL HEAVEN BE LIKE?

What will heaven be like? This is a question for which we long to find an answer. According to cartoons, there will be clouds and harps and streets of gold. According to jokes, there will be Saint Peter at the check-in, with some cheeky wisecrack about who gets in and who doesn’t. For many it is a place of unending pleasure—a nonstop, all-access pass to an amusement park. For others it is a nonstop church service, where God is praised endlessly by a chorus of humans and angels. The problem is this: we simply do not have much information when it comes to specifics about what heaven will be like.

The Bible’s references to heaven are few, and mostly metaphorical. Take for example “streets of gold” (Revelation 21:21). Should we take this literally? I am not sure if streets made of gold are even a good idea—I think there would be traction issues. The biblical images are attempts to show the precious nature of the next world. Gold is precious in this life, so why not imagine streets covered in it? The problem with all metaphors and similes is that they break down.

I wrote a book called Room of Marvels, a fictional work about a man who suffers a lot of loss and is given a dream in which he goes to heaven. It is a work of fiction, and I make no claim that I have some secret insight into what heaven will be like. I wrote the book as a part of my own healing. The idea that the things that happen in this life matter, that they prepare us for an eternal weight of glory; the notion that those I love are well; the idea that one day there will be no more sorrow, is very healing—it was for me.

I was on a few radio talk shows after the book came out, and in a few of them the host allowed callers to ask me questions. I was surprised by a few things from this experience. One, the deep hunger for heaven is very real. We all need to know that there is a happy ending. And two, I was stunned at how many people asked me if their pets would be in heaven. But then I thought, Of course they want to know!—the things we love in this life are precious, and we don’t want to lose them. I don’t have an answer, but I defer again to my friend and Bible scholar Scot McKnight, whose answer to the question is yes—there will be pets in heaven.

Again, the problem is that we do not know. We can surmise that all that is good and beautiful and true will be in heaven. And we can know that God, in Christ, has done all God can to make sure people have access to heaven. Beyond that we can only speculate. People have asked me a stunning variety of questions about heaven: “If a child dies on earth, what age will they be in heaven?” “Will we be married in heaven?” “Will we remember our life on earth?” The list goes on and on. The best answer I can give to the question, “What will heaven be like?” is one I once heard Dallas Willard give when he was asked: “Well, I don’t know for sure, but I do know what God is like and that God is good, so whatever it is like I am certain we will all say, ‘This is a great idea!’”

GRIEVING WITH HOPE

On May 8, 2013, my mentor and friend Dallas Willard graduated to glory. I had a trip planned to see him, but he died before I could get there. There was a private funeral planned, and later, a memorial service. I wanted to be at the funeral—Dallas was like a father to me, a spiritual father. His death wrecked me. Jane (his wife) and Becky (his daughter) asked if I would be a pallbearer, and I said yes. It would be an honor to help carry to his resting place the man who had carried my soul for years. I sat next to my friend John Ortberg at the funeral, who was also a pallbearer. Of all the funerals I have ever attended, this one was the most peaceful, because if there was anyone you were certain had crossed over into the heavens upon death, it was Dallas.

At the graveside service, the small group of us were given a rose and asked to place it on the coffin. One by one we did. As I approached the coffin I took two petals from the rose to keep and placed them in my pocket. I wanted something to remember him by. After the funeral had ended, Jane invited me to their home. When we were there she said, “Have you seen the list of people Dallas titled, ‘Our Boys Who Are Out There’?” I said no. She took me to his office, and above his desk was a handwritten piece of paper with a list of names on it, and she pointed out my name. “Dallas was very proud of you, and he prayed for you and the others on this list, that you would continue the good work of advancing the kingdom of God.” I started to cry. Jane made a copy of the list and let me keep it.

After I left their home, I did not know what to do. So I drove down to Malibu, and went and sat on a pier, holding my petals, the list, and the bulletin for the funeral. I noticed a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the back of the bulletin. It read:

I read this quote over and over. Bonhoeffer was right: we want to be rid of the pain of the absence and emptiness we feel when someone we love passes, but we must not ask for that. It is our connection with them. It preserves the “authentic relationship.” And he was also right that the more beautiful the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. John Pavlovitz has said that grief is the tax on loving people. If this is true, that explains why the more we love, the more profound the grief. Pavlovitz concludes, “Grief is a small penalty for the immeasurable treasure of loving and being loved.”

I sat in the California sunshine, misty eyed, as I recalled all of my most precious memories of time spent with Dallas. His deep baritone voice singing hymns, the way he choked up when he preached because he was so moved by God’s love, the dry humor, the deep wisdom, and the way he gently listened with compassion. I remembered how Dallas comforted me in the death of my daughter Madeline, as he shared how he and Jane had lost twin boys, who were stillborn. I remembered times we sat in airports waiting for our plane, and how he used the time to pray and read the Bible.

As I remembered with gratitude all of these moments, the last part of Bonhoeffer’s quote became even more true: “Gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy.” Joy because of God. Dallas was now ruling and reigning in the heavens with the God he knew so well, not because of anything Dallas had done or accomplished, but because the God who created him, loved him, forgave him, and raised him to new life in this life had raised him again to new life in the next.

We grieve, as Paul said, as those who have hope. And Dallas taught me the definition of hope: certainty in a good future. Not wishful thinking. Certainty. Dallas, I could imagine, was now with Madeline, and with Rich Mullins, and one day, I would join them as well.

REPRISE: THE GOOD AND BEAUTIFUL YOU

When I look at the totality of my life, and the longings of my soul, and the stunningly beautiful way God satisfies those longings, I am moved to doxology. And when I think of you—the good and beautiful you, who is reading this book—I am humbled and honored that you have taken this journey with me. You are no mere mortal. You are a divinely designed, deeply loved, fully forgiven, fully alive, sacred person, with a sacred story of grace, a sacred body, and a holy longing for God. You were perfectly designed before the foundation of this world, to do great works that give glory to God. And you are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. You are one in whom Christ dwells and delights. And you will live forever in the strong and unshakable kingdom of God. May you sing and dance with the joy of a child in the knowledge of God’s unending love.