Heaven.
What will it be like? How can we possibly even know? (There-and-back-again claims notwithstanding.) Answers range from a healthy emphasis on the new heavens and new earth to images of us flying off into the clouds like disembodied spirits. Blame it on uninformed teaching, pop culture’s harp-heavy depictions, or our own myopic inattention. But the doctrine of heaven is riddled with misconceptions and unhelpful views that tend to confuse rather than clarify.
In this new 10-minute roundtable, John Piper (former pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis), Randy Alcorn (founder of Eternal Perspective Ministries and author of more than 40 books, including Heaven), and Scott Swain (professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando) take up this thorny topic in the hopes of providing a more biblically informed picture of our future home. They discuss what happens when we die before Jesus’s return, what it’ll be like to dwell in God’s midst without sin, and what difference it makes to get this doctrine right. Listen in on the conversation to hear whether or not they’d sing “I’ll Fly Away,” how heavenly hope affects personal holiness, and more.