Heaven: Do We Know Enough to Want to Go? (with Randy Alcorn)

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0:00:00 – (Randy Alcorn): So literally, the ultimate promise of heaven is not us going up to live with God in his place, though that happens temporarily with the intermediate heaven. The ultimate promise is God coming down to live forever with us in our place.

0:00:25 – (Courtney Doctor): Well, welcome to the Deep Dish, a podcast from the Gospel Coalition, where we love having deep conversations about deep truths. I’m Courtney Docter, and I’m here with my friend and co host, Melissa Krueger. And it is an understatement to say that we are so excited to have Randy Alcorn joining us today because, Randy, you know, through your writings, you have had a huge impact on my understanding of God and the life to come. And it’s been through both your fiction and nonfiction. I’ve really benefited many greatly from your writings. And so Randy’s joining us today to talk about one of his favorite subjects, but also one that has impacted my understanding.

0:01:03 – (Courtney Doctor): His understanding has impacted my understanding more than any other author, and that is heaven. So, Randy, welcome to the Deep Dish.

0:01:11 – (Randy Alcorn): Thank you. What a pleasure to be with Courtney and Melissa. I was telling Courtney ahead of time that our staff, this is like I’ve arrived because I’m talking to the Gospel Coalition. I send our staff, all of whom are females except me. I send them to the Gospel Coalition Women’s conference every other year. And I think there’s been three of them now that they’ve been to. Maybe some have been to four, but whatever, at least three.

0:01:40 – (Randy Alcorn): And they love it. And so all of a sudden when they saw that I was going to be interviewed by you, I had credibility. So there we go.

0:01:51 – (Courtney Doctor): Well, I wish that we need to meet them at the next conference is what we need to do. That is so kind of so kind. I know. I love it. I want to know Em. Well, we know that this is a subject that has been on your mind for a long time. You’ve written multiple books about heaven. You actually have a new one that we’re going to talk about in the second half of this conversation. But where did it all start? What started your interest in heaven?

0:02:16 – (Randy Alcorn): I would say more than anything else. It was when my mom was dying of cancer in 1981. I grew up in a non Christian home. My dad was a tavernot owner who was extremely hostile to the gospel. But I came to the Lord much to his disappointment and even anger. And then I had the privilege of leading my mom to faith in Christ. So mom and I were companions in the same household where we were deeply concerned for my father and brother, her husband and oldest son.

0:02:55 – (Randy Alcorn): And so we had that commonality. And we just got so close, close to each other. My mom was really, in many respects, my best friend. And so now when my oldest daughter was two and a half and youngest daughter was just a few months old, my mom suddenly was diagnosed with cancer and then went home to be with Jesus just a couple of months later. So every day while she’s on what turned out to be her deathbed, I would come and visit her and I would read to her.

0:03:34 – (Randy Alcorn): And for whatever reason, and I’ve been with a lot of dying people, but for whatever reason, I read Revelation 21 and 22, you know, the final two chapters of the Bible. But I did the same thing every day. And the reason was because it just. It was so tangible. It was so you’ve got the river of the water of life flowing down from the throne of God. You’ve got new fruit that’s on. The tree of life is really a forest of life. It’s on both sides of the river now.

0:04:10 – (Randy Alcorn): And so it’s like Eden magnified. And the more I read it, the more I thought, okay, wow, this is real. And the river of life, I mean, the river in Genesis was real. The tree of life in Genesis, a real tree. I mean, we, you know, so why would this not be a real forest? And. But what hit me from that, what I took away from it was not just that time with my mom, but thinking in Bible college and seminary, and I went through both.

0:04:43 – (Randy Alcorn): We never talked about the new Earth. And I’m not kidding, never. And part of the reason is, you know, like Hebrews to Revelation was like our final Bible class. Well, what’s the last two chapters that you never get to? I mean, only the place we will live for all eternity, bringing glory to God in the presence of Jesus and with the presence of the body of Christ. And, like, what could be more important other than Genesis 1 and 2?

0:05:12 – (Randy Alcorn): You know, that’s the one capstone, you know, and then the other One is Revelation 21:22. But we never talked about same thing in our eschatology class. We were too busy talking about the mid Trib Rapture. I mean, I think we probably.

0:05:29 – (Courtney Doctor): What is the thousand years?

0:05:30 – (Randy Alcorn): Yeah, who cares about the mid Trib Rapture? I mean, why are we talking about this? And then, sure enough, there was the final day. Hey, sorry, we didn’t have time to get to the new Earth. And I go, yeah, I’m really sorry, too. But so I realized how ignorant I was even reading those chapters to my mom.

0:05:52 – (Melissa Kruger): I think your point is so Good, because we have grown up with images in our mind. So even though we don’t talk about it a lot, I do think we have these images in our mind of heaven as a place of clouds and mist and shadows, you know, rather than things that can actually be seen and touched and enjoyed. And like what you just described in the last two chapters were real trees, a real river, you know, so where did we get these kind of glowy images? That’s what I picture in my head. I mean, because I think we all kind of have them. So it makes.

0:06:30 – (Melissa Kruger): I would almost say this. It makes heaven seem very distant and different, you know, whereas what you just described, we can picture trees and we can picture a river. So, you know, why do we have those images? Where do those come from, as you think about culture, Christian culture, and what we think about heaven?

0:06:51 – (Randy Alcorn): Well, when I wrote my big book, Heaven, back in 2004, it came out, I actually coined a term which I never do. I always think it’s kind of presumptuous for somebody to coin a term like, nobody ever thought of this but me, but it’s Christoplatonism. And the reason that I, I coined that term was because it’s not the normal Platonism, but it. But it is in. In a Christianized form. The Bible does not teach Platonism, but Platonism. Basically, Plato taught that the body is a prison for the soul and you want to be liberated from the body.

0:07:31 – (Randy Alcorn): The body is basically bad. And so that we one day shall be free when we’re liberated from a body. That is the exact opposite of what Scripture teaches. Because you have Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 15, if the dead are not raised, we are of all people, most to be pitied. And God has made us to be corporeal human beings with bodies. So we have a spirit. Some people distinguish spirit, soul and body, but I think most of us, at least I do think that it’s just two, that spirit and soul and mind and heart are just different ways of saying the immaterial part of who we are.

0:08:16 – (Randy Alcorn): And what happened in church history, the church fathers were really students of Plato and Aristotle and other Greek ways of thinking. And so they just imposed Greek philosophy into their interpretation of Scripture. Origen was one of those who did that, and there were numbers of others that did also. And so from the get go, from the very beginning, we had people interpreting the Bible to the church who did not believe that the material world was good, contrary to what God says in Genesis 1. It was good. It was good. It was good.

0:08:59 – (Randy Alcorn): And then verse 31, after a six day of creation, it was very good. God was extremely happy with his physical creation. And you read Genesis 1, and it’s crazy. I mean, animals are the chief subject of Genesis 1. But the culmination is human beings made in God’s image. But everything’s material. I mean, everything. I mean, the people have bodies, the animals have bodies. The world has light and it has water, and it has dirt, and it has all these things. It’s a garden.

0:09:38 – (Randy Alcorn): And so this is a physical place. But they managed to impose upon our thinking that really the ideal was not a physical world at all. In fact, they took the fallen world and confused it with the physical world. So that it’s bad, physicality is bad, and we need to be delivered from it. That’s where it started. And for whatever reason, and Even in the 20th century, you know, and I was born in the middle of the 20th century. So, I mean, you know, you.

0:10:19 – (Randy Alcorn): You had to, you know, now being in the 21st century is like, sometimes we don’t think this way. But that was like a lot of people in churches. Like, I came to Christ in. In a church where Platonism was part a real thing. It was like the pastor would say the body. He would talk about the bo. Our bodies are the problem. Well, our spirits and bodies are the problem. We’re fallen. They’re both fallen. But it’s.

0:10:51 – (Randy Alcorn): Yeah. So it just. It took hold of the evangelical church, and it’s still present in many places.

0:10:58 – (Courtney Doctor): It really is. And my seminary experience was actually different than yours, probably because of your writing, probably impacted. But I went to Covenant Seminary in 2010, so I was in my early 40s, and Mike Williams was one of my professors. So the whole idea of redemptive continuity, I mean, that was, you know, definitely just taught. And it rocked my world. Like, it really reoriented me to the beauty of God’s creation, the importance of the way God loves his creation.

0:11:26 – (Courtney Doctor): And then I remember in your book Heaven, how you talk about all of the words that start with the prefix re. You know, we’re gonna be redeemed, we’re gonna be restored, we’re gonna be reconciled, we’re going to. I mean, I can’t even do. I can’t remember all of them, but all of those words are really indicative of the fact. I mean, this is in your book, that it’s indicative of the fact that. That we are being remade into this thing. And so this redemptive continuity, and then to look at Jesus body, that the body that went into the tomb is the body that came out of the tomb. And that, you know, that the body that goes into the tomb when I die is going to be the body that comes out of the tomb when Jesus comes again. And so I love that. I had never thought of it because. Because of everything you’re saying.

0:12:08 – (Courtney Doctor): What did you call it? Christian Platonism? Yes, yes. And you just see how it’s integrated itself into our thinking. And one reason I’ve been so excited about this conversation is because as I started understanding some of that, my love of God grew, my love of his creation grew, my hope for heaven grew, my excitement about heaven grew. And so I just love that. But one thing I would like to. Because I think it also impacts this idea of how we understand the.

0:12:37 – (Courtney Doctor): The present heaven and the eternal heaven. So I would love for you to talk about that. Like what is. Because sometimes we get that a little wrong too. Right. Aunt Susie is running in the fields with Jesus. You know, she’s been fully restored today. And I don’t think that’s exactly right. So would you talk about the kind of these two phases of heaven? If that’s a correct way to say that?

0:13:04 – (Randy Alcorn): Yeah. And I’ve had that same experience. I was at a funeral one time, not a funeral I was doing, but one I was attending. And they talked about this man who is now up there in heaven golfing. And he’s going to be totally happy because every shot will be a hole in one. And first of all, I mean, there’s so much that’s wrong with it. You know, we will still be finite human beings. So even on the new Earth, where I assume people probably will be golfing and doing many other physical things, things that. That we do.

0:13:38 – (Randy Alcorn): But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be boring because everybody gets a hold one all the time. Because we will forever be finite, limited.

0:13:47 – (Melissa Kruger): This might be very distressing to any. Some of our listeners. I just want to say that might. That might rot their world.

0:13:56 – (Randy Alcorn): I know.

0:13:57 – (Melissa Kruger): What do you mean I won’t get home ones when I’m golfing, you know.

0:14:00 – (Randy Alcorn): Yeah. And I’m sure you’ll get more than you probably got in this life. But, you know. But point is, forever we shall be finite human beings. There’s nothing wrong with being finite. God is going to solve our problem of being fallen. That is our big problem. Our problem is not that we have bodies and that we eat food and that we drink water and other drinks. Our problem is that we’re fallen. And with redemption Comes all of these other things.

0:14:33 – (Randy Alcorn): But in terms of what’s called in theology, usually the intermediate heaven, where we go when we die, if we know Jesus, that world is pre resurrection now, there is much more physicality portrayed in that world than we would expect. And there are times when like even parable, rich man and Lazarus and you can say, well, it’s just a parable. Yeah, but would Jesus be trying to mislead us with a parable when he talks about, you know, the, the rich man thirsting and send Lazarus over so he can, you know, give me something to drink, water to drink.

0:15:14 – (Randy Alcorn): And then you’ve got the physical torment that the man in what we could call probably the intermediate hell, not the ultimate hell like a fire, but the precursor to it. And then you got Lazarus in the intermediate heaven, which is one of. He’s, he’s. It’s a world of pleasure and really it’s called paradise. And paradise is a walled garden. That’s what it’s from a Persian word. And I talk about that in the book.

0:15:47 – (Randy Alcorn): And it’s a world of plants and animals and people, and it’s this wonderful place and full of pleasures. So even the intermediate present heaven does at times have a physicality that’s portrayed. Maybe that’s all figurative, maybe some of that is literal. Since we were made to have bodies, is it possible that God kind of gives us like a loner body? I mean, intermediate form and not the resurrection body?

0:16:22 – (Randy Alcorn): Certainly not that, because that is still in the future. But then there’s Jesus returns, there’s the resurrection. Now we have different timings that people have with that dispensationalist, reformed and different. But the most important part about that is that the return of Jesus will usher in the new earth. Whether that new earth we wait for a thousand years, which has some arguments for it and certainly has arguments against it as well, or whether we immediately, right after there’s a judgment and now we go to the new earth one way or the other. One thing that all Christians should agree on is the ultimate is the new earth.

0:17:09 – (Randy Alcorn): Not a thousand year period on the old Earth that’s still under the curse where people end up being judged and sent to hell in a, in a final battle, you know, but, but actually the new earth, which will be heaven brought down to earth. And that’s, that’s the huge difference Revelation 21 shows. I saw new heavens and a new earth. God comes down to dwell with his people on planet Earth, his original plan. And you saw the reflection of that when he’s walking with Adam and Eve in the garden.

0:17:47 – (Randy Alcorn): It doesn’t literally say he’s walking with them in the garden, but it does say he walked in the garden and they were in that garden. So I’m just going to assume that he probably walked with them and the animals and, you know, just. But, you know, God dwelling on earth. Okay, so that was the picture in Genesis, and it’s literally in Revelation, God will come down to dwell with his people on earth. And it says the throne of God and the throne of Lamb of the Lamb will be on the earth.

0:18:15 – (Randy Alcorn): So literally, the ultimate promise of heaven is not us going up to live with God in his place, though that happens temporarily with intermediate heaven. The ultimate promise is God coming down to live forever with us in our place. And the incarnation of Jesus, how that fits theologically, that God becomes a man, and of course, Father and Holy Spirit as well. But the physicality of Jesus, I mean, it’s all wonderful.

0:18:47 – (Randy Alcorn): But yeah, those are two different realms. They’re both wonderful. I mean, to die and be with Christ is better by far. To be absent from the body, to be present with the Lord. It’s all great. My wife Nancy is there now, and I know how it is so great. But what the people of God all ultimately await is the final resurrection and our living on the new earth. We are looking forward, 2 Peter 3:13 says, to a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. And if we’re not looking forward to it, we’re not doing what Scripture tells us to do.

0:19:21 – (Melissa Kruger): That’s so good. Well, and just when you talk about these two different kind of, I think you call it intermediate heaven and then the new earth, and that’s really helpful. And the new earth, you know, is going to be completely, you know, redeemed and restored and new creation, you know, and it’s this picture. How is this intermediate stage differ from, you know, a word a lot of us have probably heard, but maybe we’re confused about as to how does it differ from the concept of purgatory?

0:19:56 – (Melissa Kruger): Does that make sense? Like, because some people might get in their head, oh, it’s the intermediary stage. So maybe there’s still things I can do, you know, down here to help someone out. How do you distinguish between those two?

0:20:12 – (Randy Alcorn): Yeah, you actually put your finger on something that I. Because the, the term that’s normally used in Bible colleges, seminaries, theological works, is the intermediate state. But what I found, I had people saying, are you talking about purgatory? And I go, purgatory where did that come from? But that’s the exact question that you’re asking. So I literally, in the later editions, I changed it from intermediate heaven to present heaven.

0:20:39 – (Randy Alcorn): So the present heaven, that gives no implications of a possible, you know, purgatory or punishment for or whatever. But yeah, certainly our Catholic friends are going to believe what they believe about purgatory. But that is not at all what Theo, what evangelical Protestant theologians mean by the intermediate state. It just means the state between the present heaven and the future heaven which will be brought down to the new earth.

0:21:10 – (Courtney Doctor): Thank you for that. And even as you were talking, I thought, I’ve never thought about this before. Maybe I’m just really slow on the uptake. But we so often argue about timing in the first two chapters of the Bible and the last two, you know, last chapter of the Bible, like, what does the time mean? Is a day a thousand years? Is a thousand years a thousand years. Like, I’ve never thought about the fact that. And neither of those are trying to accomplish that at all. Right. That’s not what the text is even like given for. But anyway, that’s a little tangential, but I just thought that was fascinating. As you were talking, I thought, well, we are funny people.

0:21:40 – (Melissa Kruger): Isn’t that funny? It’s actually about, it was very good and it will be very good and

0:21:47 – (Courtney Doctor): God is doing all of it. God is doing all of it.

0:21:50 – (Melissa Kruger): It’s like maybe the Bible’s a big chiasm when we get to, it was good. But then there are these numbers that everybody wants to fixate on. That’s a really good point.

0:21:57 – (Courtney Doctor): I never thought about that.

0:21:59 – (Randy Alcorn): Yeah, I mean, Satan always wants to distract us from what’s most important. And I really believe that interpretively he has favorite ways of doing that. He loves to misinterpret scripture and lead us to think that he believe, believe something that it doesn’t teach.

0:22:16 – (Courtney Doctor): Well, so the Bible teaches us that anyone who knows the Lord is going to be with him from the moment of his or her death. You just quoted the Second Corinthians. You know, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We know that Jesus told the thief on the cross today, I mean, today you’re going to be with me in paradise. So we know that this present heaven is still glorious, even though it’s not the post resurrection, post second coming of Christ, the one that’s going to be eternally glorious. And we’re gonna get there too.

0:22:43 – (Courtney Doctor): But, but, but what can we know about what somebody right now we all have someone we love. We all have someone we love that is in this present heaven right now. And so what can we actually know about what they’re doing or what they know about this life? You know, we. I think we question, you know, do they. Are they watching? Do they. Are they aware? Are they interceding for me, what are they doing? So what. What have you learned?

0:23:09 – (Randy Alcorn): Well, we know for sure they’re in the presence of God. And to be in the presence of God is to experience heaven and wonder beyond imagination. So it can only be really, really good to be in the presence of God and to not merely be justified. And it’s kind of funny to say that about justification merely, but to be glorified, to actually be in his presence. Now, you can argue that full glorification doesn’t happen until the resurrection, but in any case, it’s way better.

0:23:45 – (Randy Alcorn): You know, it’s better by far, Paul says. And so we know that much. We also know that in Revelation 6, we have the martyrs remembering the fact that they were killed on earth and saying to God, how long, O Lord, before you bring judgment on those who murdered us? So that tells us something about heaven. First of all, the notion that people in heaven remember what happened on earth because then it wouldn’t be heaven for them.

0:24:19 – (Randy Alcorn): And that’s just absolutely clearly false because of that passage that just shows that they do remember. It’s not a lack of memory that makes heaven heaven. It’s the presence of God and the eternal perspective that comes with that as us being redeemed people. So we know that they remember. They even remember bad things and that they know certain things. Like, for instance, they know that they haven’t.

0:24:57 – (Randy Alcorn): The people who killed them have not been judged yet. How long before you bring judgment? We also know that there is time in heaven. Okay, how long? They’re talking about how long? And Revelation 8:1 says, There was silence in heaven for half an hour. You know, and so many of the things that we believe about heaven are myths. It’s timelessness. And people talk about timelessness. And you go, well, wait a minute. If there’s timelessness, you couldn’t even sing.

0:25:24 – (Randy Alcorn): I mean, there’s the beginning of a song and then there’s the end of the song. There’s the middle of a song, and then you have full notes, half notes, quarter notes, whatever. So music as we know it now in the mind of God, he doesn’t need all that stuff, you know? Yeah, he could live in a world of timelessness, but we will not live in A world of timelessness. And another thing that we know, that people in heaven know is that Jesus talked about there will be rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over every sinner who repents. So you got that in Luke 15.

0:26:00 – (Randy Alcorn): Okay. It goes out of its way to not say the angels will rejoice. It says there will be rejoicing in the presence of the angels who will be living, or even now is living in the presence of the angels in heaven. It’s the people of God. Now, I’m sure the angels probably do rejoice, but the point is clearly that we should anticipate people rejoicing when sinners come to Christ, including probably sinners they prayed for. Well, they have to know that they’ve come to Christ. How do they know God somehow reveals it to them? They’re allowed to watch or he tells them or whatever. But there is actually at least selective knowledge of the future.

0:26:44 – (Randy Alcorn): Doesn’t mean we’re going to spend all of our time in heaven looking down on what’s going on down on earth. But this is like center court at Wimbledon, but much greater. The attention of heaven is on earth. This is where God is accomplishing his plan.

0:26:59 – (Melissa Kruger): That’s so beautiful. I love thinking about that one in particular about when someone comes to the Lord, thinking of this actual rejoicing among the people of God in heaven. And in some ways, you’ve finally been stripped bare of all the, like, lesser things we rejoice in. And I think there’s gotta be this ultimate rejoicing because we realize it’s the one thing that really matters in all of the things of life. And there. There’s just this huge joy that that happens.

0:27:32 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, we’re getting ready to go to a break, but before we get the break, because then we’re gonna talk about your new book on heaven. And one, when I was reading the intro was you dedicated it to your wife Nancy, who died a few years ago. And you said I might tear up when I read this. So I’m gonna try really hard to hold it together. I’m like, bite my cheek so I don’t cry. To Nancy, my wife, soulmate and best friend, now living with Jesus, such a wonderful sister.

0:27:59 – (Melissa Kruger): And mom and Graham, we all miss you. Never has a woman had more love in her heart for both God and his animals. It was through you that I first came to love God. When I saw you fall in love with our dogs, it made me love you all the more. And I just love that. That so much. But we Wanted to ask, how has knowing she’s with Jesus, has it made you think about heaven more? You know, because this is your soulmate. This is the person you’ve walked through life with.

0:28:29 – (Melissa Kruger): And I think it’s. You experienced it with your mom years ago and walking her, in a sense, to heaven. And that’s. That’s one experience. But it’s such a different thing for your. Your partner to watch her go. How has that changed how you think about heaven?

0:28:45 – (Randy Alcorn): Well, I think more than changing how I think about heaven, it has probably changed how I feel about heaven in the sense that I had a best friend who dies with Jesus. My mom died. But Nancy is a whole other category. I mean, we lived life together, married for 47 years. We knew each other for 54 years. We started dating when we were freshmen in high school. Never dated anyone else. And so it’s been a long journey and a wonderful one. And honestly, of the entire thing, the last four years when she was dying of cancer were, I don’t know, supernatural. I mean, the presence of God was with us in such real ways.

0:29:38 – (Randy Alcorn): She’s reading, knowing God, desiring God, trusting God. So, I mean, she’s got Packer and Bridges and Piper and on and on and on. Spurgeon books, Spurgeon sermons, on and on. I remember one day she said, okay, so I’ve been reading in Psalm 119, and you know what it says? And I said, well, actually, Psalm 119 says a lot. 176 verses. But what were you thinking of? And she says, well, this verse says that all things are God’s servants.

0:30:19 – (Randy Alcorn): You know what that means? And she just has this eager look on her face, and she’s physically. She is dying. She’s in stage four cancer at that point. She says, all things are God’s servants. You know what that means? I said, what? And she says, it means my cancer is God’s servant. He is using it for his glory. People will be touched. I will be changed. And I’m just going, you were godly before. And now I’m looking at this woman, I’m going, she is a saint.

0:30:54 – (Randy Alcorn): And our final four years, you think, oh, that must have been really sad. Of course, there were times of great sadness, and to the point I can hardly describe, but there were times of great joy that I also cannot describe.

0:31:14 – (Courtney Doctor): You know, Tim and Kathy Keller testified to very similar things, that there was a deepening of their love for each other, their love for God, their love of His Word. And so for you to testify to that and share that part of your story is just so hopeful for all of us and it shows us a better way, like a way to do this when it’s our turn. Because we’re all terminal. We all need to know how to walk through this. And so praise God for Nancy and thank you for sharing that part of your journey because I can only imagine the sadness and the hard parts, but for you to testify to the deep joy is just really beautiful and hopeful.

0:31:54 – (Courtney Doctor): We are going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. We are going to come back and then we are going to talk about something that I’m so glad Nancy gave you a love for animals because Melissa and I sure do love them. So we’re going to come back and talk about that in just a minute.

0:32:10 – (Randy Alcorn): Are you stuck in survival mode? We often say we want relief, but we fill the silence with noise. We hunger for connection but we hide our true selves. We claim to want freedom but we cling to control. Honestly, we say Jesus is enough, but we’re living like he’s not. There is no question that it is easier to live in shallow water where we can touch the ground without risking anything. But are we really living?

0:32:36 – (Randy Alcorn): It seems like we’re trying to live deep, meaningful lives with surface level tools, but we’re created for more. Learn how to shed perfectionism, imposter syndrome, anxiety comparison, all of those things that bring us down. In Angie Smith’s newest book, into the Deep, she shows how we can be brave, authentic and honest in a world that doesn’t always encourage it. The world will never tell you you’re enough, but through Jesus you are.

0:33:02 – (Randy Alcorn): Take a deep breath, loosen your grip and trust him. Learn more about into the deep@angie smithministries.com or purchase a copy wherever books are sold.

0:33:16 – (Courtney Doctor): Well, welcome back. We are talking with Randy Alcorn about heaven and you have a new book coming out in November called All God’s what the Bible says about Animals, Heaven and the New Earth. And we are both so intrigued by this title because we are definitely animal lovers. I don’t know, I’m kind of a, a, a broad category animal lover. Melissa is a Gus lover. She’s a very specific animal lover. But you, I mean you like all animals. Like you came, you were over at my house and you were petting the horses and you know, you like Walter, my dog.

0:33:49 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah.

0:33:49 – (Melissa Kruger): And I grew up. Actually this book would have been so great for me as a child, Randy, because my mom, when I would say my prayer, I said the same Prayer, you know, now I lay me down to sleep that this was my prayer every night. And then I would always tack on and dear Lord, please help all the animals who don’t have homes. It was very concerning to me.

0:34:08 – (Courtney Doctor): Oh, you are Broad Brush animal lover. You and Craig, my husband.

0:34:13 – (Melissa Kruger): It was very concerning to me that certain animals did not have homes. And I prayed for them to have homes, like for, I’m sure my mom was like, surely she’s going to be a vet.

0:34:23 – (Randy Alcorn): That’s right, adopt an animal.

0:34:25 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah, right. But we want to know, and not just kind of broadly like will all dogs go to heaven? But will my dog, will my horse, will my cat, you know, whatever your animal is. So is that why you wrote this book? To answer that question for people?

0:34:42 – (Randy Alcorn): That is one of the reasons. There’s two chapters in my Big Heaven book on animals. And I found that I got more questions about those two chapters and the subject of animals than anything else. And by far, I mean, the gals that work on our ministry, the ones that love you so much, they, they actually, I mean, would testify. We get more questions about that than virtually anything. We have a few videos I’ve done or interviews talking about animals that, and then the end of the year when we’re at our board meeting and what’s gotten the most hits and just so we have an idea of where we’re reaching people year after year after year, it’s articles, videos on animals and you know, so yeah, I wanted to write a whole book about it for multiple reasons.

0:35:39 – (Randy Alcorn): One reason is to come back to the new earth, but reach people who either didn’t get it the first time or never read the first book. But the odd experience that I’ve had of people who, oh yeah, it was great when you said about the new earth. And then a few sentences later, like one man was saying, yeah, I read your book on heaven, really meant a lot to me. And he says, you know, my eight year old son died, which is just of course a heartbreak.

0:36:11 – (Randy Alcorn): And he says, and you know what bothers me the most? And I said, what? And he says, it’s knowing that I will never be able to hug him again. And I, I, I went and I, I looked at him and not in a, a bad way, but I said, do you not believe in the resurrection? He goes, oh no, of course I believe in the resurrection. Which reveals our exact problem with this whole crystal Platonism thing. We can even affirm the doctrine of the resurrection. There are people who would be willing to be shot before they would deny the doctrine of the resurrection.

0:36:50 – (Randy Alcorn): And some of those same people simply do not believe it. Because resurrection means you’ll have a body, your son will have a body, and of course you will hug each other. There’s no possibility that you won’t hug each other. But for him to have that, and he was so thrilled when I actually said, well, I’m certain you’ll be able to hug. I mean, why would you not? I mean, you have Jesus saying to the disciples, touch me.

0:37:21 – (Randy Alcorn): I’m not a spirit, I’m flesh and bones. Spirits don’t have flesh and bones as I have. I’m not a ghost. And yet we have this ghostly idea. So I wanted to be able to address that and I thought, what better way to address that again, but come through kind of the back door or a side door anyway, in the arena of animals, because animals I think we intuitively realize are physical now, they’re not just physical, sentient animals.

0:37:54 – (Randy Alcorn): Sentient meaning self aware. They have the ability to feel pain, experience pain. They are unique in all earthly creation except us. We have that in common with sentient animals that we experience pain, that we experience sorrow. Sentient animals often experience grief. I tell animal stories in the book about the whales that, you know, a baby whale dies and the mama whale carries around on her supports. This child doesn’t allow it to sink down into the water for like 15, 20 days.

0:38:39 – (Randy Alcorn): And this, this and the grow literal groanings that happen. I, I, I’m just going to tell this one story and see if I can condense it here. But our, our golden retriever, Maggie, who was just probably, I mean, we’ve, we’ve loved all the dogs we had together. I’ve had seven in my life, had four together with Nancy and nobody could love a dog like she loves a dog. We have a friend who’s a strong Christian who obviously does not believe in reincarnation, but said, you know, if I believed in reincarnation, I’d want to come back as Nancy’s dog, dog.

0:39:15 – (Randy Alcorn): So there you go. But her love for dogs, her love for, for animals. But anyway, we came home when Nancy was, the doctors told us that day, that’s when she had moved to stage four cancer. Unless God intervened. And we’d been praying for three and a half years that he would, but he hadn’t yet, unless God intervened, that, you know, she would be dying and going to be with Jesus. And so we get home, I pray on my knees next to her, she’s in bed and this is the way we did it. Every night I was on my knees next to her, and we’re praying together, and Maggie was always with us.

0:39:55 – (Randy Alcorn): And Maggie would get those golden retriever eyes and just look at you like, oh, my, what a privilege for me to be here. I mean, this is crazy. Okay, so then I go downstairs, Nancy’s upstairs, and then finally now I’m able to respond, and I just am sobbing. I just break out in tears. And I’m on the couch downstairs, and I’m praying, lord, just please, I’m asking you again, would you heal her? Would you just keep this from happening? From dying of cancer, all that.

0:40:29 – (Randy Alcorn): Then all of a sudden, I hear a loud groan, and I mean, very loud groaning noise next to me. And I turn, and inches from my face is Maggie. And she is not howling, but she’s groaning. And, you know, what immediately came to mind was Romans 8. The whole creation groans in suffering. Not only do we groan in suffering, Paul says, not only us, but the whole creation groans in suffering, anticipating the deliverance, the liberation that shall come with the resurrection of God’s children. It doesn’t say animals will be resurrected.

0:41:13 – (Randy Alcorn): It says animals will experience the liberation that God’s children do. As go people, so go animals. That is a theme I develop in the book. Throughout Scripture, there are literally dozens of examples of that. You know, the. You know, the flood is probably the most obvious one. But it’s like, you know, it only would have taken a small boat to have eight people survive. Right? Why did it have to be that huge boat? Because he didn’t want a single species or kind. Let’s say, as he didn’t want a single kind of animal to no longer exist.

0:41:54 – (Randy Alcorn): It was that important to God. And if he had that. And then, by the way, in Genesis 9, that is called an eternal covenant. The covenant is not just with Noah. The covenant is with all living creatures. Nine times in Genesis 9, it says that. And by the way, it’s a perfect example of our anthropocentrism that we call it the Noahic covenant. It is a covenant not only with Noah, it’s with all living creatures and the animals, with the vast majority of those delivered on the ark. But of course, we just call it the covenant with Noah, because animals, who cares?

0:42:36 – (Randy Alcorn): God does is the answer.

0:42:37 – (Melissa Kruger): That’s so good. I love that. That picture. I hadn’t really thought of it saying, you know, with all living creatures, he promised never to flood the earth and destroy it by a flood again.

0:42:49 – (Randy Alcorn): And he calls it an eternal covenant. It’s the olam, the Hebrew word that is used of. Of all eternal, going on and on, no end in sight ever types of things.

0:43:02 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, I am excited about that. When I think I just saw koala bears for the first time in Australia. And I saw kangaroos, and they were very cute. I’m very excited about it when I think about that. But there are some animals, like the spider that I unmercifully killed just a little bit ago on my kitchen counter, or the roaches that sometimes I see, or, you know, I’d prefer an ocean in heaven without sharks or, you know, sitting by the pond without mosquitoes.

0:43:33 – (Melissa Kruger): So are all animals going to be in the new earth, or will we have, you know, a different view of them? What’s your thought on that? I know scripture probably doesn’t tell us specifically on some of these, but do you. Did you. Did you go into that at all in the book?

0:43:51 – (Randy Alcorn): Definitely treated in the book because our tendency is to impose upon God’s future creation. All that is true in our present creation and much that is true in our present creation is not good. Right. So everybody’s been mauled by a dog, you know, has told me things like, I’m sorry, I just. Dogs scare me. And then. And spiders, you know, I. Spiders are probably the creature that I hate the most. And when I see a really big spider, I mean, it comes up from our. We live in an old house, and the drains in an old house are just perfect somehow for especially one that isn’t used a lot.

0:44:36 – (Randy Alcorn): You know, you see these huge spiders that just come out. And I’m just going. Each time I just think, okay, all right, so now. But here’s the thing. Were there spiders in Eden? I assume there were. And I assume people looked at them and they saw those beautiful webs and they saw the. The rainbow effect of the sun coming through and that we’ve all seen. At least I have. You know, I. I live in Oregon and there’s a lot of wildlife around, and there’s also a lot of human wildlife, but that’s a different story.

0:45:09 – (Melissa Kruger): But anyway, but.

0:45:11 – (Randy Alcorn): But we’ve got. So I look at these spiders and I go, what they have done. It’s marvelous. What they’ve. But I still cringe. But why do I cringe? Because spiders can hurt us. Spiders do scare us. But we’re going to live in a world where the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea. There will be nothing to fear, nothing to dread. And those are the passages that talk about animals.

0:45:44 – (Randy Alcorn): Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 65 both say that verse that I just quoted, and it’s in the context of those animals. So what I think we have to learn to do is think, well, first of all, I don’t know that all animals will be recreated. I’m not saying that. But I do know that Colossians 1 talks about all things in heaven and earth being reconciled and brought together in God’s perfect plan. Ephesians 1 has a verse that says something very similar to that. Acts 3.

0:46:20 – (Randy Alcorn): 28. You got Peter saying, the time will come when God, as he promised the prophets of old, will restore all things. Jesus said in Matthew 19, God will restore all things. You’ve got all of these all things passages now. Now I show in the book that all things is a term that doesn’t have to literally mean all things, because it was. It’s like the word all the Pantah is used of all. Judea was coming out to hear John the Baptist, right? I mean, like that. So it’s hyperbole.

0:46:58 – (Randy Alcorn): So it doesn’t have to literally mean all animals. So he can choose to not resurrect certain. Or resurrect isn’t the best term, but restore certain animals if he so chooses. But the other thing that we really have to just remind ourselves of, some of the things that horrify us now will not at all horrify us there.

0:47:19 – (Courtney Doctor): I love that. In fact, it’s kind of part of my very last question for you because. So you’re a statement that you made at the beginning about people might. I’m not a golfer, but people might golf, but they aren’t always going to get a hole in one. It’s has some. It’s had an impact on me, Randy, because I’m a little worried about what it might mean for this thing that I have had that I’ve hoped for in the new heavens and the new earth. Okay, so I ride horses and I. Melissa knows where I’m going with this.

0:47:45 – (Melissa Kruger): She’s been talking about this. This has been the question. I just want to set it up for everyone else who’s listening.

0:47:51 – (Courtney Doctor): It’s true.

0:47:52 – (Melissa Kruger): This is the question Courtney needs answered.

0:47:55 – (Courtney Doctor): I do. I do need an answer to this. So here’s where my thinking has gone. Oh, Randy’s getting out his Bible, I think. Okay, you don’t even know the question yet. But so I ride horses and I thought, you know, I bet in the new heavens and the new earth, I am going to be able to, like, ride this horse bareback and not fall off, but then I’ve taken it. So you’re, you’re not getting a hole in one is kind of making me think I could be wrong about that. But here’s the other thing that I have thought for years I’m going to be able to do in the new heavens and the new earth, and that is ride a giraffe.

0:48:29 – (Courtney Doctor): And I’m really excited about it, Randy. So tread gently in your answer. But correct me, I am willing to be corrected. But I really, I want to know, like, how is this all gonna work? I wanna, I wanna jump down waterfalls, but I wanna ride a giraffe.

0:48:45 – (Randy Alcorn): Yeah, so we, we don’t, you know, if you look up giraffe in a concordance, good luck. But the point is, we are told about animals. 11 different species of animals in Isaiah 11. Four of them were the four main predators in Israel. You’ve got the lion, you’ve got the wolf, you’ve got the bear, and you’ve got the panther or leopard. Okay, so they’re killers, right? They kill their prey and it’s not pleasant, but they are shown as lying down next to each other with the young calf, the young goat. And what’s the point of all this? It’s predators with the prey. I mean, they’re no longer. This predatory thing is going to happen.

0:49:36 – (Randy Alcorn): But to your question, I would think that we would be able to ride a giraffe, that we would be able to ride an elephant, that we would. Why not? I mean, that’s what I mean, why not? I mean, somebody has to make a case for why not. I mean, they can talk about the logistics of does the giraffe have to go down on its knees and do you have to still come up on a bit of a ladder or something to get up there, or can we just jump up or what?

0:50:06 – (Randy Alcorn): We don’t know the answer to that. But I’ve thought about this. Extending it even further is will I be able to ride Pterodactyl as it flies across the face of the planet? Well, you know, it’s so funny because I’ll say that once a while. You think there’ll be dinosaurs on the north. Well, well, who created dinosaurs? Satan? No, it was God created dinosaurs. So, of course, I mean, if he’s going to restore all things, I think it might be more like the ark. Not every animal went on the ark, but a representative of every animal kind did.

0:50:42 – (Randy Alcorn): So animal kinds. That includes all kinds of breeds of dinosaurs. But yeah. So, like, one of the things that I imagine is actually the Reason that I was turning in Job, lest I forget, is because of that passage on the horse. I mean, it is one of the most powerful passions. And by the way, Job has four chapters that are mainly about animals. 80% animals, 20% other aspects, inanimate aspects of creation.

0:51:15 – (Melissa Kruger): And

0:51:17 – (Randy Alcorn): it’s the only place in Scripture where he is giving a solo. It’s a monologue. He’s talking about animals to Job. And somehow this is supposed to help Job with the problem of evil and suffering. I’m not sure how, but somehow it does. And Job just repents and dust cloth. And you’re so great God, because your greatness is manifested in animals. And if we would have thought God was going to spend four chapters on anything, wouldn’t it be like prophesying redemption or. So, I mean, you know, there’s.

0:51:47 – (Randy Alcorn): I mean, he does that in other places, but. But I think it’s significant. But in job 39, he says, will the. After the wild ox, after the ostrich. Here we go. Do you give. Yes, it did. Do you give the horse its strength or clothe its neck with a flowing mane? If you’ve ever seen the movie Secretariat, I highly recommend it.

0:52:14 – (Courtney Doctor): I know it begins.

0:52:16 – (Randy Alcorn): I met the guy who was the director of it. He’s a believer, and he has these verses about the horse at both the beginning and the end of that movie up on the screen. Do you give the horse its strength? Do you clothe its neck with a flowing mane, God, Saint? Because I do. Do you make it leap like a locust, striking terror with its proud snorting? It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength. It charges into the fray.

0:52:47 – (Randy Alcorn): It laughs at fear. It is afraid of nothing. It does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against its side along with the flashing spear and lance in frenzied excitement. It eats up the ground. It cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. Do you get the feeling that God is proud of this animal?

0:53:08 – (Courtney Doctor): Yes. And like, delighting in this.

0:53:10 – (Randy Alcorn): Delighting.

0:53:10 – (Courtney Doctor): I know. Absolutely.

0:53:12 – (Melissa Kruger): I know.

0:53:12 – (Randy Alcorn): So you know what? But you’ll probably ride horses more than you’ll even ride giraffes. I’m just guessing, because you love horses. But the point is, yeah, God has a heart. God is. Romans 1:20 says, his creation. He has manifest his attributes through his creation. He has done that with animals. There’s one species of human beings, only one. There are something like now 8 million species of animals, 100,000 plus of those are sentient animals.

0:53:48 – (Randy Alcorn): Will we learn about God from them forever? I’m certain the answer is yes.

0:53:54 – (Courtney Doctor): Oh, Randy, not only. What a great answer. First of all, can Melissa and I join you and Nancy on a pterodactyl ride in the new heaven and the new earth and the giraffe and. I know. And then you guys can join me on a giraffe ride. Okay. I’m so. And it’s. And I’m serious when I say I’m so looking forward to that. But you have anchored my hope again even further in all the glories that are to come. And so, for anybody listening, we hope that the same has happened for you and that you have been deeply encouraged by the realities of the new heavens and the new earth that are going to be ours for all eternity, and that this episode has been encouraging for you. So if so, consider sharing it with others. And we will see you next time on the Deep Dish.