Meditations on the World to Come for Life in the Meantime

Matt McCullough

We are just more insulated from death than anybody ever has been in other times and places. And it makes sense, if you can push death off to some other day, or treat it as somebody else’s problem, why you didn’t you focus instead on squeezing as much as you possibly can out of this life, this world, right here, right now, and if, if heaven isn’t really a boost to that project, the hope of heaven doesn’t really like factor in, then it doesn’t get attention.

Collin Hansen

My future is vulnerable and my future is up to me. These are the two basic assumptions of modern life, says Matt McCullough, and these assumptions are making us anxious and miserable. McCullough wants us to know the peace of the Lord instead. He is the author of the new book, remember heaven, meditations on the world to come for life in the meantime, published by crossway and the gospel coalition. McCullough writes that the belief quote the future is up to you, is just another way of saying you’re on your own. But as we as Christians recite in the Heidelberg Catechism, the hope of the Christian is that we belong, body and soul to Jesus. McCulloch earned his PhD from Vanderbilt University. He’s the pastor of Edgefield church in Nashville. He previously published the book remember death with crossway and TGC. I know a few authors who can approach Matt’s ability to write with a with pastoral sensitivity, biblical insight and cultural awareness. Here’s an example from this book. Quote, in God’s presence, everything we love most about his gifts in this world will be wonderfully, unimaginably expanded, and in God’s presence, every fear of loss will be completely, absolutely eliminated. Only in God’s presence can we be satisfied, because only there will be fully have and forever hold what we love that’s just beautiful stuff. So let’s discuss why we’re not thinking more about heaven, good and bad motivations for heaven and more. Thanks for joining me. Matt,

Matt McCullough

thanks for having me, brother. Love your podcast. Listen to it often, and benefit from it tremendously. So it’s an honor to be on here with you. Thanks. Matt,

Collin Hansen

well, first you wrote, remember death. Now remember heaven, friend, we’re moving in the right direction? Yeah, we are. How does this book relate to your first

Matt McCullough

Yeah, I mean, it’s, in some ways, it’s very similar in the audience that it’s trying to help, and in the big picture, problem that it’s trying to address, which is to say, you know, as a as a pastor, my main job is to try to help people see the relevance of Jesus, to trust Him and only him for all their hope in life and in death and and so my my job as a pastor in my time and place is to try to think carefully about where do my people struggle to see his relevance, what’s causing them to miss out on the deeper implications of the gospel that they profess? The first book was about trying to recover a baseline truth about the world that is essential for understanding why Jesus promises all the things that he promises for not paying attention to the fact that this world is a world where nobody survives, where death reigns, then we won’t understand why Jesus talks so much about eternal life and so much else that he has to say. So that book was about trying to take the reality of death, that is, is something we’re more detached from than any other time and place in history, and and make us a little more attached to the reality to show where it shows up in life. I talked about it there like death, death awareness, starting to see the presence of death in in life has the Effect Kim Camus said, of of revealing the things that we take as substantive and important and immovable in life for nothing more than set pieces on a stage. They, from a distance, look real, they look substantive, they look they look firm, but death shows the truth. They’re just propped up and not forever. So that book was about trying to topple over Jesus’s competition one set piece at a time till he’s the last hope standing. This book is about trying to leverage that hope. All right, if he’s still standing, if what he’s offered us is beyond the reach of death, how can we use that hope that we’re now clinging to for life in the meantime, where does that hope change how we see and experience things here and now. And I was encouraged to think about that by folks who felt like like, I think the biggest impact of that first book on death was the demolition work. You know, it was, it was most most striking for what it tore down. And, man, I think that had to be done. But I hope this will be most striking for. It celebrates and and helps to build.

Collin Hansen

Was it first at pot belly in Louisville AT T 4g that we talked about this book?

Matt McCullough

And maybe so I definitely remember that pot belly lunch at T 4g I don’t remember if we were talking about this or one of the other shared passions that we have, but I

Collin Hansen

know there was a book that was brewing with you, and I think it was this one, because this one went through a couple iterations, right? Yeah,

Matt McCullough

well, sort of. So I, I was working on a book, probably the one we talked about is one I still hope to write someday that’s more about, more about how you come to know yourself with God at the center of that project, and I had to go off on a sabbatical and try to write that book, and realize that I couldn’t write it yet, to realize I had more than one book I was trying to write at the same time, and this one, it definitely came out of that bigger project, but is is a lot more focused and tighter than what we probably talked about at pot belly that day. Hopefully everybody’s

Collin Hansen

gonna remember that. So now you say in this book that many Christians simply aren’t thinking about heaven at all. And if asked, and this is What’s scarier, Matt, they couldn’t say why they should be. Do you think when we just look at it that way, it’s surprising, and yet, when I think about it, I can’t help but concur with your assessment. Why is this the case?

Matt McCullough

I think that’s a complicated question to answer. There’s a lot of factors involved. It’ll be different for different people. But just to spout off on a couple reasons, I think that that one thing that can often cause us just not to be conscious of of the world to come is the fact that this world does seem more permanent and more lasting than it would have to people who lived 200 years ago and knew that death was everywhere. So back to the connection between this book and the last one that I wrote. We are just more insulated from death than anybody ever has been into other times and places. And it makes sense, if you can push death off to some other day or treat it as somebody else’s problem, why you didn’t even focus instead on squeezing as much as you possibly can out of this life, this world, right here, right now, and if, if heaven isn’t really a boost to that project, the hope of heaven doesn’t really like factor in, then it doesn’t get attention. I think that’s part of it. I also think I don’t know this is as much of a thing now as it was maybe 15 years ago, but there was a time, certainly, where I feel like a lot of Christians in my generation almost felt bad for thinking about heaven like it was almost morally inappropriate to be talking and thinking about the world to come when there’s so much need in this world like, like, it’s either it’s either you can focus on, on on neighbors who are suffering and who need care here and now, or you can just look forward to glory land, but, but you got to choose, and a lot of pushback against maybe some real problems in the past, where, where there was a detachment from, from our neighbors, needs now, because of with heaven as an excuse, I don’t know, but I definitely noticed that trend and and almost a fear of being written off as some sort of, you know, fundamentalist, if you if you talked about the world to come, I don’t know how, how many people struggle with that today, but I think it’s real, and I think we just have, we have nothing to be ashamed of in talking about heaven and longing for it as Christians, it’s just so central to what Jesus has promised us.

Collin Hansen

It’s a related question here, Matt. But is the issue, what you alluded to there, that we’re working too hard to have heaven on earth, or maybe just expecting too much of Earth as if it’s heaven, or that the heaven offered by God, revealed in his scripture, just doesn’t seem to interest us very much.

Matt McCullough

I think it’s some of both. Man, I really do. I think it’s some of both. I think the the working toward heaven on earth problem is basic to us as humans, even as Christians, that this world is so full of good God put it there. But we have, we have always been tempted to idolize it, to love the creature more than the than the Creator. And that plays out in this realm too. Like we can, we can so easily be swept up by the things we can see and taste and touch and want more and more and more of that. Anything that we can’t see is just going to struggle by comparison. I mean, I talked about the the unique burden today, or the neat challenge towards thinking more about heaven, being that we were more detached from death. But, you know, I was, I was really helped by and struck by a Peterson book on heaven by Richard Baxter called the saints everlasting rest, huge influence on what I’m doing here. You. And it strikes me there, like back in 16 mid, mid 1600s Baxter is struggling to get people to connect with the world to come because this world is so much more tangible, so much more grabbable. So I think that’s that’s always been an issue, but, but you know, the things that we are promised about the World to Come without extra without careful attention, without the kind of meditation that I’m trying to practice in the book, it can seem really remote and otherworldly. If, if we’re not enjoying the presence of God now as a way of life, then having more of his presence in some sort of future world we can’t imagine doesn’t sound great, not compared to more sex or money or power or whatever else we we tend to be driven toward. I think they’re both issues. Man,

Collin Hansen

uh, twin question here, Matt, what’s a bad motivation for reaching heaven and what’s the best motivation?

Matt McCullough

Hmm, a hmm, a bad motivation. I don’t know about straight bad. I mean, I think more about one that is good but can be made ultimate, and that that’s dangerous. I talk about this a little bit in the book, like one of the one of the really central aspects of our hope in heaven is the fact that we will see loved ones who died in faith again in heaven. So I’m not going to call that a bad one at all. That is that is biblical and so wonderful, but, but man, I mean, one of the books that struck me as I was doing background reading for this was a book on the history of Heaven in America, or in American Christianity. And in this book argued that sometime in the 19th century, what just came to totally dominate the focus of on heaven, such as it is in America, is the hope for for seeing loved ones, such that there’s a quote in there from Andrew Jackson on if, if he should not see his wife there, it’ll be no heaven. To me, he said, like, man, okay, that’s that’s gone way too far. If the main thing we’re hoping for is to see others, because the Bible is so clear that heaven is is just one another way of talking about the presence of God, the unmediated, direct, all consuming presence of God. So the best motive for longing for heaven is that we’ll see Him as He is, and that where he is, nothing else that Mars the goodness of this world will have any place, no sin, no sorrow, no death.

Collin Hansen

I had a loved one who was just difficult, obviously for all of us, who was very clearly dying, and was talking with a pastor slash priest, and his comments were, I don’t care where I go, as long as I go with my wife. Yeah. And I thought that’s a very common sentiment, totally pretty common in terms of kind of our romanticism, not necessarily like rom coms, but just kind of broadly emotivism and romanticism. But if you take seriously what we profess to believe from Scripture about heaven and hell and about eternity and judgment and grace, then it’s not a helpful way to think

Matt McCullough

to put it out. No, it’s yeah, it’s not helpful, both for how it it repurposes God, and also for how it can, it can really evacuate the fullness of joy and beauty in our relationships with one another. What I mean is that that it turns God into sort of his. His role is to call a family reunion, right? Like he he’s the one who puts on the spread, he’s the one who books the venue, and then he just sets us loose to enjoy the family reunion that he made possible. That just relegates him to a secondary more more of a prop, as opposed to the center of it all. But then it also just that deprives some of the beauty and the fullness of our relationships with one another in Christ, when, which are made so much more rich? When, when Jesus is at the center. What we love about each other is partly the fact that we see Christ in one another and and hope together for him. It’s not either or if Christ is at the center. Yeah.

Collin Hansen

Well, amen. Well, what’s the best passage Matt, for me to meditate on so that I can remember heaven.

Matt McCullough

Oh man, you know, I don’t do these best-ofs very well.

Collin Hansen

Why do you think I keep asking?

Matt McCullough

Don’t make me choose. I’ll tell you my favorite one, this one. This one takes, this one takes a little a little more like work to meditate on it, and because it’s from the prophets. So it’s got a wonderful, rich imagery. Needs a lot of context work, but my favorite passage on heaven is Isaiah 25 it’s where, it’s where the Lord promises that one day he’s gonna swallow up death, he’s gonna spread a feast for. All peoples on a mountain and death itself will be swallowed up. And what I love about it most, I think, is that after that image for heaven and this, as this unending party is laid out, the people are speaking back and forth to one another about that day. They say, We will say to one another in that day, this is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us rejoice, be glad in his salvation. I love the communal image of Heaven in that. I think about that at my church a lot, that these people that I’m singing with and preaching to and sharing life with, one day that’s going to be us, and when he comes through on everything he’s promised us, we’re going to look at one another and know what we went through along the way, know what what we hoped in and see it fulfilled together. And I think that that both makes me long for heaven, but also just gives me so much more urgency to my life and my local church right now, that with that day as the horizon, that’s the point. It’s not how well I’m getting served, how many of my needs are aren’t getting met right now, but like we’re going to get each other there to that day. That’s our role, and it supercharges what the local church is about, I think, and

Collin Hansen

Sabbath never cease, right?

Matt McCullough

Amen. Yeah,

Collin Hansen

you write in this book. It’s one thing for me to say that all you need is Jesus. Is another thing to say that all I have is Christ. What do you mean? Man? So

Matt McCullough

that comes in a chapter on judgment day as a part of the hope of heaven that gives us shed some light on our lives in the meantime. So I think I need to probably sum up the point of that chapter for that quote to make some sense. So I don’t, I don’t think often or have not through the Christian, my Christian life thought often of judgment day is something to hope for. You know, it’s like it, it is a terrifying thought to be exposed completely before the one who sees all and that is, that is judgment day. But for a Christian, it’s also the day on which we will see what God sees when he sees us in Christ. So for now, I have that promise, and then I’ll experience it. For now, I can look at Jesus’ righteousness and know that through faith, I am righteous in him. I can even trust that Jesus or that God, the Father already looks on his son and sees me buried in him, but I can’t see it yet, like I still see so many of my own imperfections. I still see how far short I fall from the standard that he has set and the beauty that I see in his character, and I’m longing to see what he sees and be done with wondering, you know, with with, with the wrestling to be adequate or good enough. So I try to apply that, that hope of that day, to a common struggle that I see all time as a pastor. There’s this crippling inadequacy that people feel, especially in the age of social media and and and what I try to say in that chapter is that if, if judgment day is where all this is is headed, it helps us to see that no righteousness other than Jesus is going to stand to put to death the kinds of prideful grasping that make us feel inadequate in the meantime, and that Jesus righteousness will stand to rest more fully. Now, in the meantime, in that righteousness, the fact that judgment day is coming helps us say it isn’t just that. It’s okay if you need Jesus, you know, if he’s there for you, if you have him, it leaves us saying only Jesus is going to survive. Only if I’m wearing him do I make it through that day? I talk about Jesus as sometimes we can talk about the righteous of Jesus as if it’s a nice base layer. But what we really hope other people will notice about us is what we put on our own preferred brands on the outside, like he’s like the under the Long John underwear that you wear just to keep yourself warm and comfortable. But nobody cares what brand that is like you. Hope. That people notice the shirt you chose, or your jacket or whatever, and sometimes that’s the way we treat Jesus righteousness like, yeah, okay, we have all that in common, but, man, I really hope you notice what I brought to the table on top of that, and the prospect of judgment day does away with that, like the better image for what judgment day requires. It comes from a book I cite in my book that the it’s like what a space suit is to a walk on the moon. Jesus, righteousness is the only way to survive that day. Nobody cares what brand your space suit is. If you’re doing a walk on the moon, you just need to have one because you’re dead. Otherwise, it helps you to say, all I have is Christ. Not it’s nice for you if you have Jesus, but man, it’s all him or all nothing. Oh,

Collin Hansen

I like that. Another line from the book, quote, If you’re going to carry on without losing heart, you need to know that Heaven is where you are going, and suffering is how you will get there. All right, you need to unpack that thought for us. Matt,

Matt McCullough

yeah, one of the one of the great challenges of the Christian life is to know what to do with our suffering, because becoming Christians put a stop to it, and we are meaning making creatures. That’s what humans do. We have to figure things out. We have to know why we’re going through what we’re going through that’s not a unique to Christians, that’s just being human. One of the amazing resources of Christianity is an explanation of the meaning of our suffering and the perspective of heaven. I’ve drawn here from from Paul and Second Corinthians four. The perspective of Heaven shows us what all this is for, that the Lord is using our suffering, the wasting away of the outer man, that the passing away of all the seen visible things, to prime us for the world that will never end, to teach us who we have in God already, but also to prepare the contrast that will make heaven so much more beautiful to us, Richard, I mentioned that Richard Baxter book earlier, one of my favorite quotes in there. I can’t quote this from memory the quotes in the book, but he talks about how he’s convinced we’ll have memory in heaven of what happened to us on Earth that will be able to stand from that height, he says, and look back at Canaan, and also look at the promised land. And by comparing the two, what Canaan was like, what the wilderness was like, and and what, and what the Promised Land is. Then, then we’ll, we’ll just savor the gift of the promised land so much more. I think that’s what Paul means, at least in part, when he says that our suffering, our affliction now, is preparing for us the weight of glory. Glory is going to be is gaining heft and substance and and beauty, in direct proportion to the things that we suffer now that make it all the more necessary to us. So if we can look at our suffering that way in the meantime, then it isn’t lost like it’s productive. It’s not that it isn’t important. It’s not that we shouldn’t acknowledge how difficult life can be. It’s that we can hold on to knowing this is going somewhere. This is productive. And Paul’s basically saying that trade works out for you. You want this trade suffering now, Glory later.

Collin Hansen

That’s good. You had mentioned. Well, let me follow up on that. One. Is there some element then to the concept in Revelation, the Lamb who was slain, like some, I mean, some memory there of what has been suffered and what then gives way to glory. Does that fit into that picture as well? I mean, it

Matt McCullough

certainly could, in terms of Jesus own experience, and I’d be hesitant to speculate on that part. But I mean, he bears the scars for our benefit too, doesn’t he? I mean, it’s his scars that he shows to Thomas,

Collin Hansen

the resurrected body, and then, and then the imagery of the Lamb who was lamb is slain in Revelation. Just makes me think there’s some sense of of what we’ve been delivered from, and, yes, who we’ve been delivered for and by, totally, totally. So that’s kind of a sense of of grace, um, some acknowledgement and thankfulness for Grace seems to be a part of the eternal experience as well. We talked earlier about the question, Is it okay if I’m looking forward to heaven because I want to see my loved ones again? Not going to ask you about pets. Is it okay for me to think that might be able to participate in things that I enjoyed about this life, is that something we remember in heaven or not 100%

Matt McCullough

I mean, I think that what I don’t talk a lot about this in the book, just for the record, I don’t, I don’t talk about as much about What heaven will be like in great detail, as in as I do about what, what, what the function of hope of heaven is in the Christian life in the meantime, but, but, yeah, I mean, even that Isaiah 25 image that, I mean, it’s a prophetic image. I don’t know. I don’t expect to be sitting on a mountain, necessarily, and having a meal spread in front of me at the top of the mountain with everyone who’s in heaven, necessarily, but, but I mean, it’s a it’s a party image, it’s a meal. And I think that we can assume that means food is involved, that the things we love, like, like hanging out with one another, over, over, delicious meal, are going to be represented there, and whatever, whatever it involves, it will be a wonderful expansion of the things we love most about this world. Never a constriction of them. They’re going to be less than this world. That’s key. And Jesus needed a needed a resurrected body to enjoy what heaven is. We will too.

Collin Hansen

I mean, you see the wedding feast, marriage feast, absolutely as well, bringing that imagery back. As well. Came out, you dedicated this book to your dad. Mark, I did what’s the most important thing he has taught you about heaven?

Matt McCullough

Hmm, yeah. I mean, that is more valuable than anything on earth. And my dad is as godly a man as as I have ever known. And one of the obvious marks of his godliness is that he just, he just believes it’s all true in a way that makes what you might gain out of this life completely irrelevant to him. He’s not a monastic type figure. He enjoys a good meal as much as the next guy. Love his joy in God’s creation, but he is as open handed with it all as anybody I’ve ever known. And, and, and, yeah, he’s, he’s pointed me towards what he’s seen in Jesus that makes Jesus so much more valuable than anything here. And in that way, I think that that’s wetting the appetite for heaven. And, yeah, he also, I think he also modeled for me fully experiencing, emotionally, experiencing the grief that we ought to over the brokenness of this world and the brevity of good things that don’t last forever under the grip of death. He taught me that, and I think that is deep in my longing for world that won’t be like that. So, yeah, we don’t have to. We don’t have enough time to fully explain what I learned from him about heaven. But he is, he is certainly the one God has used to open my eyes to His beauty.

Collin Hansen

Talking with Matt McCullough about remember heaven, meditations on the world to come, for the life and for life in the meantime. Well, Matt, what do you want us to remember next?

Matt McCullough

I don’t know. Man, death, heaven, take the rest of our lives to really remember those two things as much as we ought to. Still working on that.

Collin Hansen

Very good. Well, just for you, Matt, I’m bringing back my final three, my final three questions. So rapid fire here. How do you find calm in the storm?

Matt McCullough

I love to love to spend time with my children in nature. We do a lot of hiking. Try to do as much camping, efficient as we can. Try to coach the baseball teams. There’s just something so good about being in God’s beautiful world, especially with the people that that I love most. So try to do that as much as I can.

Collin Hansen

Yeah, I love it. Where do you find good news today,

Matt McCullough

I see good news most clearly in my own local church. I just see God working there the things that I believe are true that I’ve gleaned from his word I get to experience as true with those real people that I really know, really see and really depend on. And it’s just so clear to me that whatever else is changing out there, however crazy things might get, like God is still building his church. So I just try to spend as much time with those friends as I can and keep my eyes open

Collin Hansen

and in a question that’s appropriate for our friendship. What’s the last great book you’ve read?

Matt McCullough

Well, you know, right before we started recording this, I was just telling you how much I love where is God in a world with so much evil? By Colin Hansen,

Collin Hansen

all right, before that booklet, but book, yeah,

Matt McCullough

the last great book that I’ve read, I mean, I’ll tell you what man I know, I’ve already mentioned this. You asked the superlative question. So that great is a really high standard for me. So I’m just, I’m going to take that literally, and I’m going to say it’s, it’s, it’s rereading Richard Baxter’s, the Saints everlasting rest. Just in the last year, I’ve reread it a couple of times, and every time I do, I think this book is just packed to the brim with gold. So I hope if people read my book, maybe one of the main, the main impacts it could have would be to get them to read his what their appetite for that. What’s their appetite for that book? Because it has aged so well, and it repays rereading. So go for it. I love it.

Collin Hansen

The book is, remember heaven, meditations on the world to come, for life in the meantime, published by crossway, the Gospel coalition. The author, my guest, Matt McCullough, you’re getting a good sense here in this interview, for the way he blends together, the pastoral sensitivity, biblical insight, cultural awareness. I want to close then on this quote from the book. Here’s Matt. Heavenly mindedness isn’t an escape from the troubles we’d rather not think about. It isn’t dodging the responsibilities we’d rather not have or a sign we don’t care about the suffering of our neighbors. It doesn’t mean. That we’re sick of life on Earth, or that we have no love for this world as it is, and it isn’t only for elderly saints in hospice care. Heavenly mindedness is basic Christianity. It is the only reasonable response to the fact of Jesus resurrection from the dead, and the sign that we believe it’s really true. It is the living conviction that Christ is risen and soon returning. Thanks, Matt. Amen.

Matt McCullough

Thanks, brother.