“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” — 1 Corinthians 13:12
Do you ever wonder what Heaven is like? We tend to think of it as another earth-like place, only a whole lot nicer. The Bible doesn’t do an awful lot to dissuade of us that notion with its descriptions of harps, pearly gates, and streets of gold.
Some actually find the Bible’s description of Heaven so feeble that they use it to justify rejecting Christianity. In the book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis addresses this:
“There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of ‘Heaven’ ridiculous by saying they do not want ‘to spend eternity playing harps’. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.”
The Bible itself supports Lewis. 1 Corinthians 2:9 states, “‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.’” If we can’t even imagine it, how could it possibly be expressed in mere words? 1 Corinthians 13:12 further clarifies, stating in the NLT, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”
Thus, the Bible’s imagery about Heaven is likely a sort of objective correlative, an attempt to put into understandable language things we are incapable of clearly understanding.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave can help us grasp this. Plato hypothesized a group of people who’ve lived their entire lives chained inside a cave facing a bare wall. On this wall, the prisoners watch shadows caused by items passing in front of a fire behind them. To them, the shadows are reality because they’re all the prisoners have ever known.
Of course, the shadows aren’t reality. Somewhere outside the prisoners’ view is true reality: the world as we know it. Plato used the allegory to explain that the role of a philosopher is like that of a liberated prisoner who comes to understand that the shadows are only images, not reality itself. He tries to explain this truth to the prisoners, but they don’t believe him. The shadows, after all, are all they know. The evidence of a truer, more authentic world is merely hearsay. So they continue to live in chains, shackled to the shadows, satisfied in their darkness.
If you look at those Corinthians verses again, you’ll see another application of Plato’s cave. It provides us a vivid example of what Paul was trying to express: the here and now that we think is real is like the cave. Heaven is the true reality outside of it. The distance between those cave shadows and real life is roughly the span between our images of Heaven and its actuality.
How could you explain to Plato’s cave dwellers what a Christmas dinner is like? How could you explain a roller coaster? A wedding? A jungle? Given the task, you’d have to use a lot of symbolism and unsatisfactory comparisons, which is precisely what the Bible does.
How would you explain to a blind person what light is? That could be the problem God faces in explaining to us the other new senses we might be given in Heaven in addition to the five we have now. Our brains don’t have the capacity to imagine what a sixth, seventh, or eighth sense might feel like. How would you explain the thousand new colors that might meet our eyes in Heaven to people engineered to see only a meager spectrum of seven shades?
You can see the problem, and you can understand why Heaven will be infinitely more wonderful than any words, music, or paintings could ever express. The only way to really know is to escape the chains and exit the cave. The most essential question in our existence, then, is a simple one: how do we break free?
From our dim, flickering cave, there is only one liberator who can break the shackles and only one guide who knows the way out: Jesus Christ.
In John 14, Jesus told His friends He was going to prepare a place for them (somewhere outside of the cave) in the presence of God. Thomas said they would never be able to find it for they didn’t know the way. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
That is why we open our hearts to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior. God sent His Son into the cave to show us the way out. All we must do to be finally free is follow Him wherever He leads us.
“i thank You God for most this amazing” by e.e. cummings
The Allegory of the Cave is more than a parable for Heaven and Earth. It’s also a parable for spiritual life and death. Those who can recall surrendering themselves to God for the first time know the feeling of escaping a different sort of cave—a cave of spiritual ignorance.
It’s akin to how Hawthorne described Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter when she finally tore away her crimson A: “She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom.”
Faith changes everything. It makes us aware we were once buried beneath sin without even realizing it. It turns a key in us that was always unturned. It reveals to us that the universe is teeming with immeasurable love. It causes us to understand that God is in control: sickness, death, poverty, loneliness—none of it can bind us because we know God will lead us through.
Faith liberates us from worldly views of love, competition, and self-preservation. It changes our view of science and art, making science, according to Ray Bradbury, “an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.” It makes us realize, as Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, that “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”
That’s why having faith in God can bring us unbridled joy. Many poems wonderfully capture that bliss. One of my favorites is from the unconventional poet e.e. cummings. In this poem, I can actually feel the sublime ecstasy spouting out of him.
Recommended Reading
I’m going to use this space to tease a very special announcement coming next month! Mum’s the word from me, but here’s a sneak preview if you’re interested:
Thank you for reading!
September was very special! I got to know some wonderful new 8th graders, lots of new students have been coming to youth group, and my son got engaged to a wonderful Christian young woman! Thank you, God, for most this amazing month!