3
HEAVEN IN THE
SYNOPTIC GOSPELS AND ACTS
It is well worth observing that the first sentence of the Bible refers to heaven (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” Gen. 1:1) and that, on the other end of the canon, the last two chapters of the Bible give a detailed vision of heaven’s coming to earth (Revelation 21–22). A 30,000-foot flyover of Holy Scripture reveals this to be not a mere coincidence; “heaven” and the closely related phrase “heaven and earth” are pervasive throughout the Bible. It should be no surprise, then, that when we tune our antennae to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts,1 we find the same language appearing frequently, likewise proving to be very important for our understanding of God’s revelation. In this chapter we will explore the language, usage, and theological significance of heaven in these four books.
Heaven: Usage and Meaning
Usage of Heaven
The word we typically translate heaven (Gk. ouranos, which appears most directly in English as the planet name Uranus) occurs 161 times in the Synoptics and Acts.2 The breakdown by book can be seen in chart 3.1.
| Chart 3.1 | |
| Occurrences of Ouranos* | |
| Matthew | 82 |
| Mark | 18 |
| Luke | 35 |
| Acts | 26 |
| Total | 161 |
* This number is for all the occurrences of the noun ouranos. If one searches for the root word in other parts of speech, the number grows to 172, with 9 occurrences of the adjective “heavenly” (ouranios, 7 times in Matthew, 1 time each in Luke and Acts) and 2 of the adverb “from heaven” (ouranothen, both in Acts).
We can immediately see that one author in particular, Matthew, uses heaven language significantly more than the others, but the word occurs with regular frequency in all four books.
Moving beyond the mere frequency of this word, we note heaven has the potential to communicate more than one idea. On the one hand, it is used to refer to the visible, created realm above the earth. This includes the atmosphere and the place of the stars, sun, moon, and planets. In contemporary English we still sometimes use the word in this way, such as in the phrase “The planets up in the heavens” or in the Bible-echoing phrase “The heavens declare his glory.”
On the other hand, heaven in the Bible often refers to the invisible dwelling place of God and his angels. So, too, in contemporary English we use heaven in this way, referring to the place where we believe God is, where people go when they die (and according to Hollywood, all dogs as well), and even as a generic way to refer to God or some power above, such as in the phrase “Heaven help us!”
In Scripture heaven can be used in either of these ways, referring to the part of the created realm that is above us or to the divine abode. It is interesting to note that in English we make this distinction by using the plural (“heavens”) for the created realm and the singular for the place of God’s dwelling. The Bible does not consistently make such a distinction between singular and plural forms of heaven (though some of its authors do3), so the reader often must determine which sense of heaven is being referenced when the word appears. It will be of benefit to explore this twofold sense of heaven.
Visible, Created Sense of Heaven
In the Synoptic Gospels and Acts we find many examples of heaven applied to the created realm above and the abode of God. On the created realm or “skies” side of the ledger, we regularly see the phrase “the birds of heaven”4 (typically translated now as “birds of the air”), which is a borrowed phrase from the Old Testament, where it was used to distinguish wild birds that fly in the sky from domestic fowl, such as chickens.5 There is clearly no reference here to the divine above, but rather heaven refers to the created space above the earth. In other instances, heaven is used to refer to sky and atmospheric bodies in general. Luke 4:25 tells us that during the days of Elijah “the heavens were shut,” meaning that there was no rain. The related adverb “from heaven” (ouranothen) is used in the same way in Acts 14:17 in reference to God’s giving rain from heaven. Luke 17:24 also speaks of lightning flashing from one part of the heavens to the other, referring to the sky. And in verse 29 we are reminded that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God, who rained down fire and brimstone “from heaven,” likely referring to showers that resulted from some kind of volcanic activity.6
Heaven can also refer to the created celestial realm, as in the mention of stars falling from heaven (Matt. 24:29) at the eschaton. This reference bleeds over into the divine, as will be discussed below, but this verse clearly refers to visible stars (albeit using them metaphorically) that are part of the created heavens. Two times in Acts we also see the phrase “under heaven,” which is used to mean something like “in all of God’s creation”—men from every nation “under heaven” were in Jerusalem (2:5), and there is no other name “under heaven” by which people can be saved (4:12). Finally, the created-realm sense of heaven occurs several times in the stock pairing of heaven with earth. We will treat these occurrences separately below, but we can note here several places where, in this conjunction of words, heaven refers to the created realm. For example, “heaven and earth” will pass away (Matt. 5:18; 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 16:17; 21:33) refers to all of creation. Similarly, God is referred to as the one who has made “heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” in Acts 4:24 and 14:15.
The other main pole of meaning of heaven—the place of God’s dwelling, and by extension, God himself—is found even more frequently in the books we are discussing.7 There are several regularly recurring expressions that use heaven in this way. Several times Jesus refers to our reward or treasure “in heaven” (Matt. 5:12; 19:21; Mark 10:21; Luke 6:23; 12:33; 18:22), meaning primarily “with God” and “in a time to come” more than a specific spatial reference. Related to this is the expression in Luke 10:20 in which Jesus directs his disciples to rejoice not in their authority over demons but rather that “[their] names are written in heaven.” This is referring to the disciples’ being citizens of God’s kingdom and is similar to speaking about reward in heaven. It is clearly on the “divine abode” side of the ledger, as Jesus is not referring to a first-century version of first-century skywriting: “Rejoice that your names are written in the skies!”
This use of heaven can also refer to God himself. We see this, for example, in the debate between Jesus and the Pharisees regarding the source of John the Baptist’s ministry (Matt. 21:25; cf. Mark 11:30–31; Luke 20:4–5). Jesus challenges his opponents to answer the question about whether John’s baptism was “from heaven or from man.” Here heaven clearly serves metonymically to refer to God; that is, heaven as the dwelling place of God is employed as a way to refer to God himself. This is a common occurrence.8
Another example of this kind of heaven//God metonymy is found in Acts 2:2, where we read that at Pentecost there came “from heaven” a violent sound like that of a rushing wind. This is clearly understood to be the work of the Holy Spirit, sent by God. This is also what is indicated in Luke 11:13, where we read that our Father God will freely give the Holy Spirit “from heaven” to those who ask.9 Likewise, in Acts 11:9 we read that Peter heard “a voice from heaven” instructing him in his vision. This is similar to the recounting of Paul’s conversion experience (9:3; 22:6), where a light shone from heaven. Later, in 26:19, Paul uses the adjective heavenly (ouranios) to describe his conversion and calling as coming from a “heavenly vision.” He also uses the adverbial form “from heaven” (ouranothen) in 26:13 to describe this light “from heaven” that was brighter than the sun.
Yet another probable example of the metonymic usage of heaven is when the returning Prodigal Son says to his father that he has sinned “unto heaven” (Luke 15:18, 21 [ESV “against”). It is not entirely clear whether this means “against God” directly or rather something more like “unto the heights of heaven,” but either way the reference is to sinning against God.10
Heaven is also described as the place where the angels dwell, beholding the face of God (Matt. 18:10; 22:30; 24:36; Mark 12:25; 13:32), and whence they come, such as to minister to Jesus at Gethsemane (Luke 22:43). The adjective heavenly is employed similarly in 2:13 to refer to the heavenly host that appear to the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth. Luke 15:7 uses heaven in a way that refers to both the angelic host and to God himself, when we read there is “more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” than over ninety-nine people who do not need to repent. That this clearly refers to God and the angelic host of heaven can be seen in the parallel parable that follows, where the same point is made with slightly altered language: “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (v. 10).
Another aspect of heaven as the dwelling of angels is seen where Jesus says he saw Satan “fall like lightning from heaven” (10:18). Although it is not explained here, we understand this to be a reference to his banishment from the presence of God.11 Also on the dark side of heaven-connected angelic beings is what is sometimes called the “host of heaven.” This can also be a positive reference in Scripture (1 Kings 22:19; Neh. 9:6) but is used in a negative way of angelic beings opposed to God and responsible for the nations’ idol worship (Deut. 4:19; 17:3; 2 Kings 17:16; 21:3; 23:4; 2 Chron. 33:3, 5; Isa. 24:21; 34:4; Jer. 8:2; 19:13.). That is likely its meaning in Stephen’s speech, in which God gives the Israelites over to worshiping “the host of heaven” (Acts 7:42). With the same referent, Jesus promises that at the eschaton “the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:25; Luke 21:26).12
Beyond all these varied and frequent uses of heaven in the divine sense, there are three particularly important ways in which the Synoptic Gospels and Acts employ heaven to refer to God and the divine realm. These are the expressions “Father in heaven” (and the related “heavenly Father”), “kingdom of heaven,” and the many references to Jesus’ ascension and dwelling in heaven.
The theme of God as father is not a dominant one in the Old Testament, but neither is it unknown. References to God as father increase in the Second Temple literature before blossoming much more fully in the New Testament and beyond.13 In the Synoptic Gospels and Acts God is referred to as “Father” sixty-eight times, most frequently in Matthew.14 Within the scope of God as father, he is described as “in heaven” or “heavenly.” God is described as being “our Father in heaven” in Mark 11:25 and thirteen more times in Matthew.15 The related phrase, “heavenly Father,” is found another seven times in Matthew.16 Talking about God as a heavenly Father becomes common and familiar for much of later Christianity down to today. It finds its origins in Jesus’ emphasis on his sonship relationship with God and in his invitation to us as “fellow heirs” with him (Rom. 8:17). In light of the consistent emphasis throughout the Bible on God’s presence in heaven, it is natural and appropriate for Jesus (and the Gospel writers) to combine the fatherhood theme with God’s dwelling in heaven.
“Kingdom of heaven” is another of the important and unique uses of heaven language in our literature, and once again it finds particular emphasis (indeed, its origins in Christian terminology, I would suggest) in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew uses this phrase thirty-two times.17 The rest of the New Testament refers to the same thing—the reign of God—with the more familiar and generic phrase “the kingdom of God.” There is no difference in reference or denotation of these phrases. In this way, “kingdom of heaven” is another example of the metonymical use of heaven to refer to God. Matthew describes the reign and rule of God as “the kingdom of heaven” particularly to emphasize God’s kingdom is heavenly and from heaven, especially in contrast with all competing earthly kingdoms, those of both the Jewish leadership and the Roman Empire. Again we see the divine sense of heaven being emphasized, here in contrast with the earth.
Finally, we may observe one important use of the divine sense of heaven in Acts in reference to Jesus’ ascension and dwelling there. This is found in Acts 2:34, where in his Pentecost sermon Peter observes that as great as King David was, it could never be said of him that he ascended like Jesus into the heavens and sat down at the right hand of God. But this is precisely what Jesus did. Also, in responding to the Jewish leadership in 3:21, Peter states that Jesus the Christ must be received by/in heaven “until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets.” And most vividly, only moments before his martyrdom, Stephen “gazed into heaven” and saw the glory of God, with Jesus standing at his right hand. He then cried out that he beheld the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing with God (7:55–56). These four uses of heaven to refer to Jesus’ post-resurrection ascension and dwelling place are significant not only as divine uses of heaven but particularly for the claims they implicitly make about the divinity of Jesus himself. We have already seen heaven used often as the place where God is and from whence he speaks and works. Now Jesus is counted on that side of the ledger in referring to the place and work of God.18
Heaven and Earth
No discussion of heaven in Scripture would be complete without a discussion of a key phrase—indeed, a key idea—in which heaven appears as a crucial part: the phrase “heaven and earth.” It is appropriate to discuss it at this juncture because its usage straddles the created and divine senses of heaven just discussed above. That is, heaven in the phrase “heaven and earth” functions at times in reference to the created realm and at other times to the divine abode.
“Heaven and earth” is a stock phrase throughout the Bible, beginning in its very first verse in Genesis. Studies on heaven in the Old Testament have rightly observed that one cannot speak meaningfully about heaven without also closely considering its relationship to earth.19 Heaven and earth are paired together around 185 times in the Old Testament in a variety of ways. Sometimes the phrase appears in its simple conjunctive form, “heaven and earth,” while at other times “heaven” and “earth” appear in parallel lines or sentences, as is typical in Hebrew literature. For example, Psalm 73:25 reads, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.” And several times we see parallel uses such as in reference to the “birds of heaven” in conjunction with the “beasts of the earth” (e.g., Deut. 28:26; Ps. 79:2; Ezek. 29:5; Jer. 7:33).
These last examples provide an insight into the ways “heaven and earth” function with both the created and divine senses of heaven seen throughout. In the example of Psalm 73:25 (which is typical), the connotation of heaven is on the divine side of the equation, serving as a contrast to earth. God’s dwelling in heaven is put into an antithetic parallel with earth. This sentiment can be found in many places throughout the Old Testament, such as in Ecclesiastes 5:2: “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you are on earth”; and in Psalm 115:16: “The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the sons of man.” This contrastive sense of “heaven and earth” naturally and intentionally emphasizes the divine realm of heaven.
Likewise, we find the created sense of heaven in the Old Testament’s use of the “heaven and earth” phrase. We have already noted Genesis 1:1, which functions in this way. We read other examples such as Leviticus 26:19, which speaks of God’s making the heavens like iron and the earth like bronze in reference to a lack of rain in the sky and the resulting dryness on earth. These uses are merismatic, meaning the literary custom of using two extremes to communicate the whole. “Heaven” and “earth” are the opposite poles of the created reality and thus are commonly used in the Bible to refer to all of creation. Our words world, universe, and creation are later developments that eventually supplant in our minds the typical biblical way of describing what God has made as “heaven and earth.”
All this background is important for our examination of the Synoptics and Acts. The New Testament authors drink from the deep well of the Old Testament and think and write in the same way. Indeed, we find the phrase “heaven and earth” appearing frequently in our literature and functioning in the same two ways.
Examples of heaven and earth being employed in the merismatic, “all creation” manner include references to God as the “Lord of heaven and earth” (Matt. 11:25; Luke 10:21; Acts 17:24) and maker of “the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them” (Acts 4:24; 14:15). We also read several times of “heaven and earth” passing away (Matt. 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 16:17; 21:33). Elsewhere Jesus critiques the hypocrites who can discern the appearance of the earth and heaven but not the significance of the present age Jesus is inaugurating (Luke 12:56). In his Pentecost sermon (quoting from the book of Joel), Peter says that God will in these last days grant great wonders in the sky (heaven) above and on the earth below (Acts 2:19). And Jesus announces that at his second coming the angels will gather his elect from all the world—“from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” (Mark 13:27).
At the same time, we find the contrastive, divine-realm versus created-realm sense of heaven in the heaven-and-earth pairs. This sense is especially highlighted and developed by Matthew.20 For example, the divine sense of heaven in contrast to earth is operative at the core of the Lord’s Prayer. In 6:9–10 the request made of “Our Father in heaven” is that as things are in heaven, so would they become on earth—specifically, the hallowing of his name, his reign being established, and his will being done. Similarly, in verses 19–20 we are told to store up treasures not on earth (because of their impermanence) but instead with our Father in heaven. In another set of well-known Matthean passages, Jesus teaches that whatever his disciples bind or loose on earth will also be bound or loosed in heaven (16:19; 18:18), referring to decisions of doctrine and discipline the church makes. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus commissions his disciples on the basis of the fact that now, post-resurrection, “all authority in heaven and on earth” has been given to him (28:18). In one sense this could be easily understood as the merismatic kind of pairing of heaven and earth, emphasizing the all-ness of the authority—it extends throughout all creation. This reading would not be wrong—Jesus is certainly saying this. At the same time, there seems to be more going on. That is, his apparent earthly authority during his physical ministry (cf. esp. Matt. 9:6; Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24) has now been completed and wedded with his heavenly authority by his faithful passion, death, and resurrection (cf. Rom. 1:4).
This combination of merismatic and contrastive uses of heaven in the heaven-and-earth pair can also be seen in a passage such as Acts 7:49 (coming itself from Isa. 66:1), where the Lord calls “heaven” his throne and the “earth” his footstool. Reflection upon this reveals that heaven is being used here both in the merismatic, combined sense—referring to all of creation as God’s—and in the contrastive sense—contrasting the Lord’s throne in heaven (the divine realm) with his earthly tabernacle/temple/dwelling with people on earth. This dual or happily ambiguous usage of heaven leads directly into the final element of our survey of heaven language in the Synoptics and Acts.
Happy Ambiguity/Overlap in the Meaning of Heaven
So far we have observed that heaven is a frequently used term rich in meaning. Its semantic range is broad enough to refer to the created realm of the air, including all the celestial bodies, and at the same time to the distinct realm of the Creator separate from his creation in the divine abode. He is so closely associated with heaven that heaven itself can serve metonymically to refer to God and his activities. This conjoined connection and distinction between the Creator and the created is a crucial aspect of the biblical witness to who God is and his relation to us.
The weight and mystery of this connection is seen in the fact that heaven not only functions with the distinct uses of “created realm” versus “divine abode” but also that in many instances there is an intentional overlap or happy ambiguity in the uses of heaven. That is, while the distinction between the two uses exists, there is an inherent connection between the created realm above and the divine realm above that is often manifest when heaven appears.
We find several such examples of an overlapping ambiguity of heaven in the Synoptics and Acts. For example, at Jesus’ baptism we read that the “heavens were opened” as the voice of God thundered out in speech (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10–11; Luke 3:21–22; cf. Acts 10:11). On the one hand, this is apparently a reference to the clouds above and something visible in the sky—the text reads that Jesus, looking up, saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove (bodily, according to Luke). Yet it is not difficult to see more here than just a reference to visible skies above; we also find a reference to the work of the Spirit and the divine sense of heaven whence God’s voice comes forth. This dual sense or ambiguity is inherent and important.
Similarly, when people pray, they typically look upward to the skies as they address God in heaven. For example, Jesus looks up to pray in blessing the bread (Matt. 14:19; Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16) and when healing a deaf and dumb man (Mark 7:34), while the humble tax collector in Luke’s parable (Luke 18:13) would not even lift his eyes to heaven out of reverence for God. Likewise, we read that Stephen at his martyrdom looked steadily upward into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at his right hand (Acts 7:55–56). In all these cases there is a natural dual sense of heaven: it is the upward (created) place to which people visibly and physically look (or are afraid to) while also addressing God in his invisible heavenly abode.
Another example is heaven as the place where signs are and from whence such images and realities come. Speaking of a time of future tribulation, Jesus warns of earthquakes, famines, pestilence, persecutions, and “terrors and great signs from heaven” (Luke 21:11). The double reference is not difficult to detect. The parallel with what precedes indicates these “terrors and great signs” are part of the created order, corresponding to the earthquakes, etc. At the same time, “great terrors and signs from heaven” is more than a meteorological reference; God is clearly the source of such calamities, and to say they are “from heaven” gives these events a divine weightiness. This is similar to the idea when, in immature zeal, James and John ask Jesus if he wants them to pray for fire to “come down from heaven and consume” a Samaritan village (9:54).
On the positive side of signs, in Peter’s vision in Joppa (Acts 10:9–16; retold in 11:5–10) we read that the vision proceeded when “the heavens opened” (10:11; cf. Matt. 3:16 and parallels) and a great animal-filled vessel descended from heaven. After three divine pronouncements to Peter, the vision ends abruptly when the vessel returns to heaven (Acts 10:16). Again we see an inextricable overlap in reference here. The vision is a seeing of something physical coming down from the skies and returning there, while at the same time this is undoubtedly a divine revelation; hence the appropriate use of heaven. We may also put in this category Saul’s conversion experience and the great light that suddenly shone around him, though it was midday (9:3; repeated with more detail in 22:6). This once again refers to a phenomenon in the skies, yet it overlaps with God as the one speaking from heaven. This is also the sense when Jesus speaks of the appearing of “the sign of the Son of Man” in heaven (Matt. 24:30).
Finally, in this category of ambiguous uses we can observe the many times the motion of angels or Jesus himself is described in terms of descending from or ascending to heaven. Angels, who are messengers from the heavenly realm, are often described in conjunction with heaven in its dual senses. For example, in Matthew 28:2 we are told that an angel of the Lord “descended from heaven,” rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. This emphasizes the origins of the angel’s divine abode and at the same time the act of his descent and appearance in the created realm. Going the opposite direction of motion, we read in Luke 2:15 of the angels’ appearance to the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth and their return to heaven. Both the visible appearance and the invisible divine sense are present here.
We see the same usage of heaven with reference to Jesus’ motions. For example, we have the image of Jesus’ promised return coming on or with “the clouds of heaven” with great power and glory (Matt. 24:30; Mark 14:62; repeated in Matt. 26:64).21 This language, which comes directly from Daniel 7:13, is a classic example of the dual meanings of heaven combined in one instance. Initially—and correctly—“the clouds of heaven” evokes the created realm above. At the same time, there are strong implications and evocations of the divine, not only because Jesus is somehow flying on these clouds but also because he is obviously coming from God in heaven, even as the vision in Daniel shows.
Jesus will return from heaven on the clouds because he first ascended to heaven in the same way, as several texts emphasize. Luke and Acts highlight the ascension of Jesus “into heaven” (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:10–11), even while his disciples look on. Thus once again we see the inextricable overlap of the created and divine realms. The disciples physically see Jesus ascending, and indeed even after he has disappeared from sight they continue to gaze upward (Acts 1:11). Yet obviously the physical Jesus is not now merely hanging out in the clouds but has been received into the invisible dwelling place of God, heaven.22
Abiding Theological Significance
Having surveyed the frequent use of heaven in the Synoptics and Acts and analyzed it according to its uses, we are now in a position to explore the theological significance of this language. First, we will explore how this survey of heaven language relates to broader theological truths of redemption. Second, we will examine how the change in our use of heaven in the modern period relates to a major change in worldview.
Heaven Language as It Relates to Redemption
It has long been popular to think of the end goal of God’s redemptive work as life with God in heaven. For this reason, a disembodied, cloud-based (that is, physical clouds, not digital backup!) existence is the most common evocation that the word heaven creates. But our examination of the actual use of heaven in the Synoptics and Acts reveals a strikingly different conception. As we have seen, heaven’s meaning is at the same time broader than this and narrower. It is broader in that heaven language has both a creational sense and a divine one. But it is narrower in that heaven is not used in the Bible to refer to a generic, ethereal, postmortem existence; rather, it is used specifically to refer to God himself and the place from which he comes and reveals himself on earth.
A broader examination of heaven language throughout the Bible would, I suggest, confirm this view and likewise provide little support to the popular view of heaven as the end goal of redemption. In other words, our findings regarding heaven language in the Synoptics and Acts are not unique but consistent with the whole of the canon. The main place in the Bible that could lead one to think of heaven as ethereal existence is Revelation 4–5, but it is essential to note that this vision of the intermediate state, as in heaven with God (cf. also 2 Corinthians 5), is not how the vision of redemption ends, even in Revelation. Rather, the telos or final state of God’s redemption is the bringing of heaven to earth and an embodied life in God’s kingdom, as Revelation 21–22 shows.23
Within the Synoptic Gospels and Acts there are a couple of ways in which one might also read heaven language as confirming the popularized view of a heavenly existence after death, though this would be a mistaken reading. This often occurs with the ideas of having rewards in heaven and Jesus himself being in heaven. In the latter case, the fuller biblical understanding helps us see clearly that while the New Testament does strongly emphasize Jesus’ heavenly ascension and current residence in heaven, the point is just as strongly emphasized that he will return from heaven to bring justice and establish his reign on the earth (cf. Acts 1:11; 3:21). As the Apostles’ Creed rightly teaches us to confess, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. From there he will come again to judge the living and the dead.” Thus, the New Testament’s emphasis on Jesus’ heavenly dwelling is not the end of the story.
Slightly more difficult to understand is how the Bible’s talk about rewards in heaven correlates to the heaven-on-earth understanding of full redemption. Jesus speaks of our having rewards in heaven many times,24 and this undoubtedly has fed the idea that we will live forever with God in heaven above, enjoying such rewards. However, this is a theological misstep. We must recognize that when rewards are promised “in heaven,” this is precisely the metonymical use of heaven to refer to God (in contrast with “on earth”) that was discussed above. Typical is the example of Matthew 6:19–21, in which Jesus exhorts us to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven”—not on earth—because of their permanent value there. When we read the context of that teaching, it becomes apparent it is not a cosmological or eschatological teaching about where we will live forever. Rather, the point is to contrast the foolishness of living our lives for the praise of others (vv. 1–18) or for the false sense of security that money gives (vv. 22–34) with the wisdom of orienting our lives toward God. Heaven and earth are used as contrasts, one denoting God and the permanent, reliable good and the other speaking of the impermanence of humanity and its ways. Thus, even the idea of heavenly rewards does not speak against the fuller understanding of redemption as heaven’s coming to earth.
On the positive side, there are several places in the Synoptics and Acts that do use heaven language to hint at this broader and deeper biblical idea of full redemption.
One of the most obvious places has already been mentioned: the Lord’s Prayer. The vision of Jesus’ instructive prayer, which stands at the center of the Sermon on the Mount,25 teaches precisely what we find elsewhere—redemption completed is not the removal of humans from earth to a heavenly existence but rather the bringing of all that is heaven, including God himself, to earth (Matt. 6:9–10). Also worth noting again is Matthew’s unique phrase “kingdom of heaven.” As mentioned above, this does not refer to some other type or time of God’s reign than does the phrase “kingdom of God”; these two expressions have precisely the same referent. Rather, the point of Matthew’s contribution of this phrase to Christian understanding is to make clear and pointed the contrast that exists between heavenly realities and earthly ones, looking forward all the while to the removal of this tension through Christ’s redemptive work and the eschaton. To speak of the “kingdom of heaven” is to highlight the need for redemption to come from God and to recreate an earth in redemption (cf. Rom. 8:18–25).
Moving beyond the specifics of heaven language, we see this heaven-coming-to-earth view of salvation and the eschaton hinted in some other ways in the Synoptics and Acts. For example, the language and promise of final redemption as a “new genesis” (palingenesia) in Matthew 19:28 ties into this fuller understanding of redemption as restoration of creation. Related is the familiar language of “eternal life.” This expression, popular in Christian parlance, comes mostly from the Gospel of John but also finds origin in the Synoptic tradition. And its usage there very clearly shows that “eternal life” does not mean removal from earth to heaven but rather entering into God’s kingdom, a place on earth where and when Christ will reign fully, as we see throughout the New Testament. This intentional overlapping connection can be seen, for example, by comparing Mark 9:43 with 9:47, and 10:17 with 10:23–24. In each of these instances, “entering into life” or “eternal life” is used synonymously with “entering into the kingdom of God.” Thus, rather than understanding eternal life as heavenly existence, it actually fits squarely into the broader biblical language of being a part of God’s kingdom, precisely what we have seen depicted in the Lord’s Prayer (and elsewhere) as God’s bringing his good reign from heaven to earth.
Heaven Language as It Relates to Worldview
Moving beyond the issue of how heaven relates to redemption, we should also explore how heaven language connects intimately with the issue of worldview. To put it succinctly and pointedly, I suggest that a close examination of the varied uses of heaven language—especially paying attention to the ambiguous uses—reveals that in the modern period there has been a major shift in worldview regarding heaven that adversely affects our theological understanding of God’s relation to and work in the world. This is a rather high claim to make, I realize, based on the brief data presented above. Let me unpack and support this thesis.
We shall begin by way of example with the mid-twentieth-century “space race.” Certainly, one of the most amazing developments in human history is the exploration of space that occurred in the last half of the 1900s. At the turn of the twentieth century, rocket technology was still in its infancy; by 1969 the first of several humans successfully stood on the moon, 238,000 miles away, and returned to earth. These were heady days for the scientific community, the crowning achievement in many ways for the modern branches of mathematics, physics, communications, and aeronautics.
Much of this development was motivated, no doubt, by national pride and security concerns during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet bloc. Indeed, the US was not the first nation to successfully launch a man into spatial orbit, and this was a cause of great concern for Americans (following upon the fearful reality of the Russian satellite Sputnik). The first man in space was Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who became a worldwide celebrity and icon of Soviet propaganda.
What does all this have to do with heaven in the Bible? Notably, in a speech some time later, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev referred to Gagarin’s famous flight and remarked that although he flew into the heavens, he didn’t see any god there. Khrushchev’s statement had an intentionally antireligious edge in accord with Soviet attempts to squelch religious belief.
More important for our purposes, this seemingly simple (and religiously naïve) statement is one window into a major change of worldview that had occurred in the modern period regarding the cosmos. Khrushchev’s statement is an intentional claim that modern science and progress has surpassed the foolish religious views of generations past.26 This paradigm shift in thinking about the structure of the universe and God’s place in it was a change that began, of course, much before Khrushchev. His antireligious reference to the heavens is not a necessary function of this worldview change, but it is not atypical. It reflects the development of a scientific view of the world that itself is a function of the Enlightenment and rise of rationalism.
Khrushchev is representative of the modern scientific reaction to the view of the cosmos that dominated throughout most of human history and is represented in the Bible—the universe is created by God (or gods in other views) and full of supernatural beings and God himself. In the scientific worldview—the one that allowed for developments that resulted in the space race—this view of the “heavens” is completely replaced with the vast, nearly immeasurable, mostly empty realm of space. In fact, in relatively short time an entirely new vocabulary comes into existence that surpasses and supplants the older terms. Cosmos, universe, space, air, and skies replace creation and heavens. One only needs to pay attention to how we as modern people—Christian or not—refer to the world to see this change.
Additionally, if one compares English translations of older times—or better, looks at the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible—it becomes apparent that our language has changed. For the uses of ouranos discussed above, we often no longer translate these with “heaven”; we translate with phrases such as “the birds of the air.” Moreover, I would suggest that in contemporary speech, apart from those deeply influenced by the Bible, heaven is almost completely lost in reference to the created realm. That is, one who reads the Bible regularly may take little notice of phrases such “all men under heaven” and “the heavens are declaring his glory,” but for others this language is quite unfamiliar and archaic sounding. Additionally, even among those who would not blink in reading “all men under heaven,” very few would ever utter such an expression, preferring “everyone in the world.”
The point is that our use of language both reflects and affects our perception of reality. The widespread loss in modern English of using the word heaven to refer to the created realm (common in the biblical accounts) both reflects a change in our view of the structure and makeup of the world and affects our understanding by perpetuating and deepening this change.
It is not only the move away from using heaven to refer to the created realm that evinces this shift; it is especially seen when we consider the ambiguous uses of heaven. That is, the many uses of heaven where there is an inextricable overlap of meaning particularly show how much our view of the world has changed in this modern, scientific era, even for Bible-believing Christians. We no longer use heaven in this richly ambiguous way but only in the divine sense. This comes from and perpetuates a worldview quite different from the biblical one. For modern Christians, we function with a largely dichotomous view of the world—there is the real, physical world and the invisible, spiritual world, the natural and the supernatural. But this is remarkably different from the worldview found in the Bible (and still in many cultures today), wherein there is one world filled with spiritual realities.
Our divorce of the created-realm sense of heaven from the divine realm (due to our scientific worldview) has injected a foreign element into our understanding of Holy Scripture and God’s work in the world. The divine realm has become for us an abstraction rather than a concrete reality. Compared to the real world around us, heaven is more a concept than a reality. Whereas in the biblical worldview it is entirely natural and appropriate to use the same word heaven to refer to any space above the earth and the place of God’s dwelling, for us in the scientific age we are not even aware of the loss of this connection.
Implications and Applications
So what should we do about this change in thinking about the world? I am not suggesting that we will somehow instantaneously regain a biblical worldview if we start using heaven in the intentionally overlapping way we find in the Bible. Thus, I would not recommend that we insist that all evening news reporters say, “We’ll expect partly cloudy heavens tomorrow,” nor that we should have Christian meteorologists who speak that way on our own provincial television stations. But we as believers in the triune God, who has spoken through Holy Scripture, must recalibrate our thinking in terms of God’s depiction of the reality of the world—as his creation—before we think of it in modern scientific ways.
There are several aspects of our understanding of God and his work in the world that we can regain when we move away from the dichotomous worldview of a purely scientific understanding of the universe.27 First, we can make much more sense of the way the New Testament (and the other Second Temple literature) describes the world as full of supernatural beings. One of the clearest places this biblical worldview peeks out—even though we often know not what to do about it, especially in modern Western civilization—is in comments such as those in Ephesians and Colossians. Paul makes several references to authorities, rulers, and powers “in the heavenly places” whom Christ rules over completely, thereby giving us dominion as well (Eph. 1:20–23; 3:10; 4:10; 6:10–12; Col. 1:15–17; 2:8–15).
This worldview is also found in the Gospels and Acts, with their many references to angels and demons. There are many Christians who believe in the Bible’s testimony and do not deny the reality of angels and demons, yet their belief is an abstraction more than a reality; many of us rarely think of angelic or demonic activity. This is a function not of a lack of belief in God or in the Bible but the deeply pervasive influence of a scientific view of the world as empty space. In sharp contrast is the biblical worldview that trafficks in the reality of mediating, revealing, and tempting activity done by spiritual beings. It is difficult to even gauge how greatly this worldview difference affects our daily living and theological constructions.
Another significant impact that regaining a biblical worldview of the cosmos can have is understanding the purpose of cosmological language. Specifically, we must realize all cosmological language in the Bible is ethical before it is scientifically descriptive. That is, the purpose of all biblical language and discussion of heaven, heaven and earth, and other descriptions of the world is first and foremost to make theological and ethical claims. It is describing the state and structure of the world but not for scientific reasons, as we suppose; it is to teach and instruct about how to be in the world as created and ruled by God. This can be helpfully described with the German terms Weltbild and Weltanschauung and their deep overlap. The Weltbild is the description or depiction of the world in its structure. The Weltanschauung is one’s understanding of how the world functions—worldview, we might say. The point is that from a modern scientific approach to the world, these two things are unrelated. The description of the nature of the cosmos (as vast, empty space developing from the big bang, or based on spatial relativity, etc.) has nothing to do with morality, ethics, religion, government, or social relations. But from a biblical perspective (and indeed for nearly all cosmology in the ancient world), Weltbild and Weltanschauung are inseparable. The structure of the universe is a symbol and is in fact the reality of the whole world pervasively. Thus when biblical writers from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21 describe the world cosmologically, they are describing the reality of all things ethically and theologically. I have argued elsewhere that this is one of the main reasons so much language about heaven and about heaven and earth appears in Matthew—he is emphasizing a contrast between God’s reign (based in heaven) and humanity’s dominion (based on earth).28 This is not just a literary emphasis of Matthew but is a consistent way of approaching the world throughout all of the Bible.29
In fact, it would not be overstatement to suggest that the gospel, Christian identity, and Christian understanding overall are built upon a distinction between the two realms of heaven and earth, described with what seem to be merely cosmological terms. Jesus’ mission is to announce and, through his death and resurrection, effect the coming reign of God. This is found in its most pointed form in the instructive prayer that Jesus taught his disciples—that God’s name would be hallowed, his kingdom come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is not merely data showing a first-century Jewish understanding of the structure of the world (as heaven and earth) but is the foundational use of the reality of the world’s structure to describe what God is doing through Jesus Christ.
Thus our survey of heaven and related terms shows this language to be pervasive in the Gospels and Acts, but, more importantly, it serves a clear purpose: to depict the world in such a way that we learn to orient ourselves to what God is doing in the world.30 This was important in the ancient world, and is all the more so for us who now unintentionally divorce the reality of God from the cosmos, thereby blinding us to a key aspect of the biblical worldview.
1 This chapter addresses heaven in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), so called because they look so much alike and are apparently dependent on one another, especially in contrast to the Gospel of John. Acts is also covered here because of its close relationship with the Gospel of Luke, who authored both books. The Gospel of John is treated elsewhere in this volume in conjunction with Revelation, which likewise comes from the same author, John. Thanks to my research assistant, Brian Renshaw, for help in tracking down several sources.
2 This is based on the main text of the NA27 edition of the Greek NT. For fuller discussion see Jonathan T. Pennington, Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 125–26.
3 I have argued at length that the Gospel of Matthew does make just such a distinction by using plural forms to refer to God and his dwelling and singular forms to the created realm and in “heaven and earth pairs,” but this appears to be Matthew’s particular usage and certainly is not consistent across all biblical authors. See my Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew.
4 Matt. 6:26; 8:20; 13:32; Mark 4:32; Luke 8:5; 9:58; 13:19; Acts 10:12; 11:6.
5 L&N, s.v. ouranos.
6 This is not to say God was not the cause of this destruction, only to suggest (along with much of the history of interpretation) the instrument by which God superintended his judgment on these cities appears to have been some kind of volcanic activity, hence its description as the raining of fire and brimstone.
7 This dominant use of heaven is not unique to the NT but finds precedent in the OT and much of the Second Temple literature, including the Dead Sea Scrolls. As Carol Newsom has stated, “Heaven is, above all, the place of God’s presence and rule, as well as the place of the holy angels who serve God and have knowledge of truth and mysteries.” Carol Newsom, “Heaven,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Lawrence Schiffman and James VanderKam (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1:338–40.
8 Such use of metonymy is very common in language, not only in reference to God. We often say, “The White House announced today . . .” to refer generally to a statement coming from some unspecified person or spokesman within the White House, which by extension means coming from the authority of the president of the United States. It should be noted that the use of heaven as a metonym for God in the NT does not necessitate or prove first-century Jews were using heaven to avoid the name of God (as a reverential circumlocution). For a discussion and debunking of this myth see my Heaven and Earth, chap. 1.
9 It should be noted that this is not the typical way this verse is translated; it is often rendered along the lines of “the heavenly Father giving the Holy Spirit.” The problem with this translation is that it depends on an inferior textual reading that includes the article (ho), thus encouraging a reading of “the Father who is from heaven.” Moreover, this is problematic because the ways God is described as the “heavenly Father” or “Father in heaven” (see discussion below) are quite different from Luke’s text here. His wording indicates that “from heaven” (ex ouranou) refers to the Holy Spirit’s coming from heaven, not as an adjective describing the Father, who in any case would be oddly described here as “from heaven” rather than “in heaven.”
10 For further discussion see my Heaven and Earth, 23–24n34.
11 Traditionally this text has been connected to Isa. 14:12.
12 In both Acts 7:42 and Matt. 24:29 (and par.), the “powers of heaven” could be understood as a general expression that includes the sun, moon, and stars. However, the connotation here is stronger than a mere physical reference and is making an ethical and religious claim. This is because in the ancient world, these celestial bodies were intimately tied to and often identified with heavenly beings. See, e.g., the discussion of many texts that connect angels and stars in Dale C. Allison Jr., Studies in Matthew: Interpretations Past and Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005), 36–41.
13 For a fuller discussion of God as father in the OT and related literature, see my Heaven and Earth, 217–30. For a helpful overview of the fatherhood of God theme in Scripture, see Marianne Meye Thompson, The Promise of the Father: Jesus and God in the New Testament (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2000).
14 The frequency is uneven, with Matthew referring to God as Father forty-four times; Mark, four times; Luke, seventeen times; and Acts, three times. This is to be contrasted also with the Gospel of John, which refers to God as Father some 109 times.
15 The occurrences in Matthew are 5:16, 45; 6:1, 9; 7:11, 21; 10:32, 33; 12:50; 16:17; 18:10, 14, 19. Many English translations read “heavenly Father” also in Luke 11:13, but as discussed in note 9 above, this is a mistranslation.
16 Matthew alone in the Gospels refers to God in this way. These occurrences are 5:48; 6:14, 26, 32; 15:13; 18:35; 23:9. The adjective “heavenly” (ouranios) also occurs in Luke 2:13 and Acts 26:19, as mentioned above.
17 For a full discussion of the origins and function of “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew, see Heaven and Earth, 279–330. One may also consult beneficially the discussion in Robert Yarbrough’s chapters on the kingdom in The Kingdom of God, ed. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 95–151.
18 “By including Jesus in the full cosmic scope of God’s sovereignty, NT terminology places Jesus clearly on the divine side of the distinction between God and ‘all things.’” Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 176.
19 Cornelis Houtman, Der Himmel im Alten Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 2. For further discussion on “heaven and earth” in the OT, see my Heaven and Earth, 163–91.
20 But this contrastive sense is found not only in Matthew, certainly. For example, cf. John 3:31; Acts 7:49; 1 Cor. 15:47; Eph. 1:9–10.
21 It is a curiosity that in the closely parallel verses of Matt. 24:30, Mark 14:62, and Luke 21:27—all quoting from Dan. 7:13—Luke alone lacks the phrase on or with “the clouds of heaven.” As this last phrase is present in the Danielic text (both Greek versions), it is difficult to understand why it is lacking in Luke.
22 Although probably not part of the original writing of the Gospel of Mark, several very old Greek manuscripts appended to the end of the second Gospel speak in a similar way about Jesus’ physical ascent and now residing in heaven with God (Mark 16:19).
23 Of course, much more could be said along these lines, and good discussions can be found in various systematic theology treatments as well as other books. For example, Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 1158–67; or Herman Bavinck, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, in Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008), chaps. 12–18. Also very helpful is the clear teaching on this topic in N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008). Biblically, one should also reread passages such as Rom. 8 and 1 Cor. 15, which are familiar but have often not been read with ears to hear concerning their testimony about the end goal of redemption.
24 Matt. 5:12; Mark 10:21; Luke 6:19–21, 23; 10:20; 12:33; 18:22; 19:21.
25 For an insightful analysis of the structure of the Sermon on the Mount, see Dale C. Allison Jr., “Structure, Biographical Impulse, and the Imitatio Christi,” in his Studies in Matthew, 142–55.
26 Coincidentally, this remark is not far removed chronologically or ideologically from Rudolf Bultmann’s famous “demythologizing” shot across the bow of the Bible about modern man’s inability to believe in the Bible’s three-decker universe. Cf. his Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate (New York: Harper & Row, 1961).
27 Note I am not making a comment here about “creation science” as opposed to “evolutionary science.” Indeed, I think the debate between “creation scientists” and “evolutionary scientists” is intramural when it comes to scientific method. There is a worldview difference between these two camps, no doubt, but it is not coextensive with the worldview difference I am exploring here between a biblical worldview and that of scientific rationalism.
28 See Pennington, Heaven and Earth.
29 For a working out of this Weltbild and Weltanschauung view across the NT, see Jonathan T. Pennington and Sean McDonough, eds., Cosmology and New Testament Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2008). More work could still be done on tracing the heaven and earth theme throughout the rest of the canon.
30 A very helpful survey of apocalyptic language in the Bible and its importance in the modern world can be found in Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope against Hope: Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the Millennium (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999).