In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
John 14:2
One morning in early 1971, famed Beatle John Lennon sat down at his Steinway piano and composed what would become one of his greatest hits and an anthem of the age: “Imagine.” In a tribute to one-world utopian ideals, Lennon asked us to imagine that neither heaven nor hell exists.
As one who dabbled in Hinduism but lived as a practical atheist, it wasn’t difficult for John Lennon to imagine no heaven above us. From Hinduism, Lennon learned that god is everything and everything is god, and that heaven is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Therefore, the only hope at death is breaking the cycle of reincarnation—the great “do over”—and becoming absorbed into the “oneness” of the universal mind.
From atheism, Lennon learned that God is nothing and no one is God, and that heaven is nowhere because it doesn’t exist—above us is only sky. Perhaps this stark conclusion is what led Lennon to imagine there’s no hell—below us is only earth. After all, imagining no hell is the only hope atheists have.
Of course none of Lennon’s musings about heaven answer the question of whether heaven is real or is merely a mental projection—a state of mind—of those who need the idea of heaven as a crutch for the harsh realities of life. Imagining heaven isn’t real doesn’t make heaven unreal any more than imagining you’re a turnip makes you a vegetable. Truth is not the sum of our imagination. Just because skeptics imagine heaven doesn’t exist doesn’t make it so.
Of course atheists quickly point out that just because we can imagine heaven doesn’t make it real either. True enough. But atheists have long assumed that Christians have merely imagined heaven’s reality and have accused people of faith of living in a fantasyland—of looking forward to a heaven that isn’t there. “If it can’t be proven scientifically that heaven exists, then it must not exist,” they argue.
But, as my friend David Jeremiah counters, “Heaven is no figment of the imagination; nor is it a feeling, a state of mind, or the invention of man. Heaven is a literal place prepared by Christ for a prepared people.”1 And that’s the truth we are going to explore in this chapter: the reality of heaven.
Heaven Is Real
If we accept the most basic definition of heaven, that it is “the abode of the Deity [of God],”2 then we can assume God is the one true expert on the subject. Therefore, if we want to know whether heaven is real or simply a state of mind, we should turn to God’s book, the Bible, to answer that question.
The most definitive answer to the question about the reality of heaven is found in John 14. But before we get there, understanding its background is important.
Four days had passed since Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In the waning hours of His earthly life, Jesus sat down with His disciples for a final Passover meal. At some point during the meal, Jesus rose and wrapped a towel around His waist and began washing the disciples’ feet. With this task complete, He announced: “one of you will betray me” (John 13:21 NLT). Then He said:
Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer . . . but you can’t come where I am going. So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. (vv. 33–34 NLT)
It was a troubling evening. Jesus was troubled because of what lay ahead of Him—the betrayal of Judas, the soul-wrenching prayer in the garden, the arrest, beatings, trials, and crucifixion. The disciples were troubled because they didn’t know what the future held, especially in light of Jesus’s increasingly frequent talk about His impending death.
The disciples’ hearts pounded in their chests and questions throbbed in their minds: Will Jesus’s death signal the end of the movement we have been part of for the last three years? Will we ever see Him again? Will our leader’s death result in our deaths as well? None of it made sense; it was all very unsettling.
But Jesus reassured them with some of the most familiar words the Lord ever spoke. Though they couldn’t immediately accompany Him on His journey back to His Father, in due time Jesus would return and take them to heaven—to the “Father’s house.”
Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. (John 14:1–3)
When Jesus told the disciples about the “Father’s house,” He didn’t speak of a place that “exists” in the fantasyland of our minds. Jesus used language that describes a real location. “Place” (topos) is used three times in John 14:2–3. This Greek word serves as the root for our word topography—the act of detailing the actual, physical features of land on a map. When used in the New Testament, topos almost always indicates a locatable and inhabited space. In some contexts it refers to a city or region;3 in others it refers to an individual residence—a house or a room, which is the case in John 14:2–3.
But it’s more than just the word topos that tells us heaven is real. Jesus also said “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places” (v. 2). The Greek word for “dwelling” is mone and can also be translated as “habitat,” “lodging,” or “domicile.”4 Each of these words describes something that is real and physical.
When Amy and I started our family and our two daughters came along, we had a nursery for them. But when they were old enough, each of the girls had her own room—a place for them to paint and decorate as they chose and to play in and study in (more play than study!). They each had a real, physical place in our home to call their own. That’s what Jesus is preparing for each one of us—a physical place for us to live in for eternity. And it’s a place so fabulous that it defies imagination.
If Jesus’s use of “place” and “dwelling” isn’t enough to prove the reality of heaven, He twice said, “I go and prepare a place for you” (vv. 2–3). The act of going and preparing speaks to something tangible, not intangible. Jesus’s “going” refers to His death, resurrection, and ascension. After giving final instructions to His disciples, the Bible records:
[Jesus] was lifted up while [the disciples] were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9–11)
The ascension of Jesus occurred on the Mount of Olives, outside the walls of Jerusalem—a physical, geographical location where I’ve stood many times. So when Jesus ascended from this real place (the Mount of Olives), where did He go? It’s nonsensical to say Jesus left the physical earth and ascended into some metaphysical state of mind. Jesus traveled from one geographical location (the Mount of Olives) to another geographical location (heaven). And it is in heaven that Jesus is preparing a place for us. When the time is right, Jesus promised, “I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).
Where Is This “Place Called Heaven”?
Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus made it clear that the path to heaven was paved by belief in Him—in His death and resurrection. After all the time they had spent with Jesus, the disciples should have known that, which is why Jesus told them, “you know the way where I am going” (v. 4). But they didn’t know. They didn’t fully understand that the “Father’s house” was heaven (the where) and that going there required faith in Christ (the Way). So Thomas asked, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” (v. 5). In other words, if we don’t know the destination, we can’t know the direction.
To help them recalibrate their spiritual GPS, Jesus said to His disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (v. 6). The only way to heaven is through faith in Christ.5 But where exactly is heaven? Jesus doesn’t tell us, but the Bible may offer us one clue.
Scripture seems to indicate that heaven is “up.” How do we know that? While Satan is not usually a reliable source of information for much of anything, his words occasionally reflect truth. Remember that Satan was originally God’s highest-ranking angel, named Lucifer. But, discontent with his rank as God’s second in command, Lucifer decided to mount a rebellion against God’s authority, attempting to grab the title of “Sovereign Ruler” for himself. Lucifer’s war cry against God included the words:
I will raise my throne above the stars of God. (Isa. 14:13)
“Ascend,” “raise,” and “above the stars” all indicate that the direction of heaven is upward. As we’ve already seen in Acts 1:9–11, Jesus’s departure from earth into heaven was upward into the sky. Luke—the author of Acts—wrote that Jesus was “lifted up” into the clouds (1:9), and that the disciples were watching Him, “gazing intently into the sky” (v. 10). When the two angels addressed the disciples, they asked: “Why do you stand looking into the sky?” And then the angels said: “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven,” meaning that He will come down from heaven at His second coming (v. 11).
Both God’s holy angels and Lucifer indicate that the location of heaven is upward. Also, consider Paul’s description of Jesus as the One “who descended” in His humanity as also being the One “who ascended far above all the heavens” (Eph. 4:10). Above us is more than sky. Above us is God’s dwelling place.
But when people wonder about the location of heaven, they are usually thinking about more than the direction it is in. They are really inquiring about the realm in which heaven exists. They want to know if heaven is part of our time-space universe—far, far away, perhaps, but still somewhere that can be located. Or does heaven exist in a completely different dimension, outside of and beyond time and space (like the “fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man” described in the classic TV series The Twilight Zone)?
To answer that question, we need to distinguish between the present heaven where God resides and the future heaven Jesus is constructing for us. The present heaven—sometimes called by theologians the “intermediate state”—is where Christians go immediately when they die to enjoy the presence of the Lord as Paul describes: “We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).
The future heaven is where all believers will one day spend eternity, and this future heaven is still under construction. It is the “place” Jesus is preparing for us now—and its final location may surprise you, as we will see in the next section.
The idea of a present heaven and a future heaven is sometimes confusing. But think of it like this: couples who plan to retire sometimes buy a little plot of land next to a lake, or in the mountains, or along the seashore and begin to build a house on it. They may continue to live in their existing home or move to an apartment while their future retirement home is under construction. Their current address may be wonderful—plush and comfortable—but it’s only temporary. The couple could truly be said to be in an “intermediate state” as they await the completion of their future home. In the same way, those who are in heaven today (the present heaven) are enjoying a wonderful existence in the presence of God while waiting for the completion of their final, forever home (the future heaven).
Since this truth about both a present heaven and future heaven is a surprise to many Christians, let’s look more closely at the difference between the two.
Theologians often point out that the Bible refers to three heavens. The first heaven is earth’s atmosphere. It contains the air we breathe and the space in which birds and jetliners fly. The second heaven is what we often refer to as “outer space,” where we find the planets, stars, and billions of galaxies that populate this vast universe.
The third heaven represents the presence of God. This is where all Christians immediately go when they die. (We will discuss this in detail in chapter 4.) It is sometimes called Paradise—the place where Jesus assured the thief on the cross he would go the moment he died. At some point in his life, Paul was caught up into this third heaven, where he heard “inexpressible words” (2 Cor. 12:4). When most Christians speak of heaven this is the heaven they mean—the one that is “up.” This is the “present heaven” I referred to in the last section.
The Future Heaven
But there is also a fourth heaven—a future “heaven” God is preparing for us right now. This is the place of our future and forever home—and it is a geographical location. This fourth heaven includes the “new heaven” and “new earth” and the “new Jerusalem” John described in Revelation 21–22 as coming down from the third heaven to the newly created earth. The fourth heaven will literally be “heaven on earth.” This future heaven will be the place where all believers—Old Testament saints, New Testament saints, and all Christians from the time of Jesus’s death and resurrection to date—will live for eternity.
At some future point the present heaven—where God, the angels, and all believers who have died are—will be combined with the future heaven—the new heaven, new earth, and New Jerusalem. This will not take place until after the rapture, the seven-year tribulation, the battle of Armageddon, the millennial kingdom, and the great white throne judgment—just as Scripture states.6
The apostle John recorded in his end-times vision that he “saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away. . . . And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:1–2).
What will this new heaven and new earth and New Jerusalem be like? Before answering that question we must first understand the nature of “newness.”
What Does “New” Really Mean?
What did John mean when he wrote that he saw “a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away” (v. 1)? Does this mean God will replace the first and second heavens (earth’s atmosphere and outer space) and the earth we know with a re-created (new) heaven and earth? This certainly seems to be the case, at least according to the apostle Peter:
By His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. . . . But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. (2 Pet. 3:7, 10–13)7
John (in Rev. 21) and Peter (in 2 Pet. 3) both used the same Greek root word for “pass away”—parerchomai. But Peter further describes what it means for the earth and the solar systems, along with their most basic building blocks (“the elements”), to “pass away.” They “will be destroyed with intense heat . . . burned up” (v. 10). And just in case he wasn’t clear the first time, Peter repeats: “the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!” (v. 12). John most likely meant the same thing when he wrote in Revelation 21:1, “the first heaven and the first earth passed away.”
Scripture is silent on exactly how God will burn up the universe, but theologians and scientists have speculated about the intensity of heat required to destroy the earth. Some believe a nuclear holocaust, along the lines of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, only unimaginably more powerful, could incinerate the universe. Nuclear explosions produce heat of tens of millions of degrees, which would certainly explain how “the elements will melt with intense heat.”
Others believe a massive asteroid fifty or sixty miles wide hitting the earth could be the catalyst for the destruction of the planet—perhaps like John’s description of one of the judgments at the end of the tribulation: “And huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men” (Rev. 16:21).
But all of this is just guesswork, something fun for scientists to speculate about. The truth is we don’t know how God will destroy the heavens and the earth. But since He spoke the universe into being with just a word, it would be no problem for Him to destroy it with just a word.
But why does God need to destroy the old heavens and old earth to create a new heaven and a new earth? God created the existing heavens and earth as recorded in Genesis 1 and pronounced them “good.” But sin spoiled all of that. Like leaving a classic 1955 Corvette to rot in the elements until it becomes a rust bucket, sin so corrupted our physical environment that God wants to create a better, newer model—one in which perfect righteousness dwells.
In some of the wealthier areas in my city, Dallas, it’s not uncommon for wealthy individuals to buy old homes and completely raze them and their foundations, leaving only dirt. These homes aren’t rickety haunted houses. In fact, most of the time they are beautiful old structures with intricate woodwork, stained glass windows, and detailed craftsmanship. So why demolish a perfectly good (old) house? Because the owners want something bigger and newer.
God is going to do something similar with the old heavens and earth. And when this happens—after the great white throne judgment and before believers enter into the New Jerusalem—God will have fulfilled His promise in Isaiah 65:17: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.”
The “New Earth” Versus the Present Earth
Ultimately, we won’t go up to heaven and leave this earth behind forever. Instead, God will bring the new heaven down to a newly created earth. In many ways this new earth will resemble our present earth—but it will also be vastly improved.
This new earth—like the old one—will be physical in nature (Rev. 21). Resurrected believers with new bodies—bodies like Jesus after His resurrection—require a physical home. Disembodied spirits might be able to live in some ethereal, spiritual dimension, but physical human beings need an earthy, physical dimension. And God will create such a place for us—a physical place for physically transformed bodies.
The new earth will be not only physical in nature but also familiar. Frankly, many Christians aren’t that anxious about the prospect of going to heaven because they believe heaven will be completely different from anything they’ve experienced before. We tend to be creatures of habit—I certainly am—and it’s hard to get excited about something that’s unfamiliar to us. Heaven—the new earth—won’t be like moving from your hometown to a city in a foreign country where you don’t know the streets or neighborhoods.
As I used to hear my longtime pastor and predecessor Dr. W. A. Criswell say, “I wouldn’t look forward to God sending me to live for eternity on some planet I know nothing about a hundred million miles away. I like almost everything about earth. The only things I don’t like are the tears, the separation, and the heartache. But those will be gone forever in heaven.”
Indeed they will! In John’s experience, he heard a voice saying, “[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). The curse leveled against this present world (described in Gen. 3) will be lifted and all of redeemed humankind will enjoy the world as God originally created it. Those who live on the new earth will experience unbroken fellowship with God and one another in joyous, loving relationships untainted by sin.
One of the most dramatic changes in the new earth will be the absence of the oceans. When John saw his vision of the new heaven and new earth, he said there would be “no longer any sea” (Rev. 21:1). We know the capital city of the new earth, the New Jerusalem, will gush with fresh, life-giving water (22:1), but it’s not exactly clear why the new earth will have no oceans. Some speculate that the absence of the seas in the new earth is to provide more inhabitable space for citizens of heaven, since the oceans make up three-fourths of our current planet’s surface.8 Others say that because the seas are made up of salt, which is a preservative, they are unnecessary because there will be no decay in the new earth.9
At times I wonder if I will miss the salty air on my face and the sand between my toes—the beach vacation I enjoy every year. But I’m confident that for whatever reason God has for not re-creating the oceans, my first day on the new earth will make all my combined vacations on the old earth seem like an extended stay in a poorly maintained budget motel!
It’s not just the oceans that will be missing from the new world. The new heavens will have no sun or moon. John wrote: “And the city [the New Jerusalem] has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it” (21:23).
Heaven has no need of these light sources because Jesus, the Light of the World, will illuminate the New Jerusalem for eternity. The new heaven and new earth will exist in perpetual daytime—“there will be no night there” (Rev. 21:25; 22:5)—fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy:
No longer will you have the sun for light by day,
Nor for brightness will the moon give you light;
But you will have the LORD for an everlasting light,
And your God for your glory. (Isa. 60:19)
Because the glory of Christ will shine forth, heaven will be a place of absolute safety—which we will discuss further in the next section.
Not only will oceans and darkness be missing from the new earth but so will preachers like myself! Preachers have two primary responsibilities: to proclaim the gospel and to condemn sin. But since “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD” (Hab. 2:14) and “there will no longer be any curse” (Rev. 22:3), I’ll be looking for new work. A universal love for and devotion to God will permeate the new earth, meaning that we will no longer feel the sting of sin experienced every day in this world. Rather, our lives will be filled with uninterrupted and unending joy.
The New Earth’s Capital: New Jerusalem
When Jesus told His disciples He was returning to His Father’s house to prepare a place for them, the place He had in mind was a city that will be the focal point of the new earth: the New Jerusalem. This was the same city Abraham had long desired to find: “For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10).
The New Jerusalem—the “city of My God” (Rev. 3:12)—is an actual, physical city being built by Jesus in the present third heaven: the abode of God. I often say that the New Jerusalem is the ultimate in prefab housing! It’s being built in one location but will be transported to another location. After the re-creation of the new heavens and new earth, the New Jerusalem will descend out of the third heaven and rest upon the re-created earth:
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. . . . And [the angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. (21:2, 10)
Though the New Jerusalem is a real city—complete with buildings, streets, and residences occupied by people who are involved in bustling activities, cultural events, and worship—it will be unlike any city we’ve ever seen.
Its size is overwhelming. For many, the gargantuan size of the New Jerusalem is its most striking feature. In Revelation 21:16 John describes an angel with a golden rod who measures the city’s cube-shaped width, length, and height and finds it to be a staggering fifteen hundred miles!10 This makes the city’s surface area two million square miles. By comparison, New York City is a puny 305 square miles.11 With an area that large, if we placed New Jerusalem in the middle of the United States its borders would stretch from Canada to Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to California.
The height of the city is also mind-boggling. If the average story in a skyscraper is twelve feet high, the New Jerusalem will have 660,000 stories. By comparison, the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is a puny 2,717 feet high, with 163 stories. One World Trade Center, which replaced the twin towers in New York City, is a mere 1,776 feet high, with 104 stories. And if this wasn’t enough, the thickness of the walls in the heavenly city is “seventy-two yards” (Rev. 21:17)—nearly three-quarters of the length of an American football field!
Such an overwhelming measurement has led many to believe that the dimensions of the New Jerusalem are symbolic, not literal. But there’s no logical reason to take these figures figuratively. In fact, John went out of his way to say that these dimensions were given in “human measurements” (v. 17).
When you think about it, a large, magnificent city made of precious stones, large pearls, and pure gold is one befitting our magnificent Creator. God has been known to create some fairly large objects—think Mount Everest, the Pacific Ocean, or the Milky Way galaxy. But more than that, God is also a God of beauty—consider a sunset over an ocean, a sunrise over a mountain, the tiny feet of a newborn baby, or a bride walking down the aisle. If God would bestow such beauty upon our fallen world, can you imagine what splendor He will lavish on the heavenly city He is preparing for us to live in for all eternity?
Additionally, the New Jerusalem must be large enough to accommodate the redeemed of all ages. We don’t know how many residents will actually live in the New Jerusalem—only God knows that—but theologian Ron Rhodes wrote:
One mathematician calculated that if the New Jerusalem is shaped like a cube, it would have enough room for 20 billion residents if each individual residence were a massive 75 acres. There would also be plenty of room left over for parks and streets and other features that you’d likely see in any major city.12
The city itself is constructed of “a great and high wall, with twelve gates”—three facing north, three facing south, three facing east, and three facing west (Rev. 21:12–13). Each gate bears one of the names of the tribes of Israel. And stationed at each gate is an angel. The walls, the gates, and the angels—though very real—symbolize eternal protection from Satan, demons, and unbelievers.
Gates in ancient cities were always closed at night to protect the citizens sleeping inside. That practice continues today. Gated communities keep their entrances closed at night. Even “the happiest place on earth”—Disneyland—locks its gates every evening after the guests leave. But in the New Jerusalem the gates never close. They don’t need to because Satan and his followers can never attack God’s people or His city; they are eternally quarantined in the lake of fire.
In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed . . . and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (vv. 25, 27)
My brother, who is a police officer, will also have to find another job because there won’t be an HPD—Heavenly Police Department. Heaven won’t have prisons, courthouses, or lawyers. There will be no need to close the gates of heaven or even the doors of our new homes to keep evildoers away from us. There will be no evildoers residing in the new heaven and the new earth who need to be arrested, defended, or imprisoned.
That means in the New Jerusalem we will never have to lock our doors or hide our valuables. We can leave our windows open and the keys in our cars because it will be a place of perfect peace and protection.
Its permanence is eternal. The New Jerusalem will also be constructed to last forever, which seems to be the significance of the “twelve foundation stones” (Rev. 21:14). Each one is inscribed with the names of the twelve apostles.13 Military brats, pastors’ kids, and missionary kids can especially appreciate this. No more moving from one place to another; no more changing schools or making new friends; no more feelings of being uprooted, of not belonging, or of being the outsider. Heaven will not only be home, it will feel like home. It’s a place where we can plant eternal roots.
Its splendor is incredible. The heavenly city is not just a place of peace, protection, and permanence; it’s also a place of unimaginable beauty—even more spectacular than Oz’s imaginary Emerald City. The New Jerusalem will be Paradise regained.
Because God dwells there, His glory will cause the city to shimmer like the luster of a diamond under the noonday sun—like “crystal-clear jasper,” as John put it (v. 11). In the midst of the city sits God’s throne, from which pours forth a life-giving and life-sustaining river—“clear as crystal,” John wrote (22:1).
Coors advertises that their beer is brewed with “pure Rocky Mountain spring water” (as a Baptist pastor I cannot verify if that is true!). But in comparison to the water that gushes from God’s throne, drinking Rocky Mountain spring water will be like drinking sludge. The “river of the water of life” (Rev. 22:1) will satisfy and bless all who drink deeply from its depths. And our thirst—both physical and spiritual—will be quenched forever.
Planted along the banks of this river is “the tree of life” (v. 2). After their sin, Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden and barred from the tree—Paradise lost. But in the New Jerusalem, access to the tree is free and unfettered—Paradise restored. The tree perpetually bears a different kind of fruit each month to sustain the immortality of the city’s citizens. And the leaves of the tree give everlasting health to all the residents of the new earth:
On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (v. 2)14
I don’t pretend to understand what all of this means, but one thing is certain: on the new earth there will be no doctors to wait for, no hospital food to gag on, and no insurance companies to wrangle with because there will be no sickness.
One last thing: unlike the Old Jerusalem, in which the Temple was the central feature, the New Jerusalem will have “no temple” (21:22). Rather, the presence of God and of Jesus will turn the whole city into a temple. And it is there—in that very real “place called heaven”—that we’ll live and play and work and worship God forever.
Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you. A place more beautiful than any place you’ve ever seen; a place of peace and protection; a place that will literally be Paradise on earth. And the place Jesus is preparing, He is preparing with you in mind. “Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.”15
The popular Christian contemporary song says, “I can only imagine.” The truth is the home Jesus is preparing for you is beyond imagination.