A Heaven Without God
August 31, 2010 by Mike Knapp
Filed under Featured Articles, Spiritual Growth
As I sat in the coffeehouse yesterday I heard one customer ask another the following question. “If you got to Heaven and God wasn’t there, how disappointed would you be?” Wow. What a question! Such penetrating questions as this sure have a way of helping us examine our relationship with God, and what we really think and feel about Him. It has really made me think.
I suspect that there are a great many people who may actually be pretty thrilled about Heaven if God were absent. “What? No accountability? How nice!” And for the many who believe they’re headed for Heaven regardless of how badly they’ve behaved toward God, His words (the Bible) and His people (the church) in this life, a Heaven without Him present would be just fine, thank you. For many, a religion with such an end result would be perfectly suitable, maybe even preferable. He need not interfere with their plans, their fun and their views, so it would all be jolly good. Live and let live! But when we throw Him into the mix… and His Bible, too? Well now, that’s quite a different story.
What about those of us who believe in God, in the salvation purchased and offered by Jesus, and in belonging to his family, the church? Is it possible that even some of us might be almost as happy in a Heaven without God or Jesus being present? If so, then perhaps we are just a little too focused on reunions with family and friends, and in having our little corner of Heaven with mansions and beauty and uninterrupted fishing time. While these things are good and desirable, still, isn’t Heaven really more about being with Him? About being reunited with our Creator who loved us before we were born and gave us life itself? About fully knowing the Savior who willingly lay down His life in our stead?
I’m reminded of the story of the harlot (hooker, in our modern vocabulary) who came to Jesus and poured out expensive perfume to wash his feet. (Luke 7.36-50) The most important part of the story is verse 47, when Jesus says, “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown Me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” (New Living Translation)
I truly believe the real reason any of us can really long to see God and to meet Jesus face to face is because we know how deeply we have sinned against God, and how fully and freely His love and forgiveness has been given to us anyway. The one who is forgiven much has much love for God. The one who is forgiven little only loves God a little.
To those who have never really acknowledged or felt their sins — their often-committed violations against the character and laws of a holy God and judge — and have never really experienced the wondrous relief of His forgiveness, then Heaven would seem just fine with or without Him. But to those who know their sins, who have felt the despair of a selfish, sinful heart before a holy God, and have received grace and forgiveness from Him, those will long for Heaven mainly because He is there.
So let me ask you the question I’ve been asking myself: “If you got to Heaven and God or Jesus wasn’t there, how disappointed would you be?”
Mike,
That’s a great post. It reminds me of a true story about an old saint:
“Julian of Norwich, as she beheld a vision of the bleeding body of Christ crucified, heard a voice telling her to look up to heaven for her comfort. Even though she thinks that the voice is trustworthy, she refuses and tells Christ on the cross,
‘No, I cannot, for you are my heaven. I said this because I did not wish to look up, for I would rather have suffered until Judgment Day than have come to heaven otherwise than by him; for I well knew that he who bound me so painfully would unbind me when he wished. Thus I was taught to choose Jesus as my heaven, though at that time I saw him only in pain. I was satisfied by no heaven but Jesus, who will be my bliss when I go there. And it has always been a comfort to me that I chose Jesus for my heaven, through his grace, in all this time of suffering and of sorrow. And that has been a lesson to me, that I should do so for evermore, choosing Jesus alone for my heaven in good and bad times.’
For Julian… the cross is the deepest hope, the ‘only heaven’ that she can see and should see in this life, ‘in good and bad times.’ This side of the End, in a world of brokenness and sin, we are as ‘bound’ as she, and the articulation of our hopes must embody this. Our gaze toward heaven — if we dare make it — cannot bypass the cross.”
BTW, this was quoted from an article by Kevin L. Hughes in a book called THE FUTURE OF HOPE, published by Eerdmans. The story has come back to me many times since I first read it.
That question impacted me too, but the actual question was If you got to heaven and God wasn’t there, would you miss Him. I think MISS has a much different context than disappointed. Even if you don’t know someone, you can be disappointed they are absent, but would you MISS God? Would you long for his presence? Is your relationship with God so close that it would hurt in your heart and soul if He wasn’t there?
No matter what the religious background or belief system someone has, the purpose of the question is the same. It is just to make you think about your relationship with God and do you connect with Him so often that you’d MISS Him because He is a part of you?
I realized with this question that my relationship with God needed to get stronger.
So if you got to Heaven and God wasn’t there, would you MISS Him?
Thanks for the tweak, Francine. I knew I didn’t have it exactly right! “Miss” is better.