Heaven

Question: Is heaven a place or a state of the soul?

Jesus Christ plainly declared that heaven is a place. In John 14;2, He said, "I go to prepare a place for you." To make it even plainer, He added in the next verse that when the place is prepared, He will come again and receive us to Himself, so that "where" He is, we may be also (v. 3). Furthermore, we are distinctly told that when Jesus Himself left this earth, He went into heaven, from where He had come. (John 13:3; Acts 1:9-11; Ephesians 1:20-21).

The blessedness of heaven will not all be due to the character of the place. It will be even more blessed because of the state of mind that those who inhabit heaven will be in. Nevertheless, heaven is a place, a place more beautiful than any of us can imagine. All earthly comparisons necessarily fail. In our present state, every sense and faculty fail. In our present state, every sense and faculty of perception is blunted by sin and by the disease that results from sin. In our redeemed bodies, every sense and faculty will be enlarged and will exist in perfection. There may be new senses, but what they may be, we cannot of course now imagine. The most beautiful sights that we have ever seen on earth are nothing compared with what will greet us in that fair "city which as foundations" (Hebrews 11:10). Heaven will be free from everything that curses or mars our lives here. There will be no menial, grinding toil, no sickness or pain, no death, no funerals, and no separations (Revelation 21:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17). Above all, there will be no sin. It will be a place of universal and perfect knowledge, universal and perfect love, and perpetual praise (1 Corinthians 13:12; 1 John 3:2; 4:8; Revelation 7:9-12). It will be a land of melody and song.

~R. A. Torrey~