"What If Jesus Was Serious about Heaven?" by Skye Jethani

 A review of What If Jesus Was Serious about Heaven? by Skye Jethani

This is an excellent work! Overall, very enjoyable and important. I have two issues to highlight:

I very much enjoyed the section on Scarcity vs Abundance (Ch 21), the inclusion of the “lesser” (the daughter of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman Chs 23 & 24), and the feedings of the 5,000 and 4,000 as showing that Israel’s story is being fulfilled in Christ, but also that the Gentiles are invited in (Chs 25 & 26).  What I find an odd omission is that both Mark and Matthew tell these stories together, but Jethani mentions only Mark. I consider that an odd choice, particularly in view that while Mark is generally understood as addressed to a Gentile audience, Matthew is written with Jewish hearers/readers in mind. That both audiences are told this is significant and would I believe strengthen this portion of Jethani’s work.

The second issue is more consequential. It is certainly true that many have misunderstood heaven as only being a spiritual place. However, Jethani says “In fact, the Bible has shockingly little to say about what happens to us immediately after we die, and what it does say doesn’t reference heaven.” (Ch 27) I have to disagree. Any believer who has lost a loved one has wondered about their state, and all of us who have responded to such questions have had to look at passages such as 2 Cor 5:1-8 (and 12:1-5); 1 Thess 4:13-18 and arguably Heb 12:1. (If Luke 16:19-31 is intended as more than a teaching against the excesses of the rich then it also gives us clues about the intermediate state.) 

Jethani is absolutely right to stress that the intermediate state is not the final goal and final state. He is also right to stress that the Kingdom of God is accessed here and now in our relationship with Christ. I think he has failed his readers in dismissing the intermediate state as if were not there. Yes, the lack of detail given in the biblical account makes it clear that this is NOT the endgame, the final state. That is not to say that the Bible gives us no information. It is indeed called Paradise by Paul and Jesus (2 Cor 12:4; Luke 23:43) and it is a place where the believer is “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8). In Paul’s vision in 2 Cor 12 he calls this place both “heaven” (ouranos) and "Paradise" (paradeisos). This is where Jesus has gone to be with the Father (Acts 1:11) and where he is doing the work of interceding for us (Rom 8:34; 1 Tim 2:5). 

I don’t dare lose sight of the reality and glory of that intermediate state. We do not end up in "Heaven" but that doesn't mean that believers who have died are not now in Heaven. A lot of people I love are waiting there - not for an eternity in that place, but for that final and embodied state written of in Rev 21 & 22 (and 1 Cor 15). We will be on a restored Earth, and God's dwelling place will be with us. (Rev 21:3)