A Vision of Heaven

By Greg Laurie, Op-ed contributor Friday, May 11, 2007

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. —Revelation 21:4

Have you ever tried to explain something to someone and could not quite find the words? Have you ever tried to describe something complex to a child? For God to describe heaven to us in a way we could understand would be like trying to describe the beauty of Hawaii to a three-month-old child. We are not going to be able to comprehend, in our human bodies, all the glories of heaven.

In fact, the apostle Paul, who had the unique experience of dying and going to heaven, said that he heard things so astounding that they could not be told (see 2 Corinthians 12:2–4). Paul was essentially saying that he couldn't put his experience into words.

Heaven is beyond our comprehension. It is difficult to describe. While there are not many verses in the Bible that tell us about it, the Bible does tell us a few things. It says that in heaven there will be no night. There will be no fear. There will be no suffering or death. All of the pain and disabilities that we face in this life will be gone in heaven.

But the glory of heaven is even more than having new bodies, even more than the absence of darkness and sorrow and pain and death. The fact that Jesus Christ will be there is better than all the beauty and all the answers to our questions.

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