Chip Ingram on What The Bible Says About Heaven (Interview)
When Pastor Chip Ingram asks people whether they would like to go to heaven now or in ten years, he receives some interesting responses.
"I'd think I'd rather go to Hawaii for a couple weeks before I go to heaven," he recounts hearing. Or another reply from a young single person who has remained abstinent until marriage is: "Man, I don't want to go to heaven before I have sex."
In The Real Heaven: What the Bible Actually Says, Ingram, senior pastor at Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, California, contends that many Christians, including himself at one point, don't really have a clear understanding of heaven, resulting in many people wrongly thinking life on Earth is somehow better than what heaven has to offer. Ingram admits in the book that even as a pastor, he couldn't explain to his dying father what heaven will be like, which caused him to dive into the Scripture to get a better understanding of what to expect of eternal life for believers.
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The Christian Post spoke with Ingram about his latest book in a telephone interview during which he urges believers to re-engage in Scripture on the subject of heaven in light of the rising fascination with it in popular culture.
Many believers facing death sometimes fear what is to come no matter how strong their faith in Christ. Books like Heaven is For Real and 90 Minutes in Heaven offer competing narratives, and despite the seemingly countless testimonies from people who say they have seen a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel, the Bible paints a much different picture.
Ingram thinks that these days many are "more inclined to take someone's word for their experience than the only Person that came from heaven and described it to us."
So what does the Bible actually say about heaven that one can know for sure? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not one big, boring, eternal church service. Nor is heaven an up-there-in-the-sky space with smoky mist and angels perched on clouds playing harps.
In a concise prose, Ingram tells us that his book dives into a theology of heaven, describing its past, present and future realities.
Genesis 1 and 2 describes heaven past, an environment God created where humans were designed to flourish with meaningful activity assigned to them. Most importantly, it was a place where He was in unbroken communion with humans.
Presently, heaven is God's abode, and angels are worshiping him — see Revelation 4 and 5. At the moment a Christian dies, he or she does not have a resurrected body but experiences the presence of the Lord there.
With respect to the future, Ingram added, both heaven and earth will be made new at the great Consummation. In Revelation 21, God gives dimensions to the new heaven and earth and not only are there gates, but cities and nations. Although heaven is perfect, it is incomplete without us.
"Heaven was designed as an actual place where God could relate to us in his fullness and at our highest capacity," Ingram said, and this represents the heartbeat of the gospel message. Why else would Jesus emphasize to his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them? It was so they could be where He was.
In view of this promise, Christians should dispense with the misplaced hope that their deepest dreams can be fulfilled in this world. "There was a yearning in the apostle Paul." Ingram notes, "because he got a snapshot of [heaven]."
Although every Christian enters heaven the same way, by the grace of Jesus and his finished work of the cross, they will experience it differently. To extent to which Christians faithfully steward their lives on Earth determines how much treasure they store up in heaven.
"If we were far more clear on heaven, we would be far more bold to share our faith with those whose lives are not moving in that direction," Ingram said.
"I think we have the best of intentions and our fear of being rejected, and our fear of being viewed as narrow so inhibits us. I want people to read about heaven and embolden them and me to share more freely about God's love for those who are outside of Christ."
