heaven #2

i listened to the first 45 minutes or so of Mr. Alcorn's Heaven book. the main idea i've taken away so far is the idea that since humans are created with bodies, our bodies will be eternal. i guess that's kind of a foreign idea to me. after all, it was c.s. lewis (whom i greatly admire) who once said something like "you are not a body with a soul. you are a soul, and you have a body." in other words, a body was something we are trapped in, encased in; and when we die our body ceases to be an important part of who we are. and this is the view i kind of automatically took, evident in a few earlier posts.

mr. alcorn does not take this view. he believes in the idea of an eternal, physical body. this does make sense because we have the scriptural fact of a new earth. that definitely makes more sense to me. i guess i never thought about needing a new earth if we don't have actual bodies to live in it. also there are verses about the dead in Christ being raised to life again. so, a new conclusion: in the new earth, our physical bodies will once again be perfect. mr. alcorn talks about how we were created with physical bodies, even in our original state of perfection. they were physical and perfect. the pre-fall body, and earth, were perfect. bodies do not, then, need to have "shucked off."

there is a word for this kind of anti-physical philosophy, that everything physical is bad and everything spiritual is good. (i can't think of the term right now, although i think it begins with an A.) but, that's not right the right way to look at it, because we were made to be eternal, perfect, physical creatures. and that's hard to wrap my mind around because i have thought the opposite for so long.

my assumption is that the "new heaven" refers to a heaven without jealous angels and other such things. because heaven itself is currently imperfect. so if there is a new heaven and a new earth, i think they would have to be easily accessible to each other, or even kind of overlap each other. before the Fall, God himself just walked around on earth with Adam, in constant peace and harmony and communion with all of his Creation. it was all physical, but God dwelt there anyways. there was nothing to taint it, and no sin to drive his perfect character away.

so a new heaven/earth would probably "coincide" with each other, or at least have all the properties of each. a physical population of people, living in a place accessible by physical and spiritual beings alike. ??? the other option is that heaven is itself a physical place, which doesn't make much sense to me right now, but seems to be a pesty little idea that won't go away.

i hope all of this made sense to you...i kind of typed it in less than five minutes. feedback=welcome!