Heaven is union with God

God's ancient covenant with the Jewish people was, as Ezekiel wrote, that, “My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people" (Ezekiel 37: 26-27). At the end of Bible we find these words, “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” (Revelation 21: 3).

This covenant which God made with his people is fulfilled through Jesus. Jesus says that he dwells in God the Father and the Father dwells in him. In other words, he is united with God and lives out as a human being what God himself is like. When he says to his disciples that there are many dwelling places in his Father’s house, Jesus is letting his disciples know that it is not he alone who is to dwell with the Father but that there is room for all of them and many more (John 14. 1 - 7).

He then says to his disciples that he is about to leave them to prepare a dwelling place for them with God. He is speaking of his death, resurrection and ascension, as these enable his disciples to be united to him and, in him, with God, his Father. Heaven is experienced through our union with God. When we are united with God, we, like Jesus, dwell in God and God dwells in us. Through Jesus, we experience this unity with God in the here and now and it continues into our life with God after death.

Jesus is the way to unity with God. He is the way to God dwelling with us and our dwelling in God. 

Eugene Peterson has encapsulated Jesus’ point about being the way, truth and life by saying, “Only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life.” In many funeral services we pray for the wisdom and the grace to use aright the time that is left to us on earth. That wisdom and grace come to us as we ask ourselves, ‘Am I living the Jesus truth?’ ‘Am I living the Jesus way?’ ‘Am I living the Jesus life?’ We too can experience unity with God when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way to get the Jesus life.

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Madness - Our House.