E425 Mysteries of the Faith: Heaven

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I hear a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” – Revelation 21:1-4 There are many pictures of what heaven may be like. From art to poetry to film and television, many people have depicted heaven one way or another. And I completely understand why people would want to do so – heaven is something I believe everybody thinks about at some point in their life. Even an atheist has likely gone through the mental exercise of thinking, if heaven is real I wonder what it may be like. So today I want to explore the mystery of heaven: what the Bible says about heaven, how culture has depicted heaven, and seek answer some of the most common questions people have. To do so I reached out to an expert. Dr. Alister McGrath recently retired as the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University where he started teaching in 1983. Dr. McGrath now serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford. He is the author of an immensely popular textbook, Christian Theology: An Introduction which is in its 6th edition and, most appropriate for this conversation, he’s the author of A Brief History of Heaven. Doable Discipleship is a Saddleback Church podcast produced and hosted by Jason Wieland. It premiered in 2017 and now offers more than 400 episodes. Episodes release every Tuesday on your favorite podcast app and on the Saddleback Church YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/saddleback). Resources Related to This E