The Peculiar Nature of a Personal Heaven
How C.S. Lewis shows us that heaven is made for us and us for it
Heaven, like the whole of Christianity, is personal but never private.
I remember studying the difference between “you” (singular) and “you” (plural) in Koine Greek during my first year of seminary. As a Southerner, one of my biggest pet peeves that year was when my professor didn’t allow us to use “y’all” in our translations from Greek to English.
In his understanding, you could use “y’all” for plural and singular. This was in 2015 which was before pronouns became such a hot topic for identity. Since there were several true Southerners in the room, we all looked at each other and had one, single, unified thought: “He’s absolutely wrong.”
Of course “y’all” can’t be used for a single person. “Y’all” is the conjunction for “you” + “all”. It was safe to say that the Southerners in the room were itching to speak up but too polite to do so. Instead, as we typically do in the South, internally we all thought what we often say about people who are in the wrong: “Bless his heart.”
“Y’all” is always meant for the plural. At best, it refers to a single individual as they represent others in the whole.
Personal, But Not Private
Most of the 30-40 readers of this blog have probably stopped by now in order to begin scrolling again on Instagram. And that’s OK. But, for the rest of you, what is the point I am trying to make? Despite my frustrations with not being able to use “y’all” in my Greek translations, I learned to notice the important difference between “you” (singular) and “you” (plural).
Scripture uses both a lot. It is important to remember the difference between saying “you (singular) are saved” and “you (plural) are saved”. This gets back to my opening sentence: Heaven, like the whole of Christianity, is personal but never private.
Christians belong to a community of people. They enter into a new covenant relationship with God along with a whole host of others. God never deals with the individual while ignoring the corporate body.
At the same time, God’s salvation is never impersonal and generalized. Isaiah 43:1 says, “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’”
This “you” in verse 1 is a singular “you”.1 When God saves you He calls you by name. It is a personal calling. He brings you into a vast multitude which no eye will be able to number (Rev. 7:9). But, fear not, you are never lost or neglected amidst that vast multitude. He knows, loves, cares for, and keeps an eye always on you. This is why we say Christianity is personal but never private.
A Personal Heaven
Heaven, like the whole of Christianity, is personal but never private. When we die, we enter into the world of glory and infinite love surrounded by brothers and sisters with whom we could not have better relationships. It will truly be what we have longed for our whole lives. Yet, that is not the best part of heaven. The best part of heaven is your relationship with God.
This relationship will be personal with Him—Him knowing you and you knowing Him—all within the context of a multitude of glorified individuals who will have the same relationship with Him. The beauty and glory of this is that our experience of our relationship with God will be heightened by the constant encouragement, story telling, and delight that we will have together.
While this is an extraordinary thought, let us not lose sight of the individuality of heaven. Like good Christology, we should never separate the two realities nor blend them together where they lose their distinction. Heaven, like the whole of Christianity, is personal but never private.
Upon the first seconds in post-resurrection heaven, we will feel as if we are in the place where we were always meant to be. The heightened sensitivity and ability of our five senses, in a glorified state with our resurrected bodies, will make it seem like we have always been there. It will be the most real, present experience we have ever had. The idea of boredom won’t be imaginable in a place pulsating with such beauty and life. It will be a bottomless fountain of infinite and eternal “God-ness” in the New Heavens and New Earth—His attributes shining forth in overwhelming brilliance so as to make it abundantly clear that He is the Creator, Provider, and Redeemer of all things. While hearing such passionate singing from the hearts of billions upon billions of the redeemed, we will never have realized this level of belonging to a place, a people, and a God.
But, why did God create individuals? Why not just countless Adams and Eves? Why are there so many different life experiences, ethnicities, personalities, gifts, skill sets, languages, cuisines, genres of music & art, and so much more? Even within each of these there is so much variety and diversity. It is a tragic modern mistake to see all “white” or “black” people as the same. Each person is like a unique fingerprint. Even Jacob and Esau, who were twins, were unique even with their shared family, ethnicity, culture, and way of life—yet how different did their eternal destinies end up.
C.S. Lewis says, “If He had no use for all these differences, I do not see why He should have created more souls than one.”2 God made a variety within each variety. He delights in us not only by giving us common experiences but also individual lives.
Too often we separate these today. We can become “Nestorian”3 in our separation of the corporate from the individual. This has led to much of our current issues today as we see radical individualism (“No one can tell me what to do because I am my own person.”) and over-simplistic grouping (“All white/black people are the same.”). Interestingly, the Bible destroys both of these ideas by bringing individuals into union with Christ forming One Body who are baptized with One Baptism into One Faith in One Lord (Eph. 4:5-6). This is why Christians must have “in Christ” as our greatest identity marker above all personal or corporate identities.
The Experience of Heaven
How does this change our understanding of Heaven? C.S. Lewis is worth quoting at length here:
Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you. The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you—you, the individual reader, John Stubbs or Janet Smith. Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another’s…God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.4
God created you (Ps. 139:13-18; Jer. 1:5). God elected you (Eph. 1:4-5). In God’s election, He wrote your name in the Book of Life (Rev. 20:15). He knows the hairs on your head (Lk. 12:7).
While there is nothing new under the Sun, God certainly made individuals with their unique experiences amidst the shared experiences while making up a corporate body.
This changes the way we think about our future experience of Heaven. As Lewis is pointing out, Heaven (though nothing less than a corporate experience) will be individually tailored to us. Not that Heaven will be one thing for one person and another thing for another person—some form of relativism. It is One Heaven with One Lord. Nevertheless, Heaven will be so fit for you and you for it that you will feel as if you were the only one in Jesus’ mind when He was preparing the place for us (Jn. 14:3). The disposition of God’s infinite love for you will feel so personal that you will never have a moment of jealousy for another. The robe of Christ’s righteousness will be fit so much to you that you won’t ever think it was a mistake that He saved you.
God loves you. And unlike the way we think today, that you that He loves is not your sin. Our sin is not our first and foremost identity—Christ is. Praise the Lord! He does love us as we are at this moment but He also loves us into what we are meant to be. He never loves our sin but He does love us despite our current sin.
And that us or you that He has loved for eternity is the who He wants to spend eternity with. Isn’t it amazing that this is all be grace alone?
Listen: Heaven is far greater than you and I can imagine. What can one, short, probably-not-written-well blog do to encompass one second of the glories of Heaven?
My biggest burden, dear believer, is that you would have such confidence that Christ is preparing a place for you.
You might note that this “you” (singular) is speaking of a single entity of numerous people. While that is true, there is still the individual nature of salvation here. For, Jesus is ultimately the “True Israel”. As an individual, He is True Israel who redeems a multitude. We are personally and individually called by name to come into the one Body of Christ. Personal and corporate.
In his commentary on Isaiah, Alec Motyer says, “Finally, in a crowning intimacy, there is naming; ‘to call by name’ (40:26) is a direct personal relationship involving having a specific plan and place for the one named. In Israel’s case (7) ‘calling by name’ included ‘being called by my name’ (cf. 4:1). Like a true and glad-hearted Boaz (Ru. 4:3–10), the Lord redeemed and married his Israel. Hence the triumphant shout You are mine!/‘Mine you are!’”
J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 331.
A Year with C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works by C.S. Lewis (p. 392)
Nestorianism is the heresy that the Humanity of Christ and the Deity of Christ are two totally separate natures to the extent that Christ is two different Persons rather than One Person with Two Natures in perfect harmony and unity without losing their distinctive properties. For a response to the Nestorian heresy, see The Third Ecumenical Council.
Lewis, p. 392.