How Big Is Heaven?

Scripture: John 14.1-14

How big is heaven? Big – most of us would say. Although the way we think, sometimes, of who will get in and who won’t would suggest that, according to our lights, heaven doesn’t need to be that big. The Jehovah’s Witnesses say only room for 144,000 is required.
That’s not that many people when you think about it. Listening to some Christians it seems that only themselves and a few others need apply to the Pearly Gates as well.

There’s an old story about a white man and a black man talking about heaven. The white man says, “I dreamed I died and went to heaven. There’s was a white section of heaven and a colored section of heaven. The white section was all and more than I imagined. Streets of gold. Clear rivers. Green grass. Paradise. Then I walked through the colored section of heaven and it was nothing but broken down shacks, and dirt roads and the people there were dressed poorly.” The man finished his story and smiled at the black man, who smiled back at the joke. Then the black man said, “I had a dream about heaven too. I dreamt I died and went to heaven and the colored section was sort of like you described it, the people there were living simply but they were happy. Then I strolled over to the white people’s section of heaven and it was like you said, golden and rich and beautiful, but you know, there wasn’t a soul in the place.”

But what does Scripture tell us. Well, Jesus says that “narrow is the road and hard one at that which leads to life and few who find it (Matthew 7.14).” In the same passage Jesus tells us it’s easy to get to Hell. The road is well-maintained and the signposts clear. This scripture would seem to support the notion that relatively few people make it to heaven. But. . .there is this in John 14: “In my Father’s house there are many rooms. . .” and Jesus goes to get them ready for us. Comparing these passages in John and Matthew you have what scholars call an apparent contradiction. So how do we resolve it?

You resolve apparent contradictions in scripture by looking at other scripture on the same question. Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3 that “Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” That statement in backed up by the scripture that says “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 1 Timothy 2.3-4 says, “This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Let me sum up these scriptures. Jesus is the door through which humankind can be saved for heaven. To enter this door you must believe in Jesus as Savior and God. God wants everyone to believe this and be saved. Jesus said it of himself in this “many rooms” passage: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Do I think it’s hard to walk the road of belief to heaven? Yes, sometimes I think it’s the hardest thing we can ever do. It’s hard to believe and to walk the road of belief when so many other things in this life are pulling you to throw in the towel and just live a life of selfishness and hedonism with no thought to the future. In that sense, narrow and hard is the road to life. And conversely, to quote those great modern theologians, ACDC, “there’s a highway to Hell.”

But God does everything possible to show us great mercy and patience. Our Father has the patience of Job, and then some. He is slow to anger and is love is unfailing. His Grace, this unearned, unmerited favor God shows us, is the power that upholds this world and keeps it together. Grace is also the only power strong enough to do what seems virtually impossible, more impossible than getting a camel through a needle’s eye, that is to move millions of fallen, wretched, sinful human beings to a place of perfection and bliss. Think about that!

The very entertaining animated movie, The Incredibles, begins with mock interviews of the Incredibles, modern-day superheroes who use their special powers to save ordinary human beings from disaster. Mr. Incredible himself confesses his frustration with ordinary human beings and their foibles:

No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get
Back in jeopardy. I wanna say, “Stay saved for little bit, ya know.” I feel
Like the maid – I just cleaned up this mess, can we keep it clean for ten minutes?

The Lord is good to us. The Lord shows us the meaning of patience, the meaning of grace. The Lord doesn’t run around solving all our problems, but he does fix the one problem that really matters in eternity – how can sinful human beings enter a sinless paradise? By the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

We can look around us and scoff at the many who don’t seem to give a fig for heaven or for God. Will they go to heaven? We can also look around us and wonder, “If Jesus is really the only way to heaven, how in the world will so many of other faiths and beliefs be saved by Jesus? How fair is that?

My answer to that is the power and the mathematics of Grace. God adds the sum total of our deeds and lives, comes up with a figure, then erases it and provides his own answer - Grace. Grace. The Grace of Jesus Christ. As the old hymn says, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy. . .”

I preached a sermon on the Population of Hell a couple years ago. In it I believe I suggested that Hell was a big place, not because there were so many people there, but because those people couldn’t stand to live next to each other. I borrowed the idea from C.S. Lewis book, The Great Divorce. In it Hell seems large at first, until it is compared with Heaven. In comparision Hell could rest on a pin in heaven, if heaven would allow it. Heaven is impressive. Heaven is real. And I think that seekers and agnostics and just casual unbelievers could find faith and hope in God if a belief in a real Heaven could be given to them. Maybe, if they could hear the words of Jesus, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms,” maybe they could believe, maybe you can believe, there is a place for me there too.