Shaw: Do you see heaven as being radically continuous or discontinuous with our present earthly life?
Willard: Continuous. Jesus in John 8: 51-53 talks about this. "Those who are involved with my word will never see death."
Shaw: Will we recognize the kingdom of God when it comes, when it arrives?
Willard: I think it will take us some time. I think there will be some great moments of revelation. But if I hesitate in what I say it's because I believe that the kingdom of God is already here, already at work. Jesus told us, "We're not going to say, 'Oh, here it is,' or 'Oh, there it is.' Because it's among you."
I think when we step through death we will be in a different world, and it will suddenly occur to us, "Hey, I'm seeing things I've never seen before." Or, "Oh, here's someone I thought was dead. Aren't they dead?" I think it will come that way. For those who are not companions of Christ I don't think it will be obvious, but that's another story.
But the question is so important. Currently, and for some time now, really, the teaching about heaven and hell has totally lost its impact. That's partly because it hasn't been thought of in any realistic terms. We have thought of it as some sort of celestial "fall-back," with shelves where the old saints are parked, I suppose, with fabulous images of harps and clouds and so on.
My reading of Jesus is that he understands there to be a radical continuity here. There is almost a casualness, a flippancy, we might say, when he talks about this. Imagine just turning to the thief on the cross and saying, "See you later today, in Paradise."
Shaw: Almost a throw-away line.
Willard: I think it's regarded as not meaning much. But when you go back and read Scripture, one of the few things that's recorded in all four Gospels is that at Jesus' baptism "the heavens opened." Of course, in the Old Testament, the heavens opened periodically. I believe that at such moments what had been there all along suddenly became visible.
When it opened for Stephen as he was dying, after being stoned, he simply saw what was there all the time. That clarity never ceased for Jesus. On the Mount of Transfiguration he was just operating in the world that was real for him all the time, and the three witnesses were enabled to get a little glimpse. Of course, Jesus couldn't go around with his face and his clothes shining like that, or the people would have taken him to be some pagan deity.
Shaw: What about Moses, when his face shone so much as he descended from Sinai that he had to veil himself?
Willard: Well, we're supposed to manifest that glory too. I think of the story in Genesis where there's a description of Adam and Eve after their disobedience - they "knew they were naked, and sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." I don't think that's about sex, or the human body, but it's about what they were like before that. They were naked, and unashamed; there's no indication that they'd had clothes and lost them; rather, their bodies glowed, as we get a glimpse of in these other incidents.
When you look at a light bulb, you can't see the light bulb, but you see the light. When that light's turned out, we're aware of the limitation, the loss.
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