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The Best Is Yet to Come!
His popularity is evident. One of the earliest popular software programs, Pascal, was named after him. Living at a time when gambling was a major fad, the great thinker came up with the now famous “Pascal’s Wager.”
Though often misunderstood as a proof for the existence of God, the Wager is Pascal’s mathematical attempt to show how it is clearly in one’s best interest to believe in God. For Pascal, no matter how long a human lives, and no matter how good that life is—sooner or later that life is going to come to an end.
Life’s Question
Pascal proposes a pressing consideration: “What fate awaits the dead?”
The good news of Christianity, of Jesus, of His resurrection, and of the promise of an eternity in heaven provides the answer to the “What’s next” question. Heaven is the climactic hope of people everywhere who choose to believe in Christ and in the Bible.
Visual Promises
God has given sufficient information about the question of life after death that Pascal raises. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible is full of promises and insights on what to expect and how to prepare for the eventuality of death. Of the hundreds of passages, here are a few that offer the believer comfort:
Absolute Assurance
(John 3:15-36)
“That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Separation Time
(Daniel 12:1, 2; John 5:28, 29)
“And at that time shall Michael stand up . . . there shall be a time of trouble . . . and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.”
Eternal Inheritance
(Matthew 25:34-46)
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. . . . Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. . . .”
Prime Location
(Hebrews 11:13-16)
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”
Conversation About Heaven
Recently I was stranded in Antarctica for several days. I had the opportunity to have a conversation with an avowed atheist. One afternoon we had an animated discussion about Jesus, faith, and the Bible. The subject of heaven came up, and I passionately shared how much I believed in, and anticipated, heaven and eternal life. He jokingly retorted that he didn’t believe in the “heaven thing.” “Sounds,” he said, “kind of boring.”
His response provided me with the opportunity to share some of the concrete realities and joys of heaven. I talked; he listened. He had just experienced death in his family, so when I mentioned that in the new heaven and new earth, all the things that make life so miserable for us here will be gone, including death—his eyes moistened.
“Tell me more,” he said, his voice taking a more somber tone.
I went on to explain that the new heaven and new earth are a restoration of what God originally created. We’re so used to sin and suffering that we take them as the natural course of life. In fact, they are aberrations of what had been a perfect Creation. Jesus, I continued, came to restore the world to the perfection originally intended for it.
His attitude changed, softened. Joking aside, he said, “The kind of heaven you’ve described sounds like a place, a world that I would like to live in—right now.” He expresses the feelings of countless people once they get a true picture of what God has in store for us.
Attractions of Heaven
Ellen White describes heaven in the following way: “There, when the veil that darkens our vision shall be removed, and our eyes shall behold that world of beauty of which we now catch glimpses through the microscope; when we look on the glories of the heavens, now scanned afar through the telescope; when, the blight of sin removed, the whole earth shall appear in ‘the beauty of the Lord our God,’ what a field will be open to our study!” (Education, p. 303).
The point is, heaven is real, beautiful, and the best thing that can ever happen to us. She provides this counsel when talking about heaven: “Christ assured His disciples that He went to prepare mansions for them in the Father’s house. Those who accept the teachings of God’s Word will not be wholly ignorant concerning the heavenly abode” (The Great Controversy, p. 675).
Sensible Summary
Heaven and the new earth make sense in light of pain, suffering, and death on this earth. If there is to be any justice, any restitution, any hope—heaven has to be real.
Thanks to Jesus’ death on the cross, any one of us can experience eternal life and can ultimately find his or her place in heaven. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins; His law-keeping stands in place of our violation of that law; His perfection stands in place of our imperfection; His holiness stands in place of our sinfulness.
No matter your past, your mistakes, your failures—through faith in Jesus you can have the promise of a new life in Christ.
Pascal is right—what comes after this life is going to last for eternity. Thanks to the cross and Christ, if we accept Him as our personal Savior—the certainty of eternity and heaven can be ours here and now.
DELBERT W. BAKER, PH.D., has been the president of Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, for 13 years. He served as a pastor, counselor, author, and administrator. He is married to Susan Baker, who is an educator and physical therapist. Dr. Baker has written more than 10 books. He has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and run marathons in 30 states and on six continents.
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