The most obvious hole in the dam we’ve built to stave off the great reality is the hope for a better world. That usually means better conditions for me and my loved ones. The dam has been crumbling in plain sight since heaven came down. It has been a long time since men of spiritual sight recognized that rituals will never approximate the best of either now or the future. Above all the things we have defeated stands death. We have not stopped dying or killing. Rest assured nothing dies in heaven, paradise, or utopia.

Quandary: death before heaven

Essential to the identity of God’s people – those responsive to his wisdom – is a peculiarity, a weirdness. He calls them sons, children, servants even as they struggle with the very things from which he has saved them. He does not expect them to put out signs proclaiming how far along the journey from regeneration to glory they have progressed. People seem more interested in talking about heaven as a distant and future thing, not to be accessed until death intervenes. Even now many believers do not want to die with Christ in order to experience the life he offers for the present time. Are they really dead or alive? Do they think that they can rejoice in a ticket to heaven without dying?