No, Your Loved One Did Not Become an Angel.

(Warning: Rant incoming)

The vast majority of Christians – especially in the Western world – have a very flawed and unbiblical understanding of heaven. This is especially prevalent when a loved one dies and we try to comfort them by saying, “Well, I guess God needed another angel.”

Let’s consider the implications of this statement if it were true.

This would mean that God enjoys killing human beings – our loved ones – so that he can generate more angels to serve him. The same God who created everything that we see by the power of His Word needs to kill us to transform us into some spiritual being with wings who plays a harp for all eternity.

Okay, maybe your view of heaven isn’t that extreme. Instead, you have a false understanding of the physical world that concludes the physical is bad and the spiritual realm is good (p.s. that’s an ancient heresy known as Gnosticism that was rejected by the church as being anti-gospel). Due to this false belief we believe that when we die we become disembodied “spirit beings” who float around somewhere in space while babies in diapers and wings (i.e. how Americans view angels) also float around in some “light” that we think is God.

Why am I going on this rant? Well, this Sunday at Renovation Church we are going to be studying John 14:1-11. In this passage, Jesus speaks about how he is going to the Father to prepare a “place” for us. Nevertheless, this place is defined less by where it is and more by who it is.

Heaven is not (primarily) a place. Heaven is a person and His name is Jesus.

A blog post does not leave me enough room to unpack this truth. I encourage you to join me at Renovation Church this Sunday at 10am at the Garretson School. If you do not live in the area, we will be streaming the message live from our Facebook Page. See you then!