Heaven Will Be Human
What the Bible actually says about our future home.
Part 3 of 4: What the Bible promises about the end of everything.
Through the prophet Isaiah, God said, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth…no more shall be heard…the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit…The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy…” (Isa. 65:17-25).
Right now, our world is a broken mess. The news is unwatchable. Injustice is everywhere. Death reigns. Everything is broken.
But it won’t be forever.
A day is coming when God will restore all these broken things by the glory of his presence. The most detailed image of this is in Revelation 21:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
The key aspect that makes this future world heaven is the presence of God himself. He will not send a proxy. There will be no veil between him and us. There will be physical presence. God will dwell with us. We will be so happy. We will see God’s face (Rev. 22:4). Revelation 21:23 says there will be no need of sun or moon to shine, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The new heaven and the new earth are bright because Christ, the Lamb of God, is there, and in his restorative light, he will give us the life we were made for.
He will prepare us for that future, glorious state. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4)
Revelation 22:3 says, “No longer will there be anything accursed.” Every dimension of the curse of the Fall will be removed. No sin. No suffering. No separation. No injustice. No fighting. No war. No death. Nothing bad ever again.
This future place is a real place—not an idea or a metaphor, but a real world. It will be a holy city. We’ll have an address like we do today. Our resurrected bodies will be made like the glorious body of Jesus, and we will see each other as we were meant to be.
It’ll be a new world, but it will feel like our old one. We’ll feel at home. Revelation 21:24 says the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. The good things of human culture—music, stories, friendship—will not be deleted but purified. Heaven will be human.
Jesus will remove all the sin that stains us. The friendships we cherish now are only a shadow of what they will be when our Great Friend gathers us together in his final redemption. We will live in the harmony we long for but can never reach in this life, in a renewed and restored world.
Heaven is coming to this world. We won’t travel to it; God will bring it down. And in that heaven, we will finally be at home like we have never been before. The way to it is not through our effort but by God’s grace. He’s preparing the place now (John 14:2-3), and he’ll bring us into his great house on that great and final day.