pastor, starts to rub his hands together in delight. “If a bus driver gets a palace, what kind of place will I get!” he thinks. Smiling from ear to eternal ear he steps up to Peter.
“John, do you see that mountain over there?”
“Yes . . .”
“That mountain much larger than the bus driver’s?”
“Yes!”
“Do you see that valley next to it? The one in constant shade?”
“Yes . . .”
“Do you see that lean-to that’s almost falling apart?”
“. . . yes . . .”
“Well, that is your house.”
“What!? Why? How come? Why does a bus driver get a palace and I get a shack? I worked my entire life for God, I sacrificed all my evenings and weekends!” shouts John, who clearly has some issues with the heavenly housing allocation policies.
“Well, John, the problem is this. When you were preaching, everyone was sleeping, but when the bus driver was driving, everyone was praying harder than ever before.”
Why write down this joke? Well, laughter is the best medicine. But, it also shows us a certain view of heaven. We have heard that heaven has gates, and that Saint Peter is often portrayed at them. We know that there is housing, and that many believe that what you do on earth influences what you get in heaven. I’m not saying that you or I believe this, or that it is correct, just that we have heard of these ideas before. Apparently, we understand exactly what is happening, otherwise this joke would not be funny.
This is an image that we have in our head. If I had written that this was a joke about a leopard and bus driver at the pearly gates, you would have been intrigued. You would have thought, “What? A leopard at the gates of heaven?” What if it wasn’t Peter at the gates, but some terrible person from history? That too would have been strange. The joke itself is funny because it is very close to what we expect, but just a little bit different. Ninety percent is logical and obvious, and the peculiar ten percent makes the joke funny. By playing with our expectations a good story is created.
What I just explained is true for many things. Jokes, stories, movies, art—even the Bible. Jesus does exactly this when he preaches. Often he says, “you have heard . . . but I say.” He says, for example, “You have heard ‘you shall not murder,’ but I say do not get angry” (Matthew 5:21–22). What is he doing? He is playing with expectations. Now, try to imagine that Jesus didn’t say “you have heard.” Try to imagine that we didn’t even know what the people “had heard.” Would we understand Jesus correctly? Would we know what his message was, if we didn’t know the expectations, the context? We would not. To truly appreciate the bits that are different, we have to understand what they are different to.
In other words, if we want to understand “heaven” in the Bible, we have to know more than just the Bible.
Our Image of Heaven
I grew up as a Christian. In other words, I grew up with an image of heaven. Mine might be like yours. The image of heaven I grew up with is something like this: Everyone looks happy, healthy, and clean. No one has acne. In fact, everyone looks very smart in a generic sixties kind of way: men and boys in dark suits and ties, women and girls in dresses, and everyone has neat, if slightly outdated, hairdos. And, of course, everyone has a black-and-gold Bible under their arms. There are lions sitting next to lambs, and there are children playing with both. Everything is very green and very clean.
This is, in a nutshell, the image of heaven I grew up with. Through the years this image has changed a bit, but I still carry this nostalgic image in my head. I seriously doubt my hair will ever part as neatly as the hair in those pictures, but who knows, miracles do happen!
We all have an image of heaven—a picture in our heads that we have compiled through the years. Christians base their images mainly on the Bible (at least I should hope so). But what did the Bible writers base theirs on? Where did the authors of the New Testament get their image of heaven from? Some of it came from the Old Testament, some of it came from elsewhere. John tells of some visions he had of heaven in Revelation, but that was long after Matthew, Mark, Peter, and Paul had written their books. They didn’t get their image of heaven from visions. They probably got it from the same place I got the dark suits and black-and-gold Bibles: general ideas that are common to their religion and culture. What then was their image of heaven?1 Let’s see.
Paul’s Worldview
Maybe you think that this whole discussion is irrelevant. Maybe you think that the authors of the Bible had the same view of heaven as we do. Unfortunately for us that is absolutely not true. And I am not only talking about the dark suits. The differences are much larger than that! Let me give you an example. Paul writes something very intriguing in 2 Corinthians. In his letter he suddenly talks about someone in the “third heaven”:
It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows—was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. (2 Corinthians 12:1–4)
This is a peculiar passage. Paul says that he will discuss visions and revelations, and tells us of the experiences of a certain person that he knew. This person was taken up into the third heaven. He was even taken up into paradise. There he heard things that humans should not, or cannot, speak of.
This sounds strange to me. In my worldview, there is no third heaven. There is one heaven and God lives there. I will live there too someday, where I will have that nice suit and neat hair. Paul’s view of heaven must be different to mine. How else could Paul talk of a third heaven?
Many writings from Paul’s time describe multiple heavens. People explain how they were taken by an angel and given a heavenly tour. The people who get to see the heavens are always the holiest ones: heroes of the faith like Abraham, Isaac, Job, Enoch, and Levi. They are very important people. In other words, if you can report of a trip to heaven, you are clearly a religiously important person. These religious VIPs often visit multiple heavens, usually there are seven heavens. Most holy things come in sevens, so why not the heavens? And because God is the most holy, he lives in the seventh heaven: the highest heaven.
Having read this, do you feel like my brother Paul? Do you see something there, just a bit off the path? Something about heavens? Something you just have to see? Let’s go and explore.
Levi Sees the Seven Heavens
And behold, the heavens opened, and an angel of the Lord said to me, Levi, come in. And I went from the first heaven into the second; and I saw there water hanging between the two. And I saw a third heaven, far brighter and more brilliant than these two, and infinite in height. (Testament of Levi 2:6–8)2
This is a short passage from the Testament of Levi. We know of this book thanks to the tireless efforts of copyists through the ages, and we found parts of this book among the Dead Sea Scrolls. They are the last words of Levi, the son of Jacob. Levi’s final testament to his sons. At least, that is what the work says that it is. It is very unlikely that Levi actually wrote this book, which is why
