In a prior episode, the question of what Christians believe about the final destination of the Christian believer was raised. For many years, the Christian church has lived in the legacy of the medieval Catholic church’s teaching that the goal of Christianity is to get the believer to heaven after they die. But the Bible never uses the word “heaven” to refer to the place where Christians’ souls reside postmortem.
Instead, heaven is the seat of the power of the Creator God in Jesus Christ, a power that is taking over the creation now through the death and resurrection of the Messiah. This doesn’t mean that the Bible ignores what happens to believers after they die, but this intermediate state is not the main theme.
Instead, the main theme of the Bible is the belief that Jesus is going to return to raise our bodies from the dead and establish his eternal reign on earth.
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