Note from Eternal Perspective Ministries: October 2024 marked the 20-year anniversary since the release of Randy's book Heaven. By God's grace, over one million copies have been sold. In this interview, Randy reflects on writing the book and what has changed since it was first published.
What prompted you to study and write about Heaven?
A close friend of mine, Greg, died when I was in high school. I was a brand-new Christian, and it affected me profoundly. Then after I’d been a pastor five years, my mother died in 1981. The last month before she died, nearly every day I read to her from the final two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22, which portray the eternal Heaven as centered on the New Earth. Though we had never discussed it in Bible college or seminary, I found compelling this picture of a resurrected world where people with real bodies will live in a redeemed culture forever centered on Christ the King of Kings.
As the years went on, as a pastor I was at the bedsides of many dying people and spoke at their gravesides and memorial services. Eleven years to the day after my mother died, my best friend from childhood died, and I had the privilege of being there with Jerry when he left this world for a far better one.
After writing my novel Safely Home in 2001, I decided to write a big book on Heaven, emphasizing not just the present Heaven where we go when we die, but the eternal Heaven where God promises to put His throne on the New Earth and dwell with us.
Big books full of Scripture, theology, and quotations from people long dead don’t normally sell well. Yet to my surprise, and the publisher’s, over a million copies of Heaven have sold. Innumerable readers, including pastors, have told me their views of the afterlife have radically changed. No one has been more surprised than I’ve been!
What was most challenging about writing the book? What has brought you the most joy?
In my research for Heaven, I read over 150 books on the afterlife, most of them long out of print. I did this over a three-year period, and of course, the more you research, the more material you have to handle, and the more you have to cut. If you do five or six revisions on a book manuscript, as I usually do, it’s easy to lose sight of the end.
I had some very discouraging times where I was up half the night writing and asking, “Lord, is this going to make a difference? Is it worth it?” In that moment, it’s something you have to accept by faith—that a measurable result will come, even if the book isn’t read by people for another two years.
The payoff did indeed come when the book was published. Over the years, we’ve received hundreds of wonderful letters from people, including many who begin by saying, “My husband/wife/son/granddaughter/mother died, and your book has helped me in my grief.” I have found great joy in hearing how lives have been changed: people have come to Christ, grown and been stretched, or taken bold new steps in following Jesus.
When I receive such letters, it’s like God is graciously saying, “Yes, all the work you put into writing really is worth it.”
What are the most frequently asked questions about Heaven you receive?
Those who are grieving have many questions like, “Does my loved one still care about me? Are they aware of what’s happening on Earth? What are they experiencing in the present Heaven?” We’ve addressed these and similar questions on my blog and in Q&As our staff have helped me answer.
Believers who have lost a spouse often have questions about the nature of marriage in Heaven. As I share in the book, there will be one marriage in Heaven, not many. Our marriage to Him is the true Marriage, of which the best of earthly marriages was a symbol and shadow. But while Jesus said the institution of human marriage would end, having fulfilled its purpose, He never hinted that deep relationships between married people would disappear. I was married to Nanci, my best friend and my closest sister in Christ, for 47 years. Will we become more distant in the new world? Of course not—we’ll become closer, I’m convinced. Of this I’m sure: what Jesus has for us in eternity will be wonderful beyond anything we can begin to imagine (and what we can imagine right now is pretty wonderful!).
One subject the book did not address is that of cremation. We receive emails asking, “What about bodies that were cremated? How will that affect the resurrection?” While I do have some thoughts about cremation as it relates to the precedent we see in Scripture (I share those perspectives on my blog for those who are curious and are considering future decisions), my response is that our all-powerful God will have no trouble making a perfect resurrection body out of the fragments He will raise!
I’m also frequently asked about animals on the New Earth, and specifically whether it’s possible that our pets might be there too. I love animals, and especially the dogs Nanci and I have had over the years, so I completely sympathize with the heart behind such questions. That has prompted me to work on a theology of animals and Heaven, which will also release from Tyndale in the future.
What parts of the book have received the most pushback from readers?
Countless Christians in Bible-believing churches have been held in bondage for many years by false and widespread views of Heaven and eternity. Despite the clear teaching of Scripture, the pushback against the New Earth used to be very strong. (Many people had only heard the New Earth mentioned in reference to Jehovah's Witness beliefs.)
When Heaven came out in 2004, it was regarded as unique and radical, and by some as off-the-wall. There are readers and pastors who have struggled to embrace the Scriptural truth that the eternal Heaven will be a physical place. Once, after I preached about the Resurrection and New Earth, a fine Christian man said to me, “This idea of having bodies and eating food and living in an earthly place . . . it just sounds so unspiritual.”
Likewise, a Bible college professor took offense at my suggestion that culture—including inventions, concerts, drama, and sports—will likely be part of the New Earth. But if we will be God’s resurrected image-bearers living on a resurrected earth, why wouldn’t they be?
Yet there are many more readers who have resonated with what Scripture has taught all along. I believe more now in the truth of what the Bible teaches about Heaven than I even did when I first wrote the book. I would not have written it had I not believed it—but it was so different than 98% of what I was reading! I could only find references to the New Earth in mostly obscure books and a few reformed systematic theologies and serious books of reformed eschatology.
I am from a dispensational background, but there is an unfortunate habit of dispensational writers to always think biblical references to the eternal New Earth are actually references to the millennium, which takes place on the old earth still under the curse. It is possible to believe in a literal millennium, but it is mandatory that biblically-based Christians believe in an eternal New Earth and that they not confuse the two. At best the millennium may anticipate or prefigure or be a sampling of the New Earth to come. But because it is a temporary period that happens on the old earth still under the curse and ends in death and destruction, and the New Earth is both eternal and from day one without sin, death, and suffering, the two should not be mistaken for one another.
What has changed in the 20 years since you wrote the book? Do you see a change in how Christians approach the subject of Heaven?
To be honest, it was remarkably difficult to find much at all about the New Earth in those 150 books I read in 1999-2003, and especially much that was biblically grounded. Information about the New Earth was maybe 1-2% of what I read, if even that, but it jumped out to me. Here was a central truth of Scripture that I had never once been taught in a church or Bible college or seminary! In my conversations with people, it was shocking what pastors and Christian leaders believed and did not believe about Heaven.
I have had people tell me (and I hope they’re right) that Heaven has had a major effect on changing the perspectives of evangelical pastors and laypeople on the subject of the New Earth. It’s true I have noticed a striking difference when I speak to groups today and when I spoke to them 20 years ago. Sometimes I still hear people say, “I’ve never heard that before,” but they are noticeably fewer.
More than anything, I hear from people that they have a transformed picture of Heaven and the New Earth that’s helped them fear death less, focus less on bucket lists, and embrace the blood-bought promises of Jesus about the wonders of eternal life with Him and His people. If the belief that God’s people really will live happily ever after as resurrected people on a resurrected earth is a significant part of my legacy as a writer, I’ll certainly be happy and grateful to God!
How has Nanci’s homecoming to Heaven influenced how you talk and write about this subject?
I doubt many people have talked about eternity more than Nanci and I did. Twenty-some years of my researching, writing, and speaking about Heaven gave us much to talk about! I am eternally grateful for those conversations that began decades before Nanci was diagnosed with cancer.
While what I learned during those hundreds (come to think of it, thousands) of hours of study was a great encouragement, it didn’t necessarily make saying goodbye to Nanci easy. All that study, however, bolstered my wholehearted belief that Nanci’s death was not the end of our relationship, only a temporary interruption. The great reunion awaits us, and I anticipate it and delight in imagining it with everything in me.
Paul said that “we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). My true home is where Jesus is. It warms my heart that Jesus and Nanci are in the same home. He is the One who makes Heaven such a wonderful place, all because He is such a wonderful person.
Nanci’s death has given me opportunities to write and speak about grief, and I hope, help readers have an eternal perspective. (My new booklet Grieving with Hope was born out of what I’ve learned during the last two and a half years since Nanci relocated to Heaven.)
How do you hope the message of Heaven will impact the church in the next 20 years?
My hope is that the church will increasingly be able to do exactly what Peter assumes all Christians are doing: “looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13).
Peter links the promise of life together in the new universe with the call to be holy and pure and to live for Christ: “...You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God” (2 Peter 3:11-12). God wants us to use this time He’s given us to serve Him with all our hearts. I pray that’s what God’s people will do.
Joni Eareckson Tada writes in Heaven: Your Real Home,
When a Christian realizes his citizenship is in heaven, he begins acting as a responsible citizen of earth. He invests wisely in relationships because he knows they’re eternal. His conversations, goals, and motives become pure and honest because he realizes these will have a bearing on everlasting reward. …He gives generously of time, money, and talent because he’s laying up treasure for eternity. He spreads the good news of Christ because he longs to fill heaven’s ranks with his friends and neighbors.
Not only will an eternal perspective change our actions, but it will also change our attitudes. Living with eternity in mind will infuse us with a joy and purpose that can sustain us in daily life, even as we face suffering.
Charles Spurgeon wrote in his classic devotional Morning and Evening, “Christian, meditate much on Heaven, it will help thee to press on, and to forget the toil of the way.” If we are anticipating life on the New Earth, we will not view suffering or death the same—not our death, or the death of a loved one.
May the church live upon eternity’s joys now, discarding unbiblical and unworthy views of Heaven, and believing that the best truly is yet to come!
