Surely no one who had actually been in heaven would neglect to mention what Scripture shows is its main focus. If you had spent an evening dining with a king, you wouldn’t just talk about the place settings. When John was shown heaven and wrote about it, he recorded the details — but first and foremost, from beginning to end, he kept talking about Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb, with infinite gravitas and beauty.

The 1998 movie What Dreams May Come portrays heaven as a beautiful but lonely place for Chris Nielsen (played by Robin Williams) because, although his children were there, his wife wasn’t. Remarkably, someone else is entirely absent from the movie’s depiction of heaven: God.

That movie’s viewpoint mirrors numerous contemporary approaches to heaven which either leave God out or put him in a secondary role.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven, a best-selling novel by Mitch Albom, portrays a man who feels lonely and unimportant. He dies, goes to heaven, and meets five people who tell him his life really mattered. He discovers forgiveness and acceptance — all without God and without Christ as the object of saving faith.

This is a portrayal of a heaven that isn’t about God and our relationship with him, but only about human beings and our relationships with each other. A heaven where humanity is the cosmic center, and God plays a supporting role. The Bible knows nothing of this pseudo-heaven.

Numerous people claim to have gone to heaven and seen loved ones and even Jesus, yet almost never do they react as the beloved disciple, the apostle John, did: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).

Surely no one who had actually been in heaven would neglect to mention what Scripture shows is its main focus. If you had spent an evening dining with a king, you wouldn’t just talk about the place settings. When John was shown heaven and wrote about it, he recorded the details — but first and foremost, from beginning to end, he kept talking about Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb, with infinite gravitas and beauty.

Honeymoon Without a Groom?

Jesus promised his disciples, “I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3, NIV). For Christians, to die is “to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8, NKJV). The apostle Paul says, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Philippians 1:23, NIV). He could have said, “I desire to depart and be in heaven,” but he didn’t — his mind was on being with Jesus.

Heaven without God would be like a honeymoon without a groom or a palace without a king. Teresa of Avila said, “Wherever God is, there is heaven.” The corollary: Wherever God is not, there is hell.

The presence of God is the essence of heaven. John Milton put it, “Thy presence makes our paradise, and where thou art is heaven.” Heaven will be a physical extension of God’s goodness.

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