Grief 09: The Hope of Heaven—An Interview with Courtney Doctor Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: Hey friends, Emily here. Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood. If you're just joining us, we've been walking through a series on grief and motherhood. We've had several interview episodes exploring specific areas of hardship and sorrow, but today, we're going to close out the series with a big focus on the hope of heaven.
We invited our friend Courtney Doctor to chat with us about what Scripture tells us about heaven, what it will be like, and how that future reality gives us encouragement and comfort in today's griefs. Courtney has an MDiv from Covenant Theological Seminary and currently serves as Coordinator for Women's Initiatives for The Gospel Coalition.
She's a Bible teacher and author of several Bible studies, including From Garden to Glory and In View of God's Mercies: The Gift of the Gospel in Romans. Courtney and her husband have four children and five beautiful grandchildren.
As this series concludes, we hope you don't forget to grab your free digital download of Every Moment Holy liturgies. We partnered with them to create a resource that you can use as you process your own grief and take time to lament, reflect, pray, and respond. We're so grateful for this resource, and we hope you snag it. Head to our show notes to find this download and find out more about Courtney.
Okay, let’s get to the show with Courtney, Laura, and me.
Laura Wifler: Well, hey, Courtney. Welcome to Risen Motherhood.
Courtney Doctor: Hey, thanks for having me.
Laura: Absolutely. We are thrilled that you are here with us. We said a little bit of this on the preamble, but Courtney, you have just been so influential in Emily’s and my life. We are incredibly thankful to have you on and to have you share some of the wisdom that you have spoken to us in private, we know—and that you would be here to be able to encourage the women of Risen Motherhood. It's a real honor to have you.
For anyone who is not familiar with your work, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and some of the projects that you're up to these days?
Courtney: Absolutely. I think one of the fun things about this is that we are in-real-life friends, and we get to do this podcast—not in real life—but we do get to hang out sometimes in real life. I am married to Craig; we've been married for thirty-four years. We have four adult children. We have five precious grandchildren. My latest Bible study—I've written a couple. My latest one is on Romans: In View of God's Mercies.
We just moved to North Georgia about a year ago, so I'm definitely adjusting to a new part of the country, but I'm looking out my window right now, and I see those tall North Georgia pines, and they're absolutely beautiful. That's where we are and what we're doing. I have a daughter getting married in—she told me forty-eight days, and it stresses me out. That's consuming my days right now, but that's where we are and what we do.
Emily: Thanks for that introduction. We know that you are such a gifted Bible teacher, and I think that that's one of the reasons why we wanted to have you on. We were like, "Okay, who knows the Word so well and knows these future promises?" We said, "Courtney!" We're going to ask you some really hard questions—all of our hard, complex questions. [Laughter]
We are coming to the end of a series on grief. We know from Scripture that grief is going to be part of life. It's a part of life after the fall, but we also know that heaven is coming. Yet, the word "heaven" gets thrown around a lot. It gets thrown around secularly, from people who are not even Christians, and maybe they ascribe to some idea of heaven. But even as believers, I think we get really confused about what we mean when we say "heaven."
A lot of images come to mind; we lump a lot of promises together into one word. Could you just take a minute and break down what heaven is for us, and all the pieces? What happens after we die versus when Christ returns—when we're on the new heavens of the earth? We're just lobbing you a big one here, Courtney.
Courtney: I'll try. It's a great question. I think the reality is it can be confusing. I love that you narrowed it down to even just—as believers, it can be confusing. Because the reality is that, according to Scripture, there are two places that we refer to as heaven.
In the place in redemptive history that we live now, there are two places that—we're all waiting for Jesus to come back. Whether we have already died or whether we are currently living, we're all waiting for Jesus to come back. Until that day happens, until that moment in time—which we're going to talk a little bit more about—until that day, there is what we can call the "current heaven." That's where all believers are going to go immediately when they die. That is—they will immediately be in the presence of the Lord.
Then there is the "eternal heaven," which will be established when Jesus comes back. The current heaven—the place where believers go the minute they die—it's a temporary place. It is not our final destination. The eternal heaven that we read about in Revelation 21 and 22—that's speaking of a time to come. That's speaking of events that haven't occurred yet.
Every believer who has ever died and who will die before Jesus comes again goes to this current heaven. It's a very real place, but it's a very temporary place. I want to make sure that we differentiate and distinguish this current heaven from purgatory. Purgatory is the idea that there is a place between life on earth and heaven. This is a place—purgatory is a place where you can suffer, and you can pay for your sins.
It literally means "to purge ourselves." That's what purgatory means. The Bible never teaches us that we can purge ourselves of any sin. We're cleansed of our sin by Jesus, and there is no place that we go in order to atone for or pay for or purge ourselves of our sin. So, the current heaven—not only do we not go and pay for or purge ourselves of our sin—the current heaven is not a place of suffering.
The current heaven is a place of joy, and it's a place that everyone there is in the presence of Jesus. Right now, currently, everybody who's there is in the presence of Jesus himself. It's this glorious place. When we think about what Jesus said to the thief on the cross next to him, he said, "Truly, I say to you, today—today—you're going to be with me in paradise."
It's this idea that it is paradise, and it is the current reality for everybody who has died. Paul said in Philippians 1: "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain, and I am hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and to be with Christ." When he departed, he would be with Christ. And he said, "For that is better by far."
It's better than here, but as good as the current heaven is, the eternal heaven is going to be even better—even more glorious. The eternal heaven is the one that's going to come down from the current heaven. We're going to read a couple of Scriptures to ground ourselves in this. That eternal heaven is going to be established on this earth, but it will be a glorious, renewed, and restored earth.
In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul wrote, "We do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters about those who are asleep," meaning those who died. "That you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep." Those who have already died—God is going to bring those with him.
He said, "For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command." Those are the events that Revelation 21 is going to talk about. He's going to "descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first." Those are the resurrection bodies.
Then those "who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord." What Paul is writing in Thessalonians is this glorious descent of the current heaven, with everybody who currently resides in it, back down towards Earth. Anybody who is in Christ who is still alive will be caught up with them in the clouds, but then we will descend together.
It's the picture of the victorious entrance after a battle has been won, after the war has been won. We're not caught up to go back up to this current heaven. We're caught up—for those who are alive in Christ when he returns—to come back down and to have the new heavens and the new earth—and the new heavens as the eternal heaven—to be established on a restored and renewed earth.
There's a current heaven—the place where every believer who has died currently lives. It is paradise. It is in the presence of God. It is better than here, according to Scripture, but it will get even better when Jesus comes again, because our bodies are going to be raised to a newness of life. They will never decay; they will never sin; they will never suffer. And that's the state that we're going to live in forever and ever.
Laura: I feel like what you're telling us is: it only goes up from here.
Courtney: It only goes up from here, even though it comes down. [Laughter]
Laura: Even though heaven comes down.
Courtney: Even though it comes down. We can’t forget that part.
Emily: We go up, and then we come down.
Courtney: Yes, yes, yes. Exactly.
Laura: Good things are coming. That's what I love. Oh, I love hearing about that hope, and that it is a real and sure hope—that it is rooted in the Bible and what Scripture says. It's not just something that someone conjured up and felt like, "Hey, this would be a good idea," but we can be sure that this is true and real, because it is in God's Word. And I love that you read Scriptures, like you said, to just ground us in that truth.
Can you tell us a little bit about what heaven will be like? I know we're kind of talking about these two different heavens, so you can pick which one you want to talk through a little bit, but I know it can be really confusing. I think a lot of us just imagine gold everywhere, and then we're just worshiping God the whole time. We're like singing some song over and over. [Laughter] Tell us what we can know to be true about what heaven will be like.
Courtney: Well, I think Scripture is full of imagery for us that should cause us to be just really excited about this place. I'm going to read Revelation 21, because that's part of our description. When John saw—God gave him this glimpse of what the eternal heaven was going to be like, and this is what he wrote. He said, "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. 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."
"He who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.'" And I love that. It goes on. John saw this—he said, "I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb."
"The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light, and it's lamp is the Lamb." We get this imagery of—it's not just imagery. It's not just metaphor. This is what John saw with his own eyes. This is the reality that he was given the ability to see and to hear—the voice of God saying like, "Now the day has come that I am going to make my dwelling place with man."
Then in Revelation 22, it goes on to describe "the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God" and from the Lamb. As you read these verses—before in Revelation, you'll read a lot of imagery, where John will say, "It was like this, or it was like that," because he didn't have words to capture it. But here, he's just saying, "This is what I saw. I saw a river, and I saw a tree, and I saw the Lamb, and I saw a throne, and I saw—"
I love verse 4 of 22. It says, "They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever." As we read those verses, we should be thinking, "Man, this sounds a lot like Eden." We need to see that, in the same way that Adam and Eve—our resurrected bodies—we're going to rest. We're going to work. We read these things in Scripture.
You can read the book of Hebrews; we're going to rest, and we're going to work, and we're going to worship, like you said, Laura. We're going to walk with God. What we just read—we're going to reign with God. We're going to eat and drink and celebrate and discover things, and learn things, but the difference is, unlike Eden, we are not going to be able to sin.
Which means that there will never be anything that can separate us from God again. Heaven, I think, is going to be this magnificently beautiful place where there will be so much to do; there will be so much to see and discover and learn. I think there will be so many people to talk with and be reunited with, but we do have to remember that those are not actually the greatest gains of heaven.
Jesus is. Jesus is the greatest gain of heaven. He said, in some of his last words to his disciples, "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me." He said, "In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." [John 14:1-3]
What Jesus was encouraging his disciples with was this reality of heaven. He's setting it before them to be their joy—to be our joy. It doesn't mean that there won't be other joys—there will—but he is our greatest joy. It is going to be glorious. I think that idea that we're just going to be singing songs and floating around on some clouds is just the most erroneous, shortsighted, limited, truncated version of what heaven is going to be.
I think about all the people. I think, yes, we'll be able to talk with Moses and Paul and Jesus and Augustine and Luther and Corrie Ten Boom. Just think about all the people you would want to talk to—but also everybody you know and love that is there that is in Christ. We're going to be worshiping together, but we're also going to be learning together and laughing together and eating together.
I think we're going to be able to explore the whole earth—to enjoy all of God's good creation. For me, I think, "Man, I'm going to be able to hike the Andes. I'm going to be able to ski the Alps. I'm going to ride horses, everywhere, and never fall off. Maybe I'll get to ride a giraffe." Doesn't that sound so fun?
Laura: Yes.
Courtney: Yes. All of these things. All of these things are going to be there, but as amazing as they're going to be, they're all going to pale in comparison to being able to see the face of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Laura: Ugh. That is incredible.
Emily: That's good. I almost went over to an ugly cry, and then I stopped myself. Oh, we were joking—we've been through all these interviews, and Laura and I have teared up over and over again, and we've not yet done the full ugly cry.
Courtney: It's just so magnificent, isn't it?
Emily: It really is. It's interesting that, for all of the emotion that grief brings up, the thought of being with Jesus forever just tugs my heart so hard, and the thought of all of the things that—even that we lost in this life—we will gain a hundred-fold. And everything will be restored and how it should be. It's just such a joy. Yet these things can feel really—
Laura: Elusive.
Emily: Elusive and kind of, "Okay. That's a nice thought—"
Laura: Ambiguous.
Emily: "That sounds like a fantasy movie or a sci-fi series that somebody has on TV." How can a mom take these truths—these real, trustworthy words of hope—and have them affect her daily life now? What does it look like for her to think of and remember this future hope in the midst of a really normal day, when she might be experiencing deep grief?
Courtney: I think that it's part of taking our thoughts captive. It's that idea of, "I'm going to intentionally and purposefully—willfully—think certain things and think about certain things." We can't think about what we don't know. And so, the first part is to learn—learn the truth of what Scripture says about heaven. I do have two resources. One is Randy Alcorn's book on heaven—it’s just phenomenal.
I have a friend who's just coming out with a new book. His name is Stephen Moorefield, and the book is called Always Longing. It's a little bit shorter than Randy Alcorn's book on heaven, but they're very similar. They're very helpful, they're very biblical, and so Always Longing or Heaven. Learn—have somebody teach you more about what the Bible says about heaven.
Mark the verses in your Bible so that you're learning, but then remind yourself daily. Remind yourself of what is to come, because whether you're in a season of just that plain old weariness that affects all of us or if you are in a time of deep and unrelenting grief—we need to know what our hope is. Setting our thoughts on the surety of what is to come is meant to give us joy. It's meant to give us peace.
It's meant to give us perspective. God didn't have to tell us what was to come, but he did. He did over and over, and he did it specifically in order to help us persevere. What we have to do is we have to remind ourselves, but we have to remind each other of that future hope that belongs to us. Peter wrote, "Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." [1 Pet. 1:13]
We looked at that verse in John 14 where Jesus said, "Let not your hearts be troubled." These truths—"I am going to prepare a place for you." He said these words—Jesus, the incarnate Son of God spoke these words—that "If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go, I'm coming back so that you will be with me." Those are the promises of the Lord himself.
We're meant to long for heaven. We're meant to long for all things to be made right. We're meant to long to see our loved ones again. We are meant to long to see Jesus face-to-face. We have to know what the promises are so that we can set our hope fully in that place—anchor our soul in that place.
Laura: This longing that you're speaking of—I know there have been seasons in my life where I have sometimes thought about heaven and just felt such anguish for not being there. Almost just this feeling of "When will it be? When will my time on earth be over, Lord?" Not in a "I'm ready to die" way. I don't know how to say this without getting into sticky territory.
I guess what I'm just trying to say is that: is there any danger in perhaps almost longing for heaven so much that you start to check out of your present life or that it becomes all that we fixate on? What does Scripture tell us about that? What does it look like to have a very healthy view of the hope of heaven while also having that be a motivation for taking action and living in the here and now?
Courtney: I don't think the danger is in longing for heaven too much. I think we are meant to long for that. I think it is in us. I think the danger is either in thinking that it can be according to our time—our timetable—or longing for an inaccurate view of heaven. I think those are the places that we can get a little wonky. Paul was so clear: "I don't know. I want to live as Christ, but to die is gain. It's far better."
I don't think we can long too much for this place that we were created for. I think the Lord wants us to long for—he encourages us in his Word to set our hope on that place. To long for all that he has promised us. I think he gives us those promises so that we can endure. I think about the fact that we're told that Jesus was able to endure the cross because he had his hope set on a future joy.
How much more do we need to know what our future joy is, so that we can endure the sufferings that come at us in this world? The verse that we read in 1 Thessalonians 4 that's talking about the fact that the Lord is coming again, and this is what's going to happen—it ends with verse 18 saying, "Therefore encourage one another with these words." Encourage each other with the fact that Jesus is coming again, and, when he does, it's going to be this glorious reign of Christ. I think that's why we need an accurate view—a robust view—of heaven, so that our hope is anchored in truth.
We've all heard, and certainly I've said things that indicate an inaccurate view of heaven. We talk about, "Well, I can hardly wait to ask God to explain why he fill-in-the-blank." I think I said it recently. Dogs don't live as long as humans. I can hardly wait for God to explain to me why that's so, [Laughter] and I just don't think that that's going to be the first or the second or the hundredth or the millionth thing that we do in all eternity is ask God to explain something to us.
I think that we are going to be so in awe because he is so much more than anything we can even conjure up right now. Even imagine. I think that we are just going to be worshiping and thanking and rejoicing and praising. I don't think we're going to be demanding explanations from him. We have this very, very shortsighted view of heaven, or we think that our greatest longing is to see someone that we miss.
It's okay to long to see someone. It is okay, and we will see them. That is part of the joy of heaven. But our greatest joy is going to be seeing Jesus face-to-face—this unveiled ability to see him. I think that we need to cultivate that our greatest longing should be for him.
Laura: I think that it can propel us and motivate us today to say, "I can't wait to meet Jesus, but I want to be faithful until that day and to live out the great commission—to live out his commands." I think, for me, as I've thought about the future hope of heaven and wanting to dwell in this "I just wish it was heaven right now. I just wish it—Maranatha, maranatha, maranatha." [Laughter] I think sometimes, I've needed pulled out to say, "But that isn't today, Laura. So, trust in that as the hope in the future and let that propel you into faithfulness today, so that when you see Jesus, he says, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant.'"
That there—I think there is a tension there, and you're right, a lot of it is because of some inaccurate viewpoints of saying, "Well, in heaven—if I were just to go to heaven now, oh, this would just be over and done." But that's not God's plan for us, and that's not what's best for us. There's a way to use it to propel you into living well in the here and now. Sometimes, I think we can get caught in the like, "Just let it be over. Just let it be over."
Courtney: Exactly. That waiting and that trusting is part of that this is for a purpose. It is for a reason.
Emily: I was even thinking about how you're referencing, "Hey, Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him." We know that Jesus even said, "Father, if it is your will, let this cup pass from me." It was not; the cross still happened. He didn't stop what Jesus was going to go through before the ultimate suffering occurred.
I think that's a good reminder to me. Like you're saying, as we long for heaven—as we look at the joy that is to come—there may still yet be suffering ahead. I was reading something the other day that just noted: Jesus never said no to God's will and what God had for him next. He said, "Yes, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord."
Sometimes we're like, "I want heaven, I want heaven, I want heaven," but our, "Yes, Lord," is for what he has for us right now—which might be really difficult, painful circumstances and griefs—and just to be able to long for the hope that's to come and, at the same time—another one of our guests referenced the verse, "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." [2 Cor. 6:10] The Lord may still have sorrow for us, but how tiny of a slice is this in comparison to all of eternity? I just can't—sometimes my kids will try to ask me to explain forever, and I'm like, "Oh, kiddos, my brain can't do it either. I can't describe it to you."
I know that what we're experiencing right now is so light and so momentary. We can't have true, full perspective on that yet. We just have to go forward with that tension. It really is hard.
Courtney: It is hard.
Laura: Courtney, as we close here, what final encouragement would you give a mom who is in the midst of grief? And particularly focusing on this area of heaven—or as we like to talk about at Risen Motherhood, those four parts of the gospel: creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. Focusing in on that last piece, consummation, what would you encourage her with?
Courtney: I would encourage you with the fact that the day is coming, and it's a real day. There will be a point in time—there will be a moment that God says, "Now." I go back to Revelation 21 where John says, "I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold'"—like, look, now is the time that the dwelling place of God is with man. It's a real day, meaning—the end of this time of suffering is coming.
We've talked about the fact that it is going to be more glorious than your greatest hope—anything you have ever imagined. What you just said, Emily—in hindsight, we're going to realize that this world—this life that we've been given—was a moment. It was what Scripture calls a "mist." It was a dash. In light of all of eternity, the sorrows of this life will fade, meaning you will not carry this sorrow forever.
Your mourning will be turned into dancing and laughing and rejoicing. It's why Paul could write in Romans 8:18: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Paul is not diminishing your suffering or my suffering. He's just reminding us that that day is coming when you and I are going to see such glory. You and I are going to experience such joy.
We are going to know such perfect love that all of this—whatever it is you're going through—it will fade. It will diminish in light of those things. My encouragement for you today is to remind yourself of these things. Study what God has given us, what he's told us about heaven, because he's given those to us to sustain us and to give us a strong anchor for our souls. That is my encouragement to you: that the day is coming, friend, and it is going to be glorious.
