The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre re-envisions hell in his play “No Exit” as a drawing room where three people are trapped together. They await an executioner who will never come and begin to realize that being trapped in one another’s presence is hell. The play concludes with these sobering lines, “You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the “burning marl.” Old wives’ tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE!”
Sartre has it wrong. Hell is the ultimate estrangement and loneliness. Heaven is perfect community.
In the West we have been taught that the purest form of spirituality is self-led.
I recently sat with a young man whose wife was having an affair on him. She was confused, unsure which partner she wanted to be with: her husband or her boyfriend. Her husband explained that she wouldn’t see a pastor or counselor because she said, “I need to discover myself and find my own way.” We have been sold a lie that the truest version of ourselves is self-discovered. We desperately need others.
Many devout Christians faithfully read their Bibles and pray to God, but avoid community. We think of these relationships as an add-on to our faith, and a challenging add-on at that. We have all been burned in relationships, we have all experienced disappointment when we have entrusted ourselves to others, and so we pull back.
This is not the life God calls us into today nor in eternity.
Some envision relationships diminishing in heaven. Perhaps you, like me, think of heaven as a place where we will perpetually sing around the throne of God or strum harps on clouds. Relationships are largely omitted in popular conceptions of heaven. In doing so, we have fashioned an anti-heaven, not the heaven we see in Scripture.
One of the great promises of heaven are the relationships that will be rekindled, the relationships that will be deepened, and the brand new relationships that will be sparked. We have an eternity not just with our inexhaustible God, but with his perfected saints. What a joy that will be! In his book Heaven, Randy Alcorn puts it this way: “Perhaps you’re disappointed that you’ve never had the friendships you long for. In Heaven you’ll have much closer relationships with some people you now know, but it’s also true that you may never have met the closest friends you’ll ever have.”[i]
We will play our favorite sports, learn new instruments, hike mountain vistas, and talk philosophy. And the experience will be heightened all the more by being in the presence of community (and not just any community, a sinless community!).
On this earth, we all disappoint and hurt others, and we are all disappointed and hurt by others. Lift up your chin, one day we will experience relationships as God intends us to experience them. Our finitude will not constrain us as it does now. Our self-absorption will melt away, we will not be worried about where we fit in and what others think of us. And our sin will not hurt and rupture as it does now.
In the meanwhile, grow in experiencing community as God intends – enjoying friendships, serving one another, and exhorting each other.[ii] This is our dress rehearsal. If you find yourself withdrawing because of past hurts or disappointments, don’t give up, knowing the ultimate good God has for you. If you find yourself not seeing many others you would like to have a deeper friendship with, grow in humility and curiosity. There is no human being who is not worth knowing, there is no person you can’t learn something from, you can’t connect with, and in whom you can’t benefit and enjoy the benefits they have for you.
For more on the What is Heaven? series, see:
Part 1: What Is Heaven? It Is Also A New Earth
Part 2: What Is Heaven? A Place of Learning
Part 3: What Is Heaven? Welcome To The Feast
Part 4: What Is Heaven? Perfect Community
Photo by Andrew Moca on Unsplash
[i] Randy Alcorn, Heaven, 357.
[ii] See Proverbs 17:17, Galatians 5:13, and 1 Peter 4:10, and Colossians 3:16 as a snapshot of this community we’re called to.
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