Will Heaven last forever?

[Cavebear]

I think this has been attributed to everyone short of King James himself:

"If English was good enough for Jesus when he wrote the Bible it should be good enough for Coke."
- attributed to Michele Bachman, but politifact says it ain't so

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas."
- Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, former governor of Texas. [This is the most frequently cited one. the same quote is occasionally attributed to her husband who was governor before her, to Texas Governor Pappy O'Daniel, and to all sorts of Texas politicians.]

"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you."
-a priest in Little Rock, Arkansas; regarding the teaching of Spanish as a second language in public schools

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me."
- Unattributed Representative speaking to Dr. David Edwards, head of the Joint National Committee on Language.

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for my Automation clients."
- Sean Baxter, offical COM programmer of the 2000 Summer Olympics.

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me."
- satirist H. L. Mencken

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, then it is good enough for me"
- Dan Quayle (attributed)


Who knows if anyone has actually said it, but it wouldn't surprise me.

That is altogether too scary if ANY attribution is real...

[Unbeliever]

I can imagine Mencken saying it, with his tongue in his cheek! But if anyone really believes it? Yeah, scary indeed!

[Cavebear]

I can imagine Mencken saying it, with his tongue in his cheek! But if anyone really believes it? Yeah, scary indeed!

Yeah, when I saw Mencken's name I was "curious".  And I could see Quayle quoting him in turn.  LOL!  After all, as Yogi Berra once said about a popular club "No one goes there anymore; its too crowded"...

[Gregory]

Heaven on earth is utopian fancy.

[Gregory]

Nothing lasts forever.

[Newtonian]

Why are you curious, about Christian theology, that even Christians don't agree about?

We don't even agree on what "forever" means.

Especially when we realize the Hebrew word Olam often translated forever literally means 'hidden or concealed time.'   Our 1884 edition of NW translates this word as "time indefinite) but renders Hebrew adh as forever.   Olam can mean forever - it actually refers to any period of time of which the beginning or end is unknown.   Since eternal/forever has no end, olam applies since we cannot know the end of forever.    But it also applies to other periods of time whose beginning or end is unknown.

[Newtonian]

Matthew 24:35

Mark 13:31
   
Luke 21:33


If Heaven is to "pass away", what does that mean for all those Christians who are expecting to live eternally - in Heaven? How can Heaven be eternal if God says it will cease to exist sometime in the inderterminate future? Where will the saved spend eternity, if not in Heaven?

Notice also that the Bible says nothing at all about Hell ever passing away, which means infinite torture for the unsaved, but eternal bliss in Heaven will not be available to the saved.

Excellent point/question.  In order to understand what the Bible teaches on any given subject, you would have to study the Bible by subject - in this case the time of existence of heaven and earth.

Before going into that I should mention that most of Jehovah's Witnesses hope to live on planet Earth forever even as Jesus quoted the 37th Psalm (vs.10,11) when he said 'The meek shall inherit the earth" - Matthew 5:5 KJV.

That Psalm goes on the say:

Psalm 37:29 (NW)

The righteous will possess the earth, And they will live forever on it.

The verses you quoted appear to contradict other verses in the Bible that show heaven and earth will remain forever.   There are two basic reasons for this.

1.  Definitions.   For example, heavens can refer to those called 'higher ups' - e.g. governmental authorities.   This is a figurative meaning (like sunrise and sunset in English) aka symbolic.  When the Bible refers to earth it often means the people on the earth.

2.  Literal heaven(s) and earth (singular - see Genesis 1:1) - perish = change.   For example, astronomers often refer to the death of the sun - but actually they do not mean the sun will no longer exist but rather that it will no longer be a main sequence star. [Our sun will not go supernova and hence will always exist as a cooling heavenly mass - unless....

  Here is one quote by the apostle Paul of the 102nd Psalm here:

Hebrews 1:10-12 (NW)
10 And: “At the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. 11 They will perish, but you will remain; and just like a garment, they will all wear out, 12 and you will wrap them up just as a cloak, as a garment, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never come to an end.”+

Notice that perish=changed.  In what way?   "Wrapped up" is a scientific clue concerning the heavens - I am still researching that myself.

Our galaxy will merge with Andromeda in c. 5 billion years - if a fine tuned brown dwarf from Andromeda were to merge with our sun (stellar collisions/mergers increase during galactic mergers/collisions) then our sun will be returned to early main sequence.  God could easily fine tune such a merger.  In fact, man may be able to do this given we have 5 billion years to do it!

Even further wrapping up with possibly thousands of other galaxies on Milky Way's journey to the Great attractor and still another gravitational 'attractor' beyond that - in the Shapley supercluster - likely involving many trillions of years from now.

Bottom line - Milky Way will perish as to its current state but will actually always exist but in changing form.

[Newtonian]

Nothing lasts forever.

Did you realize you are contradicting the law of conservation of matter and energy?  [e.g. E=MC^2]

At one time many astronomers thought our universe would eventually collapse on itself - called the "Big Crunch."   With the discovery of dark/invisible energy, astro-physicists realize our universe will expand forever.   It is interesting that Isaiah 40:22 not only says earth is round, but also that the heavens are being 'stretched out' by God.   Verse 26 links the existence of stars to God's dynamic energy (Hebrew plural ohnim = plural forms of God's energy [God is invisible - it is logical to assume some of these forms of energy are invisible). [Is.40:26 also refers to God's power (Hebrew singular koach)].

I'll respond to other posts later back to sleep for me!

[Baruch]

Especially when we realize the Hebrew word Olam often translated forever literally means 'hidden or concealed time.'   Our 1884 edition of NW translates this word as "time indefinite) but renders Hebrew adh as forever.   Olam can mean forever - it actually refers to any period of time of which the beginning or end is unknown.   Since eternal/forever has no end, olam applies since we cannot know the end of forever.    But it also applies to other periods of time whose beginning or end is unknown.

Getting down to brass tacks.  Good.  The thought that any Bible other than the original languages, is authoritative, is a circus.

[Blackleaf]

Did you realize you are contradicting the law of conservation of matter and energy?  [e.g. E=MC^2]

At one time many astronomers thought our universe would eventually collapse on itself - called the "Big Crunch."   With the discovery of dark/invisible energy, astro-physicists realize our universe will expand forever.   It is interesting that Isaiah 40:22 not only says earth is round, but also that the heavens are being 'stretched out' by God.   Verse 26 links the existence of stars to God's dynamic energy (Hebrew plural ohnim = plural forms of God's energy [God is invisible - it is logical to assume some of these forms of energy are invisible). [Is.40:26 also refers to God's power (Hebrew singular koach)].

I'll respond to other posts later back to sleep for me!

The current model suggests that the universe will continue to expand, as it has been since the beginning. The expansion has even been accelerating since the beginning, so it's doubtful it will ever stop or slow down. Eventually, all matter will be pulled apart, each particle being so far away that no more interactions will happen. At that point, the universe will essentially be dead and empty. Even if we assume that humans eventually learn to control the universe with technology, the best we could do is delay the inevitable. We can harvest energy from the sun, but when the starts are all gone, the only thing left will be black holes. And if we use black holes as a source of energy (there is actually a theoretical way to get a net positive of energy from one, which is pretty interesting), eventually those will cease to exist too. Based on what we know now, the universe will be around for a very long time, but it will die like everything else.

[Gregory]

"God is a little more than everything."
-- e. e. cummings

Said in all seriousness, apparently.

[Baruch]

"God is a little more than everything."
-- e. e. cummings

Said in all seriousness, apparently.

You forgot to lowercase g in G-d.

[Newtonian]

Getting down to brass tacks.  Good.  The thought that any Bible other than the original languages, is authoritative, is a circus.

True - and almost all apparent contradictions in the Bible are due to inaccurate translations.   This is true of the eternal existence of our universe.   

NW  ref. (1984  edition) is better because it is a literal, fresh translation from the original Hebrew and Greek (and Aramaic).   Sometimes more than one definition of a word fits the context - we normally footnote important examples of this.

Also, out of context quotes do not help.  On topic, Hebrews 1:11 starts with "perish" but the context (Hebrews 1:10-12) uses other Greek words and phrases which modify what is meant by "perish."   For example. verse 11 also says "wear out" using the illustration of a garment.  Wearing out is one way of describing "entropy" which is a facet of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Verse 12 says of heaven and earth: "they will be changed."   This will happen - though precisely how drastic the changes will be is not  stated - but clearly "perish" does involve drastic change.  Vs. 12 also refers to "wrapping up" (like a garment and cloak)

What this means involves scientific research.   The merger of Andromeda with Milky Way is one example - but exactly how will these two galaxies be "wrapped up?"   Certainly these verses invite scientific research (Romans 1:20).  In future trillions of years our changed galaxy will be wrapped up with the Shapley Supercluster - but, again, how?   Job 38:31-33 invites scientific research into whether our changed galaxy will end up gravitationally bound - and if so - to how many of the galaxies in this supercluster?

[Baruch]

Translation is an art, not a science.  There are words in the Bible that no modern person knows the true definition of (Hapax Legomenon), not even rabbis.

[aitm]

Poor ole almighty powerful god. Made a atom to the universe......can’t get his own book straight. LOL...What a joke.