J.John, in his own imaginative style, helps us to think about those BIG life and death questions we probably ask ourselves from time to time.
A couple of years ago I produced a little book called That’s a Good Question! which tackled thirty-two questions asked by children, some of them rather unusual, including such things as ‘Will my dog go to heaven?’ and ‘Why do people die before they are old?’ As I wrote the answers, I came to realise that, despite the simple language used by the children, what they were raising were deep and serious matters. Indeed, I recognised many of the questions as being those that, phrased more elegantly, I often get from adults.
In thinking about who asks these questions I realise they come from both those ‘within the faith’ and those outside it. Sometimes I get them from Christians who have been struck by something they have read or heard and want to know ‘what the answer is’. Sometimes these questions come from those who are not yet believers but who are thinking about Christianity. Sometimes Christians who are sharing their faith have had questions posed to them. Bearing in mind these different sources of questions, in my new book, Will I Be Fat in Heaven? And Other Curious Questions, I’ve tried to address as wide an audience as possible. I’ve done my best to take nothing for granted, although I have assumed that any reader has access to a Bible and isn’t thrown by me quoting Bible references such as Ephesians 6:17.
So, recognising the importance of questions, and after much thought and discussion with friends, I sat down and came up with a list of thirty-eight questions that adults might ask. In reality, I could easily have doubled that number. You will find serious questions but also one or two that appear frivolous such as ‘Will I be fat in heaven?’ Actually, that turns out to be a question which raises some very interesting issues about who we are and what we will be.
Although these are questions adults ask, I’ve tried to keep the responses as simple as possible and hope they will also be accessible to younger people.
Finally, in terms of how to read these questions I suggest you think about them in terms of you and I sitting down in comfortable chairs in some quiet coffee shop and chatting together. Don’t read them all at once – take time to drink your coffee or tea and think about the responses.
Will I Be Fat in Heaven?
Some of us who struggle with our waistlines have concerns that we will still be overweight in heaven. We are worried about having to choose the low-calorie option at the wedding supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9) and wearing a tight white robe for all eternity. Actually, it’s not a trivial question. It raises very important issues: what will we look like in heaven? Will we have crooked teeth, bald heads and knobbly knees? And what about those with lost limbs, scars or deformities?
These are important and sensitive issues, but they are also tricky ones. The Bible talks a lot about believers being raised from the dead and going to be ‘with the Lord’ forever but it offers us few details. Our best information comes from the descriptions of Jesus after the resurrection and from teaching in the letters, especially by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Given our limited data, the safest answer to most questions to do with heaven is simply ‘we don’t know’. Nevertheless, some things can be said and let me suggest five certainties that I find in the Bible that are helpful.
First, heaven is going to be a joyful place of fulfilment and perfection where we who have followed Christ will experience the full presence of God and spend an eternity safe from any form of anxiety, pain, grief, suffering or evil. And ‘evil’ includes fear, shame, disgust and self-loathing.
Second, heaven is a real, solid place and we who, thanks to Jesus, get there are going to be equally real and solid. Any idea of faint, transparent spirits holding harps and sitting on fluffy clouds should be ignored. In heaven we will have bodies that are more solid than those we have at the moment.
Third, in heaven we will be very different from what we are now; as different, Paul says, as a seed and the plant or tree that it grows into (1 Corinthians 15:36–37). That extraordinary change may explain why we are told so little about the resurrection body: it would be hard to explain to a tadpole what it’s like to jump like a frog, or to a caterpillar what it’s like to fly like a butterfly.
Fourth, our new bodies will be perfect and glorious. Now although that’s an idea that greatly appeals to me when I look in the mirror, step on the scales or go to the doctor, neither I, nor anybody else, knows exactly what that means. Nevertheless, what we will have will be a definite improvement on the disintegrating bodies we have now. Those of us who follow Christ are not going to merely get some cosmetic makeover, but a whole-body upgrade!
Fifth, despite this extraordinary change we will, however, keep our identity in heaven. If you have put your faith in Jesus, then it is you personally who will be in heaven. The disciples were in no doubt that the Jesus who met with them after the resurrection was the same man they had followed for three years. The same principle will apply in heaven: despite our upgraded bodies you will still be you and I will still be me.
Because heaven is a place of perfection, I think we will each have a perfect body in shape and size. We definitely won’t be visiting Weight Watchers! We will be whole and healthy, no pains, aches, no diseases and with 20:20 vision as there will be so much to see.
Will I be fat in heaven? No! I will be happy and content with everything.
J.John (Revd Canon) has been an evangelist for four decades. He has spoken in towns, cities and universities in sixty-nine countries. In 2017 he launched JustOne at the Arsenal Emirates Stadium in London, and JustOne events are being conducted throughout the UK. He has his own weekly TV programme, which is broadcast globally, and a number of podcasts. He has written several books across a range of subjects including the ‘Theology for Little People’ series to help children understand biblical truth.
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