Contents
- There is no death in paradise
- There is no evil in paradise
- Saints sing
- Saints work
- Saints care for those who are still on earth.
- They’re much more alive than we are.
What do saved souls do in heaven? Atheist Soviet propaganda liked to portray “afterlife bliss” in cartoon form, as something intolerably boring — souls sitting on clouds in white robes and forever playing harps. But what do we really know about the occupations of souls in paradise? Not much, but some things are revealed to us. They glorify God, participate in His plan to save the world, and work on something very meaningful and important, waiting for a new turn in the life of the universe — the resurrection of the dead.
But first we should say what there is not in heaven — and what the saints certainly do not do. Many of the activities that we engage in here on earth are a consequence of the fact that this world is full of evil. We constantly have to labor to avoid pain and death — and much of our efforts are devoted to that. We need police to catch criminals, medicine to fight disease, agriculture to extract food from a land that produces thorns and thistles. There is none of this in heaven — because there is no death and no evil there, which is worth talking a little more about.
There is no death in paradise
Heaven is beyond our understanding, just as life after childbirth is beyond the understanding of the child in the womb. But there are some things we can know — and they are not insignificant. Perhaps we can start with what heaven doesn’t have — there is no “sickness, sorrow, or sighing” there. There is no death or sin there.
We are all here on earth living under the shadow of death. The shadow of death is cast already on the first steps of an infant; youth, as it is often said, does not notice death — but death snatches away the young too. An accident, a crime, a sudden illness may not wait until old age.
But when youth passes, we can no longer ignore the presence of dying. Our physical condition slowly but surely deteriorates — curls are replaced by baldness, blush by wrinkles, sight and hearing dulled, chronic illnesses accumulate.
About the time we reach our mid-life period, it becomes apparent to us that our bodily health begins to decline — we will never be 25 again, we will never be young, beautiful and full of vigor again. We are on the same trajectory as the rest of the human race — toward withering and death. Healthy lifestyles, proper nutrition, and the advances of modern medicine are all good, and may even slow our inevitable decline. But not undo it.
We may meet an old acquaintance we haven’t seen in years and sadly marvel at how he or she has deteriorated. And then look in the mirror and see that we’re no better off.
The famous “mid-life crisis”, when people (usually men) “go on a bender” and fall prey to the temptation of the bottle, is an attempt to desperately deny the inevitable — people get young mistresses to convince themselves that they are still strong men, or go on a young man’s spree, or in some other stupid and destructive way try to pretend that they are still 25.
But no matter what we do, sickness, infirmity and death are always here.
Suffering is always ready to come upon us — sometimes so much so that people become weary of their lives.
And so heaven is a place where there is no death. It is, as one old religious hymn sings, “the land where we shall never grow old.” Death has no power there anymore; it does not claim its rights over people, it will never come for us — it will not even dare to show itself from afar. It is finished forever.
The saved souls have a blessed eternity ahead of them, a book where, as C. S. Lewis writes, “every chapter is better than the last,” where they are always fresh, always full of joy and strength, and always growing.
Currently the souls of the saved who have left their bodies await with trembling and joyful anticipation the general resurrection — to receive bodies with entirely new qualities, which Scripture calls “imperishable,” that is, not subject to destruction, sickness, or death. As the Apostle says, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:53-55).
In Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” there is a striking aria based on the words of St. Paul the Apostle — “The trumpet shall sound…. and we shall be changed.” In great music there is this anticipation of joy — when we will enter a renewed universe where “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. ” (Rev. 21:4)
There is no evil in heaven
Some teachings say that good and evil need each other like yin and yang, creation and destruction, life and death. These are all necessary aspects of reality. The Bible rejects this way of looking at things. Evil is an abyss, corruption, a parasite on good, it cannot exist on its own. For evil to arise, there must first be some good things — and then they must be spoiled. A strong tooth can get a cavaty. A healthy person can fall ill. A good man can lose his goodness and wisdom and start doing bad things.
Evil is always parasitic in nature — it spoils something originally good and exists only at the expense of good. When parasites destroy the organism in which they have settled, they die themselves — they cannot live independently.
Sin is always a deficiency. Hate is a lack of love, fornication is a lack of faithfulness, anger is a lack of self-control, and all sin ultimately boils down to a lack of a right relationship with God as people painfully try to find happiness in something else.
And so heaven doesn’t have these sores and holes that sin has left in us. There is no enmity, hatred, contempt, deceit, exploitation, or national hatred. The inhabitants of paradise are in perfect love with God and with each other. They are like a huge loving family — and a good human family is the image of paradise, it is not by chance that the forces of evil are so eager to destroy it.
This family, however, is different from all human families in one respect.
In every family on earth there are misunderstandings, rifts and conflicts. Intimacy can be replaced by coldness, even disintegration. This cannot happen in a heavenly family — there this deep alienation between men, which was caused by sin, has been healed. There everyone experiences their kinship joyfully, there are no strangers and no enemies. There is no evil that men do to one another; there is no evil in men themselves — that poisoning by sin, which good men on earth crave, and which bad men willingly follow.
There is no greed, or irritation, or envy — rather everyone rejoices in everyone’s unique gifts. No one competes with anyone, no one tries to outdo anyone — there is enough love, and joy, and acceptance for everyone.
In paradise are those who have left a foreign land and returned home — their wounds are healed, the deepest longings of their hearts are satiated, they have finally found happiness — which will only increase further.
As blessed Augustine says, “There the true Sun of righteousness delights everyone with the marvelous sight of His beauty and so illuminates all the heavenly beings that they themselves shine, become light, enlightened by the light of God, which shines more brilliantly than the present radiance of the sun and the brilliance of all the stars. Having united with the immortal Godhead, they themselves became immortal and imperishable, according to the Savior’s promise: “Father, whom Thou hast given Me, I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me, that they may see My glory” (John 17:24). “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee“ (Jn. 17:21), and they in Us may be one” (Jn. 17:21).
The saints sing
There may be other arts in heaven, but the Bible mentions only music directly. The saints sing. They praise God as Creator: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Rev. 4:11). And as Redeemer: “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.” (Rev. 5:9-10)
In the book of Revelation — which, more than any other book in the Bible, gives us a glimpse of heaven — there is a lot of singing in general:
“And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” (Rev. 5:9-13)
“And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.” (Rev.14:3)
“And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.” (Rev.15:3).
But there may be a certain problem with the modern reader’s understanding of worship.
Many of us have no experience of worshipping God. The word “worship” and “praise” is associated in ordinary modern language with something unkind. A person who seeks worship gives the impression of being gravely unhealthy — he is pathetic, and if he has any power, like a cult leader or dictator, he is frightening.
People who praise and worship him are either seriously deluded or intimidated.
The aversion we have to it is justified, because Scripture also sees it as an abomination, something totally unacceptable. It is an attempt to replace God with something else — a sinful human being, or even an inanimate object in the case of traditional idols. Cultists who worship their guru, or crowds who enthusiastically cheer an inhumane tyrant, imitate hell, not heaven — because the first person to demand worship in place of God was Satan.
In the Bible, worship can be something very good — worthy and righteous, proper and salvific — or it can be, on the contrary, something vile and damning. Depending on who it is directed at and how it is directed.
But even a non-believer can have a certain idea of the worship of God — because the most significant works of European art are generated by such worship.
When I was a child — this was during the era of state atheism — there was no Church in my hometown, and I knew nothing about Christianity except what was written in the magazine “atheist reading”. But we had records at home — those big vinyl disks that are now out of use — and they had classical music on them. Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Organ Mass,” Vivaldi’s “Gloria,” Handel’s “Messiah.”
I was mesmerized by the beauty and majesty of this music — and only later learned that all of these pieces were composed by people who sought the glory of God and were intended for the worship of God. People who came to God in prayer were confronted with something inexpressibly majestic and beautiful — something that cannot be expressed in words, but can be attempted in music.
Many people, including non-believers, recognize the genius of religious music. British author (and atheist) Terry Pratchett wrote that in his last moments of life he wished he could hear the music of the 16th-century church composer Thomas Tallis, “because Thomas’s music can bring even an atheist closer to heaven.”
People bow respectfully before the genius of Bach, or Handel, or Tallis — but these composers themselves would say that one should bow not to them — but to the God they praised, the original source of all truth, goodness, and beauty.
Worship is a natural, proper, healthy, highly appropriate response to God, and it is full of the joyful awe that the great composers are trying to convey to us.
The saints in heaven stand before the Holy Trinity, they see love, joy and beauty beyond all understanding — and their delight is poured out in singing. They praise and worship because they are eternally and infinitely happy. As Blessed Augustine said,
“And happy sure beyond imagination is that blest soul, which, making its escape out of this earthly prison, wings its way to heaven without any restraint; which sees its dearest Lord face to face; and, no longer enslaved to the fear of death, triumphs in the enjoyments of everlasting glory. Possessing thee, the object of its love and long pursuit, and singing hymns of never-ceasing; praise to the honour of her King and Redeemer; satiated with the plenteousuess of thy house, and drunk with the rivers of thy overflowing pleasures. O happy company of heavenly citizens! O glorious pomp of souls returning from their toilsome pilgrimage to the excellence of the beauty, and splendour and majesty of thy courts! O the ravishing entertainment of those harmonious hymns, the melody of angels, and sweet notes of songs in consort, of which every member of the heavenly choir bears his part! No mixture of bitter pollutes those holy joys, no malice or wickedness, no want or disgrace, no railing or reviling, or angry disputes, no fear or disquiet, no doubt or uneasiness, or mutual distrust; nor force or discord; but perfect peace and love, eternal praise and thanksgiving, uninterrupted rest, and joy everlasting in the Holy Ghost.”
The saints are laboring
This may seem strange to us at first glance — both Scripture and the prayers of the Church speak of paradise as a place of rest. We sing “Blessed is the way wherein thou goest today, O soul, because a place of rest hath been prepared for thee.”, and in Revelation it is said that “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” (Rev.14:13).
In our minds, we associate “rest” with something like bed rest — when a person exhausted by labor and sickness gets a chance to lie down. But the resting of paradise is not lying on a couch; it does not exclude labor — it only excludes everything that made labor in the fallen world a sign of damnation. Paradise does not produce thorns and thistles, and the inhabitants of paradise do not suffer from the hunger which would compel them to eat of the earth with sorrow and sweat.
In our world, work is often an agonizing burden. Even now, when the grueling physical labor of farming is a thing of the past for most people in developed countries, many of us find our jobs distressing and would willingly give them up if it were not for the need to feed our families. The image of success that movies or advertisements often offer is of a man who has made enough money to not have to work. He lies on the beach with a cocktail in his hand, “watching the purple sun sink into the azure sea,” and he doesn’t care about anything else.
But even in a fallen world, labor is something good, and its necessity is not limited to making money. Idleness is unnatural and destructive to man, while labor glorifies God.
Labor itself is in no way the result of sin. The purpose assigned to Adam before the fall was “to dress and to keep” (Gen.2:15) the garden of Eden. Moreover, in paradise before the fall there is not only physical but also intellectual labor — “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.” (Gen.2:20).
As Blessed Augustine writes,
“Although man was put in the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it, this honourable labor was not tedious. For it is one thing to cultivate the garden of Eden, and another to labor on earth, by which, after the fall into sin, man was punished. But by the addition of the word «keep» it is shown what kind of labor was this in paradise. For in the serenity of the blessed life, where there is no death, all labor is the keeping of what one has”
And Bishop Bessarion (Nechaev) says that
“This labor did not hinder, but facilitated the blissful state of the first inhabitants of paradise. Without labor, without the exercise of bodily forces in their respective activities, a person would only experince a sense of boredom, inherent in idle people. Labor elevated the enjoyment of the gifts of paradise’s nature according to the general law that we appreciate and love what we have acquired through labor more than what we have received as a gift. Moreover, labor in paradise, on its blessed soil, was pleasing to man also for the reason that it was easily rewarded with success. Man was condemned to exhausting labor immediately after the fall into sin. Bodily labor also had a spiritual significance for man, for by placing him in special proximity to the objects of nature, it gave him an opportunity to study the perfection of the Creator manifested in them and increased his reverence and love for Him.”
Even here on earth, work, meaningful activity for the benefit of others, in the course of which one cooperates with one’s neighbors and grows and develops as a person and worker, is a source of comfort and joy.
Thus, we have reason to believe that in heaven saved souls are working — we do not know how exactly and on what. On something very important, infinitely beautiful and full of meaning that reflects their love for God, for each other and for all of God’s creation.
But we know that an important part of this labor is helping those who are still wandering on earth — you and me.
The saints care for those who are still on earth
The Church believes — and has experienced — that our brothers and sisters who have gone to heaven remember and pray for us. Scripture says that the martyrs pray to God to stop the evil being done on earth (Rev. 6:10)
This clearly indicates that the saints in heaven are aware of what is happening on earth, and take a keen interest in earthly events. By the will of God, as older brothers to younger brothers, the saints come to the aid of those who have not yet reached heaven.
When we enter the Church, we gain a heavenly family and a multitude of relatives in heaven. As the Apostle says,
“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” (Eph.2:19)
They are much more alive than we are
Usually when people talk about souls in heaven, they picture something very pale, like a cloud of vapor. The reality is the opposite of that. The saved souls in heaven live a much fuller, more meaningful, and fulfilling life than we do. We are the ones who are half asleep compared to them.
They sing with joy that overflows, they labor, they care for us — they have much to do, and each of these activities is full of inexpressible exultation.
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