What If Heaven Was Never Meant to Be Somewhere Else?
The afterlife in Scripture is far more hopeful than a reward chart for good behaviour.
Welcome to Sunday’s reflection.
Heaven is often imagined as somewhere else.
Jesus spoke of it as something closer than we think.
I was always told (and still am) that heaven is a place we get to if we are good enough, as if it’s some kind of reward. Behave, believe, and do the right things, and eventually you will be upgraded to the “good place.”
That version of heaven hovered over my childhood like a cosmic behaviour chart. For years, I carried the quiet fear that if I didn’t feel holy enough, certain enough, grateful enough, then maybe I wouldn’t make it in.
Sometimes, I still slip into that way of thinking.
The only problem is that that’s not actually how the Bible starts out discussing life after death.
In fact, for a long stretch of Scripture, the afterlife isn’t a prize for the righteous or a punishment for the wicked. It’s simply called Sheol, and Sheol is not what most of us were raised to imagine.
Sheol: A shadowy realm with no reward system
If you open the Old Testament expecting a detailed map of the afterlife, you’ll be very disappointed. Let me break it down for you. The Hebrew Scriptures refer to Sheol, the realm of the dead, but they provide little detail about what they believe happens there.
Ancient Israel imagined a three-tiered universe:
Above: heaven, where God dwells
Here: the earth, where humans live
Below: Sheol, the shadowy realm of the dead, where we go when we die
Sheol was:
dark (Job 10:21; Psalm 88:6)
silent (Psalm 94:17)
a place of no return (Job 16:22)
beneath the earth (Amos 9:2)
Crucially, people didn’t go there because they were good or bad. They went because they were dead.
The righteous and the wicked shared the same fate. No heavenly gates, no fiery torment. Just silence and shadow.
One scholar puts it bluntly:
“Sheol occurs infrequently and was not an important theological concept for most Israelite writers”
In other words, the Old Testament is far more concerned with how we live than with where we go when we die.
Hints of something more
Over time, the Jewish imagination began to stretch beyond Sheol. A few texts gesture toward hope:
Isaiah 26:19 speaks of dead bodies rising.
Daniel 12:2 imagines resurrection at the end of days.
Elijah and Elisha raise the dead without fanfare (1 Kings 17; 2 Kings 4; 2 Kings 13:20).
Enoch and Elijah appear to skip death entirely (Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11).
However, even then, these passages are rare, serving as side notes rather than fully developed doctrine. There is no unified Old Testament teaching on heaven as many Christians describe it today.
Which makes what Jesus says next even more astonishing.
Jesus doesn’t talk much about Sheol. He talks about a Kingdom.
When Jesus steps into history, He doesn’t reinforce the idea of Sheol or offer a detailed guided tour of the afterlife. He speaks instead of:
“The Kingdom of God” and “The Kingdom of Heaven.”
And He doesn’t say: “Hang on until you die, then you’ll see it.”
He says:
“The kingdom of God has come near.” (Mark 1:15)
“The kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:21)
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)
Not will be, someday. He talks about it as if it were happening now, in the present tense.
Jesus does not offer heaven as a distant location for the well-behaved, but as a present reality intruding into this world, where the sick are healed, enemies are forgiven, tables are shared, and outcasts are welcomed home.
Heaven is not an escape.
Heaven is an invasion of love over fear, justice from oppression, mercy instead of shame.
Maybe we haven’t misunderstood heaven. Maybe we’ve misplaced it.
If you grew up imagining heaven as a gated community in the sky, it can feel unsettling to realise that Scripture moves in a different direction:
From elsewhere to here.
From later to now.
From reward to transformation.
Heaven isn’t primarily where we go; it’s what God is growing right now, here on earth.
In hospitals and kitchens.
In protests and food banks.
In forgiven debts and shared bread.
In people choosing love over fear.
And yes, even in you. Even on the days you doubt it.
So what do we do with this?
If heaven is somewhere else, then faith is mostly about being good and waiting.
But if heaven is already breaking through to your current life, everything changes.
Suddenly:
Prayer is not a message sent to a far-off throne, but a conversation with a God already here.
Justice is not optional; it is joining the work of a kingdom unfolding around us.
Kindness is not niceness; it is an act of love as part of that kingdom.
Church is not an escape from the world, but training for noticing and joining in with the kingdom that surrounds us.
The question is no longer:
“Will I be good enough to get in?”
but
“Will I let heaven take root in me now?”
If heaven is here, our lives must change now.
Maybe the invitation of Jesus is not: Behave until you die, and you’ll be allowed into heaven.
Maybe it’s: Let heaven start in you, and you’ll never truly die.
The Kingdom of God is not a reward for good behaviour. It is a reality to participate in.
A way of being human.
A way of being alive.
A way of being filled with God.
Please tell me you find this exciting.
So today, look out for heaven where you do not expect it:
In a word of forgiveness.
In a table with room for one more.
In a quiet strength you did not know you had.
In the courage to love someone you do not have to.
It’s everywhere when you look, in the people and places where you sometimes might least expect.
And the best part? It’s in you.
Thank you for reading today’s reflection.
Sundays are always free here.
If this reflection resonated, you’re very welcome to subscribe for the rest of the week.