A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF HEAVEN BY RANDY ALCORN

A BRIEF OVERVIEW
By Mark Zimmermann

For those of you who take the plunge into Heaven by Dr. Alcorn I would highly recommend that you read his Appendix A before reading the beginning. This will explain his motive behind writing this work.
I believe his doctrine of “Christoplatonism” is dead right and we all have bought into this doctrine in some manner. What he defines as Christoplatonism is a false philosophy that gives the spiritual realm a higher ground than the material and physical world that we live in and view as common. In this philosophical system we end up with a Gnostic idea that Heaven and Earth are opposites.
Gnosticism taught that anything spiritual was good and anything material, or had matter, was evil. This is where many early heresies began to enter into the first stages of Christianity. These heresies attempted to dismantle Trinitarian doctrine. (Any doctrine that tampers with the Trinitarian framework described in scripture will inevitably result into idolatry.)  By this worldview we tend to see heaven as non-physical and surreal and thus are basically disinterested in it when we compare it with our here and now.
Dr. Alcorn has placed literal biblical references before us in this book so we may know the reality of the physical heaven described by the Bible. By doing so he has attempted to place a true Christian worldview back on track within us so we can find the joy of anticipation of where we as Christians are going to spend eternity.

Heaven

Early Christians were preoccupied with Heaven.  The Apostle Paul wrote to live is Christ to die is gain.  I desire to depart and be with Christ which far much better.  Phil 1:21, 23 – If you were to inherit something would you not want to know what you were getting before you received it?  
We know because of sin we will die.  The only question is where we will go.  Now for those of us that are Christians we will go to heaven.   Are you looking forward to going to Heaven?
Do you think as John Eldrede wrote in the Journey of Desire that Heaven is and unending church service?  Or a time where you are assigned a cloud to sit on where you play a harp all the time?
Why do you think the writers of scripture present Heaven as a garden, a city a kingdom?  They do this because these are things we understand- it helps our finite minds bridge from what we know to what we do not understand.  
Alcorn says he believes our first glimpse of Heaven will cause us to gasp in amazement and delight.  And each thing will be new and wonderful.