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If only we could have the positives of earthly life without the negatives. But that is precisely what heaven has to offer—the removal of the negatives. All those "if onlys" will be realized. Yet two factors especially stand in the way of our realizing them here and now: human sin and the dominion of time. Both will be swept away. Here below, time withers flowers and human beauty, it encourages good intentions to evaporate, it deprives us of our loved ones. Within the universe ruled by time, the happiest marriage ends in death, the loveliest woman becomes a skeleton. Fading and aging, losing and failing, being deprived and being frustrated—these are the negative aspects of life in time. Life in eternity will liberate us from all loss, all deprivation.

Since in heaven there can be neither loss nor deprivation, it follows that possession of a thing in heaven cannot be like individual ownership here below. Owning things in earthly life takes meaning from the fact that others lack what the possessor owns. If you have a highly prized collection of antiques, your distinction in possessing them depends upon the fact that others lack them. If every householder in your street had a matching collection of antiques, your delight in ownership would be diminished. Their value depends on scarcity. That is the nature of material "value" on earth. When you pay a high price for a seat in a concert hall to hear the performance of a world-famous singer, you know that the value of the performance is determined by its rarity. If everyone in the audience could sing like the star performer, the show would lose its point.

Members of an audience might well say, after a night at the opera, "If only I could sing like Pavarotti!" Suppose they all could. What then? No doubt they might all take the same delight in the exercise of their gift as the great virtuoso does; but the rarity value of the accomplishment would be lost. Along with it would be lost many pleasing by-products of the star's career—the power to attract huge audiences, to bask in the glow of fame, to tour the world in style, and to make lots of money. I raise this point because Saint Paul promises us all crowns of victory in heaven. On earth, the value and importance of crowns depends on their scarcity. A sovereign takes his or her dignity and importance from the fact that he or she has the only crowned head in the kingdom. On earth the Olympic gold medalist takes his or her status from the fact that when he or she wins, all the others lose. Saint Paul, however, promises crowns and laurels all around.

The truth is that the relationship between winning and losing, like the relationship between ownership and deprivation, cannot exist in heaven. All delights are purged of these earthly limitations. On earth, value depends on scarcity. In heaven, value resides in abundance. Whatever experience we enjoy in heaven will be magnified, not by the fact that others are deprived of it, but by the fact that others enjoy it, too.

We have to make a special effort if we are to picture heavenly things disentangled from the limitations of earthly experience. The seventeenth-century English poet Lord Herbert of Cherbury depicted a young lover assuring his beloved that their bodily delights will be renewed in heaven:

These eyes again, then, eyes shall see
And hands again these hands enfold,
And all chaste pleasures can be told.

Saint Paul, however, wisely urged us not to equate the resurrection body with the earthly body. The one is sown in corruption, the other is raised in incorruption. After all, our earthly bodies are finely adapted to their earthly environment, and our resurrection bodies will inhabit a very different environment. Consider how our senses are tuned to the measure of space and the span of time that we inhabit. I can see a mountain a few miles away, but I cannot see distant stars without a telescope. I can see a fly on my hand with the naked eye, but I cannot see house mites in the carpet without a microscope.

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June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47