THE BEDROOM“They will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.” –Revelation 14:13
“He has entered into rest.” “She is at rest.” Those phrases bring comfort to those who watched a loved one suffer on the way to death. They also raise a question. In heaven, will we have a place to rest, like a bedroom?
To get an answer, we need to examine how people in Bible-times used “sleep” when they really meant “death.” The best-known example is the death of Lazarus, Jesus’ friend. Lazarus was desperately ill when his sisters sent for Jesus, hoping He would heal their brother. While Jesus was on the way there, Lazarus died anyway. Though Jesus’ followers didn’t know that, Jesus did. “He’s asleep,” Jesus told them. Their response was basically this: “Sleep’s good. He should get well now.” Then Jesus corrected them, saying plainly, “Lazarus has died” (John 11:11-14).
It’s true that a person who has died may appear to be asleep. But he doesn’t breathe and his heart doesn’t beat. The earthly body has quit working. It’s “at rest” from the task of living, and has started to decay. The Old Testament’s Job said of death, “There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest” (Job 3:17). Or as the prophet Isaiah wrote, “Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death” (Isaiah 57:2).
But the spirits of the dead don’t sleep. The Bible says a person’s spirit leaves the body to go to the presence of God—“away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). Eventually, when Christ returns to earth, our spirits will be re-joined to our old bodies, reconstructed into heaven-ready “glorified” bodies. Our new bodies won’t become exhausted or fatigued.” Our “labor” in heaven will be refreshing and productive, like Adam and Eve’s in Eden before sin banned them from God’s perfect environment. Our “rest” will be a rest from “want.” We’ll lack nothing. We’ll be fully satisfied.
For Kyle, that rest was a long time coming. In his eighties, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and lung cancer, he had to be moved out of his large bed at home to a narrow hospital bed. One night as his wife Shirley was getting ready to leave, he asked, “Why don’t you spend the night with me? I know the bed is narrow, but we could manage.” Shirley responded, “I don’t think the nursing home would approve.” “What kind of a dumb rule is that?” he complained. A month later he didn’t need a bed any more. On Christmas Day, he “entered into rest.”
Thought of earthly bedrooms raises another issue. In heaven, will there be a “marriage bed”? In Jesus’ time, that was a hot question. Sadducees (who didn’t believe in the resurrection—no wonder their name started with “sad”!) tried to trick him by setting up a what-if situation. Their reasoning went like this: Suppose a woman’s husband dies, leaving her childless. Moses’ law says she needs to marry his brother to keep the family line going and inheritance safe. So she marries him, and he dies. One at a time, she marries the rest of his brothers and they die. Eventually, she’s gone through seven husbands. Who gets her as his wife in heaven?
Jesus answered them that on earth, marriage is a major preoccupation. In heaven, people will “neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels” (Luke 20:35-36). It doesn’t say we become angels (they’re separately-created beings), but we’ll be like them in the sense of no longer desiring to pair off in marriage. We won’t be “neutered” or sexless. We’ll still retain our essence of female or male, part of God’s amazing plan in designing humanity. But we won’t need marital relations that result in bearing children. So, no marriage bed. No need for mood-enhancing candles or locked doors. For those who never married, no pressure to “find the right one.” Jesus is the right one. With Him will be all ecstasies and intimacies.
Will we see a dearly-loved husband or wife who went to heaven? Why not? After Jesus’ resurrection, His followers recognized him. Scottish author George MacDonald quipped: “Will we be greater fools there than here?” (1) The joy of reunion is part of the joy of heaven.
If your earthly bed is a place of pain and sorrow, remember that will be forgotten in Heaven. If it is a lonesome place, be assured that God is ready to wrap you up completely in the comforter called Divine Love.
Prayer: Dear God, knowing there’s no weariness or loneliness in Heaven helps me look forward to being Home there. Amen.
(1) MacDonald quoted in Peter Kreeft, “What Will Heaven Be Like?”, Christianity Today, accessed at http;//ctlibrary.com/print.html?idi=7409 on June 27, 2006.
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