In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Trent Horn to discuss the implications of John 3:13 and the concept of heaven. Trent continues with details on how the souls of the righteous are believed to be in heaven, awaiting the resurrection of their bodies at the final judgment. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration of these critical theological questions!
Transcript:
Caller: Anonymous, why are you not Catholic?
Caller: Yeah, I had a question about John 3:13. No one has ascended into heaven. He was descended to heaven, the Son of Man, when. When Christ was the only person who was sent to heaven. People can’t be in heaven already when, if he’s going to, Christ is going to come the second time. Even in Acts, it talks about David. His body will be at the last day only. And even Daniel has spoken. Isaiah also spoken.
Trent Horn: Okay, Anonymous, we’re covering a lot of ground here, so let me try to address it the best. I First, the descriptions in the Book of Acts about David’s body seeing corruption and not seeing incorruption until the final judgment. Well, Christians believe that. We believe that people’s souls, that when someone dies in God’s friendship, he is united with God immediately in heaven, unless he needs to be purified in purgatory first. But those who are saved and die and are free from sin will be in heaven with God. Their souls will be there, but they won’t be reunited with their bodies. You’re correct. Until the last judgment, then you will. People will be reunited with their bodies at the resurrection of the dead. So that doesn’t preclude, however, a person’s soul from being in heaven, being aware of God worshiping him, and being able to pray for people here on Earth. Number two, you cited John 3:13, but I don’t see how this shows that those who die in Christ are not in heaven. Jesus says he’s first. He’s talking about the need to be born of water and spirit. In John 3, he’s talking to Nicodemus and others about baptism, how that saves us, how that brings us into the kingdom of God. So he says in John 3:12, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. So what, what could this, what could this mean? Well, Jesus is talking about his divine authority, that he’s come down from heaven to be able to tell people what life is like in heaven and what God’s kingdom is like. He’s come down from heaven and he is going to ascend of his own power back to heaven. That seems to be a reference to his future ascension. Because don’t you believe that in the Old Testament Elijah ascended into heaven? Correct?
Caller: No, Eli, but Elijah didn’t. Elijah didn’t understand. He was transferred into the heavenlies because there were three different levels of heavenly. The Word is for it’s transfer. It’s not. It’s not. He did not ascend to heaven. He was transferred into the heavenly. There were different.
Trent Horn: He was. He was brought up into heaven some way to some part of heaven.
Caller: Yeah. In fact, you know why? Because if you look at the same thing which you quoted in Hebrews to the other gentleman earlier.
Caller: Yeah.
Caller: Elijah is part of the saints which have not yet received the eternal promise. The eternal promise is with eternal life in Christ Jesus. So only at the final judgment, then with the Old Testament, pains are all we rise. Well.
Caller: Well, let me.
Caller: Let’s.
Trent Horn: Okay, all right. Let’s. Let’s go back a little bit there. Because we would say that those who die and the saints who. People who die in God’s friendship and go to heaven, they don’t ascend there under their own power. They’re. They’re brought there through by the power of God. So Jesus here is talking about. You can say from this verse, he’s talking about his own ascension. But your claim that there are no souls in heaven at this moment, that doesn’t seem to make sense of the rest of God’s word. Such as when the apostle John has a vision or. Sorry, when John has the vision of heaven recorded in the Book of Revelation. He says this in Revelation chapter 6. He says, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, o sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth? So here John has a vision of heaven, and there are souls in heaven that were martyred on earth crying out for vengeance. How is this anything but souls being in heaven? Isn’t that. That’s what it says.
Caller: These are the souls who are. Await the. Who are waiting. They are not yet. They are not in heaven.
Caller: It’s the thing is, it says they’re under the altar.
Caller: Yeah. They said it’s a vision of him, but they’re not. They’re not. They’re not there. They are not there because it was talking about even the Old Testament, everybody’s in shoel. Everybody is actually in the good part of show, and there’s bad people on the bad part of show. So when. When. When Price comes, he’ll go. I mean. I mean, people who are in the good part of Sheol will get to heaven, and I mean, he’ll take those people.
Caller: But where is that part of Revelation 6 talking about Shaol and not heaven. It’s talking about John’s vision of heaven.
Caller: John? Yeah, John’s vision is talking about the future. Right. About when. When.
Caller: No, it’s.
Caller: It’s.
Caller: It’s. It’s what he’s. It’s what he’s seeing right now in heaven is being shown to him.
Caller: Yeah. So. But there’s no. There’s no, like, general judgment because there’s only a final judgment when Christ comes. But how can Christ come down in between and take people up into heaven and then. Then come on the final judgment? So it’s only a final judgment.
Trent Horn: So are you saying that everyone who dies, they all go to the same place and wait for the final judgment?
Caller: Yeah, I mean, the. Whoever is in, like, the good part of Sheol, and then whoever believes in Christ and who follows the laws and commandments, whatever Christ is told. I mean, because he said, whoever believes in me, who does whatever I do. I mean, so we have to not only just believe.
Caller: Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You said. So they go to different parts of Sheol. The underworld.
Caller: Yeah.
Caller: I mean, so they. So they are judged.
Caller: If you, if you read the talk about Lazarus and the Richmond and that the two people. He was in the good part of Sheol and bad part because they were in two separate command. They were two separate command compartments. Because the good part of Sheol, the. Then only those people will rise at the end of time because they’re still waiting for the final judgment. Because that’s the final judgment.
Trent Horn: All right, I’m going to put forward one more verse for you to consider, but I think that we’ve reached a bit of an impasse here. I think that the Word of God is very clear, that after death, people, there is a judgment, a particular judgment. That’s what the Catholic Church teaches, and that’s what I think Christians in general believe that there’s a particular judgment of the soul and that people either go to heaven or hell or to purgatory and that there will be a final judgment when Christ comes again and when there’s the resurrection of the dead. You yourself seem to believe that there is. That the dead will go to. They go to the underworld, but they go to. To different parts of it. Now, that, of course, doesn’t conform to what we believe in. First, Peter talks about how Christ went to preach to the spirits in prison and that he liberated those who had died before him. In Hebrews 9:27, it says it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment. So Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. So I think when we when we look at the whole of Scripture, we see that when people die, after that comes a judgment for them, and then there’s going to be a final judgment at the end of time that we see in Scripture. There’s always there’s there’s two judgments that are present, because even under the view that people go to different parts of sheol that would involve God judging whether they go to the good part of the bad part, which, of course, we don’t agree with, but I hope that’s helpful for you. And we have other articles on the afterlife and judgment and the underworld at our website@catholic.com.