It was an interesting question, especially considering the source – “When was the first mention of Heaven in the Bible?” I needed clarification from this young woman getting PT next to me for a whiplash injury. “Do you mean as a place for the afterlife?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied.
Well, the truth is, we don’t get much about Heaven as a place for the faithful until rather late in Israel’s history. A few glimpses from David and a few more from the prophets is about it. But I think some of our non-Christian friends sort of see this as proof that the Bible is inconsistent and therefore irrelevant.
I promise I am not going to get too deep here. But I think to reach people like my PT friend we need to deal with these types of questions with a broad understanding of God. And here it is – God gives His people information on a need-to-know basis. He always has. He has revealed Himself in burning bushes and fiery pillars; with prophets, angels, and talking animals; through scripture, and through His Son, Jesus. But He has revealed Himself and His plans as His people have needed to work out those plans, not before, and Heaven, like a ton of other things, is one of those slow works in progress. But it’s there if we look.* And so, we have Jesus, dealing with the Sadducees, and He makes clear God had revealed Himself as the God of the living, not of the dead (Matthew 22:23-32). No real mention of Heaven to Moses per se, just an understanding something beyond death is. It’s fleshed out more in the New Testament – why not before? Because only through Jesus is eternal life with the Father is finally realized, opening up in ways incomprehensible before how to understand Heaven! He is the firstborn from among the dead (Colossians 1:18)! Again, let’s not lose sight of things – Jesus’ position is one of importance as He was the first to actually conquer physical death outright (John 10:18).
But even with all the descriptions in Revelation, I think God still hasn’t told us everything about Heaven yet. We’re just not ready! What I do know is this – God has given us all the information we need to know up to this point – He’ll reveal all the rest of it when we finally get there!
*By saying what I say here, I think we also need to be aware we sometimes have questions God is completely uninterested in. In those cases, we’ll just have to square with no answer at all – and that is okay.