God did not create a drab world, but one of dazzling complexity and distinctions.
There are a variety of topics in our current discourse, such as racial linguistic reference, and the question of the desirability of integration in church or state, to which our disputants often have a ready argument: “there will be no race in heaven; therefore we should operate as if that were the case now.” As will prove to be the case again and again, both the major and minor premises of modern truisms are generally dubious. Here I wish to analyze a premise that functions as the “minor” in that argument, and is taken as “obvious” even by intelligent people today. Namely, the idea that “there will be no race in heaven.”
Speculation always puts us on tenuous ground, and most discourse on heaven is based on speculation. Scripture reveals surprisingly little about the details. But the modern speculation, which without stating it implies that we will become stamped reproductions of a generic humanity, is without any foundation. In contrast, I offer some reflections that I suggest have greater intuitive appeal, and are anchored in Scripture even if not fully explicated there.
(1) C. S. Lewis may offer some help. His basic thesis is that things in heaven are more real, not less. Dogs, if there will be dogs in heaven, will be real dogs. Cats, real cats. And even grass and trees will be more real. When it comes to humans, the same principle applies.
Men will be more masculine and women more feminine. We will not be de-gendered in heaven, but become super-gendered. In paradise, God made man male and female. After the fall woman was cursed in her calling as a wife and mother and man was cursed in his calling as a worker. The curse of the fall will be finally erased in heaven. Woman will be a perfected helper and nurturer and Man a perfected laborer and cultivator. This does not mean that we will return to the Edenic state. There was an implied telos for Adam and Eve that would necessarily develop in one direction or another. (This is a great theme that deserves more elaboration than this essay could devote to it.) As it is, because of Christ’s redemptive work heaven must be something other than Eden. But by other we should intend something greater than what was.
In heaven, races will still exist. That is clear from Scripture. And following Lewis’s line of thought, the races will be even more distinct. True Anglo-Saxons, true Chinese, true Negroes. It is the theology of babel that teaches monistic humanity: one race, one language, one culture. Christianity teaches a plurality of human beings and yet unity in Christ: One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.