It’s not just heaven: A Bible context case
Here’s a popular, inspiring verse among Christians today, one that has been captured in song because of how it comforts us as we suffer this fallen world:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9
The common interpretation is that it’s talking about heaven, the eternity that God has prepared for His redeemed people. We believe this because the words fit: Heaven indeed has not been seen by any of us, nor can it even be imagined, even with all that the Bible tells us about it.
But that’s the problem: We’re reading it as if it’s being spoken to us today, so we assume it means what WE have not seen or heard. However, this ignores two critical contexts that reveal it’s not about what we think it’s about.
Immediate context
From the middle of the first chapter, Paul has been contrasting God’s favor toward the weak and lowly, as opposed to the noble and mighty. He’s chosen the foolish things of the world over that which the sinful world considers wise.
Related: We want power and winning. God wants losers.
This theme continues in chapter 2, where verse 6 says:
… we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
Paul repeats the phrase “the rulers of this age” in verse 8, saying they did not know “the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages,” what Paul called a “mystery” in verse 7. That tells us the who and the what of verse 9. “The heart of man” refers to the rulers of this age. They’re the ones who did not perceive what God has prepared for those who love Him.
But, Paul says, God has revealed those things now, to believers, through the Holy Spirit. We Christians do know what God has prepared for us.
And what is that? “The things that have been freely given to us by God” (verse 12). While that certainly includes eternal life, it’s much more than that. The passage is talking about God’s New Testament revelation, what the Holy Spirit teaches (verse 13). The hidden wisdom is no longer a mystery.
Scriptural context
This interpretation is further derived from the fact that verse 9 is a quote from the Old Testament. Isaiah 64:4 says,
For since the beginning of the world
Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,
Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,
Who acts for the one who waits for Him.
God mostly hid Himself from mankind for thousands of years, releasing only glimpses, signs, and visions in the Old Testament. But then, God the Son rewarded those who waited for Him, becoming human and living among us, and men could finally behold His glory (John 1:14). In seeing Jesus, we see the Father (John 14:9).
Tragically, those who still did not recognize God in the flesh crucified Him — they crucified the Lord of glory, as Paul puts it in verse 8. Again, the oft-quoted verse 9 is about them. But those who have believed in Christ have already received what “eye has not seen, nor ear heard.” We’ve already received the new covenant.
Why this matters
What’s the big deal, you say? No eye among us has seen heaven, which God has indeed prepared for us, so why can’t we use that verse to express our wondrous hope, even if it’s not what Paul meant when he quoted it?
Because we shouldn’t use the Bible at all. We shouldn’t read ideas into passages that don’t express them, even if they’re true, even if they’re based on other parts of the Bible. A prime example is Jeremiah 29:11, the “hope and a future” verse. Does God give us a hope and a future? Yes. Is that verse about what it’s often specified to mean today? No, because the context was the Israelites’ future return from exile in Babylon.
A more problematic example is 2 Chronicles 7:14, the “heal our land” verse. That was also addressed to Israel, and it was based on God’s covenant with them, which included land. Christians today often apply that verse to America, raising hopes for something God has not promised and fueling nationalist ideas that distort the gospel.
When we isolate verses and yank them out of context, we’re risking far worse misapplications. The best hermeneutic is to determine the author’s intent, using these and other contexts. That’s how we will see what God has prepared for us.
See also:
