If the gates of heaven rarely open, where do believers who have died go? Does the new Earth already exist?

“When believers die, their souls are made perfectly holy and immediately pass into glory. Their bodies, which are still united to Christ [through faith], rest in the grave until the resurrection of the dead. At the resurrection, believers, raised in glory, will be publicly recognized and declared not guilty on the day of judgment and will be made completely happy in the full enjoyment of God forever.”-Shorter Catechism Questions 37 and 38.

There is an important distinction here. Heaven rarely opens to the living. There are less than two dozen recorded times when Jesus walked on Earth before His birth (for example Genesis 3:8 or Joshua 5:13-15) or when angels came to Earth. And, from heaven to Earth, there are only about a half dozen recorded examples of people seeing into heaven while still alive on Earth (Elijah, Jesus, Stephen, and Paul being clear examples.) So, although the evidence indicates that Heaven is physically at hand, we cannot truly perceive it or cross into it of our own volition.

However, anyone who believes in Christ and dies before Jesus returns is taken immediately into the presence of God, into what scripture calls “paradise.”(Luke 23:43; 2Cor 12:4). The physical resurrection of the dead will not occur until Jesus returns. So those who have already died are “in the presence of God.” So, “paradise” is a real place. But it’s not the full heaven. The best is yet to come. Even those in heaven now, are looking forward to the New Heavens and the New Earth. This will take place after the final judgment.

When Jesus returns, “the dead in Christ shall be raised up first” (I Thess. 4:16, 17). Then those who are still alive will be “caught up with them into the air” and given an incorruptible body. After that, the New Earth will be created (or restored), the New Jerusalem will come down, and all believers will live in their eternal and glorified bodies. This will be the fullest heaven. This is also known as the consummation. Far from the notion that we will sit around on clouds strumming harps and playing the same 5,000 hymns over and over again (would that really be heavenly?) we will have physical bodies on a physical Earth doing things that we were created to love doing, in an environment completely free of frustration and failure.

Thanks for your questions,
Bruce Young and Derrick Harris