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G’day everyone, Dave Deane here, and our question for the week is: What will government be like in heaven? Will it be democratic, communist, or a dictatorship?
This is a really interesting question. It’s probably worth just very briefly the primary ideological differences between these three kinds of governmental structures being asked about….
A democracy is a form of government where the entire population has the power to hold or decide how they are governed. Usually, the way this is done is by elections where we go to the ballot box and case our vote for certain people to represent our interests. Because of the focus on equal opportunities for all people, there are all sorts of social differences. So democracy is ‘citizen rule’ if you will, and it is the backbone of most Western nations today, like Australia, the UK and so on.
Communism is not so much a form of government as it is a theory or system of social organisation where no individual has any private property because everything is owned by the community or nation state which hands out to each person what they need according to their circumstances. Because of the focus on equal outcome of opportunities, there is an attempt to flatten out social differences into a sort of classless state. So communism is ‘state rule’, and we see it in countries like Vietnam, Cuba, and China.
A dictatorship is a government or a social situation where one person makes all the rules and decisions without input from anyone else. Dictatorship implies absolute power — one person who takes control — of a political situation, a family, a classroom or even a camping expedition. So dictatorships are ‘individual rule’ and we see it in countries today like Syria, and North Korea.
So What sort of governmental structure will be in place in heaven?
Well, when it comes to talking about heaven, we need to go to the only source we have on what heaven is like – the Bible.
The Bible has lots to say about heaven, but two things in particular stand out here.
First, the Bible says all over the place, that God rules heaven. “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Psa 103:19). Now, at first that kinda sounds like a dictatorship, doesn’t it? But what’s wrong with dictatorships? The dictator – usually! What they say goes, and history is replete with imperfect dictators saying and doing a whole bunch of evil and destructive things. But if the individual ruling heaven is God, then, well, who ever complained about a perfect, all-good, all-loving, dictator? The answer is no one because the world has never had one!
So that’s the first point I think the Bible makes very clear about the ‘governmental structure of heaven’. God’s in charge, but He is perfect, and all-loving and all-good, so His dictates are unlike any dictator this world has ever seen.
The second point that needs to balance the first, is that the Bible says that Christians “will rule with the Lord in the next life. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim. 2:12). Now that’s not referring to every single human being who ever lived, it’s qualified: “if we endure”, that’s Christians who endure in their belief in this life, those people will rule in heaven. So God rules in heaven, and God’s people – Christians – also rule in heaven. So it’s not a dictatorship, its not a communist regime, and its not a democracy… it will be a kingdom unlike anything we have here on earth.
And this is where it gets interesting. Why do we have a ruling role? Well, in Romans 8:16-17, Paul writes, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
You see, this is one of the truly unique things about Christianity compared to all other worldviews or religions out there. The core of Christianity is relationship with the one true and living God. Because no human being is perfect – as all governments have shown – the Bible tells us that God Himself came to earth as a person in the first-century of human history as a man named Jesus.
And Jesus’ message is simple: if we just believe in who he shows himself to be – God Himself – then we will be united with him, the source and giver of all life, and we will live and reign forever with him because he actually adopts us as his own children. That’s why, even when our physical bodies die out, we will live and reign with him in the new heaven and the new earth with new physical bodies that will be raised just like Jesus was.
So, what will government be like in heaven? Well, it won’t be like anything we see here on earth. It will be a place where the God of this universe calls His people to rule and reign with Him in a loving, perfect, and divinely royal union forevermore.
