I saw this and just knew I had to add it to one of my blogs:

(a) Heaven is important but it’s not the end of the world: in the mainstream Christian tradition until the Platonists corrupted it, the ultimate destination is THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH, which will involve an ultimate resurrection (bodily, of course) for God’s people (in some versions, for all people). The way the phrase ‘heaven and hell’ are used today implies you go straight to one or the other, ignoring the solid biblical testimony to an ultimate new creation in which heaven and earth are brought together in a great act of renewal (for those who want it, check out Ephesians 1.10, Revelation 21 and 22, Romans 8.18-27 and 1 Corinthians 15.20-28 — though once you see this theme it’s there everywhere). When Paul says ‘my desire is to depart and be with Christ which is far better’, and when Jesus says ‘today you will be with me in Paradise’, the wider context of both indicates that this will be a TEMPORARY state prior to the eventual resurrection into the new creation. This means (by the way) that the ‘second coming’ is NOT Jesus ‘coming back to take us home’, but Jesus coming — or ‘reappearing’, as 1 John 3 and Colossians 3 put it — to heal, judge and rescue this present creation and us with it.

Here’s the source link from the Washington Post.