Larry Hurtado's Blog
"Heaven: It’s not what you may think!" re: Calvin R. Schoonhoven, "The Wrath of Heaven" (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966) and comment section
Schoonhoven’s argument is that in the NT references “heaven”, including the realm to which the righteous dead aspire and which is the seat of divine authority, is pictured as participating in the incompleteness and conflict that characterizes “this age”, and that “heaven” as well as the visible creation await the consummation of salvation that is emphatically linked to Christ and his triumphant “parousia”.
The core of Schoonhoven’s case is that the NT view of salvation is thoroughly eschatological, linear, not a vertical flight to transcendence, but a forward move into “the age to come”. So, e.g., resurrection (not eternal life in “heaven”), redemption of the world (not flight from it), and a radical view of salvation in which Christ is central (not a lightly baptized pagan notion of the Elysian fields of bliss).
...the NT reflects a thoroughly eschatological outlook (not a Platonic one), and that “heaven” awaits redemption as does earth. Nothing to do with angelic sins! More to do with the sense of what “redemption” in/involves. E.g., for Paul the ultimate is “the redemption of your bodies” (Rom. 8:23, not simply the salvation of souls), and in Rev 21 there is a “new heaven and a new earth” (both experiencing the salvation in question).
Schoonhoven’s main point was to contend that the NT outlook was thoroughly eschatological, and that “heaven” as well as earth awaited the completion of redemption. So, a rejection of a Platonic idea of a timeless ideal heaven vs. a timebound earth. Also, ultimate salvation as an awaited consummation that would include effects upon/for “heaven” too.
http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/heaven-its-not-what-you-may-think/