SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Afterlife Superpowers: Will People Be Able to Fly in Heaven?
By Dillon Burroughs
It is clear that Jesus can fly, as well as angels (Luke 2:15), but Scripture does not specify whether humans in Heaven will have this ability or not. Because the Bible says our new bodies will be like His, some suggest the ability to fly would certainly exist. For example, Philippians 3:20-21 tells us, "...the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body." However, this does not necessarily mean we will have all of the same abilities Jesus has in Heaven.
Even the old hymn "I'll Fly Away" is only in reference to the resurrection of the righteous dead and believers during the rapture to be caught up with Jesus in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). This passage makes no reference to whether humans will fly once they are in Heaven.
A case can be made for both the ability and the inability to fly. Those who suggest people will fly in Heaven focus on how our glorified bodies will be like the body of Christ that can fly. Those who suggest we will not fly point out specifics from the new Heavens in Revelation 20-21, such as a city with golden streets. If there will be roads, won't that mean people will walk on them? At the very least, humans will be able to both walk and fly.
Of course, the ability to fly might be the least of a person's concerns in Heaven. First, we will dwell with Christ for eternity. We likely won't be worried about whether we can fly or not. Second, we may have abilities far greater than flying. For example, Jesus "teleported" into a locked room (John 20:19). Philip likewise may have been "teleported" to another location after baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch by an act of the Spirit's power. There we read, "And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea" (Acts 8:39-40). Perhaps our heavenly bodies will have the ability to instantly arrive at a destination simply by thinking about it, similar to the 2008 American science fiction film, Jumper.
Some have even suggested our heavenly bodies will have the ability to travel through time, viewing the past through God's perspective of history. Though this is speculative, the possibility of flying in Heaven is but one of many possibilities that exist for the Christian in eternity. God has yet to reveal many of the abilities and practices that will take place. The aspects we can discern from Scripture certainly only scratch the surface of the glories that wait for us in the perfect presence of the Lord.
Image Credit: Squashimono; "Jumping with Joy"; Creative Commons
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Published 8-27-12
