So for Christians, belief in a future life stems from their belief in a God of love.  Christians know that when they die they are not fit to share God’s life to the full.  But they believe that in Paradise, that intermediate state into which the soul passes at death, they will be cleansed from all their sins until they are able at last to receive the reward of the pure in heart, which is to see God.  And that is Heaven.

It is important to notice that Our Lord is not concerned with survival after death but with life after death, and the two are very different things.  Survival can be a mere existence; but life connotes joy and vigour.  And the eternal life which Our Lord promises is nothing less than life with him, and the quality of that life is described in the New Testament as glory – a life that shares in the revealed splendour of the God of love.