What is heaven like? Saint Symeon the New Theologian

Saint Symeon the New Theologian addresses the question, What is the bright condition the whole creation is again to receive?

You should know likewise what is to be the glory and the brightly shining state of the creation in the future age. For when it will be renewed, it will not again be the same as it was when it was created in the beginning. But it will be such as according to the word of the divine Paul, our body will also be. Concerning our body the Apostle says: It is sown a natural body but is raised not as the body of the first-created one was before the transgression of the commandment, that is, material, sensuous, changeable, having need of sensuous food, but it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:41) and unchanging, such as was the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, after the Resurrection, He being the first-born from among the dead, which body was incomparably superior to the body of first-created Adam. In the same way also the whole creation, according to the commandment of God, is to be, affer the general resurrection, not such as it was created, material and sensuous, but it is to be re-created and to become a certain immaterial and spiritual dwelling, surpassing every sense, and as the Apostle says of us, We shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (I Cor. 15:51). Thus also the whole creation, after it shall burn up in the Divine fire, is to be changed, that there may be fulfilled also the prophecy of David who says that the righteous shall inherit the earth (Ps. 36:29) - of course, not the sensuous earth. For how is it possible that those who have become spiritual will inherit a sensuous earth? No, they will inherit a spiritual and immaterial earth, so as to have on it a dwelling worthy of their glory after they shall be vouchsafed to receive bodies that are bodiless and above every sense.

Thus the whole creation, after it will be renewed and become spiritual, will become a dwelling which is immaterial, incorruptible, unchanging, and eternal. The heaven will become incomparably more brilliant and bright than it appears now; it will become completely new. The earth will receive a new, unutterable beauty, being clothed in many-formed, unfading flowers, bright and spiritual. The sun will shine seven times more powerfully than now, and the whole world will become more perfect than any word can describe. Having become spiritual and divine, it will become united with the noetic world, it will be a certain mental Paradise, a heavenly Jerusalem, the inalienable inheritance of the sons of God.

Such an earth has not been inherited as yet by a single man; we are all strangers and foreigners. But when the earthly be united with the heavenly, then also the righteous will inherit that already-renewed earth whose inheritors are those meek ones who are blessed by the Lord.

Now, for the time being, some of the earthly is being United with heavenly, and some is yet to be united with it. The souls of the saints, as we have said, even though they are still the body in this world, are united with the grace of the Holy Spirit, are renewed, are changed for the better and resurrected from mental death. Later, after separation from the body, they will depart into glory and into the unsetting, brightly shining light. Their bodies, however, are not yet vouchsafed this, bur remain in the tombs and in corruption. But they also are to become incorruptible during the general resurrection, when also all this visible and sensuous creation will become incorruptible, and will be united with the heavenly and invisible. This must happen first, and then there will come with power and great glory the most desired and sweetest Jesus Christ, our King and God, to judge the world and to give to each according to his deeds. For this He will divide the renewed creation into many mansions and abodes, as if it were a great house or some kind of royal palace with a multitude of various apartments, and He will give to each his part, according to the brightness and glory acquired by his virtues. Thus, the Kingdom of Heaven will be one, will have a single King over all, Who will be visible from everywhere to all the righteous. He will remain with each of the righteous, and each of the righteous will remain with Him: He will brightly shine in each one, and each one will brightly shine in Him. But woe to those who then will be seen to be outrident that heavenly dwelling! 

From The First-Created Man by St Simeon the New Theologian.