Many people would say that the bible does tell us what heaven is like.  In the book of Revelation there is a description of heaven including its walls and gates and streets and other aspects of its appearance.  Those who take every portion of the bible as literal and infallible will be happy to describe it for you by quoting Revelation.

This may sound awful to some of you but I disagree with those who believe that Heaven is described in the bible.  My reasoning is really simple.  Heaven is so different from what we know here on earth, we are not capable of describing what it is like.  We do not even have words to describe heaven.  We can make projections of what we think it might be like, but those ideas will necessarily fall far short of being an accurate description.

The bible tells us that there has only been one man who has ever seen heaven.  In all of history only one man is capable of describing the place, but he didn’t bring us a description.  If he had wanted to offer us a description there would not be any words in any language that could do it justice.  The descriptions that we do have are just rough approximations.  For instance, we are told that the gates of heaven are each made from one gigantic pearl.  What does that mean?  Are the gates white, or silvery?  Are they round?  What characteristics of a pearl do they have that makes that description useful in any way?  We simply don’t know.  And we have no way to find out.

In my opinion, reading the descriptions of Heaven or even Hell is supposed to fill us with a feeling.  We should feel wonder and awe or fear and loathing.  The descriptions of unearthly things in the bible are felt, not known.  They are there to make us feel a reality rather than to experience it.