Where Is Heaven Right Now?
00:00:00.000 | Well, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas celebration.
00:00:06.920 | Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:00:08.440 | Thanks for listening.
00:00:10.120 | Our next question is complex and mysterious.
00:00:13.400 | A lot of them are, but it comes in the form of a rather simple question, which is, "Where
00:00:19.360 | is heaven right now?"
00:00:20.680 | It's a question from Eleanor in London.
00:00:22.840 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:24.000 | My kids want to know, and I don't know how to explain the answer to them of this question.
00:00:29.360 | Where is heaven presently located, and are there any indications we have from Scripture
00:00:33.680 | to answer that question?"
00:00:36.440 | When we pray, "Our Father who art in heaven," we are implying that heaven, at least in one
00:00:46.880 | of its most common uses, is where God the Father is.
00:00:53.240 | Now, one of the most basic things we know, and kids know, about God is that he created
00:01:01.360 | everything that is not God.
00:01:04.600 | Before creation, there was no material universe.
00:01:10.600 | Given what we know now about space and time, we can say that before the creation of the
00:01:18.280 | material universe, the world, there was no space and no time.
00:01:22.680 | Albert Einstein causes us to know this.
00:01:25.800 | Three times, the apostle Paul refers to God's activity before the ages.
00:01:34.280 | For example, 1 Corinthians 2.7, "We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God
00:01:41.240 | decreed before the ages."
00:01:44.920 | Now, "ages" is the biblical term for seasons of time.
00:01:50.440 | It's the biblical writers knew it—ages.
00:01:54.000 | And before that, God was there.
00:01:58.520 | So I think we can say with confidence that where God dwells is not a geographic place
00:02:06.640 | that we could go to in a spaceship, nor does it have spatial dimensions as we know them.
00:02:14.600 | So if heaven is where God dwells, heaven is not technically a place in the sense that
00:02:21.960 | we usually think about places.
00:02:25.640 | Wherever God was when he created the universe, understanding that wherever is a very inexact
00:02:33.320 | and inappropriate use of the word, wherever he was, that's where he is now, outside
00:02:38.460 | the universe in a dimension of reality that is perfectly suited to his own being and existence.
00:02:45.720 | And I think children can understand this.
00:02:48.160 | I mean, there are aspects of it that adults can't understand, but I think children can
00:02:52.840 | get this.
00:02:53.840 | You don't have to use the relativity theory in order to explain it.
00:02:56.880 | They understand once there was nothing but God.
00:03:00.560 | Nothing.
00:03:01.560 | Nothing.
00:03:02.560 | No spatial dimension at all.
00:03:04.240 | There was no up.
00:03:05.240 | There was no down.
00:03:06.240 | There was no sideways.
00:03:07.240 | There was no diagonal.
00:03:08.920 | The only reality was God.
00:03:11.160 | That's the only reality there was.
00:03:14.440 | And we're not pantheists.
00:03:15.520 | He wasn't filling anything.
00:03:17.480 | He was just God.
00:03:19.240 | It was just the most boggling fact in the universe, outside the universe.
00:03:24.980 | The fact that anything else exists is because God made it, which means it is not God.
00:03:31.600 | It is different from God, and he is outside it, distinct from everything he made.
00:03:38.960 | That's where heaven is, outside the created material universe as we know it.
00:03:46.440 | That's maybe why the Bible says at least eight times that God is exalted above the heavens.
00:03:54.520 | In other words, whatever is the highest heaven you can imagine—or we might say galaxies,
00:04:01.040 | as far as you can put that Hubble telescope out there to the edge of the universe—God
00:04:06.160 | is beyond that, above that, under that, over that, outside that, and that is the highest
00:04:13.760 | and true heaven, the above all created material universe heaven and the dwelling place of
00:04:21.720 | God.
00:04:22.720 | However, there's a catch that complicates things, right?
00:04:27.240 | At the very heart of Christianity is the teaching of the incarnation, that the eternal Son
00:04:32.920 | of God, who was with God and was God for all eternity past, was not part of creation.
00:04:41.280 | He always was.
00:04:42.660 | He was not made.
00:04:45.000 | Nevertheless, according to John 1:14, following, he was made flesh.
00:04:52.160 | The uncreated God took on a human nature and a material physical body.
00:05:01.000 | And not only that, but he rose physically and materially from the dead.
00:05:05.660 | He was recognized by his friends in a resurrection body, and to prove that he wasn't a ghost,
00:05:10.800 | he ate fish in his resurrection body, Luke 24, 43.
00:05:15.880 | And then he ascended into heaven, and the angel told the disciples who watched him go
00:05:22.520 | up, "This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as
00:05:28.800 | you saw him go into heaven."
00:05:32.000 | And Jesus said, "From now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of
00:05:35.880 | the power of God," which means that Jesus, even though he has a body, is with God in
00:05:42.880 | heaven, which is outside the material universe.
00:05:47.280 | Now how can that be?
00:05:48.360 | How can that be?
00:05:50.760 | If heaven is the place that is outside the created material realm where God is, how can
00:05:58.400 | Jesus be at his right hand with a body?
00:06:03.080 | And part of the answer may be what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 42.
00:06:08.960 | What is sown in death is perishable.
00:06:11.740 | What is raised is imperishable.
00:06:13.240 | It is sown in dishonor.
00:06:15.120 | It is raised in glory.
00:06:16.600 | It is sown in weakness.
00:06:17.720 | It is raised in power.
00:06:18.960 | It is sown a natural body.
00:06:21.560 | It is raised a spiritual body.
00:06:25.360 | Hmm.
00:06:26.720 | A spiritual body.
00:06:28.900 | If there is a natural body, he says there is a spiritual body.
00:06:31.680 | In other words, the resurrection body that we will have, because Jesus was the first
00:06:37.320 | fruits of our resurrection, so whatever was true of him is more or less true of us in
00:06:42.600 | our resurrection.
00:06:43.600 | It is not a merely natural, material, physical body.
00:06:48.360 | Merely.
00:06:49.360 | It is a body.
00:06:50.360 | There is some kind of continuity with the bodies we have here, but it's different.
00:06:57.000 | It's a spiritual body, and we do not know fully what a spiritual body is.
00:07:02.720 | A spiritual body transcends, goes beyond, is above the ordinary experience of space.
00:07:10.360 | You remember, Jesus could just seem to show up in unexpected ways after his resurrection.
00:07:16.800 | He seemed to pass right through walls, and yet he was not a ghost.
00:07:22.240 | He ate fish.
00:07:24.040 | So we don't know what this is.
00:07:26.320 | So my conclusion is that heaven is the place where God dwells.
00:07:31.400 | It is also the place where the risen Christ dwells at God's right hand.
00:07:38.800 | So Christ brings humanity, his own humanity, a created human nature, into the presence
00:07:45.240 | of God in a real, tangible way that exceeds all our ability to comprehend.
00:07:53.360 | But the most important thing we can say about it, so far as our experience goes, is what
00:07:59.840 | Paul says in Philippians 1:23, that when we die, we depart to be with Christ, and that
00:08:09.080 | is far better.
00:08:10.440 | Heaven for us, after death and before the resurrection, is to be with Christ, a thousand
00:08:17.560 | times better than anything here, and then at our resurrection, there will be a new heaven
00:08:23.880 | and a new earth where righteousness dwells, and heaven, the dwelling place of God, will
00:08:29.920 | come down, so to speak.
00:08:33.000 | And in ways we cannot imagine, God will dwell among us and be our God.
00:08:39.200 | Amen.
00:08:40.200 | What a great meditation for this time of year.
00:08:42.360 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:43.960 | And thanks for the question, Eleanor.
00:08:46.200 | And to all of you, thank you for prayerfully supporting this podcast and praying for Pastor
00:08:50.880 | John and for me for the past five years, and for sending in questions and listening and
00:08:56.160 | being so engaged with what we do on the podcast.
00:08:59.840 | As we enter our sixth year in just a few days, I want to give a shout out to all of you who
00:09:04.800 | also financially support the ministry.
00:09:07.960 | You make this work possible, and we are very thankful to God that you have partnered with
00:09:12.400 | us for another year.
00:09:14.360 | Thank you.
00:09:15.360 | And, of course, if you're interested in joining us as a financial partner, perhaps for the
00:09:19.920 | very first time, we would certainly appreciate it.
00:09:22.200 | You can donate online anytime at DesiringGod.org/donate.
00:09:27.480 | That's DesiringGod.org/donate.
00:09:32.280 | Well new years bring new beginnings.
00:09:34.640 | And on Friday, we hear from a woman who is ready to take the next steps towards finishing
00:09:38.880 | out her years on earth as a missionary.
00:09:42.160 | So what are those first steps?
00:09:44.960 | I'll ask Pastor John that question next time.
00:09:47.320 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.
00:09:48.320 | Thanks for listening to the podcast.
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