Well, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas celebration. Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. Thanks for listening. Our next question is complex and mysterious. A lot of them are, but it comes in the form of a rather simple question, which is, "Where is heaven right now?" It's a question from Eleanor in London.

"Hello, Pastor John. My kids want to know, and I don't know how to explain the answer to them of this question. Where is heaven presently located, and are there any indications we have from Scripture to answer that question?" When we pray, "Our Father who art in heaven," we are implying that heaven, at least in one of its most common uses, is where God the Father is.

Now, one of the most basic things we know, and kids know, about God is that he created everything that is not God. Before creation, there was no material universe. Given what we know now about space and time, we can say that before the creation of the material universe, the world, there was no space and no time.

Albert Einstein causes us to know this. Three times, the apostle Paul refers to God's activity before the ages. For example, 1 Corinthians 2.7, "We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages." Now, "ages" is the biblical term for seasons of time. It's the biblical writers knew it—ages.

And before that, God was there. So I think we can say with confidence that where God dwells is not a geographic place that we could go to in a spaceship, nor does it have spatial dimensions as we know them. So if heaven is where God dwells, heaven is not technically a place in the sense that we usually think about places.

Wherever God was when he created the universe, understanding that wherever is a very inexact and inappropriate use of the word, wherever he was, that's where he is now, outside the universe in a dimension of reality that is perfectly suited to his own being and existence. And I think children can understand this.

I mean, there are aspects of it that adults can't understand, but I think children can get this. You don't have to use the relativity theory in order to explain it. They understand once there was nothing but God. Nothing. Nothing. No spatial dimension at all. There was no up. There was no down.

There was no sideways. There was no diagonal. The only reality was God. That's the only reality there was. And we're not pantheists. He wasn't filling anything. He was just God. It was just the most boggling fact in the universe, outside the universe. The fact that anything else exists is because God made it, which means it is not God.

It is different from God, and he is outside it, distinct from everything he made. That's where heaven is, outside the created material universe as we know it. That's maybe why the Bible says at least eight times that God is exalted above the heavens. In other words, whatever is the highest heaven you can imagine—or we might say galaxies, as far as you can put that Hubble telescope out there to the edge of the universe—God is beyond that, above that, under that, over that, outside that, and that is the highest and true heaven, the above all created material universe heaven and the dwelling place of God.

However, there's a catch that complicates things, right? At the very heart of Christianity is the teaching of the incarnation, that the eternal Son of God, who was with God and was God for all eternity past, was not part of creation. He always was. He was not made. Nevertheless, according to John 1:14, following, he was made flesh.

The uncreated God took on a human nature and a material physical body. And not only that, but he rose physically and materially from the dead. He was recognized by his friends in a resurrection body, and to prove that he wasn't a ghost, he ate fish in his resurrection body, Luke 24, 43.

And then he ascended into heaven, and the angel told the disciples who watched him go up, "This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." And Jesus said, "From now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power of God," which means that Jesus, even though he has a body, is with God in heaven, which is outside the material universe.

Now how can that be? How can that be? If heaven is the place that is outside the created material realm where God is, how can Jesus be at his right hand with a body? And part of the answer may be what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 42. What is sown in death is perishable.

What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. Hmm. A spiritual body. If there is a natural body, he says there is a spiritual body.

In other words, the resurrection body that we will have, because Jesus was the first fruits of our resurrection, so whatever was true of him is more or less true of us in our resurrection. It is not a merely natural, material, physical body. Merely. It is a body. There is some kind of continuity with the bodies we have here, but it's different.

It's a spiritual body, and we do not know fully what a spiritual body is. A spiritual body transcends, goes beyond, is above the ordinary experience of space. You remember, Jesus could just seem to show up in unexpected ways after his resurrection. He seemed to pass right through walls, and yet he was not a ghost.

He ate fish. So we don't know what this is. So my conclusion is that heaven is the place where God dwells. It is also the place where the risen Christ dwells at God's right hand. So Christ brings humanity, his own humanity, a created human nature, into the presence of God in a real, tangible way that exceeds all our ability to comprehend.

But the most important thing we can say about it, so far as our experience goes, is what Paul says in Philippians 1:23, that when we die, we depart to be with Christ, and that is far better. Heaven for us, after death and before the resurrection, is to be with Christ, a thousand times better than anything here, and then at our resurrection, there will be a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells, and heaven, the dwelling place of God, will come down, so to speak.

And in ways we cannot imagine, God will dwell among us and be our God. Amen. What a great meditation for this time of year. Thank you, Pastor John. And thanks for the question, Eleanor. And to all of you, thank you for prayerfully supporting this podcast and praying for Pastor John and for me for the past five years, and for sending in questions and listening and being so engaged with what we do on the podcast.

As we enter our sixth year in just a few days, I want to give a shout out to all of you who also financially support the ministry. You make this work possible, and we are very thankful to God that you have partnered with us for another year. Thank you.

And, of course, if you're interested in joining us as a financial partner, perhaps for the very first time, we would certainly appreciate it. You can donate online anytime at DesiringGod.org/donate. That's DesiringGod.org/donate. Well new years bring new beginnings. And on Friday, we hear from a woman who is ready to take the next steps towards finishing out her years on earth as a missionary.

So what are those first steps? I'll ask Pastor John that question next time. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening to the podcast. 1. DesiringGod.org 2. DesiringGod.org 3. DesiringGod.org