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Where is heaven?
August 05, 2007
The short answer to this is that heaven is where God is. That is what we pray in
the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven…”, although the rest of the Sermon on
the Mount seems to toggle between referring to “our heavenly Father”, and “our
Father in heaven”. In this case “heavenly” is way of describing the kind of
Father he is – one who exists in the heavens, i.e. not of the earth.
Other parts of the Bible give us the idea that this heavenly world is a place
where many spiritual beings exist – including even Satan for a time (eg see Job
1). Paul says we have ascended there already (Eph 2.6) – in Christ.
It is in these heavenly realms that Christ has been raised and is now seated at
the right hand of the glorious Father (Eph 1.20). His rule is over every power
both in the present age and in the age to come. This gives us a clue to the
difficulty of understanding the heavenly world. It appears to be beyond time.
The age to come is one of the ways of describing the new life of eternity which
is lived in the presence of God.
Those who live with God in this way will have transformed bodies appropriate to
life in that realm (1 Cor 15.50ff). But the mode of existence or the means of
getting there is overshadowed by what is there. That is, God. Paul can talk
about departing and being with Christ (Phil 1.23), and encourage his friends in
Thessalonica that when the Lord comes and takes them up, they will be forever
with the Lord (1 Thess 4.17).
To say that heaven is where God is, is to say that heaven is where we are with
the Father and the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit for eternity. But once we say
that, the focus moves away from locations and pictures of the environment to the
glory of the triune God himself, and the amazing wonder of being in his
presence, and being transformed by his glory.
It is no wonder that Paul says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God. But it is a mistake to think that what is able to inherit it is the human
person minus their flesh and blood. Paul says the opposite. It is the whole
person in bodily form which is transformed – either through death and
resurrection or through direct transformation. And the whole of who they are is
changed, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”, and they who are mortal are
given bodies that are imperishable.
And that’s how we go to heaven – through a resurrection transformation that
leaves us with a body suitable for living with God. But only because Christ has
gone before. And therefore only if we are in Christ.
Dale
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