HEAVEN – What and Where

In today’s post I will look briefly a what Heaven is and where it is located, both now and in the future.

Heaven. first and foremost, is the throne room of God from which He rules and reigns sovereignly over all of His creation in loving kindness, righteousness and justice.  Nothing happens in Heaven or on earth, or within the whole of the universe without His knowledge, His permission and His ultimately ordaining it and using it for His eternal purposes (Psalm 103:19) (2 Chronicles 20:5-6) (Daniel 4:36-37) (Revelation 4). Thus, it is the place where those who are presently there,  both men and angels, fulfill God’s will perfectly and delight in doing so (Matthew 6:10) (Psalm 40:8).

Heaven is the place where all of God’s plans and purposes in creating man (Isaiah 43:7) will come to pass, namely God being glorified in the uninterrupted and ever-increasing joy and happiness of His people in Him (Psalm 16:11) (Psalm 90:14).

It is the place Jesus suffered and died to bring us to (1 Peter 3:18), where He went to prepare a place for us, so that we could live in His presence forever (John 14:1-3).   Thus, it is the home of all who have put their faith in Him while on this earth (John 17:24-26) (Luke 23:42-43), who will live with Him forever in a place of resplendent beauty and magnificence, where everything and everyone there will uniquely image multiple aspects of the infinite beauty and majesty of the glory of God (1 John 3:1-3).

Heaven is the place where all of the questions regarding God’s goodness, wisdom, power, love, righteousness and justice will be answered in the affirmative, as well as where all of the inexplicable, confounding, confusing, mysterious and incomprehensible events and experiences of human history and in our individual lives will make perfect sense (2 Corinthians 4:17-18) (Romans 8:28).  It is the place where God will be vindicated, acknowledged and worshiped by all who are there as the most glorious, desirable, necessary, valuable and awesome Being in the universe, which is exactly who He is (Revelation 4:11). 

Heaven is the place where all of the exceeding great and precious promises of God in the Old and New Testaments will be fulfilled in ways we cannot presently conceive of or imagine (2 Peter 1:2-4); where all who hungered and thirsted for right relationship with God will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6); where all who longed in their hearts for Him as the object of their deepest love and source of their greatest joy (Matthew 5:8) will see Him face to face.  It is in Heaven we will finally see and experience the fullness of God’s glory, the infinite perfections of His being displayed in and through the person of Jesus Christ, for the eternal joy, pleasure and satisfaction of His people in Him – His people being those whose greatest desire in this world was to be with Him in the next (Psalm 23:6) (Psalm 27:4).

Where is Heaven?  Heaven like Hell is a very real place.  It is the most real place where “a great multitude, which no man can number” (Revelation 7:9), from throughout human history presently reside.  It is presently located in the spiritual realm, the eternal dimension which we are unable to see or experience through our five senses at this time (2 Corinthians 4:18).  It is a mode of existence in which God has existed throughout eternity in all of His glory (John 4: 24).   It is the dimension from which all that does exist in the material/created dimension originated or is derived, and it is the dimension in which we will exist when our immortal spirit leaves our physical bodies at death, either being welcomed into Heaven or consigned to Hell.

The location of Heaven as described in the Bible is always up (John 17:1), indicating not necessarily a geographical location, but a higher mode of existence in which God has existed throughout eternity in all of His glory.  Thus, it is a place of preeminence over all of the created universe – transcending the glory of our present world in wonder and beauty.  Even though God inhabits all of the universe, scripture always speaks of God looking down, or coming down from Heaven, as he superintends and brings to pass His plans and purposes throughout the universe and in our lives (Psalm 14:2) (Psalm 102:18-20), and from which he extends His blessings (James 1:17). Heaven is the place to which the Lord Jesus ascended in Acts 1:9-11, and the place from which He will descend when He comes back to earth to put an end to the sin and madness of this world and to establish His eternal Kingdom (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

In the present Heaven, men and women exist in what is referred to as the “intermediary state”.  We have some sense of what that state is like, as well as the present activities of those in Heaven in Revelation, Chapters 4, 5, 7, and 19.  The book of Revelation is written using much imagery and symbolism, (what is referred to as apocalyptic literature) so it is uncertain what is an exact representation of those activities and what symbolically points to realities far greater than we can imagine.  We do know that those presently in Heaven are anxiously awaiting Jesus second coming in judgement  of those who opposed His rule and persecuted His people (Revelation 6:9-11), at which time the present Heaven and all who are there will be joined, incorporated with the physical/material dimension in what is described as the new heavens (universe) and new earth that Jesus will establish at His second coming, and over which we will rule with Him forever in new and glorified physical bodies which will never again know death. (Revelation 3:21) (Revelation 21:1-10)  (Philippians 3:20-21).

Grace and Peace ×