Audio Transcript
At the moment’s episode is a bit longer than regular as a result of it’s a particular episode — a celebration. However earlier than we get to that, we start with at this time’s query from an nameless listener who’s placing collectively just a few texts that we’ll be studying collectively within the subsequent week forward in our Bible reading. Right here’s the query:
“Howdy, Pastor John! In Acts 7:44–50, we learn that ‘the Most Excessive doesn’t dwell in homes made by fingers, because the prophet says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What sort of home will you construct for me, says the Lord, or what’s the place of my relaxation?”’ So, it seems that God has a dwelling, one which he made. He’s not confined to human-built tents and temples. And Jesus calls heaven ‘the throne of God’ in Matthew 5:34. And Stephen, throughout his stoning, ‘gazed into heaven and noticed the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the proper hand of God.’ That account is in Acts 7:54–60.
“So, it looks as if God has a dwelling place, a spot the place the resurrected Christ now dwells. If the incarnate Christ is there, I assume it’s a bodily place. Do you agree? Is heaven an actual place proper now? The place is it — inside or outdoors of our identified creation? Is that this our everlasting residence? Is that this what descends on earth as the brand new Jerusalem? What are you aware about heaven because it exists proper now?”
That’s an enormous one. Oh my goodness. What do I do know?
My counsel for all of us as we ponder what it signifies that God is in heaven, that the risen Christ together with his resurrection physique is in heaven, that we’ll die and go to heaven, that heaven can be a part of the brand new heavens and the brand new earth on the finish of the age — my counsel, as we ponder all of those, is to allow us to put the first emphasis on the relational dimension of heaven, not the spatial dimension of heaven. And I’ll attempt to defend that in only a minute. I don’t imply that we put no emphasis on the spatial, materials, creational dimension of heaven, however that it’s secondary.
Or to say it one other manner, I believe the Bible encourages us to give attention to our being with Christ — with God — as the primary blessing of heaven. And the truth that we’ll finally have resurrection our bodies in a brand new creation is a wonderful however a secondary actuality. Now, which may be a controversial assertion. I don’t know. I believe it’s proper. With Christ is major; a wonderful new resurrection physique, in a brand new creation, is secondary. If we don’t have this precedence, it is going to be as if we have been admitted to the king’s dwelling, and we have been extra amazed at his home than at his personal knowledge and energy and ethical magnificence, his personal private presence, which I believe could be offensive to the king.
God Is Spirit
Listed below are a few explanation why I say that. First, God himself is spirit and isn’t materials. John 4:24: “God is spirit, and those that worship him should worship in spirit and fact.” And Jesus stated, “A spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones as you see that I’ve” (Luke 24:39). Due to this fact, God has no spatial dimensions. Due to this fact, when the Bible speaks of God being in a spot, it’s referring to his particular affect in that place or his particular, private, relational presence in that place. It’s not spatial.
I believe you possibly can sum up the fact of the presence of God — what does the presence of God imply? — in 3 ways. One, he’s in each place as a result of he has no limits. And he’s in no place, no spatial location, within the sense {that a} spirit occupies no dimensional area. And third, he’s in particular locations and individuals within the sense of exerting affect or exhibiting a private relationship.
So, to talk of heaven because the dwelling of God just isn’t a spatial assertion. It’s a manner of claiming that God is above, outdoors his creation. So, Solomon prays in 1 Kings 8:27, “Behold, heaven and the best heaven can not comprise you; how a lot much less this home that I’ve constructed!” In different phrases, go up by way of the heavens, and once you get to the best heaven, God’s not there. That’s not his home. That’s not the place he lives. He’s past. He’s outdoors his creation. God is not going to be there in a restricted manner.
He’s above and out of doors what he made. And there are not any spatial classes outdoors the fabric creation. God is spirit and, subsequently, doesn’t spatially inhabit area and time. He’s earlier than area. He’s earlier than time. Titus 1:2 says, “Earlier than the ages started” — that’s the place God was. And, subsequently, he’s outdoors area and time. He’s not housed within the highest heaven. That’s my first statement for why I say we must be sluggish to talk of heaven as a spatial place for God to be.
Christ’s Physique Is Like and Not like Ours
Right here’s a second cause that I believe we should always emphasize the relational actuality of heaven above the spatial actuality. Although Jesus at this time has a resurrection physique, and he may eat fish in that physique (Luke 24:42), not less than three biblical information hold us from being simplistic or naive about talking of his location in primarily spatial phrases at this time.
First, Christ at this time is seated on the proper hand of God. Colossians 3:1: “If then you could have been raised with Christ, search the issues which might be above, the place Christ is, seated on the proper hand of God.” However God has no physique. He has no bodily fingers, neither a proper nor a left. He’s not materials, not spatial. So, for Christ to be at his proper hand is to be in a relationship to him that’s kingly, authoritative, however not spatial in any odd manner that we are able to match into our classes. That’s first.
“The Bible encourages us to give attention to our being with Christ — with God — as the primary blessing of heaven.”
Second statement: the resurrection physique that Jesus has is like and but in contrast to our our bodies. His mates may acknowledge Jesus after he rose from the useless. They might contact him. He may eat, however he additionally appeared and disappeared in unusual methods, in contrast to our our bodies. Now, that unusual truth, along with the truth that he’s on the proper hand of God, ought to alert us to the truth that the spatial realm he inhabits, which is suited to his peculiar sort of bodily physique, just isn’t like ours. That spatial realm is not any odd area as we all know it. That’s the second statement.
Right here’s a 3rd biblical truth to maintain us from being too simplistic about talking of Christ’s location in primarily spatial phrases. For us to be there, to be in heaven now or after we die or within the coming age — that actuality of being in heaven, the New Testomony describes primarily in relational phrases, not spatial phrases.
- Colossians 3:3: “You’ve got died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” That’s now.
- Philippians 1:23: “My want is to depart and be with Christ.” That’s dying. That’s much better, he says.
- 2 Corinthians 5:8: “We’d reasonably be away from the physique and at residence with the Lord.”
- John 17:24: “Father, I want that additionally they, whom you could have given me, could also be with me the place I’m, to see my glory.”
- Lastly, 1 Thessalonians 4:17, concerning the second coming: “Then we who’re alive, who’re left, can be caught up along with them within the clouds to satisfy the Lord within the air, and so we’ll all the time be with the Lord.”
“With Christ,” “with Christ,” “with the Lord,” “with me,” “with the Lord” — that’s the emphasis of the New Testomony. It’s not mistaken to think about heaven at this time as a spot the place Christ sits in supreme authority over creation, so long as we notice that the spatial actuality of this place defies limitation to the odd classes of this current creation. It simply received’t match the world that we now know. Heaven could have acquainted facets however vastly new, mind-blowing facets. And we’d do properly to not give attention to what we don’t know, however to rivet our consideration, our primary consideration, on the One we do know and be so conversant in him, get to know him so deeply, go down into such depths of affection for him that to be with him after we die — and without end — will make all spatial realities valuable however secondary.
Getting old with Gratitude
That could be a lovely meditation on heaven’s relational give attention to Christ, Pastor John. However earlier than we depart this episode and depart this week, I’ve to say that on Saturday you flip 79 years previous. Completely happy birthday from all of us. We love and respect you vastly.
Wow, thanks.
And we thank God for a way you could have impacted so many lives around the globe.
My pleasure. I’ve been enthusiastic about it quite a bit as of late. I learn a e-book just lately by Richard Bauckham referred to as The Blurred Cross. He’s precisely my age. He’s a New Testomony British scholar. And possibly my largest takeaway was that getting previous is a wonderful alternative for rising gratitude. That’s the theme of the e-book, actually. And I stated, “Amen. Amen.” The longer I stay, the extra grateful I really feel towards God and so many different folks.
However the second-biggest influence was his wrestling with why it’s that these of us who’re previous don’t really feel previous. He stated it’s virtually a common expertise that once you discuss to seventy-somethings and eighty-somethings about how previous they’re, they are saying, “Yeah, yeah, I’m. I really feel it, however I don’t really feel it the best way you assume I really feel it.” And I stated, “Yeah, yeah.” And he stated he found an evidence that’s the most effective factor he had seen. And I might say now, thus far, it’s the most effective factor I’ve seen to present an account for why that’s. He stated, “I don’t assume we should always consider our lives as a circle, rising out of nothing and returning to nothing. And I don’t assume we should always consider our growing old lives as a straight line the place you’re repeatedly simply leaving the previous behind and shifting on to one thing new.”
Right here’s what he stated, and it is a quote now. And it is a quote, by the best way, from Michael Mayne (so I’m getting it third-hand, not simply second-hand).
I can . . . see my life as a slowly ascending spiral [so not a straight line, not a circle, but a spiral]. For a spiral suggests a life the place every new circle — every new 12 months or decade — nonetheless accommodates inside it the make-up of the previous, the sensation of familiarity, the octogenarian nonetheless conscious of what it felt wish to be a toddler, the lover, the guardian she or he as soon as was, and nonetheless displaying the identical recognizable traits, however wiser now, formed by life’s knocks, in a position to say, “I’ve been right here earlier than and realized a factor or two.” Trying again, we are able to start to know our personal distinctive story and see that we now have been shifting in a spiral round a middle. (10–11)
Now, once I learn that, I believed, “That helps.” That basically helps. As a result of as I stand right here earlier than this microphone, my 14-year-old expertise of shin splints — it’s identical to yesterday. I really feel these shin splints at this time and what they stored me from doing for just a few weeks. My faculty pleasure once I headed off to varsity — that’s all proper right here in my coronary heart proper now. My 22-year-old night time earlier than I married Noël, I keep in mind that night time within the motel simply yesterday and the way totally thrilling it was. And my first job at 28, all the joy of strolling into that classroom. And leaving educating at 34. And I may simply go on and on.
These moments in my life haven’t been left behind. All these emotions are there. So, I believe that’s partly why I don’t really feel previous. I’ve acquired all that stuff, all that superb actuality of expertise with God, with folks nonetheless within me — forming me, spiral-like, who I’m. And I like that reference to the middle. My life has been spiraling round (since I used to be six years previous) the middle of God’s grace in Christ. And each new day, the reservoir of previous grace will get larger, and so thanksgiving will get deeper, and each new day the guarantees are extra certain, extra intense, extra valuable to consider. So, I’m excited to get previous, Tony. It’s an incredible factor to develop towards heaven and develop towards Jesus.
