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Where is heaven?

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Eric B

Active Member
Site Supporter
The references are spatial because that is the language we can understand. Just like God being described anthropomorphically (hands, ears, etc). If you insist that God's realm ("Heaven") can be literally "gone to" through space, then we could draw a line from here to it, and it must be out there in the universe somewhere; perhaps on another planet.
Sounds like Mormon teaching to me. But then you earlier said:
Heaven is at the center of God's physical universe. The universe itself is revolving around "heaven" and that is where God's throne is physically located. It is where the Temple is and it is where the angels physically stand and serve before Him continually.
Click to expand...
You need to explain this. 1 Kings says the "heavens" (meaning physical space), cannot contain Him. Now I was not aware of SDA's teaching anything as far out as God living on another planet or anything like that! :eek:
 
BobRyan

BobRyan

Well-Known Member
The fact is - that the counter argument against the John 14 language being "real" has been just as "understood"! If it were true that we can only use spatial language to describe the fact that Christ left - because we have no other language - then there would never be an argument framed against the spatial time and space "locality" language used in the text.

And yet we "see such opposing language" used on this very thread! The argument that our LANGUAGE does not support any other concept is totally bogus.

Further more - the NT authors were WELL able to state that "The Kingdom of God is within you" and all the other "abide in ME and My words abide IN you" references when the concept of "some other PLACE" is not applicable.

Admitting to and fully agreeing with the spatial language in John 14 is not an "SDA concept" though it is interesting that you would try to recast it that way.

Admitting to the fact that "other challenges to that spatial reference are available for framing in our language" is also "just the painfully obvious". So the bogus idea that our language does not allow any other statement fails at birth.

When God meets Adam and Eve in the Gardern - it is a spatial reference.

When God walks up to Abraham and meets him along with 2 angels it is a spatial reference.

When God meets with Moses in the burning bush and tells him to take off his shoes "For the PLACE you are standing is holy ground" it is a clear obvious (painfully obvious to those trying to avoid it - I suppose) spatial reference.

When God thunders from Sinai and appears to Moses on the top if Sinai it is LOADED with spatial references.

When God appears in the Most Holy Place and warns all but the high priest from entering - it is a spatial reference.

IT is hard to believe the blinders-on approach of those who want to "blame all of the Bible on SDAs" as if we wrote the language of scripture that so inconveniences the traditions of others.

Next.
 
E

Eric B

Active Member
Site Supporter
Once again, you are not even dealing with 1 Kings 8:27. You are taking other scriptures and setting them up against this, creating a contradiction.
All of those appearances on earth were manifestations. And after all of them, we are still told by God that no man has ever seen Him. Do you really think that God actually looks like those descriptions? Then how could He ask elsewhere "To what shall you liken me?" If they could well describe Him from those appearances?
What I said about the SDA was that I did not know they believed God was located in physical space. (In other words, is that what the Church teaches, or is it just your own peculiar theory?) Once again, it clearly contradicts the Bible. But if you still insist, then which direction in the sky is He located? Perhaps give a constellation or something.
 
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Petrel

New Member
I'm going to be pretty annoyed if I go to heaven and then one day a pack of astronauts fly in in their nifty spaceship to see if heaven's been overadvertised.

I have a hard time imagining what heaven might be like because I don't think of it as a physical place. I think more about the new earth. I think that should involve building up the arts and sciences from scratch with the added perk that we'll be able to be totally nonpolluting.
 
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Jim1999

<img src =/Jim1999.jpg>
The scripture is often speaking of things beyond our sphere in terms we understand. We are limited by time and space; God is not. Hence we have the hand of God, the finger of God, the breath of God, etc.

This is also the reason I chose my expression that "heaven was just beyond our outstretched finger tips." It is another dimension untouched and not felt by human perceptions. God being a most precious commodity, so the scripture speaks of roads paved with gold. In reality, I expect far more than gold when I get there, but my mind can't comprehend just what that will be. Another expression I once used was that there would be "no need for plumbers in heaven..." The foulest discharge from the human body will bot exist..we will be changed from this fleshly body. Can I imagine what that change will be? No! I must use human terminology. Poetic licence is absolutely acceptable in this area.

In my early days, when people asked about heaven, I simply answers that I didn't know. What I did know was that Jesus will be there, and that is everything to me.

Cheers,

Jim
 
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Bob Dudley

New Member
Heaven is where my Savior sits waiting for me. And, if you squint just so and look down and to the left you can see my mom waiting there, also.
 
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