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Is Heaven a Real Place Right Now? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Today's episode is a little bit longer than normal because
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  Speaker 1: it is a special episode, a celebration. But before we
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  Speaker 1: get to the celebration, we begin with today's question from
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  Speaker 1: an anonymous listener who is putting together a few texts
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  Speaker 1: that we will be reading together in the next week ahead.
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  Speaker 1: In our Bible reading. Here's the question, Hello, Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: In Acts chapter seven, verses forty four to fifty, we
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  Speaker 1: read that the most High does not dwell in houses
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  Speaker 1: made by hands, as the prophet says, Heaven is my throne,
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  Speaker 1: and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house
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  Speaker 1: will you build for me, says the Lord? Or what
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  Speaker 1: is the place of my rest? So it appears that
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  Speaker 1: God has a dwelling one that he made. He's not
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  Speaker 1: confined to human built tents and temples. And Jesus calls
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  Speaker 1: heaven the throne of God in Matthew five thirty four,
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  Speaker 1: and Stephen, during his stoning gazed into heaven and saw
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  Speaker 1: the glory of God in Jesus standing at the right
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  Speaker 1: hand of God. That account is in Acts seven, fifty
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  Speaker 1: four to sixty. So it seems like God has a
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  Speaker 1: dwelling place, a place where the resurrected Christ now doe
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  Speaker 1: if the incarnate Christ is there, I assume as a
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  Speaker 1: physical place. Do you agree is heaven a real place
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  Speaker 1: right now? Where is it inside or outside of our
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  Speaker 1: known creation? And is this our eternal home? Is this
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  Speaker 1: what descends on earth as the new Jerusalem? What do
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  Speaker 1: you know about heaven as it exists right now?
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  Speaker 2: My counsel, for all of us, as we ponder what
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  Speaker 2: it means that God is in heaven, that there is
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  Speaker 2: in Christ with his resurrection body is in heaven, that
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  Speaker 2: we will die and go to Heaven, that Heaven will
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  Speaker 2: be part of the new heavens and the new Earth
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  Speaker 2: at the end of the age. My council, as we
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  Speaker 2: ponder all of these, is let us put the primary
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  Speaker 2: emphasis on the relational dimension of heaven, not the spatial
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  Speaker 2: dimension of heaven. I'll try to defend that in just
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  Speaker 2: a minute. I don't mean that we put no emphasis
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  Speaker 2: on the spatial, material creational dimension of heaven, but that
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  Speaker 2: it be secondary, or to say it another way, I
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  Speaker 2: think the Bible encourages us to focus on our being
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  Speaker 2: with Christ with God as the main blessing of heaven,
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  Speaker 2: and that the fact that we will eventually have resurrection
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  Speaker 2: bodies in a new creation is a glorious but a
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  Speaker 2: secondary reality. Now that may be a controversial statement. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know. I think it's right with Christ is primary,
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  Speaker 2: glorious new resurrection, body in a new creation secondary. If
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  Speaker 2: we don't have this priority, it will be as though
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  Speaker 2: we were admitted to the king's dwelling, and we were
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  Speaker 2: more amazed at his house than at his own wisdom
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  Speaker 2: and power and beauty, his own personal presence, which I
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  Speaker 2: think would be offensive to the king. Here are a
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  Speaker 2: couple of reasons why I say that. First, God himself
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  Speaker 2: is spirit and is not material John four twenty four.
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  Speaker 2: God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship
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  Speaker 2: him in spirit and truth. And Jesus said, a spirit
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  Speaker 2: does not have less in bones as you see that
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  Speaker 2: I have. Therefore, God has no spatial dimensions. Therefore, when
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  Speaker 2: the Bible speaks of God being in a place, it
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  Speaker 2: is referring to his special influence in that place, or
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  Speaker 2: his special personal relational presence in that place. It's not spatial.
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  Speaker 2: I think you can sum up the reality of the
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  Speaker 2: presence of God, like, what does the presence of God mean?
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  Speaker 2: In three ways? One, he is in every place because
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  Speaker 2: he has no limits, and he is in no place,
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  Speaker 2: no spatial location in the sense that a spirit occupies
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  Speaker 2: no dimensional space. And third, he is in specific places
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  Speaker 2: and persons in the sense of exerting influence or showing
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  Speaker 2: a personal relationship. So to speak of heaven as the
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  Speaker 2: dwelling of God is not a spatial statement. It is
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  Speaker 2: a way of saying that God is above, outside his creation.
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  Speaker 2: So Solomon prays in First Kings eight twenty seven, Behold heaven,
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  Speaker 2: and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less
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  Speaker 2: this house that I have built. In other words, go
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  Speaker 2: up through the heavens. And when you get to the
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  Speaker 2: highest heaven, God's not there. That's not his house, that's
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  Speaker 2: not where he lives. He's beyond. He's outside his creation.
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  Speaker 2: God will not be there in a limited way. He
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  Speaker 2: is above and outside what he made, and there are
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  Speaker 2: no spatial categories outside of the material creation. God is
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  Speaker 2: spirit and therefore does not spatially inhabit space and time.
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  Speaker 2: He is before space, he's before time. Titus one two says,
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  Speaker 2: before the ages began, that's where God was, And therefore
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  Speaker 2: he is outside space and time. He's not housed in
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  Speaker 2: the highest Heaven that's my first observation for why I
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  Speaker 2: say we should be slow to speak of heaven as
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  Speaker 2: a spatial place for God to be. So here's the
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  Speaker 2: second reason that I think we should emphasize the relational
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  Speaker 2: reality of heaven above the spatial reality. Even though Jesus
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  Speaker 2: today has a resurrection body and he could eat fish
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  Speaker 2: in that body Luke twenty four, forty two, at least
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  Speaker 2: the biblical facts keep us from being simplistic or naive
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  Speaker 2: about speaking of his location in primarily spatial terms today. First,
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  Speaker 2: Christ today is seated at the right hand of God
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  Speaker 2: Colossians three to one. If then you have been raised
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  Speaker 2: with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ
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  Speaker 2: is seated at the right hand of God. But God
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  Speaker 2: has no body. He has no physical hands, neither a
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  Speaker 2: right or left. He's not material, not spatial. So for
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  Speaker 2: Christ to be at his right hand is to be
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  Speaker 2: in a relationship to Him that is kingly authoritative, but
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  Speaker 2: not spatial in any ordinary way that we can fit
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  Speaker 2: into our categories. That's first second observation. The resurrection body
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  Speaker 2: that Jesus has is like and yet unlike our bodies.
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  Speaker 2: His friends could recognize Jesus after he rose from the dead,
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  Speaker 2: they could touch him, he could eat, but he also
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  Speaker 2: appeared and disappeared in strange ways, unlike our bodies. Now,
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  Speaker 2: that strange fact, together with the fact that he is
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  Speaker 2: at the right hand of God, should alert us to
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  Speaker 2: the fact that the spatial realm he inhabits that is
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  Speaker 2: suited to his peculiar kind of physical body, is not
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  Speaker 2: like ours. That spatial realm is no ordinary space as
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  Speaker 2: we know it. That's the second observation. Here's a third
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  Speaker 2: biblical fact to keep us from being too simplistic about
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  Speaker 2: speaking of Christ's location in primarily spatial terms, for us
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  Speaker 2: to be there, to be in heaven now or after
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  Speaker 2: we die or in the coming age. That reality of
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  Speaker 2: being in in heaven the New Testament describes mainly in
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  Speaker 2: relational terms, not spatial terms. Colossians three three. You have died,
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  Speaker 2: and your life is hidden with Christ in God as
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  Speaker 2: now Philippines one twenty three. My desire is to depart
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  Speaker 2: and be with Christ.
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  Speaker 1: That's death.
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  Speaker 2: That's far better, he says. Second Printians five eight. We
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  Speaker 2: should rather be away from the body and at home
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  Speaker 2: with the Lord. John seventeen twenty four. Father, I desire
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  Speaker 2: that they also whom you have given me, may be
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  Speaker 2: with me where I am to see my glory. And lastly,
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  Speaker 2: first Thessalonians four seventeen, Second Coming, then we who are alive,
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  Speaker 2: who are left, will be caught up together with them
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  Speaker 2: in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
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  Speaker 2: And so we will always be with the Lord, with Christ,
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  Speaker 2: with Christ, with the Lord, with me with the Lord.
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  Speaker 2: That's the emphasis of the New Testament. It's not wrong
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  Speaker 2: to think of heaven today as a place where Christ
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  Speaker 2: sits in supreme authority over creation. As long as we
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  Speaker 2: realize that the spatial reality of this place defies limitation
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  Speaker 2: to the ordinary categories of this present creation, it just
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  Speaker 2: won't fit the world that we now know. Heaven will
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  Speaker 2: have familiar aspects, but vastly new, mind blowing aspects. And
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  Speaker 2: we do well not to focus on what we don't know,
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  Speaker 2: but to rivet our attention, our main attention, on the
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  Speaker 2: one we do know, and be so familiar with him,
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  Speaker 2: get to know him so deeply, go down into such
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  Speaker 2: depths of love for him that to be with him
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  Speaker 2: when we die and forever will make all spatial realities
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  Speaker 2: precious but secondary.
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  Speaker 1: Hey man, that is a beautiful meditation on Heaven's focus,
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  Speaker 1: relational focus in Christ, Pastor John. And before we leave
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  Speaker 1: this episode and leave this week behind, I have to
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  Speaker 1: say that on Saturday, you turn seventy nine years old.
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  Speaker 1: Happy birthday to you from all of us. Thank you. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we love and appreciate you greatly. Pastor John. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: for your investment in this podcast and your investment in
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  Speaker 1: so many lives around the world through your ministry.
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  Speaker 2: My pleasure. I've been thinking about it a lot these days.
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  Speaker 2: I read a book recently by Richard Balcom called The
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  Speaker 2: Blurred Cross. He's exactly my age. He's a New Testament
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  Speaker 2: British scholar. And my biggest takeaway, well, maybe my second biggest.
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  Speaker 2: My biggest takeaway was that get old is a glorious
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  Speaker 2: opportunity for growing gratitude. That's the theme of the book, really,
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  Speaker 2: and I said, amen, Amen. The longer I live, the
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  Speaker 2: more grateful field toward God and so many other people.
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  Speaker 2: But the second biggest impact was his wrestling with why
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  Speaker 2: it is that those of us who are old don't
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  Speaker 2: feel old?
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  Speaker 1: Huh.
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  Speaker 2: He said, it's almost a universal experience that when you
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  Speaker 2: talk to seventy eighty somethings about how old they are,
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  Speaker 2: they say, yeah, yeah, I am. I feel it, but
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  Speaker 2: I don't feel it the way you think.
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  Speaker 1: I feel it. Yeah, And I.
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  Speaker 2: Said yeah, yeah. And he said he discovered an explanation.
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  Speaker 2: That's the best thing he had seen. And I would say,
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  Speaker 2: now so far is the best thing I've seen. To
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  Speaker 2: give an account for why that is, he said, I
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  Speaker 2: don't think we should think of our lives as a circle,
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  Speaker 2: he said, emerging out of nothing and returning to nothing.
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  Speaker 2: And I don't think we'd think of our aging lives
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  Speaker 2: as a straight line where you're continuously just leaving the
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  Speaker 2: past behind and moving on to something new. Here's what
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  Speaker 2: he said. And this is a quote now, and this
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  Speaker 2: is a quote, by the way, from Michael Maine. So
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  Speaker 2: I'm getting it third hand, not just second hand. I
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  Speaker 2: can see my life as a slowly ascending spiral, So
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  Speaker 2: not straight line, not circle, but spiral. For a spiral
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  Speaker 2: suggests a life where each new circle, each new year
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  Speaker 2: or decade, still contains within it the makeup of the old,
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  Speaker 2: the feeling of familiarity. The octogenarian still aware of what
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  Speaker 2: it felt like to be a child, the lover the
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  Speaker 2: parent he or she once was, and still displaying the
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  Speaker 2: same recognizable characteristics, but wiser, now shaped by life's knocks,
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  Speaker 2: able to say I've been there before, and I'm learn
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  Speaker 2: a thing or two. Looking back, we can begin to
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  Speaker 2: understand our own unique story and see that we have
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  Speaker 2: been moving in a spiral around a center. Now, when
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  Speaker 2: I read that, I thought that helps. That really helps,
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  Speaker 2: because as I stand here before this microphone, my fourteen
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  Speaker 2: year old experience of shin splints is just like yes,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I feel those shin splints today and what
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  Speaker 2: they kept me from doing for a few weeks. My
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  Speaker 2: college excitement when I headed off to college, that's all
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  Speaker 2: right here in my heart right now. My twenty two
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  Speaker 2: year old night before I married Noel. I remember that
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  Speaker 2: night in the motel just yesterday and how utterly exciting
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  Speaker 2: it was. And my first job at twenty eight, Oh,
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  Speaker 2: the excitement of walking into that classroom and leaving teaching
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  Speaker 2: at thirty four. And I could just go on, and
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  Speaker 2: all these these moments in my life have not been
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  Speaker 2: left behind. All those feelings are there. So I think
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  Speaker 2: that's partly why I don't feel old. I've got all
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  Speaker 2: that stuff, all that glorious reality of experience with God
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  Speaker 2: with people still inside of me, forming me spiral like
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  Speaker 2: who I am and there's and then I love that
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  Speaker 2: reference to the center. My life has been spiraling around
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  Speaker 2: since I was six years old, the center of God's
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  Speaker 2: grace in Christ. And every new day the reservoir of
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  Speaker 2: past grace gets bigger, and so Thanksgiving gets deeper, and
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  Speaker 2: every new day the promises are more sure, more intense,
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  Speaker 2: more precious to think about. So I'm excited to get old.
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  Speaker 2: Tony's a great thing to grow, Oh, toward Heaven, Grow
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  Speaker 2: toward Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: That's a wonderful May the Lord grant you many more
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  Speaker 1: new memories and many more years of health, which would
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  Speaker 1: be fruitful labor for you and a gift to us
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  Speaker 1: and serving for our progress and joy in the faith.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, May God do it. We actually launched our
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  Speaker 1: first episode of APJA on your birthday in twenty thirteen.
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  Speaker 1: I ran the numbers. As of Saturday, you will have
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  Speaker 1: been doing APGA for fifteen percent of your life.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you tell me that thirteen years.
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  Speaker 1: I believe twenty. That's exactly twenty five percent of my
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  Speaker 1: life exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, that's even more amazing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the questions keep coming, So God of Methuselah, give
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  Speaker 1: Pastor John more years? Do we pray? Not that many years?
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  Speaker 2: Nine hundred and sixty nine something like, Thanks.
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  Speaker 1: Pastor John, thank you for listening to this extra long
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  Speaker 1: birthday episode. If you have a question to ask the
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  Speaker 1: still young at heart seventy nine year old Pastor John,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: find a link to email us and find our complete
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  Speaker 1: episode archive at askpastor John dot com. Every episode with
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: audio and full transcripts available for you. Twenty four seven
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  Speaker 1: three sixty five. Will athists claim they don't believe in God?
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  Speaker 1: But does God believe in atheists? That's a great question.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tonyo REGGI will see on Monday for that