I'm curious about a modern Christian's take on this. As we all know, for most of Christianity's history, Christians believed Heaven was a physical place above us, and Hell was a physical place below us. They believed in something called the firmament which held Heaven up. The firmament was like a giant building, and the entire universe consisted of Hell - basement, Earth - floor 1, Heaven - floor 2, and the stars were a purposeless fixed background.
Then people actually went up there in hot air balloons, and then planes and spacecraft, so we have all stopped believing in physical, actual beings that hang out on the topside of clouds. Most Christians I have talked to about this actually seem to get offended at the very suggestion they might believe Heaven is a real, physical place a few miles up, as the ancient Christians did. "I don't believe in a bearded man in the sky, modern Christianity is more sophisticated" and all that.
But you do believe in a real, physical Heaven that you can actually go to, correct? So where is it if it's not in Earth's sky? Is it on another planet in another galaxy somewhere? Or is it somewhere more vague and less substantial like another dimension? Or maybe you believe it's not a physical place at all, and going there is like when you dream at night?
I'm honestly wanting to know. If you believe in a place called Heaven, where is it?
Hi Bactherscythe, I believe your view of the historical heaven is just a little bit outside.
Did Christians believe heaven was a physical place or a spiritual place?
Did Christians believe Hades and Gehenna were physical places or spiritual places?
The Bible presents three heavens. The first heaven is the earth's atmosphere, where birds fly and clouds drift. The second heaven is space, where the sun, moon and stars hang out. And the third heaven is the kingdom of God, a spiritual place.
Does a spiritual place have a location, like an underground abyss or a cloud city? Nope
It can be within us, as our human spirit is within us, or it can be outside the bounds of matter, energy and time, our universe. It can be everywhere at once like God, for God is spirit.
I'm curious about a modern Christian's take on this. As we all know, for most of Christianity's history, Christians believed Heaven was a physical place above us, and Hell was a physical place below us. They believed in something called the firmament which held Heaven up. The firmament was like a giant building, and the entire universe consisted of Hell - basement, Earth - floor 1, Heaven - floor 2, and the stars were a purposeless fixed background.
Well, yes and no.
There often has been a tendency to revert to that thinking, but even Second Temple (ie 1st Century) Judaism didn't think that way. They thought of heaven and earth as separate, overlapping 'dimensions' (for lack of a better word). 'Earth' is our space, 'heaven' is God's space, and at times and places those intersect - e.g. when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year he was understood to actually be standing in heaven.
Of course things got a bit confused during the medieval period.
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I'm honestly wanting to know. If you believe in a place called Heaven, where is it?
Roughly speaking, I believe Heaven is in another dimension. It's not a "physical" place, in that it doesn't exist in our physical universe. It's outside of time and space, beyond eternity, and all that jazz.
From the testimoney of people who have died and been bought back to life (Near Death Experiences) some of them saw a planet much like earth. Heaven is very similar to earth, and why would not it be, it has to accomidate people. Heaven also has a spiritual dimension, but so to does earth. People are designed to be filled with Gods spirit. In heaven the whole atmosphere is permiated with Gods spirit, much more than here on earth (from what people who have been to heaven say, who have had visions of heaven). Heaven then is a planet where God resides, where we are closer to him physically.
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It's in the clouds.
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Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
The kingdom of heaven, that is the residents and subjects of heaven, are among us today. In other words people, born again believers, are residents of heaven.
The current location of heaven is another dimension, or plane of existences. The place where God dwells, His Holy temple is not of this physical world. You won't find it no matter how far "up" you go in a physical sense.
After Christ returns heaven and earth will be recreated and God will dwell with us on the new earth.
I'm curious about a modern Christian's take on this. As we all know, for most of Christianity's history, Christians believed Heaven was a physical place above us, and Hell was a physical place below us. They believed in something called the firmament which held Heaven up. The firmament was like a giant building, and the entire universe consisted of Hell - basement, Earth - floor 1, Heaven - floor 2, and the stars were a purposeless fixed background.
Then people actually went up there in hot air balloons, and then planes and spacecraft, so we have all stopped believing in physical, actual beings that hang out on the topside of clouds. Most Christians I have talked to about this actually seem to get offended at the very suggestion they might believe Heaven is a real, physical place a few miles up, as the ancient Christians did. "I don't believe in a bearded man in the sky, modern Christianity is more sophisticated" and all that.
But you do believe in a real, physical Heaven that you can actually go to, correct? So where is it if it's not in Earth's sky? Is it on another planet in another galaxy somewhere? Or is it somewhere more vague and less substantial like another dimension? Or maybe you believe it's not a physical place at all, and going there is like when you dream at night?
I'm honestly wanting to know. If you believe in a place called Heaven, where is it?
Old Christianity was more sophisticated then that.
That is just silly popular culture that depicts such things.
Heaven is metaphorically "up there" beyond the stars...
Hell is metaphorically "down there" beneath even the earth.
You are making judgment calls which are incorrect about what people "believed then" and believe now. The history of Christianity says something else entirely.
All of the heavens and earth are part of creation. God is outside of creation entirely, yet fills all of it.
Creation is full of the metaphoric. One has to see that first, then they can see God as the Writer. Finally, they can find themselves as free participants with the Writer.
As has been pointed out, there are three different heavens in the Bible. The first heaven would be the sky, the atmosphere, in which the birds fly: "fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven" (Genesis 1:20). The second heaven would be outer space, where the stars reside: "lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven" (Deuteronomy 4:19). Where God resides is called "the third heaven" (2 Corinthians 12:2, cf. Revelation 4:1-2), and so it would be beyond outer space, outside of the universe altogether.
The third heaven is a physical place because Jesus ascended there in his physical, resurrection body (Acts 1:11, Luke 24:39), and Paul the apostle said that he could have visited the third heaven in his physical body (2 Corinthians 12:2).
In the third heaven, there is currently a literal city 1500 miles cubed (Revelation 21:16) called New Jerusalem. In the future, God will create a new earth and a new atmosphere (a new first heaven) and will descend from the third heaven to the new earth in New Jerusalem to live with humans forever on the new earth: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God" (Revelation 21:1-3).
It is New Jerusalem which has the "pearly gates" and "streets of gold" (Revelation 21:21) that people ascribe to heaven. So what people think of as heaven, in the sense of living forever in bliss with God, will eventually be on the new earth.
20And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
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