Thy will be done in which heaven ?

[Guojing]

Which Heaven ???

3rd heaven, where God is.

 

[fhansen]

Beats me...

Alright, so whichever heaven He’s talking about is one where there’s no sin; His will is always done there IOW.

 

[Carl Emerson]

3rd heaven, where God is.

Did this heaven pre-exist creation ?

 

[Neogaia777]

Did this heaven pre-exist creation ?

There is a realm that is truly eternal, and is possibly timeless, or that is without time possibly, etc, but then there is also another one, sometimes also called heaven, or a heaven(s), that was created along with this creation, and that is inexorably linked to our realm or this creation, and that has a beginning and ending along with this creation, and is not timeless, etc, but that is remade anew once it ends along with this realm/creation whenever it (or they both) ends and all begins again, etc, and this is always done by the highest heaven each time, which has never had a beginning or end, but has always been uncreated, etc...

God Bless!

 

[Carl Emerson]

There is a realm that is truly eternal, and is possibly timeless, or that is without time possibly, etc, but then there is also another one, sometimes also called heaven, or a heaven(s), that was created along with this creation, and that is inexorably linked to our realm or this creation, and that has a beginning and ending along with this creation, and is not timeless, etc, but that is remade anew once it ends along with this realm/creation whenever it (or they both) ends and all begins again, etc, and this is always done by the highest heaven each time, which has never had a beginning or end, but has always been uncreated, etc...

God Bless!

Yes... that is the realm that has always been perfect according to His perfect will.

and Yes... this heavenly realm pre-existed creation.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in this eternal realm.

 

[The Liturgist]

When we pray...

'Thy will be done on earth' is what we are to ask for...

...as it is in heaven !!!

Here is the question - which heaven is being referred to if His will is not being done there ???

The eternal heaven where He is preparing a place for us ???

The universe we see in the sky ???

The spiritual domain in which Satan has influence ???

It sounds like it must be effected by the fall.

It sounds like there is a spiritual battle going on there and our prayer will contribute to outcomes.

Your thoughts most welcome.

Forgive me but I don’t think you are parsing the verse correctly. I have always understood that petition to mean “May your will be done on Earth, to the same extent it is done in Heaven”, essentially an eschatological prayer in which we are asking God to save those of us who would be saved, and separate from us those who refuse His grace, the wheat from the chaff (with the implicit desire there should be as little chaff and as much wheat as possible, for as the Book of Common Prayer eloquently summarizes it, “God desireth not the death of a sinner”), so that those humans in the World to Come will do His will, just as it is presently done by the angels and the members of the Church Triumphant who are in Heaven, who are either awaiting the resurrection, or in a few cases, are present in bodily form.*

*For instance, the Holy Prophet St. Elias (Elijah), and our beloved Lady Theotokos, more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, all of whom were taken up bodily either while still alive, such as in the case of St. Elias, or shortly after their repose, as in the case of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The nature of life in Heaven and how it will compare with life after the Resurrection is a great mystery, but it is clear that those in Heaven are either Angels who sided with God decisively and permanently, vs. choosing to oppose him with Satan. Here on Earth, on the other hand, even though the devils are constrained in their actions, we humans can freely submit to their temptations, or indeed engage in evil acts on our own without a devil prodding us (the Fall of Adam and Eve seems an example of the former, and Cain’s fratricide of Abel seems an example of the latter), but in either case, we are not doing God’s will.

An Old Calendarist Eastern Orthodox priest once told me “We sin at the speed of thought,” which I think is an accurate observation, dismal, but accurate; concordantly the difference between how miserable things are now and how good they will be in the World to Come is amazing to consider just on the basis of God’s will being universally followed here on Earth, like it is in Heaven.

 

[Guojing]

Yes... that is the realm that has always been perfect according to His perfect will.

and Yes... this heavenly realm pre-existed creation.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in this eternal realm.

The Lord’s prayer is a promise to Israel and not to us.

You never wondered why Paul never even mentioned that prayer in his epistles to us?

 

[The Liturgist]

There are 3 heavens

The first heaven consists of the earth’s atmosphere, where the clouds float and birds fly.

The second heaven, is where the sun, moon, stars, and galaxies hang suspended.

The third heaven is the dwelling place of God.

so it would be the 3rd heaven, the dwelling place of God.

on earth as it is in heaven.

Revelation 21:3
King James Bible
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.

Can't wait! But guess will have to .... heaven on earth one day ;o)

I just want to let you know I greatly enjoy your posts. I am not sure I agree with this one, but I would love to discuss it with you more. In fact we really should get to know each other better, because you consistently post interesting things, but I don’t know much about you and I suspect the reverse is true, and I am on a quest to befriend everyone on the forum who is open to the idea, most especially members like you who have interesting ideas.

 

[The Liturgist]

The Lord’s prayer is a promise to Israel and not to us.

You never wondered why Paul never even mentioned that prayer in his epistles to us?

I have to disagree completely with this. The prayer was described by our Lord as an instruction on how to pray, and the first century Greek language books of church order, the Didache and Didascalia, commend its use.

Indeed the Didache directed every Christian following it to celebrate the Eucharist on the First Day of the Week, and to say the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. It also has the oldest liturgical text for Holy Communion, and was likely composed when the Apostles were still alive, at a minimum, St. John the Beloved Disciple, St. Mark the Evangelist and Founder of the Church in Alexandria, St. Luke the Evangelist and Physician, and probably Saints Timothy, Addai and Mari, and the early church fathers St. Clement of Rome, St. Polycarp of Smyrna, and St. Ignatius of Antioch.

And the surviving second, third and fourth century liturgical texts also feature it. The Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, from Alexandria, which is attested to in the 2nd century Strasbourg Papyrus and later documents, including the oldest complete bishops’ service book, the 4th century Euchologion of St. Serapion of Thmuis, the 2nd Century Liturgy of Addai and Mari, which is still the main liturgy of the Church of the East, and which is structured like a Jewish Berakhot (so too is St. Mark, but the Jewish influence in Addai and Mari is particularly noticeable), the third century Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, which features an anaphora still in use in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and from the fourth century, the Egyptian and Cappadocian versions of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, the Liturgy of St. Clement, which is an unusual text which seems too long for practical use, but we don't really know, the Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles, from Antioch, the Liturgy of St. James, used in Jerusalem, and two liturgies in the Apostolic Constitutions. All of these feature the Lord’s Prayer. I could go on but the result would just be a list of every ancient liturgical manuscript, and that would be boring.

 

[Guojing]

I have to disagree completely with this. The prayer was described by our Lord as an instruction on how to pray, and the first century Greek language books of church order, the Didache and Didascalia, commend its use.

Out of curiosity, if the Lord's prayer was found in the book of Malachi, would you also feel this way?

 

[Bob Crowley]

I've always understood it to mean that we ask that God's will be done on earth as it (God's Will) is done in heaven.

In other words, God's good will is always done in heaven, or at least the uppermost parts of heaven. There is conflict between God and the devil, but that's not in heaven. The devil is bound in Hell, and does not intrude into heaven. Those fortunate souls enjoying the beatific vision would probably be almost unaware of the devil's presence.

We're asking for a similar state of affairs on earth, but of course we won't get it. If anything, it will be the opposite.

As the Catholic Catechism states -

675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.576

676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,577 especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.578

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.579 The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.580 God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.581

If I have a problem it's how the devil is able to tempt us if he's bound in heaven - maybe he and the demons get temptation duty and are allowed out. Whenever Christ drove out demons, it is recorded they screamed. They were desperate not to go back to Hell. I remember a Protestant pastor who had a deliverance ministry saying to me once "They don't want to go!", and they'll try every trick in the book to stay where they are.

I suppose there might be different levels of heaven. St. Paul wrote about being "snatched up to the third heaven" and being shown things he was not permitted to tell. At the highest level there would be the beatific vision.

As a Catholic I believe in Purgatory, which is a sort of very uncomfortable pre-school. And then I suppose there would be that part of the heaven / hell boundary in between where angels and archangels do battle with their demonic counterparts.

I don't know what they fight with. They wouldn't have physical weapons in the sense that we do, so I suppose a lot of the time it would be intellectual, like a couple of chess masters taking hours over a strategic move. In essence both angels and demons are intellectual beings, with angels constantly seeking out the truth, and demons looking for the un-truth, whatever that is.

I also think there would be some sort of spiritual environment just as we have a physical environment, in which we live our lives and interact with others. It's neutral, and as Christ said God makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. A tidal wave doesn't play favourites, and kills both just and unjust if they get caught up in it.

I suppose there's some sort of heavenly or spiritual equivalent to our physical environment. There's obviously some sort of force involved - God must hold Hell in place by brute strength in some form or another.

But I think we'll have to get there before we can understand or appreciate it.

 

[eleos1954]

Did the third heaven pre-exist the creation ?

The location of the abode of God is not revealed in Scripture

God, is not limited to one geographical place.

It is unknown.

What we do know is that God has always been.

 

[eleos1954]

I just want to let you know I greatly enjoy your posts. I am not sure I agree with this one, but I would love to discuss it with you more. In fact we really should get to know each other better, because you consistently post interesting things, but I don’t know much about you and I suspect the reverse is true, and I am on a quest to befriend everyone on the forum who is open to the idea, most especially members like you who have interesting ideas.

We can converse via pm if you'd like ... I think it's ok to agree to disagree on things ... the main thing is not to have a hostile attitude when discussing things.

We humans have conversation about many things, what one believes about various matters ultimately is up to them.

 

[Carl Emerson]

The location of the abode of God is not revealed in Scripture

God, is not limited to one geographical place.

It is unknown.

What we do know is that God has always been.

So you agree that this perfect heaven pre-existed creation ?

 

[eleos1954]

So you agree that this perfect heaven pre-existed creation ?

God is perfect .... obviously God existed before creation, like I said as far as a location of His abode we don't know. (inside the universe? outside of the universe?) Either is possible.

Heaven exists in a realm in which God is present, along with angels, where and what that is exactly ... is not revealed in scripture.

This heavenly realm will one day transition into a final state that includes a new heaven, new earth, and new heavenly city where God and His children will dwell forever (Revelation 21—22).

Revelation 4 offers a vision of the apostle John entering heaven through a door in the sky. He then finds himself in heaven before the throne of the Lord. Again, this is a vision in which John is in the spiritual realm beyond this world. No other identifying location was mentioned.

Can't agree or disagree the answer to your question is we don't know the location ...

 

[Carl Emerson]

Forgive me but I don’t think you are parsing the verse correctly. I have always understood that petition to mean “May your will be done on Earth, to the same extent it is done in Heaven”, essentially an eschatological prayer in which we are asking God to save those of us who would be saved, and separate from us those who refuse His grace, the wheat from the chaff (with the implicit desire there should be as little chaff and as much wheat as possible, for as the Book of Common Prayer eloquently summarizes it, “God desireth not the death of a sinner”), so that those humans in the World to Come will do His will, just as it is presently done by the angels and the members of the Church Triumphant who are in Heaven, who are either awaiting the resurrection, or in a few cases, are present in bodily form.*

*For instance, the Holy Prophet St. Elias (Elijah), and our beloved Lady Theotokos, more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, all of whom were taken up bodily either while still alive, such as in the case of St. Elias, or shortly after their repose, as in the case of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The nature of life in Heaven and how it will compare with life after the Resurrection is a great mystery, but it is clear that those in Heaven are either Angels who sided with God decisively and permanently, vs. choosing to oppose him with Satan. Here on Earth, on the other hand, even though the devils are constrained in their actions, we humans can freely submit to their temptations, or indeed engage in evil acts on our own without a devil prodding us (the Fall of Adam and Eve seems an example of the former, and Cain’s fratricide of Abel seems an example of the latter), but in either case, we are not doing God’s will.

An Old Calendarist Eastern Orthodox priest once told me “We sin at the speed of thought,” which I think is an accurate observation, dismal, but accurate; concordantly the difference between how miserable things are now and how good they will be in the World to Come is amazing to consider just on the basis of God’s will being universally followed here on Earth, like it is in Heaven.

Yes but the matter I would like to establish is that this heaven being referred to has two essential elements.

First it is eternal and therefore pre-existed creation.

Second it is perfect and unaffected by the fall.

As to proximity this is a non question as the eternal heaven is not part of creation but in a different dimension of existence.

Now we know from Scripture from Ecc 3 that He has put eternity in the heart of man.

We also know that the Kingdom of God is within us and where Jesus reigns there is perfection.

So why is this important and where is it leading.

Those involved in deliverance must have a firm grasp of the laws that the spiritual forces they are dealing with are subject to.

The conclusion then is that all mankind has a space within them that only God can occupy.

That is because Satan cant cross the barrier between time and eternity being a created being.

While it is commonly held that Christians cant be possessed if God is indwelling them - few seem to understand why.

 

[The Liturgist]

Yes but the matter I would like to establish is that this heaven being referred to has two essential elements.

First it is eternal and therefore pre-existed creation.

Second it is perfect and unaffected by the fall.

As to proximity this is a non question as the eternal heaven is not part of creation but in a different dimension of existence.

Now we know from Scripture from Ecc 3 that He has put eternity in the heart of man.

We also know that the Kingdom of God is within us and where Jesus reigns there is perfection.

So why is this important and where is it leading.

Those involved in deliverance must have a firm grasp of the laws that the spiritual forces they are dealing with are subject to.

The conclusion then is that all mankind has a space within them that only God can occupy.

That is because Satan cant cross the barrier between time and eternity being a created being.

While it is commonly held that Christians cant be possessed if God is indwelling them - few seem to understand why.

This is a genuinely interesting concept.

 

[The Liturgist]

Out of curiosity, if the Lord's prayer was found in the book of Malachi, would you also feel this way?

Well, considering the Psalms and other Old Testament canticles, such as Benedicite Omni Opera (the song of the three children who Nebuchadnezzar tried to burn in a furnace, but an Angel or possibly Jesus Christ appeared with them and they were protected), and the Songs of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, are essential parts of Christian hymnody, and the Summary of the Law given by Jesus Christ includes what is basically the Shema, which is the Jewish creedal hymn and the basis for the First Commandment of the Decalogue (followed by the Golden Rule), and given that the Aaronic Blessing is commonly used in church liturgies, for example, as our friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @ViaCrucis will confirm, it is the dismissal for several traditional Lutheran liturgies, I would feel close to the way I feel.

However, just as the Torah or Pentateuch is the most important part of Scripture to the Jews, for Christians of traditional theological views, the Gospel is central, and that Gospel has been handed down in four canonical books, with the purpose of the Epistles being to expound upon the doctrine and theology, and of Acts to show the work of the Holy Spirit amidst the disciples, and of the Apocalypse (Revelation) to provide an eschatological and mystagogical vision and also to allow those messages St. John the Beloved Disciple received from our Lord to be communicated.*

The important thing is that these Gospels represent the keystone of Sacred Scripture, because they discuss the incarnation of God Himself, when the Divine Logos, the Only Begotten Son and Word of God, became human, putting on our nature and uniting it hypostatically with His divine nature, without change, confusion, division or separation. And thus what Jesus Christ, whose name can be translated as The Messiah, YHWH (who) Saves (Us), and who is also called Emanuel, meaning God with Us (El or Elohim being the generic Hebrew word for God, and YHWH, “I AM that I AM” being the proper name of God,
does and says in the four Gospels, is nothing less than the central part of the Bible.

Ergo, when our Lord, God and Savior teaches us how to pray in the Gospels According to Matthew and Luke, that is extremely important. That St. Paul doesn’t repeat it is irrelevant, because St. Paul’s epistles were not selected because they repeat the Gospels but rather because they, along with the epistles of the other Apostles, Saints Peter, John, James, Jude, and the unknown author of Hebrews, provide the material needed by the Church to reinforce the Gospel through exegesis.

It is also worth noting that just as St. Mark was a disciple of St. Peter, St. Luke was a disciple of St. Paul, and since, unlike St. Matthew the Apostle and St. John the Beloved Disciple, they were not present at most of the events in the Gospels, St. Mark recorded St. Peter’s recollection of events, and St. Luke recorded a recollection of events that had been aggregated by St. Paul based on his interaction with other the Apostles and the Christophany he experienced on the Road to Damascus.

Additionally, I strongly believe Chapter I of the Gospel According to Luke was narrated to him by Our Lady, the Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary, for tradition establishes he was a physician and painter, and specifically looked after St. Mary in Ephesus and painted a portrait of her, now lost; this makes even more sense when we consider that our Lord on the Cross had His mother adopt St. John the Beloved Disciple (who was likely the youngest apostle; I believe he was in his early teenage years based on the conventional dating of the Gospel of John to the late 70s, and the Apocalypse to 90 AD, and his repose from natural causes in 93 AD (he was the only one of the Eleven Faithful Disciples not to have been martyred but to die peacefully of natural causes); he was also the mentor of St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was fed to lions around 105 AD in the Coliseum, and St. Polycarp of Smyrna, who was himself martyred at around 90 years of age around 150 AD, and St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus of Lyons were their disciples). St. John in turn became the Bishop of the Church in Ephesus, which St. Paul seems to have had far more praise for, and fewer problems to address, than the others he visited and wrote epistles to, and St. Luke and St. Mary were said to have lived in Ephesus, and it was there she reposed and was translated bodily into Heaven, which is commemorated on the Feast of the Assumption, also known as The Dormition, on August 15th.

Thus, the Four Gospels are the vital beating heart of Sacred Scripture and Holy Tradition, with each Gospel being like one of the four chambers of the heart, and thus what they say defines the meaning of the rest of Scripture, as we read at the end of the Gospel of Luke, when our Lord opened the Scriptures (which at the time were the books of the Old Testament, since it would be 20 year before the oldest parts of the New Testament, and showed the remaining eleven disciples they were all about Him, and the same is obviously true of the other books of the new New), and furthermore, one of the two Evangelists to record the Lord’s Prayer had a special relationship with St. Paul, a biography of Paul being a major part of Acts, and the Blessed Virgin Mary and her adopted son St. John the Beloved Disciple, since Saints Luke, John and Mary lived in Ephesus, where St. Paul frequently visited, this shows the Lord’s Prayer happened, St. Paul knew about it, probably from St. John, and St. Luke recorded it. St. Paul in turn regarded the Church in Ephesus as exemplary, and the four most important Patristic figures of the second century were disciples of St. John (St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus of Lyons). Thus we can say that St. Paul approved of the Lord’s Prayer and regarded it as generally applicable, just like the other teachings of our Lord, for example, the Eucharist, the Institution Narrative of the Last Supper being recorded in the three Synoptic Gospels and in 1 Corinthians XI, and the Eucharist being described as a sacrament vital for our salvation in Chapter VI of the Gospel of John.

*Indeed, many scholars refer to the books penned by St. Luke the Evangelist as Luke-Acts; I think we should also talk about the Apocalypse as being a direct followup to the Gospel of John; of course the normal practice is to talk about the Johannine Corpus to avoid deprecating the Epistles, which is important, but there are too many revisionists trying to claim someone else wrote the Apocalypse). And of course, the Gospels of Matthew and Mark are standalone writings, but each of the four canonical Gospels forms a mosaic that teaches us about the life of our Lord.

There may have been a fifth legitimate Gospel of Peter, but unfortunately only a fragment concerning the Passion and the Empty Tomb survives, which is interesting, but insufficient to dispel concerns of some bishops that it had a Docetic heretical aspect. I hope one day a complete manuscript of it, and Origen’s Hexapla turns up. The former is likely useless, but the latter would be genuinely interesting. As for the other apocryphal “Gospels”, I think the Gospel of Thomas is a corruption of a list of sayings written down by the disciples of Thomas, Addai and Mari, in Syriac, because there was no Syriac Gospel until Tatian completed the Diatessaron in the mid second century, before leaving the Christian Church to found a cult related to the Severians. This book is a harmony of the four Gospels, the first one ever written as far as we know, which is lost, but which scholars have reconstructed using commentaries written by St. Ephraim the Syrian and others, and frankly, the individual Gospels make for much better reading, which explains why, as soon as the Peshitta, the widely respected Syriac Bible was completed in the fourth century, the bishops of Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and places further afield made sure that the Diatessarons were removed and replaced by the Peshitta Bibles as quickly as possible. Before the Diatessaron, the Gospel was preached orally in what became the Church of the East (indeed St. Thomas the Apostle, who is often called “doubting Thomas” but that is a gross misreading of his life and dedication, was preaching the Gospel in Kerala when the Hindu raja became enraged and martyred him with a Javelin. The Coptic “Gospel of Thomas” has enough parallels with the Synoptic Gospels that I think that it could have started out as a written reference of the sayings of our Lord, so these could be repeated verbatim when preaching the Gospel. However there are also clear heretical interpolations, and the document is written in Coptic, whereas St. Thomas spoke Aramaic, Greek, and probably proto-Malayalam, so this is a copy of a copy, and either the Synoptic quotes were copied from one of the four Gospels, or a legitimate sayings document, and this document was edited to reflect the heterodox theology of whoever wrote the manuscript.

Lest the idea of St. Thomas preaching in India seem improbable, it should be noted that thanks to the exploits of Alexander the Great, and before him the Persian and Mesopotamian civilizations, which thrived on commerce between India and the Levant, contact between ancient Greece and India was very firmly established by the 3rd century BC, and continued after the rise of the Roman Empire, and later the Muslim world became extremely powerful by controlling trade between Europe and India, just as the Mongolians, some of whom were Buddhist, others Muslims, others adherents of the traditional Mongolian Tengrist religion, and some members of the Church of the East, before the Christians of Central Asia, Mongolia, China and Tibet were killed by the Uzbek Muslim warlord Tamerlane in the 12th century AD. As a result of the commerce between Greece and India, therehave been Jews in Kerala since 200 BC; most of them, known as the Kochin Jews, have emigrated to Israel, but their synagogue is preserved, and the most famous of the Kochin Jews in recent years is the late hairstylist Vidal Sassoon.

 

[Guojing]

However, just as the Torah or Pentateuch is the most important part of Scripture to the Jews, for Christians of traditional theological views, the Gospel is central, and that Gospel has been handed down in four canonical books, with the purpose of the Epistles being to expound upon the doctrine and theology, and of Acts to show the work of the Holy Spirit amidst the disciples, and of the Apocalypse (Revelation) to provide an eschatological and mystagogical vision and also to allow those messages St. John the Beloved Disciple received from our Lord to be communicated.*

The important thing is that these Gospels represent the keystone of Sacred Scripture, because they discuss the incarnation of God Himself, when the Divine Logos, the Only Begotten Son and Word of God, became human, putting on our nature and uniting it hypostatically with His divine nature, without change, confusion, division or separation. And thus what Jesus Christ, whose name can be translated as The Messiah, YHWH (who) Saves (Us), and who is also called Emanuel, meaning God with Us (El or Elohim being the generic Hebrew word for God, and YHWH, “I AM that I AM” being the proper name of God, does and says in the four Gospels, is nothing less than the central part of the Bible.

Ergo, when our Lord, God and Savior teaches us how to pray in the Gospels According to Matthew and Luke, that is extremely important. That St. Paul doesn’t repeat it is irrelevant, because St. Paul’s epistles were not selected because they repeat the Gospels but rather because they, along with the epistles of the other Apostles, Saints Peter, John, James, Jude, and the unknown author of Hebrews, provide the material needed by the Church to reinforce the Gospel through exegesis.

Thus, the Four Gospels are the vital beating heart of Sacred Scripture and Holy Tradition, with each Gospel being like one of the four chambers of the heart, and thus what they say defines the meaning of the rest of Scripture,

Thanks for the reply, from these sections of your reply of which I have bolded, I think you are implying that, had the Lord's prayer been found in the Torah section of the OT, you would not give it the same prominence?

Am I correct in my interpretation?

 

[Neogaia777]

Yes but the matter I would like to establish is that this heaven being referred to has two essential elements.

First it is eternal and therefore pre-existed creation.

Second it is perfect and unaffected by the fall.

As to proximity this is a non question as the eternal heaven is not part of creation but in a different dimension of existence.

Now we know from Scripture from Ecc 3 that He has put eternity in the heart of man.

We also know that the Kingdom of God is within us and where Jesus reigns there is perfection.

So why is this important and where is it leading.

Those involved in deliverance must have a firm grasp of the laws that the spiritual forces they are dealing with are subject to.

The conclusion then is that all mankind has a space within them that only God can occupy.

That is because Satan cant cross the barrier between time and eternity being a created being.

While it is commonly held that Christians cant be possessed if God is indwelling them - few seem to understand why.

About heaven being within us, it is because this Highest Heaven can be with us and is within us when God the Father is present within us, and we have a full realization of this, etc...

We are It/Him, and He/It is us, when He is within us, and we have a full realization of this, and when He has control of us, since He requires us to relinquish that control willingly, etc...

One day, this will all be manifested as a reality that is also outside of us also, but just not right now currently, etc, but it can all be contained within us right now, since if God and the Angels have access to us, then it's people are the Kingdom and that Kingdom is then within us, with Them having full and open access to us, and we to Them/Him/It, etc, and that is how It is within us, etc... It can also be present in a supernatural way among a collective of human believers who are all of "one mind and one accord" like they were at Pentecost sometimes also, but this is pretty rare anymore now, but I guess does still happen occasionaly sometimes within some church body's sometimes, etc...

But back to individually, I said "The Highest Heaven" earlier, because that is what is to be within us, and in a way that even I do not fully understand yet, or have not come to a full and complete realization of yet, It has authority over all other kingdoms/realms under it, and we are to somehow have access to this also, etc, just not in a way that I have fully realized or have fully understood completely yet, but only know right now only "in theory", etc, which should, in theory, give us the same authority of/as Jesus, and allow us to do the kinds of things He did or could do, since It has authority over all other realms, etc, but this would also be being done through Him (Jesus) also, since He is the door or window that gives us/gave us this access in the first place, etc, and without Him having done what He did, we would not even right now even be discussing this right now, let alone right now be having the knowledge, or the access, etc...

But right now I only know of in part or only in theory right now, and am still working on the full realization of it right now still, etc...

There is a realm between this realm and the Highest Heaven/Realm, and it is invisible right now to us right now also, and we are supposed to be able to have (or take, or exercise) authority over both realms by this access to the Highest Realm opened up or made possible to us by Jesus where the Father dwells and where Jesus and the Holy Angels are right now, probably seated at the right hand of the Father and are waiting right now probably, etc...

Like I said, right now I only know in part right now, etc, but am growing in this daily, etc...

I'll let you know when I have or know more, ok...

God Bless!