What Do We Know About Heaven?

Originally posted by Dasa
Absolute rubbish.............

Why?

Because you are going to have butchers in this lovely new peaceful world, to chop up all the animals so you can devour the flesh.

Why don't you eat animals?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]What Do We Know About Heaven?

Our finite minds and temporal frames of reference and most vivid imaginations are totally incapable of even beginning to comprehend what God has in store for all human beings since time began.who have simply said "Yes" rather than "No" to His free gift of salvation and eternal life made possible by Christ's redemp ...[text shortened]... ease feel free to contribute facts which you have also learned about your own home for eternity.[/b]

Other than the notion that it's right in the middle of lollipop-land, we all know as much as you - sweet FA

Originally posted by sonship
[b] 1) That we will be face to face with our Lord and Saviour from the moment of our physical death for all eternity. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come ...[text shortened]... those in whom Christ comes to make an abode in are built up into a corporate dwelling place of God.

As always, I respect your opinion.

Originally posted by Captain Strange
Gramps if this makes you feel better that's great.
When my daughter was small it made her feel good to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
Unfortunately when you die you are going to get put into a hole in the ground where you will slowly rot. All you will be coming face to face with is maggots and weevils.
No perfect food except for the maggots and NO perfect sex.In fact not even any bad sex.

Noted.

Originally posted by Dasa
Just a few comments from the Vedas describing the spiritual world. ( from the Srimad Bhagavatam)

“In those spiritual Vaikuntha planets there are many forests which are very auspicious. In those forests the trees are wish-fulfilling trees, and in all seasons they are filled with flowers and fruits because everything in the Vaikuntha planets is spiritual and pers ...[text shortened]... oses, and it appears that they have become more beautiful because of the Lord’s kissing their faces.

"from the Srimad Bhagavatam)" .... website link?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra

What Do We Know About Heaven?

Nothing.

Perhaps best to speak for yourself.

Originally posted by Agerg
Other than the notion that it's right in the middle of lollipop-land, we all know as much as you - sweet

Thanks for your intellectual honesty evident in your use of the qualifying word "notion".

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby (OP)
What Do We Know About Heaven?

Our finite minds and temporal frames of reference and most vivid imaginations are totally incapable of even beginning to comprehend what God has in store for all human beings since time began.who have simply said "Yes" rather than "No" to His free gift of salvation and eternal life made possible by Christ's rede ...[text shortened]... ] Please feel free to contribute facts which you have also learned about your own home for eternity.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son." (Revelation 21:4-7)

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the B ...[text shortened]... ercomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son." (Revelation 21:4-7)

The verses are wonderful. But the verses do not mention heaven.

" [ A] new heaven and a new earth " are mentioned in 1 of that chapter:

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away; and the sea is no more." (v.1)

We probably can understand John to mean the starry heaven rather than the third heaven. But the heaven of heavens is indicated when he writes in the next verse:

"And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." (v.2)

Because he says "out of heaven from God" he must mean the heaven of heavens where the throne of God is. But if people desire to be in that heaven forever, they should realize that the climax of God's salvation New Jerusalem is coming down. I want to be where the holy city New Jerusalem is. I do not want to be in heaven forever looking down below at the Bride, the Holy City New Jerusalem as God's final masterpiece.

The bride adorned for her husband, a glorious city coming down from heaven from God is a sign. It surely corresponds to Eve coming out of Adam in Genesis 2:21-25. All that was brought to Adam for him to marry was taken out of Adam.

And the bride of Christ has Christ as its source. Christ is God incarnate. So we see the wife of Christ coming out of God from heaven. The symbolism means that the church comes out of Christ and is brought back to Christ to marry as Eve came out of Adam and is brought back to Adam to marry.

The one became two. Then the two became one for eternity. This marriage takes place within "a new heaven and a new earth". We should tell people that the whole creation is the stage upon which this divine / human marriage union is to take place.

Some may regard this as "going to heaven". But this is superficial. It fits the natural concept of going to a happy place which is not unique to traditional Christianity.

Revelation 3:12 also speaks of New Jerusalem. "which descends out of heaven from God"

"He who overcomes, him I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall by no means go out anymore, and I will write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name." (Rev. 3:12)

This has to be taken symbolically. A man as a pillar in the temple should not be thought of as a physical pillar in a physical temple. But it does point to a man being solidly "built" into the ultimate house of God. The meaning is for God to thoroughly "write" Himself into people constituting them constituents of the mingling of God and man as a climax of His full salvation.

No one should regard a believer being a pillar in God's temple in a physical way. And therefore the temple of God coming down out of heaven is akin to Jesus saying He is the bread which came down from heaven (John 6:32-51) .

The Son of God "came down" by way of incarnation. And the New Jerusalem comes down by way of salvation and God imparting Himself into the saved. And that is imparting into them for the mingling of God and man to build a dwelling place and living temple of God IN His people.

The eternal purpose of God is to dispense Himself into His redeemed people for a mutual dwelling place of God and man. This is the church and by expansion the New Jerusalem something we Christians are becoming.

Do we "go to New Jerusalem" ? Yes, in a sense. But more accurately new Jerusalem is something we are becoming. Our going to the city is our becoming the city.

Our going to the bride and wife of Christ is our becoming this entity through His full salvation of dispensing God into man.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
As always, I respect your opinion.

I would submit then that we have to interpret the Father's house in the context of John's usage in the rest of the book of John. This is a brief word:

The implication of the Father's house or the house of God is first seen in chapter one. And there it is Christ Himself.

" And He [Jesus] said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, You shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." (John 1:31)

Bethel, in Genesis 28 was the house of God. A dreadful and awesome place it was in Jacob's dream. Jesus now uses that vision to point to Himself as the Son of Man. The Father's house, the house of God is Christ the living dwelling place of God on earth by that time of John chapter 1.

"This is the fulfillment of Jacob's dream (Gen. 28:11-22). Christ as the Son of Man, with His humanity, is the ladder set up on the earth and leading to heaven, keeping heaven open to earth and joining earth to heaven for the house of God, Bethel. Jacob poured oil ( a symbol of the Holy Spirit, the ultimate expression of the Triune God reaching man) upon the stone ( a symbol of the transformed man) that it might be the house of God. Here in this chapter are the Spirit (v.32) and the stone (v.42) for the house of God with Christ in His humanity. Where this is there is an open heaven."

[Footnote 51(2) on John 1:51, Recovery Version, Living Stream Ministry, my bolding]

The first reference then to the Father's house or the house of God is Jesus the Son of Man Himself.

The second mention of the Father's house is in John 2:18-22

"Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then the Jews said, This temple was built in forty-six years, and You will raise it up in three days?

But He spoke of the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken." ( vs. 19-22)

Yes, Jesus had referred to the temple as His Father's house (v.16). He made a whip and drove out the marketers from the temple.

But on a deeper level He pointed to Himself as the reality of the house of God, His body. If they should destroy His body in crucifixion in three days He would rise. He was the reality of the house of God. He was the Son of Man as the real Bethel. He would die and rise again on the third day.

Therefore the real significance of "My Father's house is Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus Himself was the Father's house, the temple of God as the mingling of God and man.

Now we can come to John 14 where He says He goes to prepare a place for all His believers in "My Father's house".

This will take another post latter. I conclude here with John 14:1 for your contemplation and prayer.

" Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me.

In My Father's house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be." (John 14:1-3)

What He is by way of incarnation - God and man united, His believers will also be by way of full salvation. That is the corporate house of God; the corporate dwelling place of God; the corporate temple of God; the corporate Body of Christ.

He goes to the cross to bring man into the mingling of God and man.

Originaly posted by divegeester
OK serious question, for you; seeing as how you believe that hell is literally underground, do you correspondence believe that heaven is in the sky above the clouds somewhere?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Thanks for your objectively focused and honest question; please stay tuned.

I'm still staying tuned...any response?

Originally posted by divegeester
I'm still staying tuned...any response?

Yes. When? When you regain your objective focus here and in other site public forums; not until.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Yes. When? When you regain your objective focus here and in other site public forums; not until.

But you thanked me for my objective and honest post! I get a sneaky feeling you are avoiding the question Grampy. 😉

For Jesus to say that in His Father's house there are many abodes means that He alone was never meant to be the only man thoroughly mingled and united with God.

He alone is God incarnate as the living dwelling place of God in a man. But the Father's house of God's eternal purpose consists of millions or billions or who knows how many other humans united with God. These have God dispensed into them via God's full Salvation.

Touch now the Lord's heart in this:

" Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me.

In My Father's house are many abodes; if it were not so I would have told you ..." ( John 14:1,2a)

Christ as God/man was marvelous and wonderful. If ONLY He could be a man mingled with God, He would have told us. Their marveling at His being is to be met with them co-partaking of this union with God.

If God had never intended that they TOO partake of this union, Jesus would have told us from the beginning. He alone is God incarnate to accomplish redemption. But the Father's house in God's heart has MANY abodes.

He goes to the cross to prepare a place for them too in the indwelling of God in humanity for a house of God.

" In My Father's house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; FOR I GO TO PREPARE A PLACE FOR YOU."

That means YOU. He went to the cross and rose in resurrection, accomplishing an eternal redemption, that you may share in the mingling of God and man. And this for the building of the Father's house, the living dwelling place of God in spirit.

The same Greek word translated "ABODES" is found in the singular in the same chapter at verse 23. There Jesus says He and the Father as the Divine "WE" will come to make an ABODE with the lovers of Christ.

So we can see how the Lord will bring about "many abodes" for the fulfillment of the eternal plan of God to indwell humanity in a corporate expression.

"Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him." (v.23)

Now we can see how Jesus the unique Abode will produce the many abodes for the house of the Father, which is also the Body of Christ, the church.

She is the New Jerusalem in eternity future too (Rev. 21,22).

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Perhaps best to speak for yourself.

I think he is.
Who else do you think he is speaking for?

Who do you speak for?