Does God Live in Heaven?

[Sparkey]

Isaiah 66.1

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I especially like the part about "rest" because I hear a need there, almost as if somebody is saying, "Guys? Give it a rest already."

Are we really supposed to be still and know that He is God? How may I do this? My little heart beats too fast.
Prayers are requested.

 

[Free]

Heaven lives in God.

God is heaven.

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

God is the Spirit realm.


JLB

Sounds awfully similar to some form of pantheism. I am confident that the only Scriptural statement there is "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." I certainly would like to see some biblical proof of the rest of those assertions.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

Where was heaven, before God created it?

Where was the spirit realm, before God created it?

Where were the angels before God created them?


JLB

There was no heaven before God created it, which does away with your first point that "God is heaven."

If God is Spirit, then it seems to make sense to say that there has always been a "spirit realm."

The third question doesn't make sense. You cannot ask where something existed before it actually existed.

 

[JLB]

Heaven lives in God.

God is heaven.

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

God is the Spirit realm.


JLB

Sounds awfully similar to some form of pantheism. I am confident that the only Scriptural statement there is "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." I certainly would like to see some biblical proof of the rest of those assertions.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

Where was heaven, before God created it?

Where was the spirit realm, before God created it?

Where were the angels before God created them?


JLB

There was no heaven before God created it, which does away with your first point that "God is heaven."

If God is Spirit, then it seems to make sense to say that there has always been a "spirit realm."

The third question doesn't make sense. You cannot ask where something existed before it actually existed.

It was a thought that was conceived within God.

The thought was expressed by The Word.


JLB

 

[Free]

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

Where was heaven, before God created it?

Where was the spirit realm, before God created it?

Where were the angels before God created them?


JLB

There was no heaven before God created it, which does away with your first point that "God is heaven."

If God is Spirit, then it seems to make sense to say that there has always been a "spirit realm."

The third question doesn't make sense. You cannot ask where something existed before it actually existed.

It was a thought that was conceived within God.

The thought was expressed by The Word.


JLB

What was a thought?

 

[JLB]

There was no heaven before God created it,

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

God created the heavens, because it was His will to create the heavens.

God created the heavens by faith, which was the substance of what He hope for.

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. Hebrews 11:1-3

I believe the idea of Heaven or anything God created, first existed within Him as a thought.


JLB

 

[Free]

There was no heaven before God created it,

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

God created the heavens, because it was His will to create the heavens.

God created the heavens by faith, which was the substance of what He hope for.

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. Hebrews 11:1-3

I believe the idea of Heaven or anything God created, first existed within Him as a thought.


JLB

Firstly, a thought about something is not the same as that thing existing. Secondly, what about before the thought occurred to him?

 

[josefnospam]

Don't know exactly where or what heaven is but I am sure it will be so very much better than this place we call earth. We just live here for a little while and then get to go And yes our Lord will be there when we arrive. We will get to see him as he is. What a privilage and honor to be included in his plan of salvation.

 

[farouk]

Heaven is where the Lord Jesus is.

 

[JLB]

Heaven is where the Lord Jesus is.

31 "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

41 Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.


This takes place on earth.


JLB

 

[Sinthesis]

Heaven is usually not so much a physical place as it is a descriptive quality. Call it 'perfect righteousness'. It is the ultimate ideal of any environment, and which does not exist apart from God. The direction 'up' doesn't point to an actual place, but expresses the relative status of anything that is greater than what naturally exists on our sin tainted earth. Hades being 'down' means all life is better than the eventual death we would be doomed to if not for Christ.

 

[Sparkey]

The direction 'up'

A friend, poor fellow, once asked, "Wha's up?"

Almost as if it had been rehearsed the answer came.

Imagine a point that originates nearest you and at the center of the largest most massive and closest object to you. Now imagine yourself standing on that object and construct, in this mind experiment, an imaginary line that travels from there, at its center, toward you. This line would bisect you and continue through your middle parts out through your head. Without changing the direction of this imaginary line, trace its course from the center of the weighty, massive object (a planet, let's say) through you, out your head and in that same direction as defined. This, my friend, is UP.

He just looked at me, pondered what was said in reply and commented, "I've never heard that question answered before."

I could have just said, "Nuth'n much. Wha's up wid you?" As it stood, we both smiled and went about our business.

His ways are higher than mine.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Heaven is where the Lord Jesus is.

That's what I see in the scriptures I posted. He's there along with the Father, and the Tabernacle, where Christ ministered his Priestly duty on our behalf in his glorified, fleshly body if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Sparkey]

UFO's too.

A friend and brother Christian of mine from childhood once suggested once that part of the UFO "phenomenon" (if we may term it that) could be due to seducing spirits and deception efforts. He went on to speculate that our impressions about "Lunacy" and the sayings such as, "Is there a full moon out there maybe," sometimes heard in emergency rooms, could also, at least in part, be due to seducing spirits and their efforts toward deception.

If angels are messengers (and my friend thought of them as curious like kittens but powerful) what might fallen angels be except scheming agents of varying degrees of power. His thought continued and a certain hierarchy of demonic powers was developed. There could be the "Prince of Darkness" and other "Principalities and Powers" who were said to be rulers of the air. This, according to his speculation, might explain how various regions on the globe have different feelings associated with them. Consider a repressed country with authoritarian dictatorship as a ruler and imagine the feelings one sensitive to such things may have.

Compare to the feeling of intellectual liberties that others, also sensitive to such things, might have as they strolled in park like settings on campus at higher education facilities. Libertarian? Authoritarian? His suggestion was the there were various "influences" that ruled over differing territories, not man's boundaries, but theirs.

I don't know about all that but sometimes when we listen to certain music (regardless of the genre) or when I watch popular movies, or even while attending schools and looking at cliques, one can not help but wonder. The same might be said about angels but if that is the case there could be different orders of magnitude and differing methods of dominion. Angels seek to serve, fallen angels seek to dominate and/or seduce. We are told that we can't serve two masters. Why do we deny?

Where does God dwell? We know that He is Spirit, that He is greater than all heaven and all earth. We've heard Him describe certain places we think of as very large as his footstool. God has promised that for those whom love him, they shall be his people, He shall be their God. What shall He do? We have clues. Jesus tabernacled amongst us in flesh. We are told that we are the temples of the Holy Spirit. We are told that we may consider ourselves tent-dwellers, not citizens of this flesh, but nomads whose place, whose home is in the Kingdom of God, that we are "Children of the Promise," that it has not even so much as entered into our minds what God has planned for them that love Him. We are told that Jesus has gone to prepare a mansion for us and that in His Fathers' Kingdom there are many mansions.

What does this mean? I suspect that there are a few here that may know, that have been given the earnest of this inheritance we speak of; Delivered to Jesus, witnessed by others, gifted to men. There are many things to ponder here.

Philippians 4:8 Link ---> Whatsoever things are pure....

God is on His throne and nothing may happen to us that is not allowed. We shall not be tested beyond our endurance but when in trial we learn to lift our eyes toward Heaven in our petitions and to stand on the rock that is our faith and trust and love of Him who makes a way for us, that we too may escape corruption and remain steadfast. That sounds to my romantic and visual image system (sometimes called my mind) remarkably like an act of response as we are offered and given a white robe while considering attendance of a certain feast. Let us adorn ourselves with His uprightness in spirit and in truth.

 

[JohnD]

OP: Does God live in Heaven?

Just what or where do you believe "heaven" is?

 

[turnorburn]

Does God live in heaven? :yes

Isaiah 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

tob

 

[reba]

throne (thr

n)n.1. A chair occupied by an exalted personage, such as a sovereign or bishop, on state or ceremonial occasions, often situated on a dais and sometimes having a canopy and ornate decoration.


TOB are you saying heaven is a chair ?

 

[Doulos Iesou]

Does God live in heaven? :yes

Isaiah 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

tob

I think you're misinterpreting that text a little bit, and here is why I say that. Often the Earth in the OT does not mean the whole of the planet, but merely the ground, as well "heaven" in the OT is not a reference to the Christian understanding of heaven the place where God is said to dwell, but rather the sky or even space. He is making a claim to his massive all encompassing majesty and presence and how it cannot be contained in their designs for a temple because their hearts were idolatrous and they attempted to make Yahweh like the idols of other countries.

In other words, it's a statement in regards to God's omnipresence and how he cannot be contained in a temple or building constructed by man.

 

[Doulos Iesou]

Today my answer to this is 'I don't know', in the past, I would have said yes in a heartbeat based on Job alone. But as I reread Job I noticed that when the sons of God went to stand before God that we are not told the whereabouts of their location. This subject in interesting to me because it causes me to re-examine what my view of Heaven is.

I take for granted that Heaven is a real specific place and is the place that is for all intents and purposes God's home. Verses like Isaiah 57:15 and Isaiah 66:1 were texts I'd accepted as 'proof texts' for my view of Heaven, but upon examination I found that they don't exactly say what I thought they said.

Scripture seems to indicate that he dwells in the heavenly city of New Jerusalem which will descend to Earth when all is made new.

 

[Sparkey]

TOB are you saying heaven is a chair ?

I've heard of a guy, a very rich guy, who owned a multi-billion dollar, multi-national corporation. The reason he liked this is because of the law that protected his assets from taxes as they were apportioned toward the security of those who chose to contract with his corporation for insurance sales. Basically those assets that were given as securities in the event of disaster were sheltered.

Now this guy was affluent. He had multiple dwelling places that he held in private and one of them was his New York home on the top floor of a very highly regarded building. Yep, he owned and dwelled in something that other rich guys might be envious of. In this place there was something that I would call a chair. Some might call it a throne. The more formal name that was sometimes used to describe this piece of furniture, valued conservatively at USFunds $4 Million (yep! a chair worth four million dollars) was a commode. That's french for chair. It must have been a french chair that his royal bottom reclined in, I dunno.

Anyway, yes. Our language is both subtle and funny. It at once communicates a status that others may be envious of. It also communicates a hidden mocking because, and as you know, the word commode may be used for another type of throne, one more common.

:toofunny

 

[Sparkey]

Yes, there are times when this flesh-bag known a Sparrow has rubbed shoulders with what may be termed by some as "greatness". I have put my hand into the hand of that guy who owns and operates Marriott Corporation, I have put my hand into the hand and have worked along side of a guy who is now called Chairman and CEO of Costco Wholesale and I have heard him say, "I will like to look forward to working with you again someday," and I have put my hand into the hand of that rich guy, who used to dwell in a place that other rich guys might be envious of, and where business as usual was conducted in Philadelphia in the very prestigious street aside Benjamin Franklin Avenue and where that street that the building he conducted business from, the street was named after that corporation operated by him.

I have also put my hand into the hand of another man, that of J.P. Patches of smaller and perhaps fonder fame, here in the Pacific Northwest. Jules Pierpont Patches is a pseudonym for a guy who played a crown and it was my hand, fond in his, and televised to one and all during his campaign for the March of Dimes.

Many hand have been found shaking the hand of the one who presents himself here as "Sparrow". Clowns of all sorts. I have also seen nobility of spirit in both rich and poor alike. Have seen struggles of vanity, from those seen of others, to those seen by me as I look critically into the mirror of my bathroom and assess the image that stares back at me. What? How may I balance the almost Kramer like bouncy but straight hair atop my head that silents mocks even as it crowns, how may I balance the bushiness of the eyebrows that may at times be lifted and cocked, one eyebrow over another, in silent contemplation, how may I look upon that grey goatee which marks my own vanity? My mind, but not my hand physical, has also joined in the words spoken by one known as wise, "Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher..." Words spoken many years ago, by a man blessed both in his wealth and also in his abundance of wisdom, given by God.

It is with a certain mockery that my eye finds of all such vanities given to flesh-bags like me, old and poor alike. It is with a certain admiration that my ear hears of all such struggles of man against man, in the common struggle to find our way toward more noble goals. What rich man, while shaking my hand, could ponder with me, the fact that Moses was given a view to the vastness of all of Egypt, could ponder the exhibit that I've seen marking only some of the riches and splendor of a man once known as tutankhamun, pharaoh of Egypt? Shall we count such things as dung?

By way of comparison may we consider the earnest of our inheritance and silence all such mocking to yield to that which is larger as we together strive to behold God?

We may. Will I? I hope to, yes.

I hope to continue to walk with a man known as Jesus and to continue to be counted here, amongst Saints of God who are given to know mysteries, to speak in kindness and to edify one another as we join our efforts toward the building of our most holy faith. Am asking in the Name for me and for thee, re this.