Originally Posted By JLB,
God dwells in a Temple in Heaven.
How I genuinely wish you could understand
JLB. The temple of God in Jerusalem was made after
the pattern of the heavenly or spiritual temple, as it was shown unto Moses on the mount. The idea of the temple is that of
a dwelling place of God. The temple was the house of God, His habitation. It was the place where the manifest presence, glory, and power of God resided in the
most holy place.
Revelation 11:19 "And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament."
When the temple of God is opened, it is opened where He has raised it up, in
the heavens of the Spirit of the Lord.
You are the temple! And just where is this temple?
Ephesians 2:6 "And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
Because the temple is
in heaven, in
THE SPIRIT, those believers who love and live and walk
after the flesh will not be found there! They have already, for two thousand years, been opened - and out of them flows corruption, fleshly programs and promotions, pride of life, static creeds, external rituals, prosperity, lifeless forms and ceremonies, and self exaltation, because their desires and methods and works are of the spirit of the world, after the flesh, the carnal mind, and the world is filled with the foolishness of what has been exposed in the temple of religion ON EARTH.
Jesus went through the veil into the fullness of divine life and glory. He opened and consecrated the way for us to follow, to pass through the veil into the
HEAVENLY realm.
Revelation 1:10-11 "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia."
John was
in the Spirit in the day of the Lord when he received the revelation!
The Spirit was his vantage point, his perspective, his position, his frame of reference. Everyone is looking today
in the natural for the events of this book to come to pass, but John was
in the Spirit when he saw the vision, and he was
in the Spirit when he wrote the book —
he wasn't in the natural! His vantage point was neither 68 AD nor was it 2,000 years into the future, for those vantage points are in the natural.
The Spirit was his vantage point!
He was in a realm beyond the natural, and observing events in a realm beyond the natural. These things are written in a language that only the spiritual mind can understand!
A natural mind produces a natural concept (such as Heaven being a physical geographical location). The natural man believes
the physical 'IS' the spiritual, and he thinks the spiritual is still physical in some way.
It should be obvious that only a person who knows Spanish is able to read a book written in Spanish. Likewise, the book of Revelation was written
in the Spirit, out of
the mind of the Spirit, in
the language of the Spirit, and it requires a spiritual discernment to understand it! Only the man who lives and walks in the Spirit can receive from it. You must be a citizen of the
the heavenlies — where the language of the book is known. You must read and understand it in the language in which it was written — not the Greek language, but the language of
the Spirit of God! A spiritual book must be spiritually discerned!
1 Corinthians 2:14 "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
John 6:63 "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
"What" exactly is Heaven?
Isaiah 66:1 "Thus says the Lord, the HEAVEN IS MY THRONE, and the earth is My footstool."
Heaven is what? The answer:
God's Throne! We do well to remember that heaven is not a place away off somewhere beyond the Milky Way, millions of light years distant; but
"Heaven IS MY THRONE!
And what does Paul say?
2 Thessalonians 2:3 "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
2 Thessalonians 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God."
And the Temple?
1 Corinthians 3:16 "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth IN YOU?"
Heaven is the
REALM OF GOD'S SPIRIT! And as Paul tells us above, God's Spirit dwelleth where?
IN YOU!
Is Christ in you? Is your answer yes? The Christ who is within you
IS THE CHRIST WHO HAS ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN!
John 14:23 "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."
Notice,
"WE will make OUR ABODE with him."
Ephesians 2:6 "And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."