Where Heaven is Compared to Earth

I’m certain you are familiar with the Temple and the veil that separated God from humanity, which once stood in Jerusalem.

One day, that veil was torn from top to bottom.

This was the day Christ died for our sins. But what exactly does this “mean” that the veil was ripped apart?

Allow me to use some images from the beginning of the book of Revelation to show you.

The apostle John says that he was “in the Spirit” and that the Lord said to him, “Come up here.” Where did he go? Nowhere. John was “in the Spirit.”

Though the Bible speaks about heaven in “spatial” terms, it does not mean heaven is “up there.” Jesus Christ, when asked when the kingdom of God would arrive, said that it does not come by observation, because the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you. Later, He told His disciples that the Kingdom of God would come “inside” of them after Christ had left for heaven. Meaning when He sent the Holy Spirit.

You and I are LITERALLY the “Temple of God,” which once stood in Jerusalem. We are “moving temples,” which contain the kingdom of God. And wherever we bring the gospel and the effect of the gospel, there the kingdom of God is.

So with this information or perspective, when reading the book of Revelation and you come across terms like “those who dwell on earth” and “those who dwell in heaven” understand that it means those who do not have God’s Holy presence living inside of them as a Temple vs those who do carry God’s presence wherever they go. This will make the book of Revelation, and the various scenes where people are in heaven while other people are on earth, make more sense, since heaven is “here and now” in our midst.

I believe this also helps at least me understand the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth, where we will reign with Him, while at the same time, there will be those normal people walking around living normal lives, while we are walking around in resurrected, eternal bodies. Personally, I think this “first resurrection” and “thousand-year reign” are using spatial imagery and “physical words” to speak of something that’s happening right now in the spiritual realm since we are already eternal beings being “born from above” (which is what being “born again” actually means). However, I do believe that time and space will come together with the other realm someday, where a thousand years will be a day and a day will be a thousand years. And I think that that will be the “final day” before the New Heavens and New Earth are created, and where we will live with real or true resurrected bodies.

So you, child of God, are currently reigning on earth with Christ inside of you. And wherever the gospel takes effect in society, there the Kingdom of God is located.

It may help you grasp this concept fully if you understand that that which was “physical” in the Old Testament, and which is also the background for the imagery being used in the book of Revelation, is physical in your “Old” Testament but spiritual in your “New” Testament. Such as the concepts of salvation, resurrection, Jerusalem, and the Temple.

So, in the New Testament, salvation is no longer “physical,” like being saved from an enemy or saved from a foreign nation. But instead, it’s eternal and spiritual. And scripture verses from the “Old Testament” that speak of a “physical” return from a “metaphorical death” such as being exiled from the physical Promised Land of Jerusalem, are translated into physical “resurrections” from “real death” into an “eternal Jerusalem/ Promised Land” in heaven.

Therefore, physical imagery is actually spiritual

I originally posted this on Facebook. I just wanted to share it here too, though I recognize it does require a person to be quite familiar with both the Bible and maybe the backstory of my personal struggles with the book of Revelation.