What is Heaven?
Heaven: Not A Destination But A Realm
There are many thoughts about heaven, and a lot of them are quite fanciful. This subject is one of the most abstract realities Scripture deals with, and one of the most misunderstood. Much of what is said about heaven sounds more like wishful thinking than careful thought grounded in the Word. We are trying to talk about something no mortal has ever experienced while confined to a physical body, and we usually do so using physical categories that simply do not apply.
I know this because I once did the same thing.
The first time I had a serious discussion with the Lord about heaven, I was thinking of it as a place somewhere in the physical universe. I remember wondering how I would know how to get there once I left my body. I am convinced I heard Him chuckle at the question before answering:
“You don’t go anywhere, John. When you leave your body, you depart the physical part of the universe and move into the spiritual.”
The lights came on immediately. I realized I had been asking the wrong question. The universe is not divided by distance, but by nature. There is one universe, containing two realms. The physical realm and the spiritual realm exist side by side, but the physical is prevented from entering the spiritual because of what it is, not because of where it is.
Heaven is not somewhere else. It is the flip side of the coin. As long as we are locked into a physical body, we are kept separate from the parallel spiritual side of the same creation.
Later, as I studied the Hebrew words in Genesis 1, I noticed something I had never really paid attention to before. The very first verse of Scripture is a statement about the nature of the universe itself.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
I am convinced a clearer way to hear that verse is: “In the beginning God created the spiritual realm and the physical realm.” Genesis does not go on to explain the creation of the spiritual realm because that is not its purpose. The text immediately focuses on the formation and ordering of the physical realm. By the time the physical universe is being shaped, the spiritual realm already exists and is populated by spiritual beings.
Heaven, then, is not a physical environment made of solid objects. It is the realm of spiritual beings. One of the clearest hints of this comes when God gives Moses instructions for building the tabernacle.
Hebrews 8:5 who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, “SEE,” He says, “THAT YOU MAKE all things ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN WHICH WAS SHOWN YOU ON THE MOUNTAIN.”
The tabernacle was not a prototype of something God planned to build later. It was a translation. Physical objects were used to point toward non-physical realities that already existed. Moses was not inventing anything; he was copying what could not normally be seen.
The book of Revelation gives us the most detailed look into the spiritual realm, but it does so through a man whose entire frame of reference is physical. John can only describe what he experiences using language and imagery drawn from the physical world. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he writes what he is shown, but he has no choice but to use physical terms.
The mistake is taking those descriptions as literal physical objects. John is not describing physical things. He is describing spiritual realities the only way a man in a physical body can.
One of the things I eventually had to come to terms with is this: my eyes do not go to heaven with me. The five senses are given to us to deal with a physical universe. They serve us well here, but they do not cross the boundary into the spiritual realm.
There is no light in heaven the way we understand light. One does not see by light entering the eye and being processed by the brain. One sees by spiritual illumination. This is why John can see Jesus as a glorified King in one moment and as a Lamb in the next. He is not watching Jesus change form. He is perceiving different aspects of the same eternal reality.
He is not seeing reflections of light. He is seeing purpose and nature.
This is also why Scripture places such emphasis on learning to walk by faith and not by sight. Sight belongs to the physical realm. Faith is how spiritual perception begins to develop while we are still here.
The Bible does not pretend that our present condition is the highest form of life. Hebrews tells us that Jesus was made a little lower than the angels. Yet the same Scriptures say that those who become spiritual will end up judging the angels. Death, then, is not a step down. It is a step up.
I am not unaware of how difficult it is to imagine a spiritual existence. I can’t really do it myself. After more than fifty years of walking with the Lord and making a conscious effort to walk by faith rather than by sight, I have only caught brief glimmers. Still, those glimmers are enough to produce longing rather than fear.
2 Corinthians 5:1-5 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
One does not need a theological degree to see that Paul is not talking about real estate. He is talking about what we will be like, not where we will live. This is not a promise of a mansion somewhere; it is a promise of transformation.
That also answers the question people like to ask about recognition. Of course we will recognize those who have gone before us. More than that, we will understand them in a way that is simply not possible now.
Now, about the pearly gates.
The popular image of Peter standing at the gates of heaven is not really about heaven at all. It comes from a misunderstanding of the city of God, which Scripture describes as coming down from the spiritual realm into the physical. It is not souls going up; it is heaven coming down.
That city has everything to do with resurrection, glorified bodies, and the future interaction between those who belong to Christ and the mortal world. That, however, is another discussion for another day.
But it is important not to confuse the two.
