Tour of Heaven

Session 5: Defining the Parameters

I.Heaven’s Location:

  1. A Real Place Now:

Let’s be reminded that Heaven is current. It is real right now not merely a future reality that it will be real sometime later. This is the critical point for this session; we are basing everything in this teaching off the fact that Heaven is a definable place right now with physical dimensions, places, structures and real life dynamics.

  1. Current Location Above:

The city of the New Jerusalem is real now, but where is it? Paul talks about the city being located simply as “above,” or up. This is referring to it’s current location somewhere out in the cosmos above.

“Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother (Ga. 4:25-26).”

  1. Location During the Millennial Kingdom:

When Jesus returns at the end of this age Heaven will come and settle above the Earth for the 1000 years of His reign. It will be close enough to the Earth to be seen by all but it will not be in direct contact with the surface of the face of the planet.

  1. Position of the City After the Millennium:

After the Earth has received its final judgment (Re. 20:11-15) and has been cleansed with fire (2Pe. 2:3:10) the New Jerusalem will come and permanently come to rest on the Earth forever.

  1. The City of Heaven Moves:

We can’t develop a clear doctrine for whether or not Heaven moves around much right not. But we do know that the city can move since it will move on more than one occasion. It is a powerful thought that God’s Holy City might be traveling the universe looking for a place to settle down, and that a time is coming when it will find rest here on Earth forever.

II.Descriptions of the City:

  1. Heaven is a City:

Heaven is a place that we can relate to; it’s a city, it’s understandable and concrete. This city has all of the elements of a real city; community, governmental infrastructure, roads, buildings, houses, etc.

“And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem (Re. 21:10)”

  1. New Jerusalem called the Holy Mountain:

The reason that the descending New Jerusalem is called a mountain is because it’s like a huge mountain (Ps. 43:3, 48:1-2, 87:1-3, 99:9; Is. 14:13, 40:9, 57:13; Ez. 17:22, 20:40, 40:2; Mt. 4:8; Re. 21:10). We know that it shares the stature of a mountain and maybe many other properties that we are not yet thinking about. When Mount Sinai was all-ablaze and the presence of the glory of the Lord rested on it perhaps this was just a foreshadow of what we would experience when the mountain of God descends at the end of this age.

“And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God (Re. 21:10).”

  1. Called a Canopy:

During the Millennial Kingdom the New Jerusalem will descend above the city of the Earthly Jerusalem and will be a canopy over the region. This will be visible to those on the Earth.

“Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain (Is. 4:5-6).”

  1. The City is an Impenetrable Fortress:

New Jerusalem is the most fortified fortress we can imagine, it is the safest place in existence.

  1. It has high walls (Re. 21:12).
  2. The walls are 200 feet thick, they are impenetrable (Re. 21:17)
  3. Its gates are guarded (Re. 21:12).
  4. No one can come in without granted permission (Re. 21:27).
  5. The city is called a vault (Jb. 22:14).

“Thick clouds veil him, so he does not see us as he goes about in the vaulted heavens (Jb. 22:14).”

III.Parameters of the City:

  1. The City is Transparent:

Seemingly from every angle New Jerusalem is described as clear; this allows light to pass through as well as it makes the whole city visible.

  1. The walls are transparent:

“The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass (Re. 21:18).”

  1. The streets are transparent::

“The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass (Re. 21:21).”

  1. The outward appearance:

“It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal (Re. 21:11).”

  1. The City has Twelve Floors:

There are twelve foundations or floors in the New Jerusalem and each of them is comprised of one of the priestly stones from the breastplate (). These floors are each a huge expanse.

“The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst (Re. 21:19-20).”

  1. The first floor is made of jasper
  2. The second floor is made of sapphire
  3. The third floor is made of agate
  4. The four floor is made of emerald
  5. The fifth floor is made of onyx
  6. The sixth floor is made of ruby
  7. The seventh floor is made of chrysolite
  8. The eighth floor is made of beryl
  9. The ninth floor is made of topaz
  10. The tenth floor is made of turquoise
  11. The eleventh floor is made of jacinth
  12. The twelfth floor is made of amethyst
  1. New Jerusalem is Massive:

We are told the dimensions of the city; it’s 1400 miles wide by 1400 miles long (and high). This means that each floor has approximately 2 million square miles of space if the floors are all the same size. As a frame of reference this is the distance from the Mississippi River to the Pacific and from Mexico to Canada.

“The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long (Re. 21:16).”

  1. Identifiable Places Within the City:

The scripture identifies many places within the New Jerusalem. Some of these places are described as buildings, others are areas or districts, some are described in detail and some are only mentioned in passing. Still other places are implied, by the presence of certain things, while the place itself may not be specifically mentioned.

IV.Parameters of Our Relationships in Heaven:

Understanding that we will have relationships in the age to come is a massive component in helping us to understand what life will be like. This helps to makes sense of how our time will be spent and where we will go and what we will do. Heaven is full of social dynamics that only make sense in the light of friendships, family interaction and love.

  1. Friendships Remembered:

We will remember our relationships; my daughter will still be my daughter in a billion years. Though I won’t be married to my wife in the next age we will always be close and remember our experiences that we shared together. Our friendships will carry over into eternity, we will remember each deed and time together.

“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings (Lk. 16:9).”

  1. Conversations and Communication:

As a point of reference all the elders of Heaven communicate, singing and talking, the angels talk, Jesus talks, the Father talks and so does everyone else in Heaven, even the four living creatures. We should understand from this that we too will speak in Heaven. Relationships are harvested through communication, talking is part of what it means to be human, means to be a worshiper of God, and we will continue to talk to eachother forever.

  1. The Great Multitude from the Nations:

There will be countless millions, probably a couple of billion saints from all the different tribes and languages of the Earth. These will all be relationships that we will have eternity to meet and cultivate deep fellowship with one meal at a time.

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb (Re. 7:9).”

  1. Believers from All History:

From Adam to Abraham to David to Isaiah the saints from all history are waiting for us. Heaven will give us the context and eternity the time to build relationships with all those from the past, even all those faithful ones whose names we’ve never heard.

“Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah(Mt. 17:3-4).”

“the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mt. 22:32)”

  1. The Unborn:

There have been hundreds of millions who have died before anyone was given the chance to know them here on Earth. But they are still very much alive and have not only a destiny still but we will know them and build relationships with them as well. Solomon, speaking from the position of the wisest man that ever lived says that great blessing awaits those who are conceived but are never born for they do not have to face the evils of this age but instead are ushered straight into the bliss of the next.

“And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun. (Ec. 4:2-3).”

V.Earthly Things Stored Up in Heaven:

Perhaps we’ve not thought much about it, but there are already several physical Earthly items that are currently in Heaven, being stored, or used.

A.Physical Items:

  1. Gifts from the kings of Earth:

During the Millennium the kings of the Earth will regularly bring in the wealth from their nations to be either used or stored in the New Jerusalem (Re. 21:26; Ps. 68:29-30, 72:10-11, 15; Zch. 8:20-22; Is. 60:10-11; Ps. 89:27).

  1. The Ark of the Covenant:

As we saw in the last session currently we can know that the Ark of the Covenant is there in Heaven, more specifically within the temple or throne room (Re. 11:19).

B.Physical People:

Until they receive resurrected bodies at the second coming the saints in Heaven are disembodied spirits. There are however at least three exceptions of those who are in Heaven now as physical people with real bodies.

  1. Enoch (Ge. 5:24)
  2. Elijah (2Ki. 2:11)
  3. Jesus (Ac. 1:11)

C.Other Physical Things:

If we can see from the above examples that Heaven takes things from the Earth on occasion then it’s no stretch to believe that there may well be other things up there that just have no been mentioned in the Word.

D.Making Heaven Concrete:

Seeing things from our environment in the environment of Heaven helps us to get our heads around the concreteness of Heaven.

  1. Physical things:

There will be tangible physical items in the age to come.

  1. Interaction:

We will interact with those things in much the same way that we do now.

  1. Physical space:

This helps us to understand another important facet of Heaven; that is the concept of physical space, items having real mass.

  1. Geography:

This also allows us to see the continuity of geography in the age to come, that things have fixed geographical locations. Heaven, like Earth has concrete locations and actual coordinates, there are destinations within the Holy City.

  1. Collective takeaway:

When we put these points together, it gives so much credence to our hearts about the realness of Heaven.

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