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Transcript 576A — Could Heaven be in Outer Space?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: I've been listening to your program, and I have a question. Do you believe that Heaven could possibly be in space? I mean, could it be in the stars, like eternal stars?
HC: The question is, where is Heaven? Now we look at this universe, that stretches out apparently billions of light years into space, and it boggles our minds. We can't really envision how big the universe is. Is Heaven out there someplace?
Well, we must remember that we think in terms of time and of space, of length, width and breadth. And these are the only dimensions we know. We reckon everything by days and months and years, and we reckon everything by dimensions. So we can say that a star is a billion light years out in space, or whatever our telescopes and other means tell us.
But when we talk about Heaven and God, we are talking about something that is an entirely different phenomenon. It has a different existence altogether. Heaven is not confined to time or space. God is Spirit, for example. And we don't know what a spirit is. You can't see a spirit. You can't describe a spirit. There's no way that we could describe an angel, which is a spiritual being. There is no way we could describe Heaven. God does give us word pictures, but they're only word pictures. They don't really tell us what Heaven is. Our minds are not designed to be able to think of what Heaven is.
So when we attempt to say, "Well, Heaven is someplace out there," or I've heard people say, "Well, Heaven is that space occupied between all the molecules, that the atoms are rattling around, and between all of this there's a lot of vacant space, and this is where Heaven is." And you hear all kinds of theories of this kind. But none of this makes any sense.
Heaven is beyond our ability to imagine or think about. We don't know where Heaven is or what Heaven is, really. All we know is that God gives us the picture that it's 'up there.' Christ ascended. And that's the only picture God gives us. And we know that this universe, as big as it is, is going to collapse on the last day, it's going to burn with fire, the elements will melt with fervent heat. And for all of its size it will come to an end at the same time. And in so doing it's not going to affect Heaven at all.
CALLER: Doesn't it describe Heaven in the Book of Revelation?
HC: The Book of Revelation, in Revelation 21, describes the New Heaven and the New Earth. In II Peter 3 God indicates that this present universe will be destroyed, and God will recreate it a new universe. But it is a spiritual universe. And I don't know what that is. I say it's a spiritual universe because it will be occupied by spiritual beings. We will have spiritual bodies. Do you know what a spiritual body is? I haven't the slightest idea what a spiritual body is. And this is what the new universe will be.
And so God again gives us some word pictures. He indicates that there's no suffering or sorrow. He indicates there's no sun, that Christ is the Sun. There is no temple; Christ is the Temple. And immediately we begin to sense that then this is something altogether different than anything we know, because we can't envision a place without the sun to shine and give its warmth. And yet God insists that there is no sun. He says the seas are no more. Well, we know on this present earth that the seas are exceedingly important in maintaining a temperate climate, and helping to balance the atmosphere so that it's livable, and all of this. And it serves all kinds of functions. And yet God says the seas are no more. And so again God is describing something that we can't envision at all.