Frequently people say when the views set forth herein are presented to them “Then you do not believe in a heaven.” Of course for a person to say he does not believe in a heaven is to deny the greater part of the Scriptures. That there is a place called heaven, no one who believes the Bible can doubt, and that heaven in its highest sense is God’s holy and glorious habitation is abundantly shown. “Hear thou in heaven, thy dwelling place,” says Solomon, and the prayer which our Lord taught his disciples begins with these words: “Our Father which art in heaven.” The apostle Paul speaks of God as “dwelling in light, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, whom no man can approach unto.” These testimonies show that heaven is a place, location, and can be thought of and spoken of separately from the earth and other parts of the universe. Heaven is generally spoken of from our standpoint as being up or above. The literal meaning of the word is “that which is heaved up,” that which is above, which is high. “Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool,” it is said, in which figure of speech it is represented as above the earth. That it is a place to which persons can go and from whence they can come is clear from the fact that of Christ’s second coming it is said: “The Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him.” Since the Scriptures teach that before this coming takes place, he is at the right hand of the Father in heaven, and since Peter says that God “shall send Jesus Christ, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution,” it follows that Christ, in coming from heaven to the earth, leaves one place and comes to another. Heaven is, therefore, a reality, a real place, God’s dwelling place. For Christ to leave the earth and go to heaven he had to ascend; he was taken up into heaven before the gaze of his anxious disciples, upon which occasion the angels said: “Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go.” Here we have him going and coming. All these and many other testimonies which might be given, go to show that heaven exists as a place, a locality.
There is but little revealed to us of the greatness and grandeur of the vast expanse above and about us, the Bible not being a revelation for that purpose, but is fitted to the needs and necessities of only our own planet, which is as a mere speck in the great and marvelous universe. When heaven is spoken of in the Scriptures, its greatness is always either directly expressed or implied as if it were a matter of course; and the higher scientific achievements can ascend in the realms of the starry heavens the more marvelous appears the greatness thereof, and the more awfully real become the words of the Psalmist: “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork,” (Psalms 19:1) God “sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers,” (Isaiah 40:22) It is “he that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in,” (Psalms 104:2).
Within the great circle of the heavens, the earth, revolving upon its axis and gliding along its orbit, is but as a very small wheel in the great machinery of the fathomless and limitless universe, while to our short range of view it appears great and wonderful above all others of the worlds which float in the immensity of space. Small as it is, however, compared with Creation’s mighty works, it fits its place and performs its part in maintaining the perfect equilibrium which the wonderful laws of the Creator so accurately govern. Scientists tell us that the slight unbalancing of this perfect equipoise would cause the crash of the universe. This might be true were it possible to conceive of the occurrence of such unbalancing with the Creator and upholder off His guard. No power but His could disturb the perfect equilibrium nor cause the smallest cog to slip in the machinery; but were he to see fit to remove or to destroy one or any number of the planets, surely a power and wisdom which could conceive and create such a marvelous system could also, if it were necessary, rearrange it, or see that the slightest change would not cause a crash. It is in the vain attempt to undermine the Bible in its account of Joshua’s long day and of miracles generally, that this supposed crashing result is assumed, and in this attempt the wisdom and power of the Creator are admitted and declared, it never seeming to occur to those scientists that laws so perfect and arrangements and adjustments so complete that the slightest disturbance would be attended with such tremendous results must have emanated from One whose wisdom and power answer exactly to the Bible description of God.
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Author: Thomas Williams
Keywords: New heavens New earth, New heaven, New earth, Earth will be destroyed, Destruction of the earth, World destroyed, The world will be destroyed, Earth destroyed by fire, Burned up earth, Earth burning, Earth will be on fire, Fire earth, Will God destroy the earth, Symbolic Language, Figurative language, kosmos, Cosmos, Third heaven
Bible reference(s): Isaiah 65:17, Isaiah 66:22, 2 Corinthians 12:2, 2 Peter 3:7, 2 Peter 3:10-11, 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1
Source: The World’s Redemption (Chicago: Advocate Pub. House, 1892-1908?).
Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.