Part li What the Bible says about Heaven
IS THE HEAVENLY HOME A LITERAL PLACE OR JUST A STATE OF MIND
by Louis T. Talbot
been redeemed by Christ’s precious blood: “ The golden city for which the Church of the first-born is taught to look as its eternal home is 1,500 miles square ; for 12,000 stadia make 1,500 miles. John saw it measured, and this was the measure of it, just as wide as it is long, and just as high as it is wide; for ‘the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.’ Here would be streets over streets, and stories over stories, up, up, up, to the height of 1,500 miles, and each street 1,500 miles long. Thus this city is a solid cube of golden construction, 1,500 miles every way. The base o f it would stretch from farthest Maine to farthest Florida, and from the shore of the Atlantic to Colorado. It would cover all Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Prussia, European Turkey, and half of the European Russia, taken together! Stupendous magni tude!” This wonderful city is to be the everlasting home of all who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. It is where God will manifest His presence, where Christ will abide in His resurrection body. It is, moreover, to be recognized as the capital of God’s universe. The unfathomable vastness o f this universe! Astronomers tell us that this earth is a very small thing as compared to the millions of other planets that surround it. For illustration, let us suppose that one could take an auger and bore a hole in the sun. If he could do this, he could pour 1,200,000 earths like ours into this cavity and still have room for 4,300,-
^ r i c e the Lord Jesus called the eternal dwelling of redeemed ones “ a place” : “ I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself” (John 14:2, 3). These were the words with which the Lord comforted His troubled disciples on the eve of His returning to Heaven. He told them that He was leaving them, and despair gripped their hearts. However, He sought to wipe their fears away with the assurance that one day He and they would be in a place which He was going to prepare, a city of “many mansions.” That Heaven must be an actual abode, and not a mental state, is further proved by the fact that Enoch, Elijah, and Christ Himself ascended from the earth in bodily form. If Heaven is not a place, where can their bodies be? And where will the bodies of the saints exist after the resurrection ? Heaven is not a ghostly unreality. It is just as real a place as are New York, Chicago, or Los An geles—only more so, because these earthly cities have the marks of decay upon them, and they will one day crumble and mingle with the dust of the earth. But the heavenly city is eternal. What do we know about this divinely prepared “ place?” In the book of Revelation, the wonderful place that will be the eventual and permanent home of the redeemed is called “ the holy city, new Jeru salem” (Rev. 21:2). John, who was given a fore gleam of its glory, records the city’s dimensions in Revelation 21:15-17. This heavenly city is beyond earthly parallel. J. A. Seiss, in The Apocalypse, beautifully de scribes the eternal abiding place of those who have
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MARCH, 1969
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