The world searches and searches for something tangible to worship – even Christians often long to have palpable experiences, in this life, of heavenly realities. Consider how popular are the books written by people who have died (temporarily) and experienced heaven for a few moments, or how much emphasis some put on experiencing 'the miraculous'.

Despite this human thirst for experiencing the supernatural as a tangible reality, however, we must always keep in perspective that God Himself does not dwell here, in earthly realms. From one end of the universe to the other, our Father's throne is not to be found, for "The LORD's throne is in heaven" (Ps 11:4) – that is, not in 'the heavens' (i.e. the sky or the known universe) but in a spiritual heaven somewhere beyond our physical capacity to know.

Of course, through history God has always been present within the universe and on earth. To Jeremiah He said "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" (Jer 23:24) and to Isaiah, "Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool" (Isa 66:1). The Bible is full of examples of God's presence being made manifest in certain places and at particular times – e.g. the pillar of cloud, the burning bush, the Tabernacle, the Temple. But when His presence 'went up' from those places, the cloud dissipated, the bush was just a bush and the Temple was just a building (Ichabod, the glory has departed).

God the Father dwells outside of our world and is utterly 'other' to it, only knowable insofar as He reveals Himself to us (e.g. John 1:18).

Sacred, Set Apart

For this I am very glad! For one thing, it means He is not subject to any of this world's constraints - seeing the beginning from the end, being outside of time and space and of course being utterly sovereign over all our comings and goings.

For another, God's separateness, His sacred set-apartness, is part of what distinguishes Christianity from all other religions and gods on earth. For without exception, all of these make a god out of something within the created order – whether man, or nature, or celestial bodies like the sun and moon. As Dr Peter Jones argues in his book The Other Worldview,¹ they collapse into one what God has always ordained to be two – the Creator and the Creation (see also Romans 1:21-23).

But we know that our Heavenly Father is unlike all others, utterly beyond and sacrosanct. "There is none like You, O Lord" (Jer 10:6). "You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You" (Neh 9:6).

God with Us - Emmanuel

And yet, if God remains far off, we have only part of the story. Despite being in Heaven, is He not also "our Father", closer than our next breath, desiring relationship with each one of His children? For history is really the story of God desiring to dwell not in Heaven, but with His people. We do not have an unrelated God who wants to remain at a distance, but a Father God who was pleased to bring us salvation by His own arm, who armoured Himself, coming down here to save us.

Instructions given in the wilderness for the building of the Tabernacle (and, later, the Temple) were given with the view of God dwelling with His people - moving with them and being in their midst, all the time. This was perfectly fulfilled in Jesus, who "left the realms of glory" (as the Christmas carol declares) to spend a brief lifetime with us - Emmanuel. "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling amongst us" (John 1:14). For just over 30 years, humankind was given a glimpse of Heaven coming to earth: God in man - walking our roads, eating our food, breathing our air – subjecting Himself to all the confines of humanity, even death. This is the Lord Jesus, our Messiah, our Christ.

The Coming Reality

Yet even this unique and incredible portion of history was only designed to be temporary. For the risen Lord Jesus did not stay with us but ascended back into Heaven, to sit at the right hand of God the Father and fulfil His role as Great High Priest, interceding for us (Rom 8:24; Heb 7:25).

We can all wonder what it was like to be around on earth when Jesus was here, yet He Himself said that it was "for your good that I am going away" (John 16:7), that we might be given the Holy Spirit – and that our salvation might be by faith, from first to last, rather than by sight. For believers, the Holy Spirit fills us now as a deposit of what is to come – a sign and a foretaste of the future eternal fulfilment of all the historical shadows and types of God's ultimate plan.

In other words, the Holy Spirit is our present hope that just as we have a Brother who gave up the eternal realms of glory to come down to earth and live amongst us as a man, so we also have a Father who will one day be pleased to give up His abode in Heaven – eternally - to live amongst humankind.

That's right: our Father's present dwelling-place in Heaven, as indescribably amazing as the biblical descriptors portray it to be, is actually only temporary, just as our walk on this earth is temporary. God's ultimate plan is to dwell on a new earth, with us, forever. The dwelling-place of God will be with men (Rev 21:3, also Ezek 37:27-28), as "our Father who art in Heaven" has always purposed from the beginning. When that Day comes, the heavens that we know now will be rolled up like a piece of cloth (Heb 1:12, Ps 102:26, also Isa 34:4), the old heavens and earth will pass away (Matt 24:35) and all will be made new.

'Set Your Minds on Things Above...'

In the meantime, knowing that God our Father dwells beyond all our worldly troubles should be a great comfort and inspiration to us. As Christmas approaches, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things" (Col 3:2). Why not revisit the passages in Scripture that speak of Heaven, and of the new Heaven and new earth to come?

We might also recognise in the world's infatuation with Santa Claus the deep cry of the lost for something miraculous, something beyond this life. Let's be on hand to offer hope – particularly to the very young ones in our lives, who may need to know "Our Father, who art in Heaven", Lord over all time and space and Giver of eternally good gifts to His children. Compared to Him, Santa Claus provides an incomparably impoverished alternative!

Author: Frances Rabbitts

References

1 2015, Kirkdale Press.