Where is Jesus now? (Reflections on Resurrection)

[0:00] now that i've spent some time going over the fact that physical existence is a natural and good part of what god created i also want to take a moment to examine some of the faulty assumptions that even supposedly bible-believing christians bring when they don't have a fully biblically informed worldview just yet today i'm going to try to answer a question that people wave off and simply assume that the bible never gives an answer for and that's thankfully not the case here's the question is heaven a material or non-material place here's another one related to it if we believe in the bodily resurrection and the ascension of jesus into heaven where is jesus now [Music] hey and welcome back to the channel my name is tim i'm a pastor author and entrepreneur and on this channel we discuss how to live our lives in light

[0:47] of what the bible really says about eternity so if you want to live your life in constant amazement at god's goodness his grace and the beauty of his plans for the future then you're in the right place so give this video a like hit the subscribe button ring that notification bell or you can wait until the end of the video and make me earn it so the question is is heaven a physical or non-material place in the answer the biblical answer this might be surprising to some of you is that of course heaven is a spiritual place but it is also a physically composed place jesus is in heaven right now we believe in the bodily resurrection and the heavenly ascension heaven and earth are not far away from each other heaven is not a strictly material realm and earth is not a strictly material realm that's not the case at all this isn't brand new to jesus either it doesn't just start when he was resurrected and then ascended

[1:35] in the temple in jerusalem and the tabernacle before that they believed that heaven and earth were there together it wasn't just treated as if you were in heaven you were in heaven god's space came to overlap with the human space meaning that there's always a little bit of heaven in earth and there was always a little bit of earth in heaven so of course when jesus ascends in acts chapter 1 it makes perfect sense frankly even if the rest of the bible didn't say anything but the resurrection narratives did show that after he ascended his physical body went up with him into heaven then there would at least be that much physicality in heaven meaning they're not mutually exclusive i'm sorry if that blows up your categories but maybe you need new categories welcome i think you're in the right place there's this whole school of thought in biblical studies that if something is physical then it can't be spiritual and if it's spiritual then it can't be physical so when you read about things like thrones in heaven and

[2:23] existing spiritual beings with bodies that fill that space you're using the language of space-time but you must interpret it this is what they'll say you must interpret it as though it's not literal that it's just an like an anthropomorphism or that it's a figure of speech if fire can come down from heaven or physically visible angels can manifest in front of humans and you can visually see them then it just can't be a mental or spiritual space alone the bible is inviting us to rethink our entire cosmology not only is god's plan for eternity physical and spiritual in nature but god's own space is physical and spiritual in nature in our last video we were talking a little bit about the platonic world view that has snuck into the church platonism in a nutshell is this very greek idea that physical stuff is bad and spiritual stuff is good and near the

[3:12] twain shall meet the greek ideas that we still have in our minds as being part of the post-enlightenment west are fundamentally misconceived according to the scriptures so it's good to be able to identify those things so that we can uproot them in favor of better categories we don't have to enslave ourselves to a platonic view of heaven a body is not out of place there it's not poetic or figurative language to say that there is physicality there there is of course physicality in god's realm he made it he called it good he's rather fond of it and he intends to remake it again this is so important because we're coming up to easter and this is a time of the year every year when christians should be remembering what the hope of christianity is the hope of christianity is not just to go to heaven when you die as some purely spiritual place up above

[4:01] much more interesting much more wonderful is that christianity promises the renewal of the physicality of the entire universe for any human that finds themselves in christ their eternal future is not disembodied bliss singing to god face to face in a non-material heaven forever frankly i don't even know what face to face would mean in a non-material heaven but that's not that's that's beside the point the hope of christianity if it means anything at all is the triumphal entry of a new heavens and a new earth a renewed physicality resurrected bodies humans coming back to life with a glorified body the same kind that jesus had i say had but it's also the kind that he has now in heaven we anticipate the renewal of the entire earth that god made and called good and its reunification with god's own space according to revelation

[4:50] 21 and 22 the last two chapters of the bible frankly even from the very beginning when god was walking with adam and eve in the cool of the garden in chapters 1 and 2 of genesis this was clearly already god's plan so whenever you hear the word resurrection don't think that it just means going to heaven when you die your hope is both that your body will be raised and glorified like jesus's body was on easter and that god will bring the life of heaven back to earth to remake the earth and to cleanse it from all of the brokenness and sin one of the things i love most about c.s lewis work is that he describes heaven and god space as more solid and more real spoiler alert for those of you who have not read the chronicles of narnia and plan to but at the end when you read the last battle and the battle is over and aslan has won and he's recreating the world the children are there and

[5:38] when they see it it is more real it's more solid it feels more substantive and weighty and that's what we should think of heaven it's not less real than the earth and it's not less physical than the earth it's more real and it's more physical and what we really need if we're being honest is a little bit more heaven here on earth we'll talk about this more in future videos but if you're new to this way of talking about eternity in heaven i've got a playlist right up here that you can go ahead and start watching right now that'll help you to really get your feet under you and understand what it is i'm discussing and as always if you're trying to dive deeper you can visit us at our website at theoverlap.life where you can buy the book join one of our challenges get some one-on-one coaching even get on the phone with me go ahead and start those videos up there in the top left corner and let me know what you

[6:24] think down in the comments is this new for you is this different what do you think further up and further in thanks for watching