BibleProject - Heaven and Earth Part 1: What is the Old Testament referring to as "Heaven"?

Episode Date: January 29, 2016

In this episode, Tim and Jon begin their conversation about heaven and earth starting in Genesis 1. This is the first time “heaven" appears in the Bible. “The heavens” literally means “the sky.” Did the ancient Israelites think God lived in the sky? Maybe. The guys will talk more about this and what it means for God’s space and human space to overlap. In the first part of the episode (01:27-08:57), the guys talk about the idea that heaven is in the clouds. How did we get there? Tim will break down the Hebrew word for heaven and explain a bit more about what the ancient Israelites believed about God’s heavenly space. In the second part of the episode (09:17-18:59), the guys will talk about the significance of temples for the ancient Israelites. Temples were the place where the divine and human space overlapped, and this was incredibly important to the ancient Israelites. In the next part of the episode (19:19-25:15), Tim and Jon talk about Jesus as the ultimate meeting place of heaven and earth. Throughout the gospels, Jesus calls himself the temple of God and makes clear that he is God’s temple presence made accessible for humanity. In the final part of the episode (25:45-40:57), the guys talk about the ways we see this overlap between heaven and earth throughout Scripture. We see it through Jesus, through visions of heaven, like Jacob has in Genesis 28, and ultimately we see it in the garden of Eden. Video: This episode is designed to accompany our video called, “Heaven & Earth." You can view it on our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy2AQlK6C5k Scripture References: Genesis 1 Genesis 28 Psalm 11 Psalm 103 1 Kings 8 Isaiah 6 Show Music: Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music Analogs by Greyflood

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

This is part one of a discussion Tim and I have about the biblical theme of heaven and the biblical theme of earth and how they relate. We made a video about this. It's on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the Bible project. It's a five minute animated video. It gives you an overview of the idea. And if you watch that video and you want to know more about what the Bible has to say about heaven, God's space, and earth, our space, and how they connect,

these are the conversations for you. And I'm so excited that you're listening to them. They have been instrumental for me in my Christian faith. Also, the song playing, a lot of people have been asking, is by a band called Tense. They're here in Portland. They're really good friends of mine. One of my favorite bands right now, you can find them, Tenseband.bandcamp.com. They have just a few tracks up there because it's a brand new band. All right, heaven and earth, part one, here we go. Alright, where should we start? The easiest place to start is where people in

our culture how they think about heaven, and where did those ideas of this non-material kind of ephemeral reality in the clouds, which there's a gate where Peter's there. Right. And people are saying that. Yeah, my mind, it's so abstract that I know it's not clouds. I know it's not a city on a cloud, but that's the only picture I really have. Yeah, those images are so widespread, but actually, but think about what those are. Those are their caricatures. They're silly. Like these images to the modern mind

have become so ridiculous. They're kind of like this throwback to a thing that people used to think, but now we realize a silly, so we'll kind of make it into a character in movies. Right. So at some point people thought, oh, there might be something up there in the clouds. And as we think about what might be in the clouds, let's throw a city up there. Let's throw, I mean, who knows?

Yeah, we've never been up there. We've never been to the clouds. Who knows what's up there. Let's throw. I mean, who knows? Yeah. We've never been up there. We've never been to the clouds. Who knows what's up there? Right. And now we've been up there. We've cruised around a lot. Yeah. We've got a lot of photos. Right. We have a lot to trash floating up. And we've brought a lot of trash up into there. Yeah. Orbit. Yeah. And there is no city. Right. There is no city, there is no perligates, but that image has remained. And so now it seems so silly to your point that we haven't thrown away the image, but it's become this kind of absurd character. That's right.

Yeah. So, to me, it's an interesting route, which the biblical idea of heaven has ended up with that depiction of heaven in our culture. Like this idea of this is what Christians believe, and this is why we know they're stupid and silly. Right, this idea of heaven up in the clouds and that kind of thing. So how do we get there? Yeah, how do we get there? Um, so, and it's like most things, it's a series of half-truths or images or passages from the Bible that have been badly misunderstood

or understood ignoring their context in literary or ancient cultural context. So we kind of just, the way we started this video was just like, let's just study the word heaven in all the different ways that heaven is used in the Bible and it's really interesting, super fascinating. So this trick might get old, but it from me somehow it never gets old of where is the first time heaven appears in the Bible. Yeah, this is a staged stage one John that was already in Genesis one one in the first Sentence the first sentence of the Bible So yeah in in the beginning God made well we have in our Bibles the heavens and the earth now that itself is really interesting Yeah, it's plural heavens right. We don't use that as a plural plural in every translation? Modern English.

Good question. Let's look. Tim's typing that as logos Bible software. Wow, this is interesting. All of our modern translations have, in the beginning, God created the heavens. And, and IV SV, New American Standard. But the King James 1611. the OG, has heaven, singular.

Singular heaven. Yeah, that's interesting. So, so here's what's literally that's a true reflection, the Hebrew word, Shemaiam. It's a, well, there's debate about if it's a certain kind of special plural or regular plural, but it's a certain kind of special plural or regular plural, but it's plural. The heavens, or in English we might say the skies. No, we wouldn't. We don't say the skies. Lighting up the skies.

Oh, you're right. Flying through the skies. Through the skies. Where do I feel like the skies appears in plural in English, advertising or something, some airline or something. The friendly skies. The friendly skies. That's what I'm thinking of. Who's that? Who English advertising or something? Some airline or something? The friendly skies. The friendly skies. That's what I'm thinking of. Who's that?

Who's the friendly skies? I don't know. Come on. I'm going to go with United. The friendly skies. We're, by the way, not the friendly skies. So I hope it's not them. The friendly is United.

Oh, yeah. Anyway, fly the friendly skies. Fly the skies. Okay, so the heavenly airline. It should be the second part of that tagline. So in the heavens, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, what that doesn't mean is in the beginning, God created some strange place up in the sky, where only he lives and

where don't you wish you could get there kind of thing. And Earth is oh well, this is where we end up and it's second rate and not that good. And I think anybody could just read Genesis 1 and realize that's not what those words mean. It's very simple what they mean. You just read through the account. The heavens are where the birds go later on in chapter 1 and it's what's up above. And Earth certainly doesn't mean globe. I'm sorry. Yeah. It's just a closed loop on the plural thing.

It's plural in Hebrew. It's plural in Hebrew. But that's not because there's multiple skies. It's because there's so much of it, we pluralize it. I mean what's the idea there? Oh I see. That's just the Hebrew way of referring to what's up there. The skies. Yeah there isn't a singular heaven in the Bible. There's no singular way of referring to heaven. Not in the Hebrew Bible. In the Hebrew language in the Old Testament, it's always the heavens.

By nature, it's plural. Is there anything in English that's that way? It's just it's always plural. You can't singularize it. I just don't have a category for that. English word that is always plural. Here are 12 nouns that are always plurals. Oxford dictionary. Trausers. Scissors. Yep, yeah you don't pick up. You better get a scissors. Scissors. Yeah. Glasses. Like eye glasses. Clothes. That's interesting. Put on your clothes. Yeah, you'd never say that. I'm gonna skip this one. I don't know what this is. Marginilia? I don't know.

Marginilia. Shenanigans. Lagerheads, cahoots. They're just getting weirder. So, clothes and scissors. Glasses. Those are all examples of a English word that's always plural. So is that the same thing here?

Yeah, it's similar in the, I'm looking up in the standard Hebrew grammar by the home-cicinius. He calls it a plural of extension. So there's a handful of Hebrew words that are always plural because they are seen to be made up of multiple complex interacting parts. So water is in Hebrew, always the waters. Yeah. And I always call it the internet.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's, right? There's so many moving parts today. there's so many moving parts today. There's so many moving parts today. So heaven, based meaning, simple meaning of the word heaven, where the heavens in the Bible is the sky. So when you told me this originally my initial question is, is that where ancient, ancient

Hebrew thinker thought God was in the sky? Right, right. So this is what yeah, this is what's interesting is that there are many places in the Old Testament where God's space or his presence is placed in the sky what's interesting is that it's almost always poetry. And specifically, if you read those passages in context, it's almost always connecting the location of God's presence in the sky

with some kind of meaning as an image of something. So I just threw two examples in your notes. Psalm 11 says, the Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord is on his heavenly throne, or his throne in the heavens. From there he observes everyone on earth and his eyes examine them. So what do we mean when we say God's in heaven? Well, heaven's up high. It's up above everything. And that's the place from, that gives God a vantage point to look down and see everything that humans are doing. So the image of God's presence being up high is an image of his status above its vantage

point. It's an image of transcendence. So another example is Psalm 103 verse 19. The Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules overall. And this is really, if you just do a word search in the Bible of heaven with the words throne or kingdom or rule, you'll just get a ton of hits.

So when the biblical authors want to talk about God as the king who rules or has a throne, they'll often place that throne in the heavens. Which it makes sense in English. We have even the idea in English of to be exalted, to be exalted over something, means that you're more important. You have authority over it. So when the biblical authors want to use images to talk about God's status, he's the king, he rules, they place his presence in heaven. So it's always poetry, and it's almost always connected to an image or a metaphor.

So could we sit, you know, Moses or David down and be like, now, do you really think God lives up there in this guy? Yeah, well, it's sad. And I have there in this guy? And then, yeah, what would you say? And then, I have, I don't know, I have no idea. Like, we tend to think of these ancient people groups as being primitive or simple minded. And not clearly, not clearly. These authors wrote some most brilliant literary works that we still read today. So they're not dummies. And they know how they- But they just did, but they didn't know certain things that we still read today. So they're not dummies.

And they know how they just did, but they didn't know certain things that we take for granted. Yeah, yes. The earth is in flat. That's right. The earth is in flat. The earth doesn't have a solid dome over it. Um, as is envisioned in Genesis 1. The earth isn't flat. It doesn't float on the ceiling. Because that's another thing you, you, you showed me, you kind of diagrammed it out was that the kind of ancient understanding of this whole space is that you have earth it's flat it's built on pillars yeah yeah the pillars of the earth yeah yeah Firmament right well that's um or no that's just the land. That's just the land. The Firmament is how the King James translated the dome. Oh, the dome. Okay, okay.

Yeah. So there's the earth, there's the dome, which is above the earth. Yeah, it's that blue thing. Yeah, when you look up and you just see blue around you, it does kind of look like a dome. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then that's the firmament. And King James, it's the firmament.

In many English translations, it's called the expanse. The expanse. It's such a great word. And the new Revised Standard version, it's called the dome. And in Hebrew, it's the rakia. It's the, which means a solid thing that has, that which has been hammered out smooth and like a shield Curved yeah, we're yeah big curve thing so the so that's the the rakia

And that's different than the which gets named the heavens. Oh, okay in Genesis one god makes the rakia And he called it the heavens It's that's where the birds go so in their conception the blue thing is solid That's where the birds go. So in their conception the blue thing is solid and And there's water above it because Occasionally water comes down there. Yeah, so must be coming from somewhere. Yeah, but not all the time

It's just sometimes sometimes which means there's some mechanism right to release the waters and in Genesis 7 Are the ideas of stars or like in the windows and stars are are yeah the stars are Shining objects placed in the rakea Yeah, so it's just a different conception of yeah Now if you sat and was down you said explain to me the rakea you'd be like yeah, it's this dome It's the solid thing the stars are in there and and God's throne is above it and God's throne is above it yeah and if you said it's God's throne really above it or is that a metaphor yeah then he would also say well God's throne is also in that

tent that's in the center of the camp but that's getting ahead of ourselves right okay I guess my point is yeah they not dumb. They're not yes, but that is how they thought of the world. Correct. That was their cosmic geography was flat earth, solid dumb, earth's floating on the deep abyss of waters, because if you dig down far enough you eventually get the water. So you, but so how does it not sink all the time? Well, God put it on pillars. That's why the pillars. The foundations of the earth keep it suspended above the watery abyss. Okay. Yeah, so it's just the biblical conception of the physical construction of the world. So the biblical authors refer for them that the highest most exalted place within their cosmic geography is to be above the heavens or in the heavens.

So that's where they envision God's space. And you think if you would have pressed them, they'd have been like, yeah, I don't know. It's just that. I'm just trying, we're, it's up high. Right. It's up high. It's exalted. It's exalted. Or they send it overall. Yeah. Just because a biblical author uses a metaphor or an image, doesn't mean the thing he's referring to isn't real. Right. It just means that we shouldn't mistake the reality for the metaphor.

The metaphor is trying to give us a grasp on something that's so real. We can only describe it as being like things that we experience or something like that. I guess one thing I would want to know though is, is it possible that the author didn't know they were using a metaphor? Correct, and that is the question when we're talking about cosmic geography right here. You know, did the author of Genesis one think it's not actually solid that blue thing? But I'll just say it is because that's what all my neighbors think. No, actually, you thought that. Yeah. And then if he said, if you said, is the throne really above it?

It'd be like, I don't know if it really is. Sure, but, but, so this is where, but we can't stop here because the Biblical authors didn't think that God's presence and space was limited. We know that they believe that God's presence was accessible here on earth, and that God's space in heaven, His throne in heaven, overlapped with earth. So, for me, that's a clue. That for them, it's not so simple. It's not that simple to just say, well that's what God lives up there. He also lives down here and those are both true

at the same time. So obviously there's some sort of complexity in their thinking. That's right. So this kind of leads to the next thing. When we want to talk about God as exalted and ruler overall and separate and transcendent, they'll talk about us thrown up in heaven. But the biblical authors also have a conception that God's space that is exalted is accessible and overlaps here with earth where we live.

It overlaps at intersex, and this is where really the whole biblical vision of what temples are unfolds from that idea, the overlap of heaven and earth. So in the video, we drew those with the two circles over the Venn diagram overlapping. So to say that sky is overlapping with earth, all of a sudden you're like, no, no, that was a metaphor. That's right. We're talking about something else now. That's right. We're talking about God's presence. Yeah, so you have this literal idea of the heavens and the earth, Genesis 1, 1, the sky

and the land. But then biblical authors will use the sky as a way of talking about the nature of God's space, that it's high, it's transcendent, it's authoritative, it's where he sees everything, rules everything. And earth is where we live, it's below the heavens, it's subservient to. But then to talk about heaven as God's space where his unique presence is, and that it overlaps with earth, you have to say, okay, we're dropping the...

The sky thing. The sky thing. And now we're talking about just heaven as God's personal presence. Because we just had the sky thing, then we wouldn't have this sense of God's presence with us. Correct.

Which is an important understanding which then brings us to the idea of the temple. That's right. The Israelites, but not only the Israelites, as far as we can tell, was a common conception among Israel's neighbors too, that temples are this place where the divine space and human space meet and overlap. But for Israel had the conviction that its God wasn't just a tribal regional God, but the creator of all that is. So this is the overlapping of the creator's divine space with human space. The story, there's a story in the book of Genesis where this gets unpacked and it's really cool because it's about this very

concept of the surprising places where heaven and earth overlap and it's the story of Jacob's Dream at night out in the field in Genesis chapter 28 So he's he's running from his family So he's running from his family, his brother who wants to kill him. And so he has this, he's hungry and tired and running away and he goes to sleep in a field. And he has this dream. And in this dream, he sees a ramp or sometimes translated a stairway. It's definitely not a ladder. A big ladder.

Yes, even though that's become really a popular way of it. So it's don't think of a ladder with rungs. Think a huge stone stairway. Or... Like what have been part of those, what are those called? The Ziggurat? Ziggurat? Yes, or ramp.

Sometimes those were weren't stairways, but just steep and climb ramps so they could roll things up and down and so on. So the word occurs only here in all of ancient Hebrew literature. Oh really? So we don't really know exactly what that is. Not precisely. Is it a stairs at a ramp? But the, but it's the kind of ramp that would be on the ascent to an ancient temple. And what he sees are the inhabitants of God's space, which are angels, so God's messengers, and they're ascending and descending throughout space on the ramp. So like to an ancient reader, they'd be like, whoa, he woke up and there's a temple there.

No, he's dreaming about a temple. Yeah, he's dreaming about a temple. Somehow, this, yes, that's right, he's dreaming about a temple. He'd be like, oh, he's dreaming about a temple. Yeah, a place where heaven and earth meet and where the divine space is all of a sudden open and accessible. Some big, amazing temple. To human space.

To human space. Yeah, so he wakes up from the dream. So God speaks to him and affirms the promises to Abraham to him. And then he wakes up from the dream and he says, oh my gosh, God was in this place. And I didn't know it. And so he names the place Bethel, which means house of God. And then he makes an offering on some stone altered that he makes and then later in Israelite shrine temple is actually built on that spot that the prophets refer to and so on.

So God's space and human space overlaps and heaven is meant to overlap earth. But Jacob lives in a world where that's surprising. Like it's not you just walk around any corner and it's be like, Oh, here. Here's where heaven and earth overlap. Here's a hotspot. Yeah, it's like, you're, it's surprising. It's somehow heaven and earth. It's like for us, I walk around the city and expect to have a Wi-Fi everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like someone coming and being like,

Whoa, there's Wi-Fi everywhere. And they expect it just to be in like a couple spots. Hot spots. Hot spots. That's what we call them. Right. Yeah. That's the phrase I've come to use for this.

I've heard you use a phrase. Yeah, that's why I came to this. Yeah, hot spots of God's presence. So Jacob realizes this is a hotspot. This is a hotspot. And so he builds a temple there. And then that temple, or excuse me, he makes an offering later the Israelites built a temple there

to, yeah, in Shrine the idea that this is one of the special places where heaven and earth overlap. And so here's Jacob going, whoa, something's happening here. Yes. There's a divine presence here overlapping in a way that it's not other places. Yeah, that's right. Now, to get ahead of ourselves, but because it's a cool illusion, Jesus refers to the story.

Yeah, so there's a story in John chapter one where Jesus approaches a guy named Nathaniel and says, hey, you're a really, you're a man of integrity. There's no deceit in you. So first time they've met apparently. And Daniel's like, what? How do you know who I am?

And Jesus says, oh, I saw you hanging out under the fig tree earlier today. And he's like, what? You're the son of God. Like, who are you? And then he says, listen, you think I'm impressive just because I had a victory. Yeah, I saw you prophetically under a victory earlier today.

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened in the angels of God ascending and descending. So he's quoting that story from Genesis 28. You will see heaven opened and you're gonna see a place where heaven and earth meet and where heaven has a highway going to and from earth from God's space but it's not the stairway. He says you'll see the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man which was Jesus' way of referring to

himself. So Jesus has taken up the story about a unique meeting place of heaven and earth, but he's made himself the stairway, the ramp. So you think it's impressive that I knew where you were earlier today, but actually I'm calling you to join my circle of followers as the people who understand that I am the place where heaven and earth truly meet and come together. It's very, very cool. So Jacob stumbles upon a place where heaven and earth overlap. Is this the first time that in the Bible that we have that realization that heaven and earth overlap. Is this the first time that in the Bible that we have that realization that heaven and earth overlap? Actually, it's just a good illustration of the story of the surprising place where heaven and earth overlap. But actually, the first time it occurs is the whole vision of what the Garden of Eden is in Genesis, chapters 1 and 2, where all creation is depicted as God's space and human space at the same time. So you get all of... you get this temple imagery connected to Genesis 1 and 2, like the 7-day process

of Genesis 1. It was John Walton, Hebrew Bible, Scholar of Jew, attention to this, that the seven-day process of Genesis 1 has an interesting connection to the seven-day consecration feast that Solomon had when he inaugurated the temple in Jerusalem. And we know of this from other ancient in the recent texts of this practice. So he thinks Genesis 1 is alluding to this.

To a celebration. A temple celebration. A temple celebration at the completion of all creation in Genesis 1. And then it's actually all of the garden imagery is temple connected because if you go read the descriptions of the tabernacle and the temple later on in the Old Testament, they're using all of that garden imagery to describe the inside of these sacred spaces. So the first idea is that all of Earth is a temple, or at least a garden. Yeah, or the Earth is heaven.

Or the Earth is heaven. The heaven is Earth and Earth is heaven. They overlap. The God's space and human space is, let's say, in the video. And I think what's confusing then, we say Earth is heaven. We're using that in English way, not the Hebrew, the skies are the correct. We're saying God's space. So why you always use God's space instead of heaven?

Just to bring more clarity. That's right. Yeah, there's heaven literally a sky. And there's heaven as an image or metaphor of God's space. But God's space isn't only up in this guy. It's also here on earth. It's here on earth. Yeah. And in the story of the Bible, it begins with God's space completely overlapping with human space. That's the ideal. That's the whole point. Yes.

Is for God and humans to let be in the same space. So that's the image of the Garden of Eden. That's why all of the temple imagery echoes back to the Garden of Eden. That's why this description of the new creation in the prophets also goes back to the Garden of Eden to describe this ideal vision of where God's space and human space overlap. So another interesting story we didn't talk about in the video is this is how the Israelites conceived of their temple. So the story in Isaiah 6, where Isaiah has this, he's in the temple in a vision and he sees the God of Israel,

but it's all cloudy, but what he actually sees is God's lower half. He says from the waist down, he saw the train of his robe, so from the waist down, filling the temple. So he sees the lower half of a throne and the lower half of these royal robes flowing out into the temple that becomes smoke in the vision. So where's God's top half? So it almost certainly hits the ceiling. Yeah, so it's the image that like God's lower half is right here. And that his top half is almost like the temple has a portal in it to God's space.

God it heaven. So in the same way that that ramp, that was like a portal. Yeah, that's right. So Isaiah's vision of seeing the lower half of God is the similar to Jacob's vision of the ramp. It's God is simultaneously in his base and in our space at the same time and that's that's heaven. And that image gets unpacked later in the book of Isaiah in chapter 66. God says in the first verse of that chapter, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool, where then is a house that you can build for me. Right. So, uh-huh, a Bethel. Yeah, that's interesting. So it's acknowledging even like, listen, actually all of creation is heaven, the skies, which are over all of creation. That's where I sit.

And the earth, the whole earth is my footstool. So this temple is a place where heaven and earth overlap. So if I were to be here, my presence was going to be here fully. It would be sitting across all the skies and my feet would be resting all the earth. That's right. So if you're going to think about this as in this metaphor, it's big. I mean, yeah, I'm everywhere. I'm everywhere. Yeah. And that's what Solomon has interesting prayer in 1st Kings chapter 8 where he inaugurates the temple and he has this prayer. And his opening prayer is, oh God of Israel, temple and he has this prayer and his opening prayer is oh God of Israel

Creator of all the heavens and the highest heavens can't contain you and then he says so how much less is this little house? Temple able to contain you right that says inaugural prayer is to like diminish the importance of the temple make this beautiful amazing temple And be like yeah, it's not so great. Yeah, so it's so once again I think we're seeing the sophistication of these people, that for them, they didn't actually think this is the only place where God lives in this little building. We got him in here, he's ours now. That's right, yeah. Yeah, for even for them, it's an image,

it's a pointer to the reality that all of heaven is God's temple, all of earth, is his footstool, he's everywhere. But this temple marks a unique hot spot. There's something unique about this space where God's Presence is especially accessible or present with His people. In the same way, there was something unique about Bethel. Correct.

Yeah, the dream. Correct. Can I, you just said the heavens, even the highest heavens, what's that about? Yeah, it does. So you just said the heavens even the highest heavens. Mm-hmm. What's what's that about? Yeah? It does are layers of heavens? Yes, that's one let me just look it up. It's a very fascinating first Kings Think to put here we go first Kings eight. Okay, this is so interesting. Yeah, so what Solomon says in first Kings A is he says can God really dwell on earth?

The heavens even the heavens of the heavens cannot contain you How much less this temple the skies of the skies? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the It might be it's almost an absurd image literally kind of the way we might say a chazillion. Something like that. It's like, oh yeah. My germs have germs.

Have you heard that? I don't know. I don't know. I'm so sick, my germs have germs. Yeah, I'll kill you dead. Yeah, so it's taking something that we know there's a limit to and then giving it an even greater limit as something. It could have been that but could it have been that maybe Solomon was like who knows what's beyond the skies, maybe more skies. Yeah, I think that's true. So this led we know it led to later on tradition and speculation about layers or tears of heaven.

There's a unique passage Paul refers to a vision that he has in us. Second Corinthians, and he calls it the third heaven, I think. That's right. He says, I know a man speaking of himself. In second Corinthians chapter 12, Paul refers to a vision that he has, and he talks about himself anonymously. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven, whether I was in my body or out of the body. I don't know, God knows. And I know that this man, whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know, God knows, was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things.

So Paul's talking about a very powerful vision he had where he was in God's presence. Yeah. He calls it the third heaven. He calls it the third heaven. Isn't that fascinating? And we don't know what he means. Well, I think what Paul's using is an image drawn from this Jewish tradition of speculating about tears of heaven. That might have started with Solomon.

Yeah, yes. Yeah, or that Solomon is expressing something that I can do. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, the third heaven. What is that? 2 Corinthians 12. Yeah.

3-2-Uranu, the third of heaven. Do you want me to see what some commentators say about that? Paul Burnett, let's see what Paul Burnett is a good commentary. What does Paul mean by his use of the third heaven asks Ralph Martin in his commentary? A survey of all the existing literature provides no clear answer to the question. The New Testament is relatively silent concerning the number of heavens that we know exist in other Jewish cosmology. The idea of the heavens of the heavens line up to a threefold division. For oh, first Kings 8, he references.

In this threefold division, we know from other literature there's the atmospheric heaven, a stellar heaven, and then the limitless spiritual heaven of God's space. Oh, that's interesting. So, they're saying that this idea is acknowledging there's where the birds go. There's where the stars are. There's where the stars are. That thing, the rakia, and then above that, which is God's transcendent kingdom space. That's interesting. But this conclusion is not certain for an other Jewish literature. There are different numbers of tears of the heavens. Anyway, okay, as long as I'm side. So, but here's a significance, if I can try to

summarize, is that it's important to think about where does God live? Where is God's divine presence? And the first mention of it is with us. It's in, it's just everywhere. It's heaven and earth connected together. It's creation. It's creation itself is God's space. Yeah. Yeah. And God's without a many of some special way. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's the ideal, it's the ideal vision of the

purpose of humans to be these partners with God in heaven and earth, but a place where humans have freedom and responsibility to work with God and the Garden Commission and that kind of thing. And that's as far as the story went and we needed to name the idea that God's presence was there. You wouldn't use the word sky. We would just say, here. Here. What does God live here? Yeah, God's in this place. Yeah, and as Jacob says.

God is in this place. Then later, we start hearing biblical authors referred to where God's presence is in the sky. And so, and that's where the word heaven, that's, that word literally means sky. The word literally means sky. And then we took it to just mean, oh, it's the place you go to when you die.

But really, it's just the sky as a way to explain how God's presence is transcendent for us. It's higher. It's got more. And very often talking about God's space in heaven is in the context connected with God's rule or kingdom or authority. In the Old Testament, there's no concept of you going up to that space. At all.

We've got Elijah. Or didn't someone get zapped up? Yeah, Elijah is swept up into the heavens, but the whole point is those are so unique and unrepeatable. Right. That's not. No one else is gonna give me that. Yeah, no. Yeah, humans go into the dirt, and you'll testament

that you're buried, that's where you go after you die. Into the that. Yeah, no. Yeah, humans go into the dirt. In the Old Testament, you're buried. That's where you go after you die. That's just you all. Into the grave. The grave. So the whole point is that the idea of humans going up to God's space in the heavens that's that's not a hope or portrayed as something

that's not the point. Actually, what's way better is for God to come here because this is where we live. Yeah, God's kingdom is going to come and be here. The temples are the pointers to the reality that God's presence should ought to and will one day once again permeate all of his world, just like it was back in the ideal. Which raises the question, where did it go? Where did God's face go?

Why is Jacob surprised? Why is it random, remote, unique places where you meet God's presence in fine heaven? Why isn't it everywhere anymore? And that is how this whole set of concepts is a really cool way of looking at the story of the little Bible as the story of the union of heaven and earth, the reunion of heaven and earth. That's it for part one of heaven and earth. Up next is part two we're going to talk about Jesus and how he thinks himself as Jacob's bladder, although that's not really a ladder, how he said tear down this temple and I'll

build it back in three days and how he was referring to himself as the temple, as the place where heaven and earth connect in himself. It's a really great conversation. So join us for part two. If you haven't watched the video, it's on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the Bible project. So check them out. You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com slash join the Bible project and Twitter at join

Bible Proge. Thanks a lot for listening and we'll catch you next time. I'm now on, no regret, lift my head Try my best in my touch, little one Touch, little ones in my head you