parashat vayetze The Metaphysical Location of Heaven
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The weekly Torah portion read in synagogues around the world this week is parashat vayetze. Parashat vayetze runs from Genesis chapter 28 verse 10 to chapter 32 verse 2. We’ll read just the first seven verses of parashat vayetze. Genesis 28:10-17.
“And Yaaqov departed from Beer Sheva and went toward Charan. He encountered the Place, and slept there, for the sun had set. He took from the stones of the place and set it at his head and he lied down in that place. He dreamed. Behold, a stairway set up on earth, its head reaching toward heaven. And behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, HaShem positioned over him. He said, ‘I am HaShem, God of Avraham your father, and God of Yitzchaq your father. The land where you lie, to you I will give it and to your seed. And your seed shall be like the dust of the land, and you shall break out seaward and eastward, northward and southward. And in you shall be blessed all the families of the ground and in your seed. Now behold, I am with you and I will guard you wherever you walk. And I shall bring you back to this ground, for I shall not abandon you until should I not perform what I have spoken to you.’ Yaaqov awoke from his sleep and exclaimed, ‘Surely there is HaShem in this place and I didn’t know!’ He was awestruck and exclaimed, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven!’”
Today I’d like to talk about heaven. If we examine the biblical expressions carefully, we notice that heaven doesn’t seem to be a fixed location. In the Bible the position of heaven shifts around. For example Deuteronomy 4:35-36
“To you it was shown, that you might know that HaShem is God, there is none else apart from him. From heaven he caused you to hear his voice, to discipline you. And upon earth he made you see his great fire, and his words you heard from the midst of the fire.”
In the very same verse Moshe can speak of God giving the Torah from heaven, and of God giving the Torah from the midst of fire on the summit of Mt Horev. If we’re thinking in terms of geographical coordinates we must ask, from which of these two locations did God give the Torah? But Moshe isn’t thinking geographically. As far as Moshe’s concerned, whether he puts it that God gave the Torah “from heaven” or that God gave the Torah “from the midst of the fire” on the summit of Sinai, he’s told you the exactly same thing: the Torah came straight from God. Moshe isn’t thinking of heaven and Mt Sinai as alternative locations.
Let me give another example. 2Chronicles 6:21 When King Shlomo prays the dedicatory prayer over the temple he requests,
“And may you hear the supplications of your servant and of your people Israel who pray toward this place. And as for you, hear from the place of your sitting, from heaven hear and forgive.”
In the same sentence Shlomo states both that God sits in the temple in Jerusalem and that God sits in heaven. Shlomo asks God to answer prayer from Jerusalem and from heaven. Now if Shlomo imagined that God sat only in heaven, he’d have instructed the people to lift up their eyes and direct their prayers heavenward. Indeed, the Bible sometimes uses just that expression. But Shlomo encourages the people to “pray toward this place,” that is, to pray toward the temple in Jerusalem. For Shlomo it’s just as appropriate to look toward Jerusalem in prayer as to look up at the sky. For Shlomo “this place,” and “the place of your (God’s) sitting,” is the same place. For purposes of prayer, Jersualem and heaven are interchangeable.
Because Jerusalem and heaven can be interchangeable, the psalmist startles us with juxtapositions such as,
“HaShem is in his holy temple. HaShem’s throne is in heaven” [Psalm 11:4 English 11:2]
This kind of declaration only makes sense because the psalmist doesn’t think of God’s residence in rigid, geographical terms: God is resident in his holy temple in Jerusalem and God is resident in heaven. It’s not an either/or choice.
Shlomo realizes that God’s residence is not limited to the temple. God cannot possibly be contained within the temple Shlomo has built. But then, neither can God be contained within the heaven of heavens! 2Chronicles 6:18
“But will God indeed sit with humanity on earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built!”
In other words, even though the Creator of the universe cannot be contained within creation, much less confined to a small corner of creation, he still maintains an address within creation. HaShem resides on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This is where he grants personal audiences. This is where he sits and judges the earth and sets it straight. This is where he forgives sin. If you ask, “Where’s God?” any child in Israel could point to the Temple Mount and say, “He lives right over there in that house on the hill in the same neighborhood as the commander-in-chief, the high priest, the king, and ambassadors from heathen lands.”
For God there are only two places, and neither one contains him.
One place is inside his head, that is, his Godhead. That place is infinite, transcendent, far above and beyond all. It is exclusive to himself.
The other place is external to him. This external place to God is the universe, all of which is his creation. But God doesn’t occupy all creation equally. Rather, he withdraws to make room for others. Within creation, God is embodied. Embodiment allows God to create those outside himself, those who will not be him, but rather his beloved creatures. His own personal space within creation he continues to occupy fully. Having some personal space all his own is what allows God to be not others and others to be not God. Personal space is a very good arrangement!
Embodiment is also what allows God to be a person. In addition to his own thoughts, a person has relations with others outside his own head. Because God is embodied, God is more than infinite ego. Rather than all his thoughts infinitely expanding the subject which is his own self, some of God’s thoughts create objects external to himself. Because God is embodied, there can be others for him to address.
God’s personal space within creation, which he occupies fully, is called heaven. Heaven is God’s embodied residence. That is why the sanctuary in the desert, the temple in Jerusalem, the communion bread, and heaven are so special. Even though God is present everywhere and cognizant of all events, he is embodied only in places which he designates. Where God is embodied, he is available to interact with others. Where God is embodied, he is present for us.
When we teach children to pray sometimes we over-simplify and tell them to look up to heaven. But children soon go to school and learn the world is round. For us in the Northern Hemisphere to view the same spot in the heavens as somebody looking up in the Southern Hemisphere, we’d have to be looking down. If heaven is the zenith of an observer on planet earth, at any given moment God is overhead only for a few people. Any of the rest of us looking up are pointed in the wrong direction. This is the trouble with over-simplification. When over-simplification is taken literally, it’s downright misleading.
During the height of official atheism, cosmonaut Gherman Titov allegedly announced that he’d orbited earth numerous times and he hadn’t spotted God, as if this somehow demonstrated God couldn’t be found. But if we had an accurate enough star chart and a big enough telescope, would we be able to spot heaven? Is heaven perhaps lurching in a black hole? Is heaven concealed behind a barrier just beyond our reach? Is locating heaven a matter of appropriate technology?
In the Genesis account God creates heaven and earth together as a unit, but heaven is not accessible to earthly creatures. Although both heaven and earth are within creation, we cannot travel between them such as we might travel between other points within creation. For earthly creatures, heaven is the off-limits portion of God’s creation. Heaven is reserved for God’s embodiment.
It isn’t entirely wrong for us to use directional language in referring to God’s availability. After all, the Bible itself speaks about God looking down to answer prayer, God coming down to investigate rumors, and his expectant worshipers looking up to him. But we mustn’t confuse this sort of up and down for geometric coordinates. God doesn’t come down in the sense I come down the stairs in the morning! We have to recognize “up and down” is a shortcut here for speaking about a shift in reality. To be more precise, instead of saying he comes down, we would have to say something like God makes himself available to us at various points along the time/space continuum. Heaven is simply whichever location within creation God chooses to make himself available from. It’s just more convenient to say God comes “down,” even when we realize “down” isn’t a direction.
Although heaven isn’t a place in the ordinary sense, heaven is a place in the sense you can meet God there, should he invite you to be with him. Although it’s not on any map, if God enables you, you can point to heaven. If God enables you, you can recognize his presence in creation. On waking from his dream, Father Jacob exclaims in parashat vayetze,
“‘Surely there is HaShem in this place and I didn’t know!’ He was awestruck and exclaimed, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven!’”
Sometimes God opens heaven up, and the prophets get a glimpse of what’s happening. The Book of Ezekiel begins,
“Now it transpired in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on fifth of the month I was among the deportation along the River Kvar. The heavens were opened and I viewed visions of God.”
John the Revelator has the same experience of heaven opening up to him. Revelation 4:1
“After these things I saw, and behold an opened door in heaven, and the first voice which I heard speaking with me like a trumpet, saying, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what is necessary to take place after these things.’”
When heaven is opened, what do the prophets see? When God opens heaven to his servants the prophets, they do not see life forms in other galaxies, extra-terrestrials, or ambassadors from other solar systems. What the biblical prophets see is nothing at all like Star Trek, Star Wars, or Star Gate. The content of heaven is oriented entirely around planet earth.
The prophets see visible embodiments of God’s almighty speech who summon his servants into his purpose, along with all the props and furniture necessary to visually dramatize their verbal action. That’s what’s in heaven. The prophets see earth’s future hastening Israel and the church on to fulfill their high calling. Heaven is earth’s future, already accepted by the Father, already animated by the Spirit, but not yet spoken by the Son. Were the word already spoken, the future would be the present, the last events would be accomplished, and creation would be consummated. Heaven exists because God already possesses the future prior to its realization, but in order to make time for the ingathering of Israel reconstituted around himself, the Son prolongs the present. Once God’s glorious future for planet earth is realized, heaven will be superfluous; or to put it differently, heaven and earth will come to exactly coincide. At that point we’ll probably no longer refer to them under separate terminology.
So what’s the meaning of “opening heaven?” Opening heaven to his servants the prophets is God’s way of reassuring us that he controls our future and of enlisting our cooperation to bring our future about. The biblical content of heaven indicates it is not a location in the conventional sense of a location. It would be nearer the truth to call heaven a place in time rather than a place in space.
Long before popular culture embraced astronomy, Christians had to come to terms with the location of heaven. Christians believe, after all, that when they gather around his table Jesus is present among them. The question naturally came up, since Jesus is seated on his Father’s throne, how does he honor his promise to be present among us when we remember him by breaking bread and sharing the cup? With so many congregations celebrating communion in so many time zones, when does Jesus carry out his duties as king of the universe? Does he make quick trips between the throne of the universe and communion celebrations on earth? Does the Father fill in while the Son goes off to share yet another meal with his disciples? Do Father and Son take turns on the throne of the universe?
The Apostle Paul clearly teaches that the Son will not turn the throne over to the Father until all things have been subjected under his feet [1Corinthians 15:24-28]. God doesn’t rule as king over his people gathered around the communion table from one location, and over the rest of the universe from some different location. It’s not like there’s a distinction between God enthroned in the hearts of the redeemed and God enthroned in the throneroom of the universe. God isn’t any less present among the redeemed than he is on the throne of his glory. God is one, he has one body, he has one embodied residence, and he rules over all from one throne.
Already during the Middle Ages, Western European theologians concluded that Jesus does not arrive at the communion table by any sort of locomotion through space. Unlike the others around the table, he doesn’t travel in order to be present. Thomas Aquinas [Summa theologiae iii.75.2] ruled out the possibility that Jesus comes to the communion celebration by spatial movement, but Aquinas and his contemporaries had no good suggestion for how Jesus arrives without traveling.
One of the lesser known Protestant reformers, by the name of Johannes Brenz, came up with a good suggestion.
Johannes Brenz suggested it is the mind of God, the logos, which creates all reality. If the mind of God imagines that he is spending time with certain people, then that becomes reality, God is indeed with those particular people. God is always where he thinks he is and God is always doing what he thinks he’s doing. God’s presence among those celebrating communion poses no particular problem: it doesn’t depart from his usual procedure for creating and sustaining the universe. God utters his thought, and heaven and earth come into existence. That’s what the Psalm [33:9] says.
“By the word of HaShem heaven was made, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their hosts…He spoke and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast.”
If God thinks he’s sharing a meal with us, then it is so. It isn’t merely symbolically so or metaphorically so. It is absolutely so. It is so as foundational truth is so. Whatever God thinks, happens. If God thinks he giving himself for us and creating community among us, then this is precisely what is happening at the moment.
Just as we humans seamlessly transition between our interior thought and the external world, God seamlessly transitions between his infinite transcendent consciousness and his created universe. Because he is already present everywhere, he needn’t travel in order to visit with his friends in various locations. They, along with their surroundings, their prior experiences, and their relationships are already present in his thoughts, which is exactly where they all originated in the first place. As instantly as he thinks about us, God is present with us. He doesn’t have to leave the throne of the universe behind in order to arrive anywhere. He doesn’t leave heaven behind; he brings heaven along with him. Contrary to common-sense logic, God doesn’t reside in heaven; heaven resides in him. God is not contained; all creation rather, is contained within him.
The reason theologians were stumped for so long is that in Western Christianity we’re accustomed to compartmentalizing Jesus’ divine nature and Jesus’ human nature. Theologians long ago had a good explanation for how God the Father can be present among multiple gatherings of worshippers. Accounting for God the Father isn’t the problem. The problem is how Jesus the Jew can be present among multiple gatherings. The problem is Jesus’ human nature.
Johannes Brenz said, “Hold on a minute! Let’s go back to our Orthodox Byzantine roots. Jesus’ divine nature and Jesus’ human nature never exist independent of each other.” We’ve misled ourselves by speaking of them separately. In practice, divine nature is always embodied, and we ought to always think of it as embodied. Apart from Jesus the Jew, God the Son wouldn’t be an individual with an identity of his own.
Johannes Brenz said, “To understand where heaven is, look at Jesus’ bodily presence after he had resurrected into the world-to-come. When Jesus wasn’t busy appearing to his disciples, where was he? Was he recuperating from the crucifixion at the home of Mary, Marta, and Lazarus? Was he out in the desert fighting Satan? Was he on the grand tour of the galaxy? Between appearances, where did Jesus disappear to?”
From the way he appears and disappears in the biblical accounts, we understand that Jesus no longer travels between physical locations. Yet if the post-resurrection appearances prove anything, they emphatically prove Jesus is not a ghost, not a pure spirit, whatever that might be. Jesus is still embodied. He hasn’t changed identities, he’s the same Jesus who once suffered under Pontius Pilate, but he is no longer embodied in his old biological body belonging to the present evil age and subject to decay. Jesus has a different embodiment. Jesus has been resurrected into God’s embodied residence. To use the biblical terminology, Jesus is now in heaven.
For Jesus there are now only two places in all creation: God’s personal space exclusive to himself and everywhere else. The Son, equally with the Father, now occupies both God’s personal space and everywhere else. We’re not talking here only about his divine nature, but his human nature as well. The integrity of the Son’s person guarantees his human nature is on board. Odd as it may sound to our disobedient ears, Jesus’ resurrected human body is available everywhere within creation and can simultaneously be revealed at any number of locations to whomever he may desire. In this regard, God the Son is no different from God the Father. That was the contribution of Johannes Brenz to the discussion.
Brenz’s explanation immediately raises the question, “What sort of human body is this which is simultaneously present at multiple locations?” How can such a human body present in multiple locations still function to identify one particular individual among others? Doesn’t Brenz’s explanation evacuate the term “body” of all possible meaning?
The answer is that God’s embodiment within creation takes on various forms. God explicitly informs us that he is present in them. At the burning bush, he tells Moshe,
“Don’t approach any closer! Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” [Exodus 3:5].
At Sinai the Torah explains,
“Mount Sinai was all smoke because HaShem came down on it in fire” [Exodus 19:18].
Regarding the lid of the ark, God tells Moshe,
“And I shall meet you there and I shall speak with you from over the lid, from between the two kruvim which are on the ark of the testimony” [Exodus 25:22].
Regarding the dove the gospel narrative informs you,
“When he had been immersed, Jesus came up immediately out of the water. And behold, heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him” [Matthew 3:16].
Regarding Mashiach, who for all intents and purposes looked like any ordinary Jew, Scripture informs us,
“God was in Mashiach reconciling the world to himself” [2Corinthians 5:19].
Regarding his brothers and sisters, Jesus teaches,
“The king will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, insofar as you did so to one of these, the least important of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me’” [Matthew 25:40].
Regarding the children Israel, God instructs Moshe,
“And let them make me a sanctuary, and I will tabernacle among them” [Exodus 25:8].
Regarding the broken bread we have the tradition passed on to Shaul.
“For I have received from HaShem what I also handed on to you, that the same night Jesus HaShem was handed over took bread, and after offering the brakha, he broke it, and said, ‘Take! Eat! This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in reenactment of me’” [1Corinthians 11:23-24].
Admittedly, the forms of God’s embodiment can be ambiguous. Like the children of Israel, Elijah was also at Mt Horev and Elijah also saw fire. Elijah might have supposed this fire was God’s embodiment, but Scripture informs us otherwise,
“HaShem was not in the fire” [1Kings 19:12].
John the Revelator heard a voice, which he was certain must be the Lamb calling his guests to his wedding feast, but Scripture informs us otherwise.
“And I fell at his feet to worship him. He said to me, ‘Look, don’t! I am your fellowservant one of your brothers who have Jesus’ testimony. Worship God!’ For Jesus’ testimony is the spirit of prophecy” [Revelation 19:10].
Whether the form of God’s embodiment is so odd that his servants don’t recognize him or whether a sign is so spectacular that his servants mistake it for him, Scripture sorts it all out. We can be sure that God is embodied where he tells us he is. Our assurance is his own word, the very word which constitutes all reality.
If we ask, “How can an entire community possibly be a person’s body, let alone God’s body?” How can several individuals be the body of one person? I can only reiterate what I said earlier. If the mind of God thinks he is making himself available to others in a community of reconciled enemies, then it is absolutely so. God’s word creates exactly the reality he intends. His sense of personal location is not limited to one geometric coordinate at a time as is ours. If it pleases God to take a community comprised of multiple human beings or an inanimate object for his body, so be it. God creates whatever he desires to be his body. No further explanation is necessary.
It works the same with remembrance, recitation, and reenactment. When God commands us to do something together with him, he commits himself to participate. If we should ask, “How can remembering the Shabbat allow us to taste Gan Eden back before our first parents were expelled, or how can reenacting the exodus from Egypt liberate us from slavery to false gods, or how can reenacting Jesus’ last meal among his disciples affirm his absolute commitment to us, or how can ritual immersion terminate death’s tyranny and resurrect us into Mashiach’s life? How can we possibly be participants in events which transpired long before we came onto the scene?” The answer is, when God commands us to participate with him in salvation history, he makes us his contemporaries. This is not play-acting or magic. God’s experience of time is not rigidly confined to the present as is our own. If God thinks that we are participants in his past or in his future, then this is literally true, because God thinking is what creates the past, the present, and the future. When we obey his commandments and share the events of his own story, we get in on reality at its most fundamental level.
Last question. “So where’s heaven?” Christians fondly talk about going off to heaven, about leaving this world of sin and suffering for a better place. Much of Christian hope has been couched in the language of relocation. While Christian hymns and evangelistic appeals frequently talk about soaring off to heaven, the Bible never employs this expression, and I think for good reason.
Although the notion of relocation has captured Christian imagination, the Bible speaks of heaven coming to earth rather than Christians going to heaven. Of course, the new heaven and the new earth which the Bible describes will be a transformed creation where death has been swallowed up in victory and God has wiped away every tear. The old cycle of sin and suffering will be ended. For people whose reality has always been circumscribed by pain and goodbyes, the new heaven and the new earth will be transformed almost beyond recognition. Yet it will be the very same planet God once created in six days and pronounced good. It will be Eden redeemed and restored, not Eden abandoned.
Rather than a different location, the Apostle Paul speaks of hope in terms of a different embodiment. In 1Corinthians chapter 15 the Apostle Paul speaks of heavenly human bodies and earthly human bodies. In 2Corinthians chapter 5 the Apostle he speaks of being clothed with a new human embodiment which is more present with HaShem than his current body. In 1Corinthians chapter 5 he speaks about being somehow present, but absent in body. In 1Corinthians chapter 11 he speaks of discerning Mashiach’s body among those who eat with him. The Apostle’s concept of “body” is evidently broader and somewhat more flexible than ours. For the Apostle, a body is what enables a person to maintain individual identity and to interact with others outside himself or herself, but a body isn’t necessarily biologically based or even limited to a single organism.
Some Christians have expressed the concern if heaven isn’t an astronomical object among other familiar astronomical objects that somehow heaven is less real than the present evil age which is passing away. There’s no cause for concern. Heaven and earth exist on exactly the same basis. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” by uttering his thought. Even if for us, with our fixation on the present moment, earth seems much more real than heaven, for God, heaven is every bit as real as earth. So long as God thinks he’s in heaven, heaven will be real. So long as God thinks he’s present with us, we’ll be with him in heaven. God can move heaven around as much as he pleases. God can open heaven up at as many locations as he pleases, and personally be present at each location. Heaven is as real as Jesus’ resurrection body. While not subject to empirical reality, to physics as we currently know physics, or to any of the old rules, Jesus’ new resurrection body is just as real to him as his old flesh and blood body was once real. And that’s the reality we’ll someday get in on. 1John 3:2 teaches us
“When he is disclosed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is”
At that moment, when our body is transformed like his body, heaven will seem real to us too, just as earth now seems real.
We’re like Father Jacob in parashat vayetze. He was dreaming of a stairway between heaven and earth. In his dream God was promising to be with him. In his dream God was promising not to abandon him until he should perform what he had spoken. In his dream Jacob knew he was dreaming, because this was all too good to be true. In his life none of God’s promises had ever come true. Jacob knew he was alone and running scared. Jacob knew his twin brother, with whom he was bonded as only twins are bonded, was out to kill him. That was his reality. Jacob knew the stairway between heaven and earth was a dream. In his reality heaven was remote.
“Yaaqov awoke from his sleep and exclaimed, ‘Surely there is HaShem in this place and I didn’t know!’ He was awestruck and exclaimed, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven!’”
Like Father Jacob our problem is that we don’t know where we are. We’re sleeping at the gate of heaven, but we don’t know it. Our own misery seems far more real to us than the reality God utters into existence by his word. For us it’s a great stretch of faith to receive what God says. For us the new creation, which God utters into existence, seems like a tantalizingly beautiful dream, but so far away.
Someday in a twinkling of an eye God will transform our mortal bodies and wake us up into the world-to-come. We’ll then be sons and daughters of the resurrection. We’ll be in heaven — all without relocating. We’ll be with God. Thereafter, wherever we shall go, we'll be in heaven with God. And at long last w'll have the wherewithall to know where we are.
