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What is meant by "heaven" in Scripture?

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The Bible testifies that Jesus, after being raised from the dead, ascended to God in heaven, where he is now enthroned at the right hand of God. In addition, the Bible ex-plains that there is a visible world and an invisible world for us humans. In this con-text, there is talk of three heavens. The first heaven is the atmosphere surrounding the earth. The second heaven describes the visible universe with all its stars and planets. The third heaven stands for the so-called trans-cendent world, i.e. an area that lies beyond what we can perceive. This is the place where the throne of God is and where both Jesus and the angels who serve God reside. The third heaven is filled with God's glory and is far away from all the suffering that we en-counter on this earth.

There is usually no access to this place for a human being. There are only a few chosen prophets to whom God revealed Himself through a dream or a vision that got a glimpse of this hidden world. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul mentions that he was once caught up to the third heaven with-out reporting in detail what he saw there.

 

Today there are quite a few people who pre-sent themselves as Christians and claim to have visited the third heaven. In the vast ma-jority of cases, however, it is a matter of scammers who want to market their books by inventing such and other supernatural sto-ries.

 

 

 

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Deuteronomy 10,14

Jeremiah 32,17

Nehemia 9,6
2. Korinthians 12,1-5

Hebrews 4,14

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