Will We Live in a Spatial World?

The doctrine of resurrection is an emphatic statement that we will forever occupy space. We'll be physical human beings living in a physical universe. The resurrected Christ said, "Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (Luke 24:39). He walked on Earth; we will walk on Earth. He occupied space; we will occupy space.

We are finite physical creatures, and that means we must live in space and time. Where else would we live? Eden was in space and time, and the New Earth will be in space and time. We will be delivered from all evil, but space isn't evil. It's good. God made it. It's Christoplatonism that tries to persuade us something's wrong with space and time.

One writer says of Heaven, "It is certainly justifiable to abandon the scheme of time and space and to put in its place a divine simultaneity." This has a high-sounding resonance, but what does it mean? That we can be a thousand places at once, doing ten thousand different things? Those are the Creator's attributes, not the creature's. There's no evidence that we could be several places at once. The promise of Heaven is not that we will become infinite—that would be to become inhuman. It's that we'll be far better finite humans than we have ever been. Even if we're able to move rapidly from one place to another or to pass our resurrected molecules through solid objects, as the risen Jesus did, we'll still be finite. (As I said before, I'm not certain we'll have that power, though it's possible.)

If we plan to get together with friends, the question is, "Where and when?" Where is space; when is time. The three gates on the west side of the New Jerusalem are a minimum of fourteen hundred miles from the gates on the east side. If I wait for you at a gate on the west side, you won't see me if you show up at a gate on the east side. When we walk outside the city gate, we won't remain inside. People, even resurrected people, can be in only one place at one time. There's no suggestion that even the resurrected Jesus was in two places at once.

British pastor Peter Toon says, "Time and space will not be the same as known here on earth, and relationships will be of a different order. This being so, it is clear that the life of the new humanity in their resurrection bodies of glory can be described only in symbolic terms."[⁵] But what's the biblical evidence for this claim? The biblical texts speak of time and space in the New Earth similarly to how they speak of them here and now. By reducing resurrected life to symbols, don't we undermine the meaning of humanity, Earth, and resurrection?

Jesus spoke of the uttermost parts or farthest ends of Heaven ("And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven.” Mark 13:27). Even the intermediate Heaven appears to occupy space. But certainly the new heavens and the New Earth will. Resurrection doesn't eliminate space and time; it redeems them.

In the heavenly realms, even angels, whom we think of as disembodied spirits, can be hindered in space and time due to combat with fallen angels ("But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia.” Daniel 10:13). In other words, they can be delayed (time) from arriving at a particular destination (space).

People imagine they're making Heaven sound wondrous when they say there's no space and time there. (If it doesn't have space, it's not even a "there.") In fact, they make Heaven sound utterly alien and unappealing. We don't want to live in a realm—in fact, it couldn't even be a realm—that's devoid of space and time any more than a fish wants to live in a realm without water. If fish could think, try telling one, "When you die, you'll go to fish Heaven and—isn't this great?—there will be no water! You won't have fins, and you won't swim. And you won't eat because you won't need food. I'll bet you can't wait to get there!" After hearing our christoplatonic statements about Heaven, stripped of the meaning of resurrection, no wonder we and our children don't get excited about Heaven.

Sir Isaac Newton said of God, "He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity." God is the one "who inhabits eternity", Creatures inhabit time. Jesus, as the God-man, inhabits both. By being with him on the New Earth, we will share space and time with God. (“For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, ‘I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.’” Isaiah 57:15).

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By Randy Alcorn
Eternal Perspective Ministries
39085 Pioneer Blvd.   Suite 206
Sandy, OR 97055
(503) 668-5200
www.epm.org
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com