Our Eternal Home

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

Thy Word commands our flesh to dust,
“Return, ye sons of men:”
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in following years.

Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

Like flowery fields the nations stand
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering ere ‘tis night.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

I don't know if Isaac Watts realized the full impact of the words that he penned here, especially in the first and last stanzas, although I think that I would most probably agree with much of his theology, as far as that goes; but the fact that God is our Home, our resting-place is the main thing that I wish to focus on here. I've discussed this here on my blog before; but the notion of a 'place' somewhere out there, even far off, although a traditional and orthodox belief, doesn't make alot of sense when you really think about it! When the Author of Genesis penned the first few phrases of what we know as Genesis chapter 1, we see that 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth', which I believe, as I've written in several different articles, referred, not to the creation of the physical universe ( although I want to make very clear that He did create them! ), but had a primarily symbolic meaning of the 'forming' of His covenant people. The 'heaven', as you might recall if you've ever studied the Hebrew and Greek, simply means 'sky', and only by speculative extension means 'the abode of God' ( which doesn't make much sense either; did God create His own abode, or has it too, been from Eternity ( always )? ) This 'doctrine', along with so many other man-made doctrines, brings up so many hard and even divisive questions: 'Why would God, the Creator of all, need to have a specific dwelling?' We know that God, as a Spirit, is present everywhere; this a fairly well-accepted fact, right? Both Peter ( in Acts 7:48 ) and Paul ( in Acts 17:24 ) have said, emphatically, that God does not dwell in 'temples made with hands'! Does that include His hands? Does a Spirit have hands? The Bible tells us so! It also says that He has a back part and a face but I don't think that anyone, no matter how much of a literalist, envisions God with actual physical hands, or any of the human parts that we've mentioned. These are just several difficulties that we face when we try to physicalize spiritual 'places'.

We can plainly see, from Scripture, that when we hear mention of a 'Heaven', as the dwelling-place of God, that it is not always in reference to what we think of as just the sky, or the air around us.

In Genesis 28:12, which most of us are familiar with as speaking of 'Jacob's Ladder', we see that,  he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Exodus 16 is pretty familiar to most as the passage speaking of the 'bread from Heaven' or 'manna'; and lends some credence to the idea of 'Heaven';  Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.

We can see, in Deuteronomy 4:36, that God dwells in 'heaven':  Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. Moses, in Deuteronomy 26:15, declares outright that God's habitation is 'Heaven';  Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the land which You have given us, just as You swore to our fathers, “a land flowing with milk and honey.”’^[d]

In Deuteronomy 30:12, he remonstrates about the Law, with the children of Israel;  'It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’

Many times in the book of Deuteronomy 'heaven and earth' are called upon, to bear witness against the rebellious deeds of the children of Israel; but there is nothing inherent in this language to imply that 'heaven' refers to anything but the priests of God, the leaders of His errant children! Reading the story of the announcement of the birth of the prophet Samuel, in Judges 13: we see that, 'it happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar—the Angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar! When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground.' Praising God for deliverance from his enemies, in II Samuel 22:14; David sings,“The LORD thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered His voice. When Solomon dedicated his Temple, in I Kings 8:27, he asks the Lord; “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built! ( see especially 30-49 ) 

Remember the famous 'Burning Bush' of Exodus 3?  So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” God then told Moses, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moses found it rather strange and intriguing that this bush was burning, but was not burned up; but we know that the bush was not 'consumed' because God was in it's midst; and even the area around it was 'holy ground' because of the Presence of God within it. We, as Christians, could be called 'holy ground' because of the Presence of His Holy Spirit within us! Jeremiah, in Lamentations 3:22, praised God that, 'Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.' After David, the king of Israel, had sinned against God by numbering the children of Israel, in I Chronicles 21, and God had levied His punishment on them; when God's justice had been fulfilled:  And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on the LORD; and He answered him from heaven by fire on the altar of burnt offering. When Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, in II Chronicles 18, would join forces with Ahab, the wicked king of Israel; Micaiah the prophet used the phrase 'host of heaven' in a slightly different context than we may be used to thinking of it:  Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and His left. ( see also Isaiah 34:4 ) There are many other passages throughout the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, that clearly speak of Good's dwelling in 'heaven', including II Chronicles 30:27, the books of Ezra & Nehemiah, Psalm 11:4, 78:24 ( see also 105:40 ), 102:19, 103:19, 139:8 ( see also Amos 9:2 ), Isaiah 14:2, 63:15, 66:1, Jeremiah 23:24, Lamentations 2:1 ( see also Revelation 12:10 ), Daniel 2:44 ( see also Isaiah 9:7 ), Malachi 3:10 ( see also Genesis 7:11, in reference to the 'windows of heaven' ), Matthew 3:2, 5:12, 23:9, and Philippians 3:10, just to name a few; but for the sake of time and space ( also, that you may study these things for yourself ) , we will suffice with these, and say only that although one *can* gather from Scripture that God dwells in a special 'Heaven', from the context of the passages we have mentioned, and many others like them, that, in many cases, the word 'sky' could be inserted, rather than 'heaven'. One cannot help but remember too, what Jesus told the Pharisees, in Luke 17:20 & 21, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation;  nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’^[d] For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Much more could be said here, concerning a certain place called 'Heaven', as a final resting-place for the believer ( in Christ ), but I want my readers to decide for themselves whether or not the traditional doctrine of Heaven 'holds water'!

As always; I pray that my readers will be Bereans, and search 'the Scriptures daily to see if these things are so', and that this study will both strengthen, edify, and comfort you with the knowledge that, through His Holy Spirit in us, we are 'holy vessels' of His, and inhabitants of 'Heaven', His 'dwelling-place'!

'In' His Kingdom,

and for His Glory., the edification of His Body,

Charles Shank