Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:07 Welcome to sermon Q and a pastor Michael, here with you. I am in the studio with pastor Craig and pastor Alex, and on August 29th, 2021, we finished the book of Exodus and our series on the tabernacle pastor, Alex, the question today is for you, will there be an actual tabernacle or temple in heaven or on the new earth? Let's say you, uh,
Speaker 1 00:00:28 Okay. So right now, uh, let's make a distinction. There is a spiritual heaven where God is when we die. Uh, as Christians believers in Jesus, we go to be with God with Jesus in that place. That is what is right now. Uh, then there is a new heavens and a new earth. It's a new creation that God is making. God's going to remake the world. He's going to burn up everything that's wrong. And, uh, the, the, the third heaven, this spiritual place where God is, comes down to earth and like these two different spaces become renewed. One new space. It's the renewed earth.
Speaker 2 00:01:04 And just in case people are wondering this actually isn't real <inaudible>
Speaker 3 00:01:15 So,
Speaker 1 00:01:15 Uh, yeah, this is what all of history is ultimately heading towards, uh, this, this new creation. So let's talk about the spiritual heaven, the place where God is right now, where we go. Yeah, that there's a, that's like a tabernacle. It is the tabernacle gives this imagery, right? These, uh, these different pieces. And there's very clear dimensions. There's a labor and there's showbread, and there's an altar, right? This is all giving imagery to what actually is in heaven. Uh, it helps us to understand this place, uh, of God's holiness, this place where God is dwelling. So in Isaiah six, Isaiah gets this vision of heaven of God sitting on his throne and seeing the chair of him flying around him, right? Just like on the arc, you have the chairman with their wings and God is sitting there in the middle. Uh, Isaiah sees that the angels kind of going around the throat or the cherubim going around the throne and saying, holy holy, holy is the Lord.
Speaker 1 00:02:15 God almighty. Right? So the tabernacle reflects God's holiness here. But then that holiness actually is like, it fills up the, this space and this spiritual heaven, new heavens and the new earth. What we read in revelation 21, 21, 22 and 23, it says this, the apostle John writes, and I saw no temple in the city. The temple, like the tabernacle became the temple. That became the places where the sacrifices were performed. All of the symbolic pieces sat, but that's not in this new heavens and new earth for its temple is the Lord God, the almighty and the land and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine in it for the glory of gives it light. And its lamp is the lamb. So, so the whole point of the earthly tabernacle was to give us imagery of what was going, like what Jesus was going to accomplish. And that finds its full culmination and completion when the new heavens and the New York.
Speaker 0 00:03:17 Yeah. Well, so when I get to heaven, yes, I'm going to look at, uh, I've, we've taught, we are experts now on that, I talked a lot about, we have mastered this sarcasm. Um, but when I get to heaven and I see the throne room, there should be a direct correlation between what I witness. Yes. The substance. Yes. And the actual elements of the tab. Right. And so if I were Moses and I actually knew all of these are Aaron and I actually watched them, I would look at that and go, oh yeah, that makes sense. Now that actually is a copy of the heavenly things and it should put everything into perspective. Right. Right. But when I get to, like, when I get to the new creation, new creation, where there will be no actual temple, right. There'll be no tabernacle that like, where's God going to be. Right.
Speaker 1 00:04:05 So you are there with God, like God is with you. This
Speaker 0 00:04:08 Is whatever God actually it is, Jesus walks around sort of like the garden in the cool. Right.
Speaker 1 00:04:12 Well, so I was just going to say that, yeah, there's no tabernacle in the garden. Right. Because God and man walked together. There was no sin yet in the garden. The tabernacle came about to show us these things because of, so in, in
Speaker 0 00:04:25 My brain, there's a part of me that really wants a temple in heaven. Uh, I'm not saying this is good or bad. I'm just saying like, you know, like growing up, I think to myself, oh, there's going to be like streets of gold. But all of a sudden in my brain, it's like a renewed temple, but literally God, wherever God is wherever Jesus walks, it's a renewal of the garden and we get to walk with him. And that's a crazy thought.
Speaker 2 00:04:45 I love the fact that the Bible is like a complete book. So it begins the same way that it ends and tabernacle means dwell dwell. So the whole point of scripture from beginning to end is the fact that God wants to dwell with us in scripture. It starts with God walking with Adam and Eve, God dwells with them. There's no tabernacle needed because God was with them. It ends the same way God comes to us. God will be with them and he will be their God, God comes to us. We don't go to be with him. The only reason we go to be with him is because of sin, we die and we go to be with him until we're resurrected. But ultimately God's plan was to build something here on this earth so that he could come and be with us. And over and over, he does that in scripture.
Speaker 2 00:05:27 And in the end, that's that's the final reality is that God comes to be with us and that's the word tabernacle. So we don't need a physical place anymore that we'd go to because God has literally tabernacled with us all the time. And then it's also interesting. One other thing it's very difficult to find details of heaven in scripture, only a few places are we given a glimpse in there? Poly apostle says, I looked in myself and there's stuff in there that are too wonders for me to even explain. We're giving more details about what hell is like then what heaven is like. And so I think for us, we want to know the details, but God works in these shadows and gives us glimpses once in a while. But ultimately Paul says the glory that is going to be revealed. You know, at that point when we're with him is beyond comparison.
Speaker 4 00:06:15 No, I have seen, oh, ears heard or
Speaker 0 00:06:17 The heart amount of magic and what God has prepared for those who love him. So what a, you may not know audiences that we spent about 40 minutes debating and prognosticating over the answer to this question. So what you just got here is the overflow of much discussion. We hope it helps you serve as you help you think biblically come back for more answers in sermon QA.
