Our Heavenly Home
From my childhood I used to sing the song “Mansion Over the Hill Top”. It was one of the most loved songs among Christians because it gives hope especially to those who are not us fortunate as others are in terms of finances. But did God actually promise a literal home for the believers in heaven? Do you ever wonder what Christ did actually mean when He said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions…I go to prepare a place for you”? (NKJV)
Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians gives us a very clear understanding on this subject. He wrote:
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed , but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
- 2 Corinthians 5.1-4
Clearly, Paul tells us here that we have a house, which is actually a ”heavenly body”, prepared in heaven that we go to once we live our earthly body. It is building, signifying permanence compared to this earthly tent where we presently live in. And it is eternal.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the Apostle Paul duscussed the issue of resurrection body. He proved that there is a heavenly body that we receive from Christ, the Lord from heaven, just as there is an earthly body that we inehrited from the first Adam, the man from the earth.
Then he went on to prove that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom”. By which meant this earthly will not be able to enter into the heavenly realm. Hence, there will be a body change for those saints, both living and dead, at the time of the Lord’s return.
Just how wonderful it is to live in such a body, we can only imagine for now. Paul said he groaned in his body, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with that house from heaven.
But Job msut have seen something of the same. In his suffering, he received hope and comfort that his Redeemer will stand on earth in the last days. He also declared this:
If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter , one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness:
Then he is gracious unto him, and saith , Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.
His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth.
- Job 33.23-25
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