Tell me something, Mike,

If heaven is in us and not somewhere ‘up there’, then why do the Scriptures say… ‘one being in Rev 3:12…’new Jerusalem, that comes down out of heaven’?
This is not a question of disbelief, just a query.

J____

Hi J____,
Thank you for your question. You ask:

If heaven is in us and not somewhere ‘up there’, then why do the Scriptures say… Rev 3:12… ‘new Jerusalem, that comes down out of heaven’?

The answer is that the words of Christ are spirit and are not concerned with physical real estate, physical locations or physical directions like up and down.
In the scriptures, the word ‘up’ is speaking of those things which are spiritually higher than the things which spiritually ‘down’ or spiritually below the things of the spirit.

Isa 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
Isa 55:9  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Now if the mind of Christ is placed within His elect, then it has to be placed there over a period of time. It takes a lifetime for our thoughts to become God’s thoughts. We “decrease as He increases and we die daily” until the day we die.
For any of this to take place, that which is higher has to come down from God out of heaven and begin to take up its abode within vessels of clay made of the dust of the earth:

2Co 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

What is “this treasure” which we have in earthen vessels? Of course it is the higher thoughts and ways of God spoken of in Isa 55:9. It is the mind and knowledge of our Lord, as the previous verse reveals:

2Co 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give [ us, these lowly “earthen vessels”] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

What is “new Jerusalem”? This again, has nothing to do with a physical city called Jerusalem. New Jerusalem is Christ’s bride:

Rev 3:12  Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

If the Lord wills, “Him that overcometh” will be you and me. If we overcome, then we will be “the bride, the lamb’s wife”.

Rev 21:2  And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

When Christ and His Father dwell in His people, that is heaven coming down to earth. But when that happens, then we realize the truth that the earth is, in reality, only a part of heaven. We have already been informed that the heaven of the heavens cannot contain our God, whereas the heavens can and do easily contain the earth. The new heavens and the new earth will not be earthy but heavenly. The only thing earthly about the “new earth” is the fact that it will always be aware of its earthly origins:

1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

I hope that helps you to see that ‘up’ and ‘down’, ‘high’ and ‘low’, ‘heavenly’ and ‘earthly’ are one and all, physical words which the holy spirit has inspired to tell us just how superior to our thoughts and our ways are the ways and thoughts of God. Eternal life itself is defined, in scriptural terms, as “knowing God and Jesus Christ who He has sent.”

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

When we “know” anyone, we know them because we know how that person thinks. To really know anyone is to understand how that person thinks. So when God’s thoughts become our thoughts, then “New Jerusalem has come down from God out of heaven… and is the mother of us all.”

Gal 4:23  But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Gal 4:24  Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Gal 4:25  For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal 4:26  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike >