Words and Phrases

Heaven continued.

We include the following excerpt as taken from the “New Albany Notes on Revelation” (Appendix B, Item#74c) for further reference.

“Throughout the Bible “heaven” can mean one of various things. In Revelation, however, the meaning seems to fall into only a few categories. The following study is not conclusive, but it may be a help in determining what is meant when the word “heaven” is used.

First a summary: Most uses of heaven in Revelation are symbolic of the religious world — both true and apostate. Occasionally, however, heaven seems unmistakably to refer to the spirit realm — the place or condition of God’s personal presence and direction. In a few other instances heaven seems more to be a reference to Divine Ordination — something which emanates from the realm of God’s presence. Furthermore, there seem to be interestingly small distinctions. For instance, voices IN heaven seems to be totally different from voices FROM heaven. The former seems to refer to the symbolic heaven of the religious world; the latter seems to mean a message from God. This all may yet need some fine tuning, but the suggested usages are listed below.”

LITERAL OR NEARLY – LITERAL USAGES

The first list is a unit because these texts almost inescapably require a literal usage:

Rev. 4:2                     description of God’s authority

Rev. 5:3                     No one on any level of existence was found worthy.

Rev. 5:13                   all creation in all places.

Rev. 10:5                   used as a direction

Rev. 10:6                   all creation in all places

Rev. 11:19                 temple opened in heaven.

Rev. 14:7                   as part of creation

Rev. 18:5                   a colloquial usage meaning very high

The second list has in common texts which mention voice(s) FROM heaven. All seem to mean messages from God’s Ordination and are thus, more or less, literal:

Rev. 4:1                     (Compare Rev. 1:10) — a message from beyond.

Rev. 10:4                   a message from beyond.

Rev. 10:8                   a message from beyond.

Rev. 11:12                 Divine command.

Rev. 14:2                   obscure, but seemingly a message from beyond.

Rev. 14:13                 Divine information

Rev. 18:4                   Divine command

The third list has in common the expression COMING DOWN from heaven and again seems (with one explainable exception) to refer to things literally coming down from the spirit realm or coming from elsewhere but by Divine ordination:

Rev. 3:13                   New Jerusalem comes down from heaven.

Rev. 10:1                   strong angel comes down; possibly Gabriel.

Rev. 16:21                 hailstones come down from heaven — possibly as a judgment.

Rev. 18:1                   angel comes down and enlightens earth.

Rev. 20:1                   angel comes down with key and chain.

Rev. 20:9                   fire comes down and devours enemies.

Rev. 21:2                   New Jerusalem comes down.

Rev. 21:10                 New Jerusalem comes down.

Rev. 13:13                 THE EXCEPTION — In this one instance ONLY, something coming down from heaven seems to be FROM THE NOMINAL HEAVEN. Why? The implication is that this passage is counterfeit of the true.

SYMBOLIC USAGES

This fourth list consists of texts dealing with voice(s) IN heaven. The contexts are all easily explainable as being part of the religious world here on earth:

Rev. 11:15                 the proclamation early in Laodicea was the Reign begun.

Rev. 12:10                 here the Papacy claims the kingdom begun on earth.

Rev. 19:1                   this seems to be the Gt. Multitude’s realization of the completed church.

This fifth list has in common the Greek word and English translation for MIDST OF HEAVEN or MID-HEAVEN. The term seems to indicate that there is no preference shown in the contexts for any specific part of Christianity in the flesh. The messages are in the midst — not over to one side, favoring one group or another:

Rev. 8:13                   eagle announces the three woes coming.

Rev. 14:6                   the harvesting angel announces the gospel to Christianity.

Rev. 19:17                 birds in the midst of Christianity called to the supper.

This sixth list is the longest and contains what seem all to be references to the religious world. Some of these are more easily explained than others; some seem to refer to the apostate heavens, some to the true:

Rev. 6:13                   stars of heaven fell.

Rev. 8:1                     silence in heaven for half-hour.

Rev. 8:10                   great star fell from heaven.

Rev. 9:1                     star from heaven fell to earth.

Rev. 11:6                   two witnesses have power to shut heaven so no rain.

Rev. 11:12                Scriptures exalted to heaven.

Rev. 11:13                glory to “god” of heaven (= Pope?).

Rev. 11:19*               temple opened in heaven.

Rev. 12:1                   sign in heaven (woman).

Rev. 12:3                   another sign in heaven (dragon).

Rev. 12:4                   stars of heaven thrown to earth.

Rev. 12:7                   war in heaven.

Rev. 12:8                   no place for dragon in heaven.

Rev. 12:12                 heavens rejoice.

Rev. 13:13                 an exception discussed in list number 3.

Rev. 14:17                 temple in heaven.

Rev. 15:1                   sign in heaven: angels with plagues.

Rev. 15:5*                  temple opened in heaven.

Rev. 16:11                 blasphemed “god” of heaven (= Pope?).

Rev. 18:20                 rejoice heaven!

Rev. 19:11                 heaven opened.

Rev. 19:14                 armies in heaven.

Rev. 20:11                 heaven fled away.

Rev. 21:1                   new heavens; first had fled.

* These two texts seem to be ambiguous in the way they should be translated. Whether the temple IN HEAVEN was opened, or whether the temple was opened IN HEAVEN seems to make a difference not provable by certain translation rules. We prefer the latter as it seems to fit the facts more easily.

This seventh list is the listing of those places where heaven is spurious:

Rev. 16:17                 part of seventh plague.

Rev. 21:3                   proclamation about tabernacle of God with men.

We will take a further look at the symbolic heavens in our next post.