Heaven a Location by Etta Booth

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 7, 1865

Heaven a Location.

By Etta Booth

"And he shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you; whom the Heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. Acts iii, 20-22.

"And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up; behold two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts i, 10, 11.

If it be established that the incarnation of Christ was local, that his crucifixion was local, and that his resurrected body was real, tangible, and local, as the bodies of other men, then it is also established that Heaven,—"the Heaven of heavens," the home of ministering spirits, the mansions preparing for the just, has, and all have, a locality somewhere in the boundless creation of space.

Moses heralded the Messiah to the Jews; he was to be like himself, a man. Local, capable of being in but one place at a time; and a prophet whose sayings they should hear "in all things whatsoever." There can be no spiritualizing here. The holy Bible here is very explicit.

"I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." John xiv, 2, 3. If we are to hear him, we are to believe him also. How beautifully he associates location here with the promise.

Evasive minds find it convenient to assert, Christ has come; that far back in the remote past, was the judgment! But where is the historical proof? If the Second Advent was at the destruction of Jerusalem, where is the evidence of Josephus upon so striking and wonderful an event! Why should he, and all historians be silent upon a subject so far outstretching Christ's ministry, resurrection, and ascension? On this point, all like them should keep silent till they can find the proof.

Again, Christ comes at death, say some. That is the judgment-day to such and all. Answer. You have seen the lamp of life go out, have closed the sunken eye in death. Did you then see the bright celestial host? did you see Christ as he is? see the melting firmament? see this wicked world renewed, restored? see the glorification of Christ by his own? Literally these have not been. Literally they must be. Without them what is the Bible? What, and where is Christ! What, and where is Heaven?

ETTA BOOTH.

North Ridgeway, N. Y.