Thank you for joining us today for apostolic life in the 21st century.

Today we're going to be looking into the book of revelation and talking about Bible prophecy,

so we're glad you've joined us for this conversation.

As always, Dr. David K. Bernard, the general superintendent of the

United Pentecostal Church and a Bible scholar, is here with us to answer our questions. Dr. Bernard,

today we want to look at Revelation 21, 1, 2. Of course, Revelation describes visions that the

Apostle John saw, and in this particular vision, he saw, and I'm quoting,

he saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

And then he added that he saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,

prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. So John's vision of a new heaven,

a new earth, and a new Jerusalem doesn't necessarily fit with sometimes our idea of heaven

as this far away golden city somewhere off in the clouds where we all float around strumming

harps. What are we supposed to make of these references to a new heaven, new earth, and new Jerusalem?

The key, I think, is to understand when we say heaven, we really mean the presence of the Lord,

wherever God is.

And of course, God is the omnipresent spirit, but we can think of him as having his

headquarters or his center of operations or center of consciousness. Of course, since the incarnation,

Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. He has a glorified human body, and just like our body

will exist forever in a glorified state so jesus christ is the first

fruits of the resurrection he exists today and i think it's probably beyond our universe but he exists

in a glorified human body and he will come back to earth we'll actually see him and we will dwell

with him for eternity as a visible human, God manifests in the flesh for eternity.

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