A Devotion from Jonathan Edwards

In my Father’s house are many rooms.  —John 14:2

Heaven is God’s house. A house of public worship is a house where God’s people meet and is called God’s house. The temple of Solomon was called God’s house. God was represented as dwelling there. There he had his throne in the holy of holies.

Sometimes the whole universe is represented in Scripture as God’s house, built one story above another. But the highest heaven is represented in Scripture as the house of God, reserved for himself for his own dwelling. The heavens are the Lord’s, [thus], though he is everywhere present, God is represented both in Old Testament and New as being in heaven in a special and peculiar manner. Heaven is the temple of God. Solomon’s temple was a foreshadow of heaven. The epistle to the Hebrews calls heaven the holy of holies, the place of God’s most immediate residence. Houses where assemblies of Christians worship God are in some respects figures of this house of God above. When God is worshipped in them in spirit and truth, they become the outworks of heaven and, as it were, its gates.

Heaven is represented in Scripture as God’s dwelling: “I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven” (Ps. 123:1). Heaven is God’s palace. ’Tis the house of the great King of the universe; there he has his throne, which is therefore represented as his house or temple: “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne” (Ps. 11:4).

God is represented as a householder or head of a family, and heaven is his house. The saints, being the children of God, are said to be of the household of God (Eph. 2:19). Heaven is the place that God has built for himself and his children. And though some of this family are now on earth, all are going home. God has many children, and the place designed for them is heaven.

Heaven is the house not only where God has his throne, but also where he keeps his table, where his children sit down with him and where they are feasted in a royal manner becoming the children of so great a King (Luke 22:30).

God is the King of Kings, and heaven is the place where he keeps his court. There are his angels and archangels that, as the nobles of his court, attend him.