What is heaven like?
Before explaining what Heaven is like, it has to be clarified what we’re referring to. There are three heavens that are mentioned in Scripture. Paul refers to the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2, and other passages in Scripture reveal a first and second heaven.
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 2 Corinthians 12:2
The First Heaven
This is the earth’s atmosphere. The air we breathe, the skies the birds and planes fly through, is the first heaven. James 5:17-18 states that Elijah (the Old Testament Prophet) prayed that it wouldn’t rain, which it didn’t for 3 years and 6 months. When he prayed again, “the heaven gave rain”.
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. James 5:17-18
The Second Heaven
This refers to outer space. All the planets and stars that we see and observe exist within the second heaven. Deuteronomy 4:19 says to “take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them…”. Jesus uses similar language in Matthew 24:29, saying that “after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. Deuteronomy 4:19
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Matthew 24:29
The Third Heaven
Being the Heaven most people ask about, the third heaven is God’s dwelling place. Where is this heaven located? John Piper, a well-known Christian pastor, scholar, and theologian, puts it this way:
…Once there was nothing but God. Nothing. Nothing. No spatial dimension at all.
There was no up. There was no down. There was no sideways. There was no diagonal. The only reality was God. That’s the only reality there was. And we’re not pantheists. He wasn’t filling any thing. He was just God. This is the most boggling fact in the universe. God is outside the universe.
The fact that anything else exists is because God made it, which means it is not God. It is different from God, and he is outside it. He is distinct from everything he made. That’s where heaven is — that is, outside the created material universe as we know it.