Heaven
Heaven" and "heavens" are used many times in the Bible, with a couple of variations of meaning. Sometimes it is relatively literal, including times when the Lord is identified with it (“Our Father, who art in the heavens,” for instance), meaning heaven as the eternal home for people who chose to do what is good in this life and let the Lord lead them to a love of being good. In other references, particularly when it is paired with “earth” or other lesser ideas (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” for instance), “heaven” or “heavens” means our internal life as opposed to our external life. In a way, these two meanings are really the same. If you think about the importance of your deepest thoughts and feelings, you can see that they are the “real” you, much more so than your body is. The relationship between the spiritual world and the natural world is similar; the spiritual world is the “real” one, and controls the natural world the same way our thoughts and feeling control our actions. So in both cases, “heaven” describes a deeper reality that we will enter fully after we die.
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This video is a product of the New Christian Bible Study Corporation. Follow this link for more information and more explanations - text, pictures, audio files, and videos: www.newchristianbiblestudy.org
Arcana Coelestia #3051
3051. 'And went to Aram Naharaim' means resulting cognitions of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'Aram' or Syria as cognitions of good, dealt with in 1232, 1234. 'Aram Naharaim' - or Syria of the [Two] Rivers - means cognitions of truth. This is because 'Naharaim', or 'rivers', means intelligence which consists of cognitions of truth, as may be seen from the places quoted from the Word in 108, 109, 2702, and from many others, which will in the Lord's Divine mercy be presented elsewhere.