My little computer program boots up about 19 separable instances of “heaven” in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. And we begin with a text that is at the center of a few debates today, in particular the nature of the ascension and the Second Coming.
Acts 1:10-11:They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ?Men of Galilee,? they said, ?why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.?
1. Jesus leaves earth, after his resurrection and at his ascension, and goes “into heaven.”
2. He will return from heaven to earth someday in the same way he ascended. Whether this refers to the Second Coming or the New Heavens/New Earth or to a combination of both is not important here.
Heaven here is the place where Jesus is between his ascension and his Second Coming. Whether heaven lasts beyond that is not stated.