Our Father “Which Art in Heaven”

It has always seemed an enigma to me that the impersonal pronoun which should ever have been used for someone as personal and precious as “Our Father.”

Unusual terminology is but one of many difficulties that have dogged the footsteps of those who, across the years, have endeavored to know God. Men and women of great sincerity and simple faith have had to struggle with the complexities and limitations of human language in their endeavor to understand divine truth. The marvel is that our grasp of our Father’s mind and intentions toward us has been as broad and clear as it is despite the difficulties of human speech in its expression of abstract ideas.

If, for instance, the average person on the street, who had never been exposed to scriptural teaching, were to read the phrase, “Our Father which art in heaven,” it would mean almost nothing to him. And even among those of us who have been accustomed to reading the Word of God in the more archaic form of English, there are those who are bewildered a bit by a simple statement of this sort. The stark fact is that it is a phrase repeated glibly by millions of men and women who have never stopped to ask, what does it really mean? If pressed on the point, they would scarcely know what to say.

Where is heaven? What is heaven? Is it a place? Is it a condition of life? Is it a different dimension of living? Is it far away or close at hand? These are all legitimate questions which deserve open and honest answers.

For God is a Spirit, able to be present anywhere and everywhere.

Too many of us are far too vague in our ideas about spiritual realities. If God is in heaven, then we ought to know something about heaven. If He is our Father and heaven is His natural environment, we should understand what that realm is really like.

The word heaven is derived from the old Anglo-Saxon word heaven, meaning to be lifted up or uplifted.

So it implies the thought of a place or a state which is above that of the commonplace condition on earth.

Actually in the Scriptures, heaven is used to describe three rather distinct and different realms. First, we find it used over and over with reference to the earth’s atmosphere. It is used to describe the envelope of air that surrounds the planet, conditions our climate, and sustains life. The formation of clouds, the precipitation of rain or hail or snow, the water vapor that provides mist and dew and frost, all are regarded as coming from heaven.

In other words, all that we normally associate with the atmosphere which enables life to flourish on the planet is said to be heaven. “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater” (Isa. 55:10).

Second, there is a very much broader sense in which the word heaven or heavens is used to describe outer space. It specifically refers to the sun, moon, stars, and sky. It denotes the unmeasured immensity of numberless galaxies flung across infinite expanses. It is used for the unending realm of stellar constellations that circle through the night in majestic movements. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. . . . His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it” (Ps. 19:1–2, 6).

Finally there is a third heaven referred to throughout the New Testament as the realm of God. It is sometimes described as a definite place, a heavenly country, a New Jerusalem, a home prepared especially for God’s children.

Paul wrote of a man who had been lifted up, or uplifted, into this third heaven and who declined to speak of it or even describe it. On the other hand, John, the grand old apostle and much-loved prophet of God, went to great pains to recount all he had been shown of heaven in his Revelation.

Because of all this, it is not entirely surprising that there has been real bewilderment in the minds of many people about heaven.

We need to ask ourselves some very ordinary questions, to which we can give very honest answers. The Word of God says our Father is in heaven. Does this then mean He can be in the earth’s atmosphere? Yes. Does it imply that He can occupy outer space? Yes. Does He inhabit the realm of the righteous? Yes. For God is a Spirit, able to be present anywhere and everywhere.