Chapter One — 3 Realms of Existence

Contents
Preface
Chapter 1 — 3 Realms of Existence
Chapter 2 — DNA (The Depraved Nature of Adam)
Chapter 3 — BPM (The Broken Planet Model)
Chapter 4 — End Times Made Easy (ETME)
Chapter 5 — Sheep To Nations (STN)
Chapter 6 — The Second Death

Near the very end of the Bible, there is a scene that most people read right past. Jesus is seated on a great white throne, about to judge the dead. And then this happens:

“And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide.” (Revelation 20:11, NLT)

Stop and look at that. The earth and sky — the entire physical creation — runs. And it is not alone. The unseen spiritual world flees right along with it. Two whole realms of existence, running from the presence of One Person.

That one verse hands us the map of all reality. There are two created realms — the Physical and the Spiritual — and they both come to an end. And there is a Third that they flee from: the presence of God Himself. God is His own Realm. He is not running anywhere.

I call this the Three Realms of Existence, and this chapter walks through all three. Get this map into your head and the rest of the book will make sense. Skip it and you’ll be lost by Chapter Five.

One housekeeping note before we start. I refuse to use the idea of “dimensions” (beyond our four) to describe reality. There are too many problems with that approach. I know only of the 4 dimensions, and I have yet to be convinced of any more beyond them (or fewer).

The Physical Realm      

We begin with where we are right now. The Physical Realm is made of Time, Space, and Matter. That makes it 4-dimensional. Time is the fourth dimension, with height, width, and depth being the other three. Matter is 3-dimensional. Space has 3 dimensions.

“Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities…” (Romans 1:20, NLT)

And here is one of those invisible qualities, sitting in plain sight. I sometimes use this realm to illustrate the Trinity of God. God is presented in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Likewise, Space is triune. Height is not Depth, Depth is not Width, and Width is not Height. But each is needed to make up the whole.

Time is a trinity also. It takes the Past, Present, and Future to make up our time. Past is not the Present, the Present is not the Future, and the Future is not the Past.

And if you want to go deeper still, Matter is a trinity too. Solid is not Liquid, Liquid is not Gas, and Gas is not Solid.

Simple, yes? It works quite well as a metaphor.

We can call the Physical Realm the “Cosmos”, or the “Universe”. They are interchangeable terms.

The Spiritual Realm

Less is known about the Spirit Realm, but we can surmise the following from what we read in the Bible.

It is not the Physical Realm. It is different and separate. By “separate” I don’t necessarily mean located elsewhere. The truth is, we just can’t really know what the relationship is between the Spirit Realm and the Physical Realm in terms of location — other than separate or distinct.

We also can’t really know if the two realms were created at the same time. We’ll just have to hold that question for when we see God, I guess.

But here is what we do know, because we watched it happen in the scene that opened this chapter: the Spirit Realm ends. When earth and sky flee that white throne, the sky (the heavens, the unseen realm) is fleeing too — and neither finds any place to hide. This happens after Jesus’ thousand-year reign on this Earth is done, called “the Millennium”.

And anything that ends must have had a beginning. The Spirit Realm is a created thing. It is not eternal.

Beings in the Spirit Realm

The Spirit Realm is the home of the other race of humanoids, known as “angels” or the “angelic race”. They seem to be of a higher order than we humans are currently, but the Bible promises us that we will be higher than them once we saints are “glorified” — a term I’ll unpack more fully in Chapter Five.

Angels are spirit beings that can have a physical presence when they manifest one. So they can and do pass between the two realms of this creation, physical and spiritual. We cannot, without God doing the transfer. Two men were taken up into the Spirit Realm that we know of: Enoch and Elijah. They will likely be the two witnesses who return to Earth just before Jesus returns.

Angels are never shown to have wings, so lose that image in your mind. Neither are they shown to be feminine, so you can drop that too. The only beings in the Spirit Realm that are shown to have wings are the two kinds of “created beings” known as Seraphim and Cherubim.

Seraphim are associated with the temple and throne of Christ, while the Cherubim are shown to be associated with the Holy Spirit on His chariot throne. The Cherubim also were placed on the Earth to the East of the Garden of Eden for a time after the fall of Adam and Eve. Neither of these races is called angelic.

And one more piece of housecleaning: people do not become angels, and angels do not become human. If you are of that fairytale thinking, let it go — really. It is not biblical. It is false. 

Space in the Spirit Realm

The Spirit Realm — also called “the grave” or Sheol (שְׁאוֹל) in Hebrew, and Hades (ᾅδης) in Greek — has more than one place to it. Both Heaven and Hell exist in that realm.

Another place that is neither of those is called Tartarus, where the fallen angels of Genesis 6 are sent (see Jude 1:6). It is temporary, like hell and the third heaven are.

But one place is permanent: the Lake of Fire, called Gehenna (γέεννα) in Greek. It was created for Satan and his fallen horde — and since angels are to be judged by saints, that is where the fallen ones may be sent. The Lake of Fire is not hell. It is where hell itself is tossed at the final judgment (hell is not permanent). And since the Spirit Realm vanishes along with the current Physical Realm — you saw them both flee — I do not believe the Lake of Fire remains in the Spirit Realm. It transfers to the new creation. Chapters Five and Six tell that story, and it is not the story you’ve been told. 

The Divine Realm

The Third Realm is a special place where only God dwells (that we know of). And since God is infinite, His Realm must be infinite too. The Spirit and Physical Realms, then, must be finite — having an end in time and space. We already know they are not eternal; we watched them flee and end. But God’s Divine Realm must be eternal. So only God’s Divine Realm is eternal and infinite.

How do we know this? There are a few places where God’s infinite and eternal nature are described. And He also lives in “unapproachable light” (see 1 Timothy 6:16). That unapproachable light is partly what tells us that no evil may exist in His presence.

Now follow the logic one step further, because this is where it gets big. Since the creation is finite and God is not, we are inside of God.

This is key to understanding what the illustration shows. If Satan (the first one to sin) was to remain alive after trying to usurp the throne of Jesus, he would have had to be protected. Ironically, it is Jesus and the Holy Spirit Who are protecting him — and us — from God’s righteousness that would consume him and us. Why? Because Jesus and Holy Spirit, being God, can allow us into their presence, while the Father does not. Yes, He is conscious of us and all we do and think and say, but that does not mean His glory, or actual presence, is here. He lives here through His Holy Spirit and Jesus — parts of Him that do not destroy us because of our depravity.

Or look at it this way: If God is infinite and lives in infinite light, why do we not see His light when we look at the night sky? Answer: we are being shielded from His sin-destroying glory by His “Hands”, like a person holding a tennis ball in their two hands cupped around it. And as you can see in the illustration, His “Hands” are Jesus and Holy Spirit. Just as much a part of Him as your hands are of you.

Now that white-throne scene makes sense, doesn’t it? Two finite created realms — running from an infinite Person they exist inside of, finding no place to hide. There is no place. He is all the places.

I hope this helps you to understand both the creation and the Creator (if you were in doubt).

Humans Are Triune Too

Since we are “made in the image of God”, it makes sense that we are also triune beings — made of three parts.

And while this is not anything new, I am at odds with certain teachers (especially in the Charismatic or Pentecostal movements) who say it differently. I say that we are, at our core — the eternal essence of who and what we are — a soul. And our soul has a spirit, with both being in a physical body. Some say we are a spirit with a soul in a body, but this does not square with John 3:6 and Genesis 2:7. So, until I am convinced, I say I am a soul, with a spirit, that lives in a body (for now).

In my understanding, the soul is a special kind of spirit, different than the spirit part of us — just as the Father is Spirit, but not the same as His Holy Spirit. I am my soul, and my spirit is the connection to the Spirit Realm — like my five senses are to my brain in the Physical Realm. And while everyone (and perhaps all creatures) have this connection to the Spirit Realm, developed or undeveloped, that does not mean we automatically connect with God. That is what John 3:6’s spirit birthing is for (in my mind). We call this “regeneration”, where the Holy Spirit connects us to Him — with Jesus and the Father — upon faith in Jesus. This is what the Baptists mean by being “born again”. Try reading John 3 in this light and see how it lands for you. Baptism is just an act of identifying with this spiritual truth accomplished by God, the Holy Spirit.

Final Thoughts on Chapter One

I have purposefully kept this chapter short and dense (like me) to respect the reader’s time. There really isn’t a lot of embellishment that needs to go into it.

I’ll just add that I have much hope in this fallen creation, despite the challenges and heartaches that are a part of it. Sometimes I feel like an old shirt that has been run through the wringer. But then my God shakes me out and puts me up to dry in the light of His Son. And although the Spirit Realm is much nicer than this Physical Realm, it too has a hellish side (literally, though not for me). Plus, my own being is fraught with inner turmoil and conflict — that’s the next chapter.

And so, I have shared the three-fold natures of both the creation and myself. In the fifth chapter I’ll show how these are going to change drastically: I lose my own depravity while the creation loses its evil side. And God, in His infinity, might just be taking a “bubble bath” in perhaps thousands to billions of creations. (I don’t accept the idea of other worlds in this cosmos — sorry, “ET”. But my concept is actually much bigger than that.)

Next, we look into our depraved nature, which is temporary.

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Group Discussion and/or Personal Reflection

In this book, I’ll give a quick round of questions at the end of each chapter to help facilitate group discussion and drive home the more important points. 

Some Quick Questions

1. Which of the Three Realms of Existence are the whole of this creation?
2. Which of the Three Realms is the presence of God (the Father) Himself?
3. Can you describe the Trinity of God (Father, Son, Spirit) using the cosmos, and how Time, Space, and Matter are each their own trinity? 
4. What are the three parts of mankind’s nature?
5. When does the spirit of man go from merely receiving from the Spirit Realm to connecting primarily with God?

Answers

1. Physical and Spiritual.
2. Divine Realm.
3. Time: Past, Present, and Future. 
   Space: Height, Depth, Width.
   Matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas.
4. Soul with a Spirit in a Body. 
5. Upon faith in Christ Jesus. 

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