Is heaven a real place?

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I GO TO PREPARE A PLACE FOR YOU. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I WILL COME AGAIN, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
—John 14:1-3, KJV.

Jesus is preparing a very real place for us right now in a very real heaven. He is coming to our world a second time to take us to a custom-made mansion in a heavenly city that is glorious beyond our wildest dreams: the New Jerusalem.

After we’ve lived there for a thousand years, Christ intends to bring this heavenly home down to planet Earth. (More about this in DISCOVER guide 22). God will purify the entire world, burning away all pollution and contamination. Our renewed planet then becomes the permanent home of the saved.

How does John, who wrote Revelation, picture these events?

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.’”
—Revelation 21:1-3. (Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptural texts in the DISCOVER guides are from the New International Version of the Bible [NIV].)