Where is Heaven Located?

Where is Heaven located? The Bible doesn’t give us exact coordinates of latitude and longitude, and I’m not sure we can locate it with a telescope. According to the Bible, some realms are currently visible and others are invisible to the human eye (Colossians 1:16). But the Bible does give us one important clue.

Heaven is up!

In Mark 6:41, Jesus took the boy’s loaves and fish and “He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples.”

In John 17:1, as Jesus began to pray His High Priestly Prayer, He “lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: ‘Father.’”

At the very end of His earthly ministry, Jesus led His disciples to the Mount of Olives and the Bible says, “He lifted up His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:50-51 emphasis added). The book of Acts begins with the same story, telling us, “He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9, emphasis added). As the disciples gazed into the sky, two angels appeared beside them with a powerful promise:

“This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Ephesians 4:10 says, “He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.” This kind of language permeates the Scripture, as heaven is continually viewed as being up, above the earth; and the earth is described as down, below the heavens of God. Jesus told Nicodemus, “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13).

When the women arrived at the empty tomb of Jesus on Resurrection Day, “behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven” (Matthew 28:2).

Psalm 14:2 says, “The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men.”

Where, then, is heaven? Heaven is up. But which way is up? That’s not an easy question to answer. It depends on our location on the surface of the earth. Suppose America and China both launched a missile at the same time, programmed to travel into space at a right angle from the location of its launch. Both missiles would go up, but they would be traveling through the solar system in opposite directions. Up is a helpful word, but it isn’t very specific in terms of location.

Let’s narrow down the location of heaven a bit more. There’s a fascinating reference to heaven in Isaiah 14:13, in the passage that speaks of the moment Lucifer was evicted from heaven following his rebellion against God. Notice the terminology. The Lord told the devil: “For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north.’”

That last phrase is a reference to the third heaven—“the farthest sides of the north.” No matter where you are on earth, north will always be up. So it would seem reasonable to conclude that heaven is somewhere in the northern universe beyond the reach of the astronomers’ telescopes. And when I read scientists’ reports that a place exists in the northern heavens that seems strangely vacant of stars and galaxies, it validates that conclusion. According to a report in The Telegraph, astronomers in Hawaii have found a huge hole in the universe that dwarfs anything else of its kind. The science editor reporting the story, said: “The ‘supervoid,’ which is 1.8 billion light-years across, is the largest known structure ever discovered in the universe but scientists are baffled about what it is.” ¹

We can be curious about things like this without being dogmatic. The God of infinity has sheathed our globe in the atmospheric heavens; He has placed us in the star-studded cosmos; and somewhere He has built a very real and literal place called the third heaven—up there, somewhere above us, somewhere in “the farthest sides of the north.”

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For a complete study of heaven, request Dr. Jeremiah’s book, The Promise of Heaven: 31 Reasons to Get Excited About Your Eternal Home

¹ Sarah Knapton,“Mysterious ‘Supervoid’ in Space Is Largest Object Ever Discovered, Scientists Claim,” The Telegraph, April 20, 2015,