What is the open heaven concept?

Heaven is now opened to men on earth that they might enter intelligently, appreciatively and responsively, as in association with the Son of God, by the Spirit, into all that wealth of heavenly truth and blessing which has reached us in the Son of God.

We never understand the importance of our walk here below, unless these two things are distinctly and stedfastly before us, not merely that we are objects of God's tender mercy and personal interest, but that we are called out to Himself, as well as to "the better country" that He has shown us. But He has told us too who has meanwhile usurped possession of it. The heavens are now opened, and we see by the Holy Ghost sent down thence Him who is on the throne of God, interceding for us as cleansed by His blood, and gone to prepare a place for us. The heavens were opened not merely for Him to enter as the victorious Saviour, but they are open still where He is exalted. This is the way in which He is now revealed to us. They will be open until the Lord has brought us there. I do not say that they will be closed after that, but that judgments will fall thence. In grace they are open for us to look now into. He whose blood opened them for us is the One on whom they opened, not for judgment, as we read once in Ezekiel 1, but, as in the very beginning of the New Testament (Matt. 3:16), that God might express His delight in Him, His Son, the perfect man withal here below.

The Jewish believers had long been accustomed to prophecy. We can understand this. They were an earthly people; and prophecy speaks of the earth, without opening heaven. He that came down from heaven as God, and went up again, not merely as God but as man, He it is who not only had the heavens opening on Him but by grace opened heaven for us. We belong to the opened heavens, because we belong to Christ who is there, on the footing of His work and not of His person only. For He came down in love and is gone up in righteousness, and this righteousness a justifying righteousness which gives us the very same title as Himself. Where this is understood, the difference between the christian hope and prophecy is seen. Heaven is characteristically the place belonging to the Christian, as earth was to Israel. God promised the best place here below to them, as well as every conceivable blessing, suited to such a people. He promised to make them the most exalted nation on earth, not only blessed but a blessing. No faults of Israel can annul that promise in the long run. Certainly it is not yet fulfilled. As always, there is first the trial or responsibility of the creature, followed by sovereign grace on God's part. In Israel's past history, we have had the creature tried; the future will behold God's mercy (Rom. 11) accomplishing everything according to His word, and giving freely according to divine goodness.

Another unique feature of this occasion was that "the heavens were opened to Him" (Matt. 3:16), not exactly on Him, though that was true, but "to Him" for He ever had a moral title to enter that heavenly place, for though on earth He was "the Son of Man which is in heaven" (John 3:13), and the wonderful thing is that because the heavens were open to Him, they are now open for us. The men in white clothing in Acts 1:10-11, said "'Men of Galilee why stand ye looking into heaven?" Stephen, in Acts 7:56, saw the heavens opened, and the heavens are opened to all believers as is seen in 2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face." The privilege of the believer is because of Christ's work on the cross, a work which is the basis of our every blessing.

All Christians are saints, not sinners. In ourselves we are all sin; in the flesh is no good thing; but we are not in flesh, but in Christ. When we come in by that door, Christ, we come to sit down in heavenly places. If not come in there, we must remain on earth. Heaven is opened: firstly, for the Holy Ghost to testify of the Son of God on earth; secondly, for angels to minister to Him as Son of man; thirdly, to let Him forth in judgment on the white horse (Rev. 19); fourthly, for a man full of the Holy Ghost, Stephen, to look straight up into heaven; and so should we.

We find in the word four memorable occasions on which the heavens open. Christ is the object of each of these revelations; each has its especial character. Here the Holy Ghost descends upon Him, and He is acknowledged the Son of God (compare John 1:33, 34). At the end of the same chapter of John, He declares Himself to be the Son of man. There it is the angels of God who ascend and descend upon Him. He is, as Son of man, the object of their ministry. At the end of Acts 7 an entirely new scene is opened. The Jews reject the last testimony that God sends them. Stephen, by whom this testimony is rendered, is filled with the Holy Ghost, and the heavens are opened to him. The earthly system was definitely closed by the rejection of the Holy Ghost's testimony to the glory of the ascended Christ. But this is not merely a testimony. The Christian is filled with the Spirit, heaven is opened to him, the glory of God is manifested to him, and the Son of man appears to him, standing at the right hand of God. This is a different thing from the heavens open over Jesus, the object of God's delight on earth. It is heaven open to the Christian himself, his object being there when rejected on earth. He sees there by the Holy Ghost the heavenly glory of God, and Jesus, the Son of man, the special object of the testimony he renders, in the glory of God. The difference is as remarkable as it is interesting to us; and it exhibits, in a most striking manner, the true position of the Christian as on earth, and the change which the rejection of Jesus by His earthly people has produced. Only, the church, the union of believers in one body with the Lord in heaven, was not yet revealed. Afterwards (Rev. 19) heaven opens, and the Lord Himself comes forth, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Thus we see: — Jesus, the Son of God on earth, the object of heaven's delight, sealed with the Holy Ghost; — Jesus, the Son of man, the object of the ministry of heaven, angels being His servants; — Jesus, on high at the right hand of God, and the believer, full of the Spirit, and suffering here for His sake, beholding the glory on high, and the Son of man in the glory; and — Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, coming forth to judge and make war against the scornful men who dispute His authority and oppress the earth.

When Christ was on earth, the heavens opened above Him in order to express all the good pleasure of heaven in Him. Today, like Stephen, we can look up to heaven and receive our strength there. We are privileged to know that the Gospel is addressed to all men. Heaven will open again, so that Christ can come out of heaven, appear in glory, and take possession of the earth. Then His kingdom will begin and there will be an undisturbed relationship between heaven and earth.

In Peter’s case, the heaven opened to help him grasp the universal reach of the gospel, which was not limited to Israel, but addressed to all men. Although heaven is not opened here to allow a direct view of Christ, indirectly it is opened to help Peter grasp the scope of the Gospel and to help him appreciate more fully the greatness of the work that Christ had accomplished on the cross.

The great sheet which Peter saw descended out of an opened heaven. It embraced within its folds all manner of creatures both clean and unclean. It was received up into heaven. Peter was bidden to satisfy his hunger by partaking, and he might have done this by selecting a clean animal for his food. Yet they were all jumbled up together, so he declined. He was told however that God could cleanse the unclean: that in fact He had done so, and what He had cleansed he was not to call common. This happened three times so that the significance of it might sink into Peter's mind. We can see in the vision an apt figure of the Gospel, which comes from an opened heaven, which embraces in its folds a multitude, amongst which are found many Gentiles, who were ceremonially unclean; but all of them cleansed by grace, and ultimately taken up into heaven.

Do you know that heaven is opened just now. It was once opened for the Father to look down upon Jesus on earth; to see the man in whom God delighted (Matt. 3:16). In the seventh of Acts it is opened for faith to look up, and see Jesus there. Stephen says, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). Here Peter "saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending to him," [Acts 10:11] and he says in the eleventh chapter, when he tells the story to the Church at Jerusalem, "And it came even to me" (Acts 11:5). It was a lesson to him; and there comes a lesson from heaven to you tonight, that Jesus is willing to save you where you are in this hall. "And it came even to me" — what was the lesson? That there was no limit to the grace of God. Peter "saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending to him, as it had been a great sheet, knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air" (vers. 11, 12). I do not doubt but that God here presents man as he is in his natural characteristics, but saved by grace, and taken to heaven. The fourth time heaven is seen opened is in the Book of Revelation, when the King of kings comes to reign, and all His saints with Him (Rev. 19:11).