“I suppose one could claim that such physical manifestations of the God-head are ‘merely’ matrix simulations—illusions, 3D holographic videos etc.
However, that’s NOT the God of the Bible that I know. HE LIKES the REAL THING.”
Define ‘real’. Which world is real? This universe or the world where God dwells (aka ‘heaven’) that is beyond time and space?
HEAVEN
is "BEYOND TIME AND SPACE"
is UNBiblical in a very seductive but irrational
CHRISTO-PLATONISTIC WAY.
Sounds like you've been deceived and seduced by nonsense in the culture.
Scripture indicates something else in many dozens of places.
Alcorn (Randy Alcorn: HEAVEN) reasonably terms the current Heaven the TRANSITIONAL HEAVEN in that it is not the final NEW HEAVEN.
John saw the NEW JERUSALEM coming down OUT OF
the current HEAVEN.
OUT OF has to do with PLACE.
!DOH!
UNTIL the NEW JERUSALEM IS
*OUT OF*
THE CURRENT HEAVEN
IT IS *STILL* !THERE!
It also has to do with TIME.
!DOH!
Alcorn notes on p 45 that
Another Scriptural reference to time has to do with the HALF HOUR OF SILENCE in Heaven. Rev 8:1.
Other Biblical indications that Heaven is a "real" PLACE are . . .
We are told in such Scriptures as Rev 15:8; 7:9, 8:6, 19:14, 8:13; 2 Kings 2:11; . . . of:
1. smoke from the glory of God.
2. scrolls in Heaven.
3. elders who have faces.
4. Martyrs who wear clothes.
5. people with palm branches.
6. musical instruments.
7. horses riding into and out of Heaven.
8. an eagle flying overhead in Heaven.
I agree with Alcorn. It is inconceivable that ALL those are symbolic metaphors of intangible 'matrix-like' pseudo-pretend 'realities.'
As C.S. Lewis noted so wisely--THIS is the shadowlands. THE REAL REALITY MORE REAL THAN ANTYHING TANGIBLE HERE--IS HEAVEN.
Moses was instructed to build the Tabernacle after the pattern of THE LITERAL ONE HE LITERALLY SAW IN HEAVEN. HEB 8:5.
Christ said to the thief on the crossl--TODAY--time--he would be with Christ IN PARADISE. Traditionally the term meant a walled garden; a walled park; an enclosed garden. It was used to describe the Garden of Eden in the Septuagint.
Rev 2:7 "To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."
--again--A PLACE and A TIME.
". . . the martyrs in Heaven are described as wearing clothes (Revelation 6:9-11). Disembodied spirits don't wear clothes. "
. . .
"Because these martyrs are also called "souls" (Revelation 6:9), some insist that they must be disembodied spirits. But the Greek word psuche, here translated "soul," does not normally mean disembodied spirit.
On the contrary, it is typically used of a whole person, who has both body and spirit, or of animals, which are physical beings. It is used in Revelation 12:11 to describe the martyrs, who "did not love their lives [psuche] so much as to shrink from death." Because death relates to their physical bodies, not their spirits (which would not die), the emphasis is more on their bodies than on their spirits.
According to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, "[Pusche] does not carry with it any clear distinction between a noncorporeal and a corporeal state . . . The reference is not to a part of man that has survived death, but to the total existence of man."^56
"It appears that the aposle John had a body when he visited Heaven, because he is said to have grasped,held, eaten, and teasted things there (e.g., Revelation 10:9-10). To assume this is all figurative language is not a restriction demanded by the text but only by our presupposition that Heaven isn't a physical place. "
There are many other Biblical examples.
To pretend that Heaven currently, much less the future Heaven has no tangible material substance is thoroughly UNBIBLICAL as well as nonsensical.
Whatever God declares and creates is more real than anything else.
However, for this discussion . . .
TANGIBLY EXISTING in detectable form in time and space is probably the definition I’m using most.