Jesus's Ministry in the
Tabernacle of the Heavens

Page Contents

(Updated 12/20/2025)

Tabernacle of the Heavens Mapping Research:
Hebrews 8:5

How solid is our foundation of understanding about the past and present ministry of Christ in conversation with others? This page provides research related to this imporant question.

Cover Description

The general believer waiting for salvation by Jesus hopes to see him appear while living or promptly at death. Comfort during loss of life usually portrays those passing now in heaven. Conversely, the more religiously academic, the less one thinks anyone, ever, goes to heaven. Trained scholars typically choose a closed heaven with temporal delays and spatial detours in limitation of God's promises about "so great salvation." "Better" typically perceives as a resuscitated flesh on earth that lives by decay of the surrounding creation.

Hearing word-meaning by mapping creation with an old first-century option for plural heavens, this project reexamines the conversation recommended by the pastor in the letter to the Hebrews about promises regarding the twofold ministry of Christ. By analysis with current study tools, the conversation both challenges the common academy views and reintroduces a first-century hearing option for God's speech concerning prompt, postmortem, Christ fulfillment into heaven. Listening includes the milk of the beginning teaching requirements for atonement and logic of resurrection to God immediately after death and judgment. Hearing senses the solid food about priestly intercession by Jesus after death at judgment to shepherd his believers for salvation into heaven a very little while after individual death and judgment.

Cover Author Description

William W. Henry Jr is a bi-vocational, independent scholar in New Testament and Biblical Theology who practices family/emergency medicine. He is the author of Heaven Past Present Future (2002). His expertise combines fields of advance doctoral training that cuts across both the realm of the sensed flesh in the decaying obsolete creation and the realm concerning revelation by God's speech about access through Christ into the unsensed creation for living as a transformed bodily spirit in the eternal/perpetual heaven.

Revised PhD Dissertation Monograph
Academia AI Podcast Review (5:38).

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Syllabus Description

Our printed study companion Syllabus is now available for the study of Hebrews. The online PDF is free by download. You can also click the blue Hebrews Session 1-21 button on the bottom left Home page.

Those watching the Hebrews Study 1-21 Session Videos, either at the Open Heavens Site or YouTube, in remote personal or group studies, can also order the text on our site, most online book and ebook, or Logos Bible Software. The printed Syllabus is only available at our site for a cost of $10. You are welcome to print the PDF yourself, as long as unaltered.

For those using personal or group online study venues, Conversation Opportunities are available by Zoom Scheduler after watching a Session at your study pace by signing up for a 30 or 60 minute slot by Zoom scheduler under the heading Conversation Opportunities at our site. Individuals or groups can Zoom. Just include the Session that you have watched & would like to talk about in your schedule request. Be sure to adjust the Time Zone on your schedule request so we meet at the same time.

The study on Hebrews uses a first-century apocalyptic (plural visible & invisible heavens of reality) view. Most studies on Hebrews, since the fourth-century CE forced Christian traditions, approach Hebrews from a Sadducean lens where the unseen biblical descriptions are either transendent, mythical, or analogic, with little to no consideration for the prompt spirit transformation reality to a better eternal life at death promised by God, who cannot lie. Simply put, most do not teach, what non-academic believers hope for in Jesus, about immediate eternal life with him at death into heaven for those who believe by faith in him as Savior from sin in prayer to God. The goal of the study is to listen more to what God speaks in first-century context of the Pastor's sermon in his words, rather than, what other people, including me, say about the text with philosophical words and ideas. The Pastor promises, if you understand the milk and solid food of what he says about the two-fold ministry of Christ, you can discern both good and evil teaching. Simply put, wrong teaching just will not seem quite right with what you know about both Jesus's purification of our sin and his present ministry to bring his believers promptly to God at death and judgment. Let us know how you are doing on your journey in approach to Jesus as the author and finisher of your faith. Blessings.

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Abstract

Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in Hebrews 9:27–28:
Jesus’ Ministry to Lead Believers for Salvation into Heaven
A Very Little While after Individual Death and Judgment

This project probes the question of Jesus appearing to the dead waiting for him in Hebrews 9:27–28. It searches for correspondence with the possibility of immediate resurrection in Matthew 27:52–53; 1 Corinthians 15:12–58; 2 Corinthians 4–5, and Philippians 1:21–24; 3:17–21. Living readers usually overlook the overarching discourse context of Hebrews 9:27–28 and presume a traditional proof text for only Jesus’ earthly second coming. Neither second coming features nor speculation for future earthly resurrection of the flesh of believers ever emerge in Hebrews, which should be puzzling.

Research appraises the thesis that Jesus now intercedes a very little while after death at judgment to bring into heaven people who believe in his offering for sin, in the same way God promptly raised him in salvation from the dead into heaven, recaps Hebrews 9:27–28, as the true conversation of the exposition, exhortation, and rhetoric. Rather than a tangential topic, contextual analysis explores if the text functions as an interconnected macro conclusion/summary. The rhetoric clarifies proper teaching conversation about what Jesus, as the Christ, achieves for salvation completion in the tabernacle of the heavens and co-ministerial teaching accountability when before Jesus in heaven. Hebrews 1:1–4 initiates discourse topics/subtopics that track by corresponding cognates, related referents and phrases, and OT midrash in a narrow path to this conclusion about Jesus’ present ministry for approaching believers after death at an individual judgment. Examination of the functional units of text that govern these discourse lines searches for a cohesive message that Jesus, now, promptly at death leads bodily into heaven those who believe in his offering for their sin—just as God both promptly raised him, as a bodily, complete, eternal-place spirit, at the instant of death on the cross, to inaugurate the promised, new covenant benefits as Christ, and confirmed his spirit, eternal-place redemption by the sign of his fleshly resurrection.

Investigation of this thesis begins with word studies for lexical meaning by correspondence to the most probable to least possible extant first-century sources. Readers then explore the spatial, background, aiōn-field theology behind the discourse. Topic consistency evaluates next by discourse and thought-structure analysis within a natural Greek chiasm. The assessment traces the functional groupings of text above the sentence level that conceptually map God’s speech about death, judgment, intercession, and salvation from the discourse introduction through each discourse unit conclusion and section transition. In the footnote discussion, the resultant macrosummary contextually compares with other corresponding first-century conversation that relates to Jesus’ present ministry. Also, the discussion differentiates common missteps that influence listeners toward either a postmortem, inferior quality of bodiless soul or complete closure of a believer’s immediate access into heaven, when at death inheriting the indestructible life of the promise of God, who cannot lie.

Abstract

The Cosmology of the Heaven(s), Tabernacle,
and Sanctuary of the Priestly Work
of Christ in Hebrews 8-10

This thesis argues the author of Hebrews purposely used spatial referents in a context of ontological reality typified by the Tabernacle. Also, the Tabernacle framework outlines and shadows a background grid for the subtext main point explaining Christ’s priestly work.

Chapter 1 introduces cosmology which can be cartographically mapped. Chapter 2 establishes the synchronic existence of a text for plural heavens in Hebrews 8-10, tracks the diachronic treatment of the plural of οὐρανός, and explains the disappearance of the biblical textual usage of plural heavens. Chapter 3 develops semantically the context of plural heavens and includes a brief comparison among other New Testament authors. Chapter 4 answers proposed contra arguments. In Chapter 5 the subtext of the work of Jesus as High Priest is applied cartographically using the test text of Hebrews 9:11-14 with a test question of whether Jesus actually took his own blood to heaven. Finally, Chapter 6 concludes.

The 2023 dissertation  research asserts avoidance of the common, scholarly, technical language terms of "cosmology" or "sanctuary" due to later, anachronistic sense away from intended meaning by biblical authors, especially the author of Hebrews. There is very little evidence for the common claim for a sense of a "tabernacle in heaven" or "heavenly tabernacle" as a localized unseen creation in God's heavenly domain. The biblically unsupported concept serves as a scholarly strawman to prop up the long-held ideology for an earth-centric eternal kingdom hope by offering flattened alternatives to biblical, aiōn-field language.

Abstract

Omitted PhD Research Excursus A
Other Runners: Corresponding Place(s) of Other NT Gospel Sequences:
A Nodal Example and Area for Further Research

This material was omitted from my dissertation  due to space limitations. This research information now appears in the book publication Atonement and Logic of Resurrection in Hebrews 9:27-28 above p. 405-418. For this PDF version, Bibliographic references, abbreviations, figures, tables, and appendixes locate in the main work: William W. Henry Jr., “Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in Hebrews 9:27–28: Jesus’ Ministry to Lead Believers for Salvation into Heaven a Very Little While after Individual Death and Judgment” (PhD diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2023).

This supplemental material explores the gospel as a process concerning the speech-action of God himself known as the Word of God, conversation, the Christ, the seed, the promise, and the gospel that was fulfilled by Jesus, so that he might shepherd believers as his assembling church into the kingdom of God, now in the heaven. Exploration of a handful of canonical NT texts strongly supports the nodal point of continued, prompt, spirit body living with open heavens in a concrete substance-reality for believers after death and judgment. Further research is needed in this considered venue.

Abstract

Omitted PhD Research Excursus B
Avoiding Missteps: Example of A Detour From
the Way Toward Heavenly Place(s):
Martin Luther’s Misstep after 500 Years

This material was omitted from my dissertation  due to space limitations. This research information now appears in the book publication Atonement and Logic of Resurrection in Hebrews 9:27-28 above p. 419-440. For this PDF version, bibliographic references, abbreviations, figures, tables, and appendixes locate in the main dissertation work: William W. Henry Jr., “Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in Hebrews 9:27–28: Jesus’ Ministry to Lead Believers for Salvation into Heaven a Very Little While after Individual Death and Judgment” (PhD diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2023).

This omitted supplemental material explores the tension between text and tradition often born out between the common Christian believer and those taught in inherited traditions. It tracks the probable translation misstep of Martin Luther to alter every sense of the Greek plurals of heaven as German singular, and the early English translators, who followed Luther's lead off course. Further research is needed in this considered venue.

Abstract

Omitted PhD Research
Ministry of Christ Vertical Mapping in the Father's House
and the Tabernacle of the Heavens

This material was omitted from my dissertation due to space limitations. Bibliographic references, abbreviations, figures, tables, and appendixes locate in the main work: William W. Henry Jr., “Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in Hebrews 9:27–28: Jesus’ Ministry to Lead Believers for Salvation into Heaven a Very Little While after Individual Death and Judgment” (PhD diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2023).

This omitted supplemental material explores visual mapping, in the Tabernacle of the Heavens, of the ministry of Jesus, as the Christ, in atonement and in his ministry as shepherd of believers, either on approach to God in spiritual bodies at death, or like transformation while living at his second coming. The vertical mapping illustrates the coherence of the biblical, first-century, aiōn-field [apocalyptic], creation background of the kingdom of the heavens that explores in the dissertation work. Further research is needed in this considered venue.

Abstract

Omitted PhD Research
Ministry of Christ Vertical Mapping in the Father's House
and the Tabernacle of the Heavens

This material was omitted from my dissertation due to space limitations. Bibliographic references, abbreviations, figures, tables, and appendixes locate in the main work: William W. Henry Jr., “Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in Hebrews 9:27–28: Jesus’ Ministry to Lead Believers for Salvation into Heaven a Very Little While after Individual Death and Judgment” (PhD diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2023).

This omitted supplemental material explores visual mapping, in the Tabernacle of the Heavens, of the biblical revelation of Jesus, as the Christ, in atonement and in his ministry as shepherd of believers, either on approach to God in spiritual bodies at death, or like transformation while living at his second coming. The horizontal and vertical mapping illustrates the coherence of the biblical, first-century, aiōn-field [apocalyptic], creation background of the kingdom of the heavens that explores in the dissertation work. Further research is needed in this considered venue.