Spiritual Authority (4) Multi-dimensional

The spiritual realms are not limited to three dimensions like our physical world. The Bible does not tell us how many more, but the fact that it is more complex than our three-dimension world means that it is hard for our minds to understand. The spiritual aspect of life can be thought of as additional dimensions beyond the three core dimensions of length, height and breadth. The spiritual world is not another world in another place, but additional dimensions to the physical world we observe.

An even better way might be to think of the physical world as three additional dimensions tacked on to a multi-dimension spiritual world. The spiritual world is more real than the physical world, so this latter view is most likely correct, but it is very hard for us to handle, because our eyes are calibrated for a physical world. Our eyes are so attuned to seeing a three-dimensional world, that we find anything grander difficult to conceive.

Paul visited the spiritual realms in a vision. He was dramatically affected by what he saw, but he could not describe it (2 Cor 12:2-4). His problem was that human language is designed for describing a physical world, so it cannot cope with spiritual reality. He explained that,

Eye has not seen,
nor ear heard,
and no human mind has conceived (1 Cor 2:9).

We need spiritual insight to understand what is happening in the spiritual dimension. That is why Paul prayed that they “eyes our hearts may be enlightened’ (Eph 1:18).