When SpaceX was launched to execute a rescue mission of two astronauts aboard the International Space Station, it was a remarkable launch to watch. Each spacecraft stage ignited in sequence as the rocket rose higher in the sky. The stages fell away after depleting their fuel supply placing the rescue crew into orbit. Humans touching space is always a remarkable achievement. 

I listened to an astrophysicist describe future travel into space and the energy systems required to launch us into the expanse of deep space. At some point, our greatest achievements of fuel and launching systems will not be able to put humans into the farthest reaches of space. The combustion produced by our current launching systems is not able to travel to these extreme destinations. He suggested we need to discover another alternative realm for space travel, a parallel realm not limited to our current understanding of physics and propulsion. In that realm, we would be able to travel across time and space at unimagined speeds without the hindrance of our current limitations.

As wonderous and awe-inspiring as space appears to us, it is still a created place that was brought into existence by the word of God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Space did not exist before God created it. It is not infinite.

In both the Old and New Testaments, the Lord moved people between physical locations. Phillip’s preaching to the Ethiopian eunuch and his baptism is an example, “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea” (Acts 8:39).

Paul wrote about another form of travel that was very different and more profound than the experience of Phillip. Paul said he was taken by the Lord into Heaven, “And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell”  (II Corinthians 12: 3-4).

The movement between the realms of Earth and Heaven was accomplished by Jesus. He left the realm of Heaven to enter the earthly realm of time and space to redeem us. Future astronauts will never be able to accomplish that kind of movement. The future discovery of a parallel universe is still a human discovery made within the realm of God’s created order. Only God can enable a person to pass between the realms of Heaven and Earth. 

Someday, if another created realm is discovered and the ability to enter that realm is made possible, it will still be a form of travel within the created realm of time and space. Only the Lord can move us past the limitations of time and space to experience the unlimited realm of Heaven where the Lord sits upon His throne in unimagined glory.