A real people, in a very real and perfect and enduring place.

It was said of Abraham and the ancient fathers,

“But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. …”
Heb 11:16

A real country, from a new creation; untainted by sin and death and decay. A heavenly country. It is described in this way.

“1 I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. 2 I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.”
Rev 21

Further, as we know more about the material world and its components, the more obvious it is how vulnerable it is.

We are just a vapor.

Many misquote the second apostle James to say that we are like a vapor. Rather he says we are a vapor,

“Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you ARE a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.”
Jas 4:14

The physicists have known for sometime that such is literally true. Knowledge of such things came about with the early experiments with nuclear radiation. The ratio of particles able to pass through our bodies without hitting anything was very high, meaning that we were mostly empty space! Sometimes they have given analogies such as, if an atom was the size of a football stadium, the nucleus would be the size of a basketball at the 50 yard line, and an electron would be size of a golf ball, way out in the bleachers. But those electron shells move fast enough that light bounces off our bodies and we “look” solid.

And those electron shells, they too are subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that “things run down.” At our present time Jesus sustains them, and you and I and everyone.

“His Son is … upholding all things by the word of his power, …”
Heb 1:3

But such is not forever, and “things” and our bodies do still “run down.”

The world to come is more solid, more permanent.

In 2Corinthians 5 the comparison is made between a tent versus a building.

“For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.”
2Cor 5:1

Paul is talking about our present bodies and comparing them to a mere tent, which is at best a flimsy and vulnerable shelter. It is not that we would like to be without a body, and we won’t be.

“For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”
2Cor 5:4

It is this world that is fleeting and temporary and
little more than a vapor.

Scriptures are from the World English Bible (WEB), a copyright free revision of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901