Our series on the Christian’s great hope in the face of death has so far thought about the theological reality of death as God’s judgment on sin, while also observing that Scripture offers a wonderfully tender perspective. In considering the great comfort that Scripture affords regarding death, we have thought about how believers, by Christ’s substitution, escape the second death, and that, instead, believers are given blessings from God, for both body and soul, and that these blessings and comforts are grounded on the resurrection of Christ. We then gave extended attention to what Christ’s resurrection portends for the future resurrection of our own bodies, considering the great implications and blessings for us right now, as well as the comforts that shall be ours upon his return.
At this point in our series, we are thinking about heaven. We have already spent some time thinking about our glorified bodies and what our state will be like in the new heavens and earth (the consummated state), which Jesus will usher in at his second coming. But chronologically, we are backtracking a bit and taking some time to study the intermediate state, or what you and I colloquially refer to as “heaven.”
Having first considered Jesus’ words of comfort in John 14:1–6 regarding heaven/the Father’s house that he is preparing for his people, we are thinking about heaven along four lines:
- the place of heaven,
- the symptoms or characteristics of heaven,
- the joy of Heaven,
- and the Lord of heaven.
Having considered the Place of Heaven in our last article, we continue today with the second of our four headings.
The Symptoms of Heaven
Scripture tells us about the characteristics of heaven, what the experience will be like to live there.
Think again of that picture of the Father’s house (John 14:2), that potent analogy Scripture gives us. Now, for many of our readers, that language of “Father’s house” will call to mind some of your most treasured memories. We can extrapolate from that metaphor some concept of what it will be like to be with our God in heaven.
But for others, your memories of your father’s house are not good. For some of you, such an association is one of pain, sin, and danger—fickle affections and betrayal. For you, dear reader, praise God that in Jesus Christ, he is redeeming all things; in every way that your earthly father’s house fell short of blessedness, your Father’s house in heaven will not. Everything you should have known in this life, every sensation you should have felt in this world but were denied, there you will have it in infinite spades.
There, in the bosom of Abraham, the great father of God’s covenant people, will you finally know at last rest, welcome, love, acquittal, perfection, righteousness, freedom from sin, freedom from wickedness, and you will be always and forever safe (Westminster Larger Catechism [WLC] 90). You will be safe in Christ and at home in the communion of the saints, the redeemed from all ages, sealed by the ministry of the Father, Son, and Spirit, who have sovereignly orchestrated all things in time and space to bring you to that place.
Westminster Confession 32.1 says that at death, our “souls . . . immediately return to God who gave them: the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies” (emphasis added).
What is that going to be like? Well, it is nigh impossible for us to imagine perfection, but think of how John explains that reality in Revelation 7:13–17:
One of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and from where have they come?” And I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes.”
At home: safe and welcome, in our Father’s house. Paradise: free from sorrow, sin, and death. But there is another symptom of heaven, perhaps the chief symptom, which deserves a point all its own, that we should consider next.
The Joy of Heaven
Here, we should highlight four aspects of the constant joy of life in heaven, though the fourth one warrants extended commentary, and so we will reserve that discussion for our next installment.
First of all, in heaven, our greatest joy will be beholding God in the face of Jesus Christ (cf. 2 Cor 3:18, 4:6). Remember the Westminster Confession 32.1? Our souls go immediately to God, where they shall “behold the face of God, in light and glory.”
The apostle Peter talks about the fact that “though [we] have not seen Him, [we] love Him” (1 Peter 1:8). Though you and I have not seen the Lord Jesus Christ, yet we love him, and we will see him face to face. One day, we will behold what he is like. We will see him, and this is the greatest joy of heaven (cf. Westminster Shorter Catechism 1 and WLC 1). John says in Revelation 22:4, “They will see his face.”
Second, part of the joy of heaven will be the perpetual experience of Christ’s love as he ministers to his people. Another way to put it is to say that Christ ministers to us now, and he will keep on ministering to us in heaven. Recall Luke 12:37. In that context, Jesus is urging his disciples for watchfulness and preparation in light of the second coming: “Blessed are those servants whom the master shall find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at table, and will come up and wait on them.”
Now, what Jesus describes there in Luke 12 takes place in John’s Gospel, in the upper room, when Jesus took off his outer garments, girded himself as a slave, and washed his disciples’ feet (John 13). Luke is saying that at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the Lord is going to gird himself and have his people recline at his table, and there he is going to serve you, Christian.
So for all of us who have known the ministry of Christ in this world, who have known the power of Christ, and the presence of Christ by his Holy Spirit, ministering to our souls, his graces comforting us, how he has served us and ministered to us in this life, what a glorious thing it is to know that he will continue to minister to us, in ways of fullness and splendor that we cannot yet fully comprehend! Our Savior tells us that in perfection, in paradise, he will be serving us again at his wedding feast (Luke 12:37).
Thirdly, sinless, perfected, glorified fellowship will be part of the joy of heaven. Westminster Confession of Faith 26.1 tells us that “all saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces.” (emphasis mine).
We have communion and fellowship of the saints now, and we shall continue to have that communion even as we are united to Christ in his glory—only perfected! As sweet and pleasant as the fellowship can be between believers here in this life, it will be all the closer and purer and nobler and more pristine. Conversely, whatever flaws and frustrations exist within the fellowship of saints here and now in the church militant—whatever tensions or dissensions exist in the body, whatever pettiness or resentment, whatever sin, whatever doctrinal disputes or disagreements we have presently—when we go to glory beholding our God, we will do so perfectly, together with all the saints, the church triumphant. When we go to join the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven (Heb 12:23), our flawed, tainted, and sin-sullied fellowship on this earth shall be no more. There we shall enjoy perfect, unblemished fellowship one with another, then we shall “know fully, even as [we] have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:13).
Familiarity in Heaven
Considering our glorified fellowship from another angle, many people wonder, “Will I know my loved ones? In heaven, will I know and recognize my redeemed friends and family?” I believe the short and simple answer is yes.
Yes, when Christ returns, we will be given glorified bodies, but we are given every indication by God in Scripture that part of that glorified body will include glorified recognition, sight, and understanding.
What will those bodies look like? Who can say? Will we all look like twenty-five-year-old versions of ourselves? If a person dies when he is one hundred, will his glorified body look like a younger version of himself, obviously similar to how he looked in his youthful vigor on earth? What if a young person dies? Will he or she look like a fully grown adult in glory? How will we recognize her, especially if we never saw her as an adult in this life?
When my wife and I lived in Mississippi during my seminary years, there was a little boy in our church whom the church loved and for whom we prayed fervently. He fought cancer and later died at age five. Will this young saint, this little boy, look like an older version of himself in glory, a grown-up version of their child that his mother and father never got to see in this life? I do not know precisely, though I do tend to think yes in answer to that previous question.
But with great confidence, we can say that, in God’s holy purposes, our glorified state will be better than anything we imagine and there will be no barrier or inhibition to our faculties. By God’s grace, we shall enjoy perfected recognition and enjoyment of each other.
Scripture hints at our ability to recognize others in glory. For instance, consider Jesus, on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt 17:1–13). Peter, James, and John are there, and Moses and Elijah show up. Now, think about it: Only Jesus, God the Son, had ever seen Moses and Elijah before and knew what they looked like. There were no photographs in those days to document the visage or appearance of Moses and Elijah. And yet, Peter and James and John immediately recognize who is there. That seems to be a window, a tiny preview, as to how it will be for all the saints when we behold each other in glorified perfection—with no flaw in our appearance and no defect in our recognition.
Think about Jesus on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, or when he appeared to his disciples huddled together in the room that day in John 20—having gone through doors that were closed and locked; there is something to ponder! In both instances, the text reads as though the disciples did not recognize Jesus at first in his risen and glorified state, but then they were given the ability to see him, and they did recognize him!
These texts hint at and give us previews of the coming perfect fellowship that we will enjoy—including recognition and familiarity—with the saints in glory.
There is more for us to consider regarding the doctrine of heaven and why it brings such immense comfort and hope to believers. We will consider those matters in more detail when we return next time to our ongoing series on the Christian’s comfort, even in death.
©Sean Morris. All Rights Reserved.
You can find this whole series here.
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Sean Morris
Sean was educated at Grove City College, Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, MS), Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and the University of Glasgow (Scotland). He earned his PhD from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, and serves as a minister at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN. He also serves as the Academic Dean of the Blue Ridge Institute for Theological Education and has published numerous theological and devotional articles. Sean lives in Oak Ridge with his wife, Sarah, and their children.
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