Our series on the Christian’s great hope in the face of death has so far considered 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 Scripture affords regarding death, we have thought about how believers, by Christ’s substitution, escape the second death and instead are given blessings from God for both body and soul, and 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 now as well as the comforts that will be ours at 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’s 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.
In the previous article, we considered the symptoms of heaven, and we began to consider the joy of heaven, giving special attention to the idea that one symptom of heaven will be that we will enjoy perfect fellowship, including recognition and familiarity, with the saints in glory.
Today, we come to our concluding article in this series, thinking about the joy of heaven and the Lord of heaven.
The Joy of Heaven
The joy of heaven includes beholding the face of God in Jesus Christ, experiencing the perpetual love of Christ, and recognizing other of God’s saints, including our loved ones who have died in the Lord. In addition, part of the joy of heaven will be our everlasting and glorified growth, maturing, and occupation. It has been said, “Heaven will not be a place of indolence, but of industry.”
I am not sure if it is because of Looney Tunes or some other cultural factor, but there exists this caricature that heaven will be a place where people are floating around on clouds, lounging about, eating grapes, and perhaps playing harps. But this is not the image we get from Scripture.
We noted before from Scripture and the Westminster Larger Catechism 90 that at the day of judgment, Christ will invite his elect to join with him in judging reprobate angels and men. God’s people are given a kind of judicial work to do right away. And after that? Certainly, we will be worshipping and learning more of our Savior with each passing eon. Our minds will still be finite and creaturely; it is not as if these finite minds could fully grasp the infinite God, so there will always be more to discover, more to comprehend about our glorious God, in wave upon wave upon wave of eternity in his endless love!
Theologians have long reasoned that the new creation will be what the original creation should have been, only amplified. Work, or labor, was a part of God’s good, unfallen creation. It was not a part of the fall. Yes, the toil and frustration that we experience now are a result of the curse. But it stands to reason that if there was work in the original innocent creation, there will be work or occupation of some sort in eschatological glory—free from any drawbacks. Whatever that looks like, our work will be so blessed that it will be to us as rest.
This is likely tied to our understanding of rewards in heaven. Jesus says, “Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22:12, KJV). Or, as Paul reflects in 2 Timothy 4:7–8, “I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith: henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only but unto all them also that love his appearing” (KJV).
Perhaps the occupation we are given in eternity will be a part of the reward we are given from our Savior. The notion of future rewards is not popular in our time, but let us bear in mind that when God rewards us, he is rewarding us for his gifts to us, in us.
The good works that you do in this life are wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit at work in you. We work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12), “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14), for it is God who is at work in us to will and to do his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).
God gives us the grace of the Spirit to even do good works; he has already given us that, and then he will reward us for the good works that he ordained and produced in us! Heidelberg Catechism 63 strikes just the right balance as it reminds us that there are rewards, but the rewards from Christ’s hand to us are a thing of grace and are not of merit:
63. Do our good works merit nothing, even though it is God’s will to reward them in this life and in that which is to come?
The reward comes not of merit, but of grace.
As well, the essence of every reward will be more glorifying and enjoying of God (Westminster Larger Catechism 45). Any and every reward that is given in glory will be an outflow of and contribution to man’s chief end: the glorifying and enjoying of God in Christ Jesus (Westminster Shorter Catechism 1).
The thing is, in heaven there will be no sense of lack. Whatever you are given, dear saint, you will not feel short changed. Jonathan Edwards famously said concerning the rewards that God gives his people, “The saints are like so many vessels of different sizes cast into a sea of happiness where every vessel is full: this is eternal life, for a man ever to have his capacity filled.”1
In other words, according to Edwards, though every saint might have a different-sized cup, every saint’s cup will be full to overflowing with the reward God gives him. And since there is no envy or jealousy in heaven, even if your brother or sister has a bigger cup than you or is proverbially “closer to the throne” than you, the joy that they experience from the reward of their master will only contribute to your joy. Their enjoyment and delight in God, even if somehow different in degree from yours, is only going to further your own enjoyment and delight in God—your brother’s happiness in God fueling your own. We cannot even imagine such an economy, but so it will be in perfect, sinless glory.
Have you ever had those moments, whether it is being surrounded by your children (or perhaps that blissful time after they are put to bed for the night) or gathered around a campfire with your dearest friends enjoying one another’s company, drinking it all in, that you think to yourself, “I wish this would never end”? But those blissful moments inevitably do end. But in heaven, the redeemed will say, “I wish that this could go on forever”—and it will. This is part of the blessing that is ours to experience in the joy of heaven.
The Lord of Heaven
Finally, we must give some consideration to the Lord of heaven.
As we think about the presence of the Lord in eternity, we need to highlight it positively from the perspective of heaven but also negatively in relation to hell because both heaven and hell are lived in the presence of God.
That might strike us as provocative because there exists the idea that hell is a miserable place where people are apart from the presence of God. But observe how Westminster Confession 33.2 puts it: “The righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing, which shall come from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (emphasis mine).
It has been said that heaven is where God is present in his grace, but hell is where God is present in his wrath. And there is no mediator in hell, for the wicked are punished in conscious awareness with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power exercised upon them immediately, falling on them as wrath.
But in heaven there is a Mediator, with the presence of God falling on his people as joy—where the saint dwells in the conscious awareness of the holy, righteous, just, and good heavenly Father but doing so through the Mediator who died in his place. In heaven, there is a Savior who presents his redeemed before God with great glory (Jude 24), so that the Christian knows he is fully accepted by that God who fully delights in him because of Jesus Christ.
And so in closing, it is worth considering: When we think of heaven, we often think of freedom from pain, sickness, and sorrow; of unending light and bliss; of being reunited with loved ones; and more. All good things—indeed, wonderful things! But if in our conception of heaven we could be content with all those things even if Christ were not there, that is a problem.
Dear reader, heaven would be no heaven at all if the Lord were not there and we were not there with him. This must be the chief desire of our hearts: that we go to the place Christ has prepared for us, where he will receive us to himself and we shall forever be with the Lord.
Are we content longing for the benefits of heaven without the Christ of heaven, or are we rather more like Samuel Rutherford, who wrote, “I am so in love with His love that if He were not in heaven I would not want to go there”?2 Let us never desire to experience the benefits of heaven apart from the Christ of heaven who dispenses those benefits from his sovereign and loving hand.
May that be so of us, that we would press on to the place of heaven to take hold of the joy of heaven, and all because of the Lord of heaven, our great Savior. Praise God for the hope that is ours in Him, even in the face of death.
Notes
- Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone” (a discourse based on Romans 4:5), in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, https://ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works1/works1.xiii.ii.html.
- Samuel Rutherford to the Viscountess of Kenmure, March 7, 1637, in Letters of Samuel Rutherford, part 1, Wesley Center Online, https://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/christian-library/a-christian-library-volume-16/letters-of-mr-samuel-rutherfoord-part-i/.
©Sean Morris. All Rights Reserved.
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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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