What does heaven look like according to the Bible?

Just in the same way must I seek, supposing I want to gain a just idea of what heaven will be. What then is it? A place of gold and precious stones? Nothing of the sort. I know that these are employed as figures of the Bride or the glorified church in the Apocalypse; but it is to me certain that a man who has merely this as his conception of heaven is more a Mahometan than a Christian. All believers ought to know very well that such is not the meaning of the word of God; and God Himself, therefore, gives us divine landmarks that we may not be ignorant when He is using Scripture figuratively, and when He is using it symbolically. There is no such difficulty as unbelief affects to find. Men do the same thing in principle almost every day, as we meet with in the language of Scripture. Supposing you tell me that you "flew" down the street, we do not suppose that you borrowed wings, yet we know very well what you mean; you are only using a very intelligible and expressive figure. Supposing you tell me that another "crept" down the street, are we to suppose that he went on all fours? Thus, no matter what the figure that is used, there are landmarks by which one may learn whether the thing is intended in its literal import, or whether it is a strikingly figurative method of stating what is meant. This makes no difficulty at all. It is only uncommonly stupid or uncommonly wilful people who are stumbled by such expressions. If the Bible be accepted as God's word, He must look for docility, not wilfulness, in those who profess to believe in Him; but He takes account of everybody — the poorest and the lowest; and there is nothing that delights one more in Scripture than the manner in which God has respect even to the child or the feeblest soul imaginable. And Christ is the One who brings it all out. Thus I know what heaven is, because it is the place where God is displaying His own excellence by crowning the man that was rejected from and by the world. It is the place where Christ is glorified, where He is accepted in love, light, and glory, where God Himself puts honour on His Son.

The last vision of Revelation is now before us: it is that of the city of God itself. But here, where one would desire above all to see clearly, we become most conscious of how feeble and dull is our apprehension of eternal things. They are words of an apostle which remind us that "we see through a glass darkly" — en ainigmati, in a riddle. Such a riddle, then, it is no wonder if the vision presents to us: the dream that we have here a literal description, even to the measurements, of the saints' eternal home, is one too foolish to need much comment. All other visions throughout the book have been symbolic: how much more here! how little need we expect that the glimpse which is here given us into the unseen would reveal to us the shape of buildings, or the material used! Scripture is reticent all through upon such subjects, and the impress to be left upon our souls is plainly spiritual, not of lines and hues, as for the natural senses. "Things which eye hath not seen" are not put before the eye.

The introduction of the Harlot-church in Rev. 17:1 expressly and instructively answers to that of the Bride, the Lamb's wife, in Rev. 21:9, who is identified with the holy Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. How any sober man, I say not spiritual, could conceive this applicable to the earthly Jerusalem, no matter how beautiful or blessed in the Millennium, passes comprehension. Does it not simply show the blinding power of an idea in contempt of the clearest scripture? The just and true inference from God's word is, that it is essentially neither of man nor of the earth like the Palestinian Jerusalem, but heavenly and divine and so having the glory of God, and described in figures altogether and purposely beyond the first creation, which will be ransacked to clothe the earthly metropolis with riches and beauty. Think of jasper clear as crystal, gold transparent as glass, and each gate of "one pearl!" It is all above nature; whereas earthly Jerusalem will be founded and built up with the best things of the earth. We must not think of material beauty in the heavenly city; it is a symbolic description.

The first five verses of chapter 22 give us yet lovely details, as to the connection of the holy city with the earth, although not on it. "He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Rev. 22:1) The city is refreshed by the river of God, and the fruits of the tree of life — always ripening — are for its inhabitants. The fruit, only the glorified saints eat, whereas the leaves — that which is visible without — are for the blessing of those on earth. Observe there is only one river here, and only one tree. You recollect in Genesis 2 there were four rivers, and two trees — the tree of the knowledge of good, and evil, and the tree of life. When man sinned, he was driven out, that he might not touch the tree of life. But when driven out of the earthly paradise, God opens a heavenly one to him. In Eden there were four rivers, and with two of them, Hiddekel, or Tigris, and Euphrates, are connected some of the most sorrowful passages of the history of God's earthly people. On the Tigris, was built Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, which carried captive the ten tribes. On the Euphrates, Babylon was built, whither the two tribes were taken. When we come to the last chapter of Scripture, we have but one river, the river of life, and one tree, the tree of life, and that seen on both sides of the river. The tree of the knowledge of good, and evil, is for ever gone. The day of man's responsibility, and testing, is, for ever, over, and everything is settled absolutely according to divine sovereign grace in Christ. There may be trouble on the earth, to begin with, but the Lord will put all right, in that day, for "the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." It must be borne in mind that these are only God's figures of fullest blessing. There will not be any real river, or visible tree, I take it, but, the river of water of life symbolises the superabundance of life, and blessing, which will flow through the city — i.e., the Bride, the Lamb's wife — and, clearly, we are on millennial ground, in this chapter, for, in eternity, there are no nations or kings.

Suffice it to say that the only description of this wondrous scene is confined to telling us what is NOT there—no tears because there will be no sorrows; no pain because there will be no disease; no crying (crying meaning a cry of anguish, forced by mental grief) because there will be no such thing as mental distress; last of all, no death,

In that wonderful chapter in Revelation where we have the account given of the new heaven and the new earth, we have to content ourselves with what we might term a negative account of what lies before us. We are told what will NOT be there, rather than what will be there. We are told that there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more crying, no more death. Take these things out of this present world and we would have the millennium at once. These are the things that are the result of SIN.

So utterly glorious will the scene be, that Scripture mostly describes it by what is NOT found there, even those things which make this present life wearisome and testing. In that blissful scene there will be no tears, there will be no more death, no more pain, no more crying, for the former things will have passed away. He who sits on the throne will “make all things NEW” (Rev. 21:6).

The building of the wall is of jasper (or diamond). The divine glory is itself a safeguard of the eternal city. What can touch that which God has ordained for His own praise? The city itself is pure transparent gold, — pure, permanent, radiant, — not hindering, but welcoming the enraptured sight. The foundations of the wall are adorned with every precious stone, — all the attributes of God displayed in that upon which rests the salvation of the people of God. The stones, in their separate meanings, are again a mystery. The twelve gates are twelve pearls — the picture of such grace as has been shown in the Church (Matt. 13:45-46). These gates stand open all the unending day. The street of the city is, again, "pure gold, like transparent glass." The street — especially in the east — is the place of traffic, the meeting-place constantly of need and greed. But here, all circumstances, all intercourse, the whole environment, is absolute holiness and truth, fit for and permeated by the felt presence of God.

Amongst precious stones the jasper and sardius are remarkable for their brilliancy. These hard and indestructible gems are fit emblems of incorruption in the glorified state (1 Cor. 15:50). The blue “wavy colours of the rainbow” in the one, and the red of the other, are flashed out in wondrous beauty. Both stones are employed to set forth the glory and majesty of God on His throne (Rev. 4:3). The jasper is solid, transparent, and brilliant as crystal, which is a native production. There are three lists of precious stones which respectively set forth the communicable glory of God: In creation (Ezek. 28:13), in which the jasper is named sixth in the list; in grace (Ex. 28:17-20), the jasper is last mentioned; in government (Rev. 21:19-20), the jasper is first named. The jasper is also mentioned three times in the detailed description of the heavenly city; first, as her light (v. 11); second, as her security (v. 18); third, as the first foundation of the wall (v. 19). Thus the glory of God is the light, the security, and the foundation of the glorified Church.

Further, a negative point of great importance is presented by the seer, "And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty is the temple of it, and the Lamb. This was no lack. On the contrary, it proved the immediateness of communion. The temple would suppose a medium. The absence of a temple is therefore no loss but a gain for this city. It furnishes material for a contrast between the earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly city, because if there be one thing more remarkable than another in Ezekiel's description, it is the temple. But here there is none; a temple is for the earth. The heavenly city, which is the full expression of blessedness on high, has no temple because it is all a temple. "The Lord God is the temple of it, and the Lamb as far as we can speak of any. "And the city has no need of the sun, nor of the moon, that they should shine for it." This too must not be viewed as if it were a loss. As for the earthly land and city, the moon will have her light increased to that of the sun, and the sun shall be sevenfold. But here there is neither; and this again is an evidence of gain, not of loss. "For the glory of God enlightened it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof." Creature lights are gone.