What is Heaven like?

This spontaneous, free and full-hearted worship settles the great question of what is the occupation of heaven? What is heaven? Is it the street of gold? the river of water of life? the magnificence of the place? These are the outward display, the outward accompaniments of heaven. What is it that makes heaven actually that? In one word, it is that "God and the Lamb" are there. It is access to God visibly, which now is only by faith. What is the occupation of heaven? Joy and praise, surely, and a place for service as well. All our ransomed powers will be happily employed there. Perfect intelligence as well as perfect bodies will be fully in exercise. But what is it that gives fragrance to all there — that makes heaven the place of unsullied, unspeakable delight? It is that worship permeates it all. We still serve, and shall worship as we serve. We shall have communion and intercourse with one another, but all that will simply lead to fresh delight and worship — not a distraction to turn from one occupation to another, but all rendered fragrant by the sweet savor of Christ unceasingly.

We shall live with Him! What a volume is in those words “with Him”! To be with Him is the sum and substance of all our blessedness, for He is with the Father, and this, for Him, is the blessedness of heaven, as it will be ours to be with Him there. Pleasures for evermore, joys unceasing and ever increasing will be ours, but He is better than all the joys; the true delight of heaven is Jesus. The Son of the Father will introduce the many sons into the intimacies of the circle in which He now moves and dwells; we shall live together with Him, see Him as He is, gaze upon His face, listen to His voice in the fair realms of God’s paradise, spend eternity in His company; for the life we have is

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.

In spirit, we are in heaven. We are in Christ who fills it with His glory and His perfections. … Holiness and love and joy characterize the land. They are the fruits which grow there spontaneously, as are the thanksgivings that arise in the hearts of those who are there through redeeming power.

So for us the joy of heaven is defined in this: "we shall be ever with the Lord"; "where I am, there ye shall be also." The knowledge of the Father and of Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, characterizes now for us eternal life. Life in its fullness means for us, then, this knowledge in its own proper home. "In My Father's house are many mansions," says our Lord to His disciples; "if it were not so, I would have told you: I go to prepare a place for you." He would not have suffered them unwarned to have enjoyed so dear an intimacy with Himself, if eternity were not to justify and perpetuate it. And for us, every taste of communion now, every moment of enjoyed intimacy is the pledge of its renewal and perfection in the joy beyond. If it were not so, He would not permit it. The glory into which He is gone could not change the heart of Him who once left it for our sakes. The One who descended is the same also who is ascended up. The Glorified is the Crucified. We shall see in His face above the tender lowly condescension of the days of His flesh: "we shall see Him as He is," only to find Him as He was: nearer as better known.

We are going into the Father's house, as John 14:1-3 says; but the first thought is that we shall "see Him as He is" there. We are to have, so to speak, this private time with Him in His own abode, before the whole universe, heaven and earth participate in the joy of themselves giving to Him His chief place over them all. But the precious thing is the intimacy of the house. Who will picture the joy of that hour, the joy of the Father's house? It is more than the joy of Luke 15; for this His eternal Son never went astray. It is this beloved Son that we shall see as He is. We shall be like Him when He appears, but we shall first have seen Him as He is. "We know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him AS HE IS." H. C. Anstey.

How did the saved thief enter heaven? With Christ, and in all His perfectness. "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." He was not merely to be within the door, but with Christ, wherever that might be. Oh! these blessed words "with me!" they settle and define everything as to our heaven. "With me," "with Christ," "with the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." Oh, what a heaven ours will be! always with Christ, and as Christ. Heaven would be a dreary blank to us without Christ, and it would be a dreary blank to Him without us. We can never be separated throughout eternity. The members must be where the Head is, and the bride must be where the bridegroom is. But, oh! the assurance of His love makes our hearts long to be with Him.

What a wonderful place we have got! Only as we are taught of God can we get hold of this, that is, the hope of eternal life promised by God before the world began, mark that; for as to the Adam life, it never could be that, but a divine life in those who are saved, a life for heaven; we have got it now, and we shall be there on account of it; there will be its full manifestation, everything there, every word, and all praise will be according to the presence of God; as participators of the divine nature we shall be in fullest blessedness, there where nothing inconsistent with the divine nature can exist, but everything will be in accordance with that life and ourselves as possessors of it in the highest and most blessed perfection. We belong to that place now, whilst our bodies are down here; the life we have got came down from thence, and has its only full sphere of blessing there.

Heaven's glory only is commensurate to the vast desires of an immortal soul. The soul is never satisfied till it has God for its portion, and heaven for its haven. The glory of heaven is pure and unmixed. There gold has no alloy. There the rose of Sharon grows without thorns. There is ease without pain, honour without disgrace, life without death. Physicians there are out of date: no distemper there, no passing bell, or bill of mortality. "Neither can they die any more" (Luke 20:36).

If they look forward the glory awaits them. It beckons them heavenward with its brilliancy. In the brightness of that world to which they are called the glitter of this garish scene seems ghastly indeed. In that world of everlasting light there is fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore. It is the Father’s world, the invention of eternal love. Sin cannot enter there, sorrow has no admittance, death is unknown. There supreme satisfaction is realized by every heart, and the cup of every inhabitant runs over with joy unspeakable.