What is heaven like in the Bible?

Next we have the blessedness of the inhabitants of the scene. But how is it described? In the very way that appeals the most powerfully to hearts that have known the sorrows and tribulations of the wilderness. There will be the absence of everything that had caused us grief or anguish here. First, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;" not a trace of former sorrow shall remain, and God Himself will remove it. What infinite tenderness in the expression that God Himself shall do this! Even as a mother will tenderly wipe away the tears of her child, so God Himself will delight to wipe away all tears from the eyes of His saints. And once wiped away they can never return; for "there shall be no more death" (how many tears has death wrung from bereaved ones in this scene!), "neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." All these, the former, things will have for ever passed away — these dark clouds — before the perpetual sunlight and joy of the eternal presence of God.

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).

(V. 2). Second, for the comfort of our hearts the Lord discloses to us the new home, "In My Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." Not only have we Christ in the glory our unfailing resource, but we have the Father's house as our abiding home. For let us note that the word 'mansions' is really 'abodes' — a home which once it is reached will never more be left — there we shall abide. On earth we have "no continuing city." We are pilgrims and strangers here. Our abiding home is in the Father's house. Moreover in the Father's house there are "many" abodes. On earth there was no room for Christ, and little room for those who are Christ's, but in the Father's house there is room for all that are Christ's — the great and the small. If it were not so He would have told His disciples. He would not have gathered His disciples around Himself, and led them outside this world, were He not leading them into a scene of blessedness well known to Him as the Father's house. To this home the Lord was going. On the cross He prepared His people for the place; His presence in the glory prepares the place for His people. Thus we are lifted above the weakness and failure of all things earthly, carried beyond the changing scenes of time, to enter in spirit a better world, there to find a home prepared in the Father's house.

They shall moreover see His face. We read of Moses that the Lord spake unto him face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend; and, on the other hand, David commanded respecting Absalom, "Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face." To see the Lamb's face in glory therefore betokens intimacy of approach and the enjoyment of His presence, a place of nearness as well as of honour and blessing. This of itself tells of the saints' perfected condition, even as John writes, "We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." This character of blessedness has been well expressed in the following lines: "For ever to behold Him shine! For evermore to call Him mine And see Him still before me For ever on His face to gaze, And meet the full assembled rays, While. all His beauty He displays To all His saints in glory."

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.

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.

And now at this moment we are told that Peter, James, and John wake up, for "they were heavy with sleep, and when they were awake they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him." It is all perfectly plain that there will be recognition in eternity. There will be recognition in the Father's house. They knew Moses, and they knew Elias. They confounded neither of them. They were confident about each. I do not think when, by-and-by, we pass into eternity, that we shall fail to recognise each other, for recognition after resurrection is clearly seen here. The relationships of life are for time, but individuality is clearly maintained into eternity, and a very blessed thing for us that it is so. Peter, ever impetuous, and stirred by this marvellous vision, yet not knowing what He said, exclaims, "Master, it is good for us to be here." That was quite true. It was a very nice thing for him to see the glory of the Lord. And you, Christian friend, will say similarly some day, "It is good for us to be here," when you see His glory.

No, a spiritual body, or a body of glory, is a body, and a body is substance, and spirit is not substance. It means that we shall have bodies suited to the Glory in contrast to our present bodies which are suited to the earth, or natural life. We are to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven (2 Cor. 5); the character, power, glory, and beauty of the changed bodies will be heavenly; it will be the beauty of the Lord. The flesh and blood life will give way to the spiritual and heavenly life, and our bodies will be in every way suited to that life, but they will be bodies. The contrast is not between what is material and what is unsubstantial, but between what is natural and what is spiritual.

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.

Man's thoughts concerning heaven too often are fashioned from earthly moulds. We take of things around us, and, subjecting what we have gathered to a process of mental purifying, cast it into a shape, which our imagination has formed out of the clay of this sin-stained earth, and then we call that which we have fashioned heavenly! Vain are such thoughts! No mere man hath ascended up to heaven. Ideas of heaven without a divine revelation are only things of earth, painted with the colors of earth — the paradise of our inclinations, the fruition of the wishes of our fallen selves. Heaven is the dwelling-place of God, and can only be apprehended as God Himself is known; "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." What is known of them is by revelation: "God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." (1 Cor. 2:9-10.) The earthly things of the kingdom of God may well interest true believers, but they do not directly pertain to us. Since Christ went to prepare a place for those who love Him, our place is where He is. We have to do with the heavenly part of God's kingdom, or we have no lot in the matter. A christian is not a Jew; he has not an earthly but a heavenly inheritance.