Today we come to the end of our 60 unit series,
our overview of Christian doctrine, and it's only appropriate that when we come to the
end of our study of the things of God that we should be studying what happens to us at
the end -- at the end of our lives. And the glorious hope that we as Christians
have is that of entering into our rest in heaven. Every Sunday we see God's sign of the promise
of rest that is before every believer as the Sabbath Day is God's established sign of his
promise that we will enter into our rest in the future. But there are those in our day who doubt that
there's life after death and who say to us that our hope of heaven is just so 'pie-in-the-sky'. It's a direct result of our ability to project
our wishes and our desires into the future, and they will ask on what basis do we have
any real confidence that the next world will be better than this one. And of course, our answer to that as Christians,
is from the testimony of Christ -- not only by virtue of the proof of His own conquest
over death, by the resurrection from the grave, but also from His teaching. We remember His words at the home of Mary
and Martha at the time that He visited Bethany when their brother had been -- had been -- had
died before Jesus could get there, before Jesus would raise Lazarus from the dead. And we remember Jesus saying, "I am the resurrection
and the life, and though a man dies, yet shall he live." Now, in the Upper Room discourse, on the night
of His own betrayal, in John chapter 14, Jesus makes this observation: "Let not your heart
be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me." Now, when Jesus begins this discourse that
is so popular among Christians, He begins with a commandment. He begins with an imperative. When He says, "Let not," He is using the form
of the language that implies an obligation. We are commanded not to have our hearts troubled
about these matters, about our future in heaven. "You believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you;
and I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know." Now, here's Jesus -- the Last Supper, sitting
there with His disciples, that they know that the crisis is upon them, that He is about
to be removed from their midst, and they're concerned. They're anxious, and Jesus said, "Calm down. Don't let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, don't you? Well, believe also in me because in my Father's
house are many mansions." Now, here's what He says: "If it were not
so, I would have told you." Now, this is the Rabbi teaching the disciples,
the Master teaching His students, and He's saying before He leaves, "I would not let
you continue on in false hope, pie-in-the-sky, wish fulfillment, and psychological cripples,
in this regard. If this were a false hope, if this were simply
a projected paradise, I would have corrected your error. If it were not so, I would have told you;
but not only is it so, but that's exactly where I'm going right now. I'm going to my Father's house, and I'm going
there with -- one of the purposes I'm going for is to prepare a place for you. I'm going ahead into heaven and make sure
that when I get there, there will be a place for you when you die." That's the promise of Christ to His people
-- that everyone who puts his trust in Him, Christ has prepared a place in His Father's
house for us, and God doesn't make idle preparations. I think we've all had the experience of preparing
dinner for guests and then at the last minute we get the phone call that's saying that they've
been sidetracked, and they're not able to make the appointment. That doesn't happen. When Christ prepares a place for His people,
His people will make use of that place. And so the first thing we want to say about
heaven is that we have every reason to be confident of its reality, but usually where
our concern is about heaven is: What's it going to be like? And the Scriptures have much to say about
heaven, but John also, in his first epistle, gives some insight into our future state,
which I think is extremely important to us. In chapter three of 1 John we read these words:
"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called
the children of God." Now, we've looked at this from another perspective
elsewhere. "Therefore the world doesn't know us because
it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are the children of God, and
it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed,
we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies
himself just as He is pure." This text I think is one of the most important
eschatological texts, if not the most important eschatological text, in all of the New Testament
because what it promises the believer is the zenith of the felicity that we will enjoy
in heaven, which is found in what is called technically in theology the 'visio Dei', or
the beatific vision. The first phrase, 'visio Dei', simply means
'the vision of God', which vision is called the beatific vision. Why? Well, you may not be familiar with the term
'beatific', but you are familiar with the term 'beatitude'. The beatitudes are those sayings that are
recorded in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus begins each of the beatitudes with the prophetic
oracle of blessing. "Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the peacemakers and those who
hunger and thirst after righteousness and so on." That is a promise of blessedness, a degree
of happiness that transcends any pleasure or any kind of earthly happiness -- when God
gives blessedness to the soul of a person, that is the supreme level of joy and fulfillment
and of happiness that any creature can ever receive. And that is called the -- this blessedness
is what is in view here when we talk about the beatific vision: a vision that is so wonderful,
a vision that is so fulfilling that the vision itself brings with it the fullness of the
blessing. Now, what is that vision? It's the vision of God, for what John says
here in this chapter is we don't know yet what we're going to be. He said, "I don't know all the details of
what heaven is going to be like," but one thing we know is that we will be like Him
for we shall see Him 'in se est', in the Vulgate, in the Latin version. We will see Him as He is in himself. We're going to be able to see and to behold,
not a theophany, not an indirect manifestation of God, not a burning bush, not a pillar of
cloud or a pillar of smoke, but we're going to see Him as He is. We're going to see Him in His unveiled being. Now, wait a minute. In the Old Testament, all of the joys and
blessing that people experience by the nearness of God have a limit, and the limit is this:
no man shall see God. No man is allowed to see the face of God,
or they will perish. Even Moses, who begged with the Lord that
the Lord would let him see His face, God said, "No Moses. I'll let you get a glimpse -- a backward glimpse
of my passing glory, but my face shall not be seen." That kind of intimate vision, face-to-face,
looking directly at God is what is absolutely forbidden every mortal in this world, and
it's what makes the living of the Christian life so difficult because you are called to
pursue a life of obedience and holiness and devotion and dedication to a God you've never
seen. That's the hardest thing of the Christian
life, is that we serve a master who is invisible to us -- never heard His voice, never seen
Him, and yet the promise is that someday we will see Him. Well, the immediate question that comes up
at this point theologically is, "Now wait a minute. How are we going to see God as He is when
God is invisible?" And yet we go back to the Sermon on the Mount. Who is it that is promised that they would
see God? It's not the peacemakers. It's not the poor. It's not the merciful. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God." Now, you see the reason why we can't see God
is not because there's something wrong with our eyes. The reason why we can't see God is there's
something wrong with our hearts, but when we enter into glory and receive the fullness
of our sanctification, that present barrier that makes us impossible to have a direct
and immediate perception of God, will be removed. "But again," you say, "but still, even in
heaven God will not have a body. He will be a spirit. How can you see a spirit?" Well, I don't know the answer to that. This is one of those things where God has
not told us, although some of the best minds in theology have speculated on it a little
bit. Now, just yesterday I was writing, working
on a book on philosophy and was dealing with one of the philosophers and explaining the
whole business of mediated knowledge, and in my illustration I talked about watching
basketball games on television. And we say that when I watch a basketball
game on television, am I really watching the basketball game? Obviously I'm not live and present at the
event. The basketball game is taking place miles
away from where I am. What I am watching is an electronic broadcast
and reproduction of what is taking place miles and miles and miles away. There is a medium between the game and me,
and so I am being made aware of what's going on in the basketball game through the media. What is a media but an intermediary that communicates
something that's going on over here to someone who is over here? Now, why do I say that? I said, "Well, I didn't see the game. I was only looking at pictures of the game." Well, if I were at the game, what would I
be looking at? Images that are reflected in front of my eyes,
and light then uses that -- illumines -- that image so that light sources hit my eyes, and
the lens of my eyes, my optic nerve, and through this whole process of sight I say, "Ah, I
see it!" But all kinds of things are taking place here
in the transmission of the sensory activity that I am perceiving with my eyes; and I couldn't
see anything if I had the best vision in the world, and you locked me in a room without
any light, I wouldn't see anything. I still need light, and I need those images
to be able to see. So even our present sight is mediated, and
what Edwards said was this: that we are going to be in such a state where our souls, without
the advantage of our eyes, will be able to have a direct and immediate apprehension of
the invisible God. Now, again, soul, spirit-to-spirit communication
-- I don't know how that works. That's pure speculation, but one thing we
know for certain through the revealed Word of God is that the delight of our souls in
heaven will be that we will see Him, and we will see Him as He is. Now, in our series on the overview of the
Bible, 'Dust to Glory', where we went through from the beginnings of Genesis and gave an
overview of the whole scope of biblical history and revelation, ending up in the book of Revelation. We titled that series 'Dust to Glory'. Obviously the glory was found in the zenith
of Revelation that comes to us in the last couple of chapters of the New Testament in
the book of Revelation where John records the vision that he received on the island
of Patmos, in which Christ himself showed him things, including a vision at the end
of the apocalypse of the new heaven and of the new earth that come down from God, and
let's just take a moment to look at some of these elements. Chapter 21 of the book of Revelation, "Now,
I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed
away, and there was no more sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice saying, 'Behold,
the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His
people. God will be with them, and He will be their
God. And God will wipe away every tear from their
eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow,
nor crying, no more pain, for the former things will have passed away'." Now, notice that when the Bible gives us the
description of the coming of heaven, it focuses on some startling dimensions of what heaven
will be like and what it will not be like. It tells us what will be there, what will
not be there. If you go on and read this text, it does talk
about streets of gold, gold so fine and so pure that it is translucent. It talks about gates constructed with magnificent
pearls and the foundation established and adorned with precious jewels. Now, knowing the nature of apocalyptic literature
that is so imaginative, we assume that these are symbolic representations about what heaven
will be like, but let me just say, I wouldn't put it past Him. I would not put it past God to have a city
that is paved with streets of gold and to have it look just exactly as it is described
right here. I wouldn't put it past Him at all. But He said there's no sea there. I say, "Oh, wait a minute!" That's what we live for every year is to go
on vacation; go to the beach. We love the sea!" No, no, no. For the Hebrew, the sea is the symbol of violence. They didn't have sandy beaches in Israel. Their seacoast was the source of marauders
coming who attacked them and violent weather that came off the Mediterranean. In all of Hebrew poetry, the sea is a negative
symbol. It's the river, it's the fountain, it's the
well that serves as the positive image in the Hebrew poetry, not the sea. And so He says the first thing, "Folks, there
won't be any violent, natural catastrophes that you have to worry about in heaven because
the sea won't be there." And He said, "Here's what else won't be: there
won't be any tears." There's no room for tears unless they're tears
of joy, but we associate tears in our language with sorrow, with sadness, with grief. And every child remembers what it's like to
be overwhelmed with being upset and having a fit of crying and having your mother come
with her apron and wiping away the tears and what a comforting thing that is. However, you cry again tomorrow; but when
God wipes away your tears, they never come back. They will be no more. Why? Because the things that make us cry will be
removed. There will be no more death. There will be no more sorrow. There will be no more pain. These former things will have passed away. Well, we jump down to verse 22, and we find
out what else won't be in heaven. There'll be no temple there, and we go on,
and we see, oops! There'll be no sun there. There'll be no moon there. "No temple? You mean there will be no church, and there'll
be no sun, no moon? What is this place of desolation? I thought it was going to be heaven." Why won't there be a temple there? Because the temple is the visible symbol of
the presence of God, and when the reality is there you don't need the physical temple
there. And why will there not be any sun or moon
or stars? These are artificial sources of light, and
what they're -- we're told about that in heaven, the radiance, the refulgence of the glory
of God and of the Lamb will illumine the whole city. There will never be night because the glowing,
brilliant, radiant glory of God never stops. It's not on a 24-hour cycle. I mean the Son of Righteousness does not set,
ever. So heaven will be a place that will be aglow
with the unvarnished, unveiled radiance of God. And there are other beautiful things that
are said here about heaven, but think of it, friends. What are you living for? Jonathan Edwards said, "You know, can you
imagine somebody saving to go on a journey, on a vacation, for 10 years; and in order
to get to their destination they had to travel, and at the first night they stopped at a wayside
inn, and the next day, instead of continuing their travel to get to their desired destination
that they had hoped and saved for for all this time, they decided to forego it all and
to stay in the inn. That's the way we are. We hold on so tenaciously to life in this
world because we haven't really been convinced of the glory that the Father has established
in heaven for His people. But for all eternity, God has established
this place, which is the end and the destiny of all of His people. It doesn't get any better than that, and again,
every aspiration, every hope, every joy that we look forward to will be there and then
some in this wonderful place. Our greatest moment will be the moment that
we walk through the door and leave this world of tears and of sorrow, this valley of death,
and enter into the presence of the Lamb.
