I. WHAT IS MEANT BY HEAVEN?
To us with our limited faculties Heaven is practically inconceivable. We have no experience that would help us to realize it. Even the inspired writers can but touch the thought vaguely in allegory and gorgeous vision, piling up images of earthly things precious and beautiful—thrones and crowns and gates of pearl and golden streets in the heavenly city "coming down from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."
The only clear thought we have about external things in Heaven is that "I" who lived here in an earthly body and in the Near Hereafter lived a spirit life "absent from the body"—shall in that Far Hereafter have a spiritual body analogous we suppose to the body "I" had on earth. Not the poor body, certainly, which rotted in the grave, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" but a "glorified body," and yet it would seem having some strange mysterious connection with the earthly body. As the oak is the resurrection body of the acorn, and the lily of the ugly little bulb that decayed in the ground, "so also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." That gives very little information but it gives some tangible idea to grasp. Beyond this there is no hold for imagination.
But as we saw in the earlier chapters on the Intermediate Life I am still "I," the same conscious self through the whole life of Earth. and Hades and Heaven, and therefore the real life, the inner life can still be understood. So when we enquire what can be known about the meaning of Heaven—at the very start I strike the key-note of the thoughts that follow, in the words of Christ Himself, "The Kingdom of God is within you." Heaven is a something within you rather than without you. Heaven means character rather than possessions. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.
That is the thought which I am trying to keep prominent all through this book. Hades life is dependent on character. Judgment is a sorting according to character. Heaven and Hell are tempers or conditions of character within us. They are not merely places to which God sends us arbitrarily. They are conditions which we make for ourselves. If God could send all men to Heaven, all men would be there. If God could keep all men from Hell, no one would be there. It is character that makes Heaven. It is character that makes Hell. They are states of mind that begin here, and are continued and developed there.
I have known men who were in Hell here—they told me so—men of brutal character, men in delirium tremens, who saw devils grinning at them from the bed. That if continued and developed would mean Hell there. I have known sweet, unselfish lives who are in Heaven here. That continued and developed would mean Heaven there. You know how one could be in Heaven here. Do you remember these wonderful words of our Lord, "No man hath ascended into Heaven, only the Son of Man who is in Heaven"? Not was, not shall be, but is always in Heaven, because always in unselfish love—always in accord and in communion with God. So, you see, a man carries the beginning of Heaven and Hell within him, according to the state of his own heart. A selfish, godless man cannot have any Heaven so long as he remains selfish and godless. For Heaven consists in forgetting self, and loving God and man with heart and soul.
§ 2
Do you see, then, the mistake that people have been making in discussing what is meant by Heaven? In all ages—in all races—men have speculated about it, and their speculations have been largely coloured by their characters and temperaments. The Indian placed it in the Happy Hunting Ground. The Greeks placed it in the Islands of the Blest, where warriors rested after the battle. The Northman and the Mussulman had his equally sensual Heaven. And many Christians have as foolish notions as any one else. Some think that they win Heaven by believing something with their minds about our Lord's atonement. Some think they go to Heaven by soaring up through the air. Some of them, taking in its literal meaning the glorious imagery of the Apocalypse, picture to themselves streets of beaten gold and walls of flashing emerald and jasper, and the wearing of crowns and the singing of Psalms over and over again through all the ages of eternity.
What is the fault in all such? That they do not understand what Heaven really means. They think of it as a something outside them which anybody could enjoy if he could only get there. They do not understand that Heaven means the joy of being in union with God—that the outward Heaven has no meaning till the inward Heaven has begun in ourselves. I need not point out to you that our immortal spirits would find little happiness in golden pavements and gates of pearl. People on this earth, who have their fill of gold and pearl, do not always gain much happiness from them. They are mere external things—they cannot give eternal joy, because that comes from within, not from without. It depends not on what we have, but on what we are, not on the riches of our possessions, but on the beauty of our lives.
The gorgeous vision of the Apocalypse has its meaning, but it is not the carnal, literal meaning of foolish men. It tells of the bright river of the water of life; of glorified cities, where nothing foul, or mean, or ignoble shall dwell; of the white robes of our stainless purity; of the crowns and palms, the emblems of victory over temptation, of the throne which indicates calm mastery over sin; of the song and music and gladsome feasting to image faintly the abounding happiness and the fervent thanksgiving for the goodness of God. They are all mere symbols—mere earthly pictures with a heavenly meaning, and the meaning which lies behind them all is this: The joy of Heaven means the inward joy; the joy of character; the joy of goodness; the joy of likeness to the Nature of God. That is the highest joy of all—the only joy worthy of making Heaven for men who are made in the image of God.
§ 3
It is not difficult to show this to any true man or woman who is humbly trying to do beautiful deeds on earth. Of course, if a man be very selfish and worldly; a man who never tries to help another; a man who smiles at these things as unreal sentiment; who tells you that hard cash and success in life, and "to mind number one," as they say, are the chief things; a man who never feels his pulses beat faster at the story of noble deeds—you cannot absolutely prove to him that the joy of character is the highest happiness. You cannot prove to a blind man the beauty of the sunset sky; you cannot arouse a deaf man to enthusiasm about sweet music; and you cannot prove to an utterly selfish, earthly man that self-sacrifice and purity and heroism and love are the loveliest and the most desirable possessions—the sources of the highest and most lasting joy. But I feel sure that most of us, with all our faults, have in our better moments the desire and the admiration—aye, and the effort, too, after nobleness of life, and therefore we can understand this highest joy of Heaven. We have had experience sometimes, however rarely, of lovely deeds, and the sweet, pure joy that follows in their train. Well, whenever you have conquered some craving temptation or borne trouble for another's sake; when you have helped and brightened some poor life, and kept quiet in the shade that no one should know of it; when you have tried to do the right at heavy cost to yourself; when the old father or mother at home has thanked God for the comfort you have been in their declining years; whenever in the midst of all your sins you have done anything for the love of God or man, do you not know what a sweet, pure happiness has welled up in your heart, entirely different in kind, infinitely higher in degree than any pleasure that ever came to you from riches or amusement or the applause of men. Of this kind surely must be the pure joy of Heaven. Call up the recollection of some of those cherished moments of your life, and multiply by infinity the pleasure that you felt, and you will have some faint notion of what is meant by Heaven, the Heaven that God designs for man.