III. THE LIFE IN HEAVEN
What can we know further about the life in Heaven, about what the old theologians called the secondary or accidental joys as compared with the supreme joy of the Beatific Vision?
We know, first, There shall be no sin there. It shall be a pure and innocent life. All who on earth have been loving, and pure, and noble, and brave, and self-sacrificing, shall be there. All who have been cleansed by the blood of Christ from the defilements of sin, and strengthened by the power of Christ against the enticements of sin, shall be there. There shall be no drunkenness nor impurity there, nor hatred, nor emulation, nor ill temper, nor selfishness, nor meanness. Ah! it is worth hoping for. We poor strugglers who hate ourselves and are so dissatisfied with ourselves, who look from afar at the lovely ideals rising within us, who think sorrowfully of all which we might have been and have not been—let us keep up heart. One day the ideal shall become the real. One day we shall have all these things for which God has put the craving in our hearts to-day. We shall have no sin there. We shall desire only and do only what is good. We shall be there what we have only seemed or wished to be here—honest, true, noble, sincere, genuine to the very centre of our being.
No sin there.
§ 2
And that will make it easier to understand the second fact revealed to us. No sorrow there. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. There shall be no more curse … no pain, nor sorrow, nor crying, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." That is not hard to believe. Sin is the chief cause of our sorrow on earth. If there be no sin there; if all are pure and unselfish and generous and true, and if God wipes away all tears that come from causes other than sin, it is easily understood.
But let us not degrade this thought or make it selfish or unreal. One often hears the sneer or the doubt about the happiness of Heaven while any exist who have lost their Heaven. We do not know the answer now. But we shall know it then. And we must be absolutely certain that the answer lies not in the direction of selfish indifference. The higher any soul on earth grows in love the less can it escape unselfish sorrow for others. Must it not be so in that land too? Surely the Highest Himself must have more pain than any one else for the self-caused misery of men. If there be joy in His presence over one that repenteth must there not be pain over one that repenteth not? We can only say in our deep ignorance that until the day when all evil shall have vanished there are surely higher things in God's plan for His redeemed than selfish happiness and content. There is the blessedness that comes of sympathy with Him in the pain which is the underside of the Eternal Love.
§ 3
No sin in Heaven. No sorrow in Heaven. What else do we certainly know? That the essence of the Heaven life will be love. The giving of oneself for the service of others. The going out of oneself in sympathy with others. There at last will be realized St. Paul's glorious ideal. There it can be said of every man, He suffereth long and is kind; envieth not; vaunteth not himself; is not puffed up; seeketh not his own; behaveth not uncourteously. He is like the eternal God Himself, who beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things (1 Cor. xiii. 4-7).
§ 4
We may well believe that there will be no dead level of attainment, no dead level of perfection and joy. That would seem to us very uninteresting. If we may judge from God's dealings here and from the many texts of Scripture, there will be an infinite variety of attainment, of positions, of character. "In the Father's house there are many mansions." Our Lord assumes that we would expect that from our experience here. "If it were not so, I would have told you." I suppose there will be little ones there needing to be taught and weak ones needing to be helped; strong leaders sitting at His right hand in His Kingdom, and poor backward ones who never expected to get into it at all.
And so surely we may believe, too, will there be varieties of character and temperament. We shall not lose our identity and our peculiar characteristics by going to Heaven, by being lifted to a higher spiritual condition. Just as a careless man does not lose his identity by conversion, by rising to a higher spiritual state on earth, so we may well believe when we die and pass into the life of the waiting souls, and again when at Christ's coming we pass into the higher Heaven we shall remain the same men and women as we were before and yet become very different men and women. Our lives will not be broken in two, but transfigured. We shall not lose our identity; we shall still be ourselves; we shall preserve the traits of character that individualize us; but all these personal traits and characteristics will be suffused and glorified by the lifting up of our motive and aim. As far as we can judge, there will be a delightful, infinite variety in the Heaven-life.
What else? There shall be work in Heaven. The gift of God is eternal life and that life surely means activity. We are told "His servants shall serve Him." We are told of the man who increased the talents or the pounds to five or ten that he was to be used for glorious work according as he had fitted himself—"Lord, thy talent hath gained five talents, ten talents." What was the reply? "You are now to go and rest for all eternity." Not a bit of it. "Be thou ruler over five cities, over ten cities; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." I know some men who are now retired after a very busy active life of work, and they hate the idleness, they are sick of it. No wonder the conventional Heaven does not appeal to them. Ah, that is not God's Heaven. "They rest from their labours." Yes; but that word "labours" means painful strain. In eternal, untiring youth and strength we shall be occupied in doing His blessed will in helping and blessing the wide universe that He has made. Who can tell what glorious ministrations, what infinite activities, what endless growth and progress, and lifting up of brethren, God has in store for us through all eternity. Thank God for the thought of that joyous work of never-tiring youth and vigour; work of men proudly rejoicing in their strength, helping the weak ones, teaching the ignorant aye! perhaps for the very best of us going out with Christ into the outer darkness to seek that which is lost until He find it. For even that is not shut out beyond the bounds of possibility in the impenetrable mystery of the Hereafter. Do you know Whittier's beautiful poem of the old monk who had spent his whole life in hard and menial work for the rescue and help of others? And when he is dying his confessor tells him work is over, "Thou shalt sit down and have endless prayers, and wear a golden crown for ever and ever in Heaven." "Ah," he says, "I'm a stupid old man. I'm dull at prayers. I can't keep awake, but I love my fellow men. I could be good to the worst of them. I could not bear to sit amongst the lazy saints and turn a deaf ear to the sore complaints of those that suffer. I don't want your idle Heaven. I want still to work for others." The confessor in anger left him, and in the night came the voice of his Lord—
"Tender and most compassionate. Never fear,
For Heaven is love, as God Himself is love;
Thy work below shall be thy work above." [1]
Be sure that the repose of Heaven will be no idling in flowery meadows or sitting for ever in a big temple at worship, as the poor, weary little children are sometimes told after a long sermon in church. No, "there is no temple in Heaven," we are told—no Church. Because all life is such a glad serving and rejoicing in God that men need no special times and places for doing it.