The final state of the righteous is described as eternal life (Mat. 25:46), glory (2 Cor. 4:17), rest (Heb. 4:9), knowledge (1 Cor. 13:8-10), holiness (Rev. 21:27), service (Rev. 22:3), worship (Rev. 19:1), society (Heb. 12:23), communion with God (Rev. 21:3).
Mat. 25:46—“And these shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life”; 2 Cor. 4:17—“For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory”; Heb. 4:9—“There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God”; 1 Cor. 13:8-10—“Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part: but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away”; Rev. 21:27—“and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they that are written in the Lamb's book of life”; 22:3—“and his servants shall serve him”; 19:1, 2—“After these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah; Salvation, and glory, and power, belong to our God; for true and righteous are his judgments”; Heb. 12:23—“to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven”; Rev. 21:3—“And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.”
Is. 35:7—“The mirage shall become a pool” = aspiration shall become reality; Hos. 2:15—“I will give her ... the valley of Achor [that is, Troubling] for a door of hope.” Victor Hugo: “If you persuade Lazarus that there is no Abraham's bosom awaiting him, he will not lie at Dives' door, to be fed with his crumbs,—he will make his way into the house and fling Dives out of the window.” It was the preaching of the Methodists that saved England from the general crash of the French Revolution. It brought the common people to look for the redress of the inequalities and injustices of this life in a future life—a world of less friction than this (S. S. Times). In the Alps one has no idea of the upper valleys until he enters them. He may long to ascend, but only actual ascending can show him their beauty. And then, “beyond the Alps lies Italy,” and the revelation of heaven will be like the outburst of the sunny landscape after going through the darkness of the St. Gothard tunnel.
Robert Hall, who for years had suffered acute bodily pain, said to Wilberforce: “My chief conception of heaven is rest.” “Mine,” replied Wilberforce, “is love—love to God and to every bright inhabitant of that glorious place.” Wilberforce enjoyed society. Heaven is not all rest. On the door is inscribed: “No admission except on business.” “His servants shall serve him” (Rev. 21:3). Butler, Things Old and New, 143—“We know not; but if life be there The outcome and the crown of this: What else can make their perfect bliss Than in their Master's work to share? Resting, but not in slumberous ease, Working, but not in wild unrest, Still ever blessing, ever blest, They see us as the Father sees.” Tennyson, Crossing the Bar: “Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me; And may there be no moaning of the bar When I put out to sea! But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark; And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark. For though from out our bourne of time and place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face, When I have crossed the bar.”
Mat. 6:20—“lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” = there are no permanent investments except in heaven. A man at death is worth only what he has sent on before him. Christ prepares a place for us (John 14:3) by gathering our friends to himself. Louise Chandler Moulton: “Some day or other I shall surely come Where true hearts wait for me; Then let me learn the language of that home, While here on earth I be; Lest my poor lips for want of words be dumb In that high company.” Bronson Alcott: “Heaven will be to me a place where I can get a little conversation.” Some of his friends thought it would be a place where he could hear himself talk. A pious Scotchman, when asked whether he ever expected to reach heaven, replied: “Why, mon, I live there noo!”
Summing up all these, we may say that it is the fulness and perfection of holy life, in communion with God and with sanctified spirits. Although there will be degrees of blessedness and honor, proportioned to the capacity and fidelity of each soul (Luke 19:17, 19; 1 Cor. 3:14, 15), each will receive as great a measure of reward as it can contain (1 Cor. 2:9), and this final state, once entered upon, will be unchanging in kind and endless in duration (Rev. 3:12; 22:15).
Luke 19:17, 19—“Well done, thou good servant: because thou wast found faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.... Be thou also over five cities”; 1 Cor. 3:14, 15—“If any man's work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire”; 2:9—“Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him”; Rev. 3:12—“He that overcometh, I will make [pg 1031]him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out thence no more”; 22:15—“Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie.”
In the parable of the laborers (Mat. 20:1-16), each receives a penny. Rewards in heaven will be equal, in the sense that each saved soul will be filled with good. But rewards will vary, in the sense that the capacity of one will be greater than that of another; and this capacity will be in part the result of our improvement of God's gifts in the present life. The relative value of the penny may in this way vary from a single unit to a number indefinitely great, according to the work and spirit of the recipient. The penny is good only for what it will buy. For the eleventh hour man, who has done but little work, it will not buy so sweet rest as it buys for him who has “borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” It will not buy appetite, nor will it buy joy of conscience.
E. G. Robinson: “Heaven is not to be compared to a grasshopper on a shingle floating down stream. Heaven is a place where men are taken up, as they leave this world, and are carried forward. No sinners will be there, though there may be incompleteness of character. There is no intimation in Scripture of that sudden transformation in the hour of dissolution which is often supposed.” Ps. 84:7—“They go from strength to strength; Every one of them appeareth before God in Zion”—it is not possible that progress should cease with our entrance into heaven; rather is it true that uninterrupted progress will then begin. 1 Cor. 13:12—“now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face.” There, progress is not towards, but within, the sphere of the infinite. In this world we are like men living in a cave, and priding themselves on the rushlights with which they explore it, unwilling to believe that there is a region of sunlight where rushlights are needless.
Heaven will involve deliverance from defective physical organization and surroundings, as well as from the remains of evil in our hearts. Rest, in heaven, will be consistent with service, an activity without weariness, a service which is perfect freedom. We shall be perfect when we enter heaven, in the sense of being free from sin; but we shall grow to greater perfection thereafter, in the sense of a larger and completer being. The fruit tree shows perfection at each stage of its growth—the perfect bud, the perfect blossom, and finally the perfect fruit; yet the bud and the blossom are preparatory and prophetic; neither one is a finality. So “when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away” (1 Cor. 13:10). A broadshouldered convert at the Rescue Mission said: “I'm the happiest man in the room to-night. I couldn't be any happier unless I were larger.” A little pail can be as full of water as is a big tub, but the tub will hold much more than the pail. To be “filled unto all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:19) will mean much more in heaven than it means here, because we shall then “be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.”In the book of Revelation, John seems to have mistaken an angel for the Lord himself, and to have fallen down to worship (Rev. 22:8). The time may come in eternity when we shall be equal to what we now conceive God to be (1 Cor. 2:9).