On faith, reason, and theology.

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

In his sermon on this verse called “The Beatific Vision“, Charles H. Spurgeon described what it will mean to see Jesus ‘as he is’,

“Consider, first of all, that we shall not see him abased in his incarnation, but exalted in his glory. We are not to see the infant of a span long; we are not to admire the youthful boy; we are not to address the incipient man . . . we are not to behold him subject to pains, and weaknesses, and sorrows, and infirmities like ours. We are not to see the eye wearied by sleep; we are not to behold hands tired in labour; we are not to behold feet bleeding with arduous journeys, too long for their strength. We are not to see him with his soul distressed; we are not to behold him abased and sorrowful. Oh! the sight is better still.

We are to see him exalted. We shall see the head, but not with its thorny crown. . . . We shall see the hand, and the nail-prints too, but not the nail; it has been once drawn out, and forever. We shall see his side, and its pierced wound too, but the blood shall not issue from it. We shall see him not with a peasant’s garb around him, but with the empire of the universe upon his shoulders. We shall see him, not with a reed in his hand, but grasping a golden scepter. We shall see him, not as mocked and spit upon and insulted, not bone of our bone, in all our agonies, afflictions, and distresses; but we shall see him exalted; no longer Christ the man of sorrows, the acquaintance of grief, but Christ the Man-God, radiant with splendor, effulgent with light, clothed with rainbows, girded with clouds, wrapped in lightnings, crowned with stars, the sun beneath his feet. Oh! glorious vision!”

From John Piper’s God is the Gospel (pg 15):

“The critical question for our generation – and for every generation – is this: if you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”

Have you ever considered how ironic it is that the richest people in this world are often the unhappiest?  The sense of frustration, emptiness, restlessness we feel in our souls, even when our stomachs, wallets, and closets are full, is a sure sign that we were not made for this world.  We were not made to be filled and satisfied by the trappings of this world.

In Barton’s latest sermon from 1 Timothy 6:6-10 called Displaying Jesus Through Contentment, he made an insightful comment about our human desire for treasure/pleasure, “But God does not say to rid yourself of your desire for gain. He does not say your desires for treasure are too strong. No. He says your desires are too weak.” His point was that we (foolishly) think money, possessions, or financial security will satisfy us, but God longs to fill us with something far greater!

What is that something? In the words of Augustine: God has made us for Himself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him.  In C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, he demonstrates how our inner longing for treasure/pleasure – which nothing on earth seems to satisfy – is evidence that we were made for another world.

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.”

In Barton’s second sermon on John 3:16, he explored four aspects of God’s love. One aspect, the “Unending Love of God”, is conveyed in the promise of “eternal life”. Now he astutely noted that the glory of this love is often lost upon those who think the word “eternal” refers only to the longevity of life in heaven and not to the quality of this life.

If you think eternal life will be a never-ending, boring church service, you have a mistaken view of heaven. The word “eternal” clearly alludes to the infinite length of this heavenly life, but it also communicates the infinite wonders of God to be eternally enjoyed!

Earlier this summer, John Piper wrote a post called Angels, Omniscience, and My Big Headed 9-year-old Fears where he addressed his childhood fear of heaven. Here are a few lines from it:

“[W]hen I was a child one of my greatest fears was that heaven would be boring. There would be no surprises and no growth in knowledge with accompanying increase of joy.

My view of God was too small and my view of myself was too big. I misinterpreted, 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

I thought: Well, we will know everything in a flash. We will know God the way he knows us, and there will be no more discovery after that. Now I see this as philosophically improbable, morally bigheaded, and exegetically mistaken.

What Paul means is not that I will know exhaustively the way God knows me, but rather I will know accurately the way God knows me. The point is not that I won’t have limits to what I know, but rather I won’t have mistakes in what I know. . .

Part of what makes “eternal life” satisfying (and not boring) forever is that it will take an eternity for perfect, finite creatures like us to know God fully. He is perfect and infinite. We will be perfect and finite. He will enjoy increasing revelation of himself, and we will enjoy increasing jubilation in him—forever.”