02.05. Heaven

HEAVEN. The existence of sinless man began in Paradise; the existence of man, after life’s journey is over, if he has chosen his lot with the children of God, is in Paradise. "To him that overcometh," says Christ, "I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." Paul, caught up into the third heaven, whether in the body or out of it he could not tell, calls it Paradise. The paradise of the infancy of our race is described as a garden, which is, indeed, the meaning of the term itself; the future home of the redeemed is pictured forth by the symbol of a city; the city for-which the ancient saints were seeking; a city which hath eternal foundations; a city of which God is the builder. The earthly Jerusalem was for a thousand years the center of the worship of God’s people on the earth, and in contrast with it the blessed home above is styled the Heavenly, and the New Jerusalem. The teachers of the various religions which have been accepted by men have been wont to describe in detail the future home of those who are so happy as to gain their heaven. The Greeks portrayed the Elysian Fields in their richest strains; the savage Germans and Scandinavians painted eternal banquets in the halls of Odin, where mighty warriors quaffed liquors from drinking cups made of, the skulls of slaughtered enemies. The Mohammedan heaven is a gigantic harem where the followers of the Prophet are surrounded by groups of beautiful Houris, and dwell forever among green trees, shady groves and sparkling fountains. The American Indian expected to go with his favorite dog and gun to the Happy Hunting grounds, where he would find abundance of game, and chase it forever. So each race has been wont to paint its heaven in the colors of earth, tinting it with those things which it loved best in the present life. On the other hand, the Scriptures are content to assure us of a heavenly home, a home prepared by the Savior, a blessed abode which trouble and pain can never enter, a home provided by the love of a Heavenly Father, and for some reason have failed to give us detailed descriptions. It is true that our poets have transferred into their songs the things that enter into their conceptions of a beautiful home, and we sing in our songs of "the green fields of Eden," "the fields that are eternally fair," "the glittering strand," "its gardens and pleasant greens," etc., but these pretty thoughts have been drawn from the imagination of the poets rather than from the word of God. The paucity of details is due, I suppose, not to the unwillingness of our Heavenly Father to inform us, but to the limitations of our understanding. We can only understand what we have not seen by comparison. When we read or hear of a country we have not seen, a picture is impressed upon our minds by the words, and that picture is made of ideas drawn from things we have seen. Its mountains, lakes, rivers, animals, vegetation are all represented by images drawn from things within the bounds of our experience. The more enlarged our experience is, the better we can understand. Some things the child cannot understand, which will be clear to it when it becomes a man. Some things the savage cannot comprehend which are clear to the enlightened. Our state in heaven, heaven itself, our life, employments and enjoyments there, differ entirely from life and enjoyments in the flesh, and since there is nothing within our present knowledge that we can make a standard of comparison, it is impossible for us to have clear and correct conceptions. If we now picture heaven, that picture is made up of earthly scenery, tinted in earthly colors.

Yet there are certain general features we can understand. Some persons have turned to the Book of Revelation and hung over its sublime imagery, as if these were literal descriptions of our eternal home; but we must remember that this is a book of symbols, and that this fact will not permit a strict adherence to the letter in seeking the meaning of its glowing visions. Revelation does not aim to teach us, as some have thought, that the ceaseless employment of heaven is eternal singing or praising, but that it is an abode of rapturous joy of which song and praise are the natural expressions. Nor are we to conclude that the heavenly city is literally paved with gold and fenced in with jasper walls and pearly gates, but that it is a splendid and glorious home beyond anything that mortal eye has ever seen. The seer of Patmos sees sweeping before the eyes of his soul visions of unearthly beauty though drawn in earthly colors, and blessed is he that reads and understands their real signification. In addition to these apparent descriptions, we rejoice in the thought that our own Lord and Savior arose from earth, ascended to heaven, and assured us that he was going in order to prepare a place for us in the Father’s House. That place will be prepared by the hands of Love, and those hands are Omnipotent. We are therefore assured that it will lack no beauty, no comfort, no blessing, no good thing that God’s great universe can supply. With a few condensed thoughts which might be expanded into a volume, I must bring this article to a close. The first is, that no place can be heaven to any being who does not take heaven to it in his soul. Heaven is a state, as well as a place. No man can be happy unless he has the elements of happiness within. Some carry hell with them wherever they go. Heaven was a hell to Milton’s Satan; heaven would be hell to the sinner steeped in sin, hating God and righteousness. In order to have an eternal heaven, we must have the love of heaven, of God and heavenly things, planted in our souls while below. In the second place, we gain some idea of the bliss of heaven by the eternal absence of the things that distress us here. These frail bodies of ours are often bundles of pain so severe that we sigh for release. There are those who are upon the rack day and night, and life is a long-drawn agony. How sweet the thought to these tired and weary ones; to all whose bodies are aching, whether it be from the burdens of toil or disease, to think of a home near at hand, where there is no pain any more, where strong crying and tears are unheard and unseen forever! These aching bodies of flesh and blood and nerve shall be exchanged for spiritual, incorruptible, undying bodies which will never get out of repair, and hence will never suffer pain. And this fact also excludes another of the dark shadows which clouds our earthly life. With such bodies there will be no death in the eternal home, no funerals, no broken circles, no bereaved hearts, no mourners, none of that great sorrow that cometh sooner or later to every earthly household, and the dread of whose coming always casts a gloom.

Then, again, the curse of this present world is sin. Sin unsheathes the sword, devastates a country with war, burns cities, turns brutal soldiery upon wives and daughters, opens the saloon, the gambling den, and the brothel, beggars millions of our race, poisons with slander, cheats, robs, murders, and indeed perpetuates every wrong that fills the world with wretchedness. Who hath not felt its bitter sting! Who hath not known the sorrow of unmerited wrong! Who hath not traced his greatest misery to the presence of sin in this world! In view of this sad experience of our race there is no statement concerning the heavenly city which contains sweeter comfort than the assurance that "there shall no sin enter there." "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life." Not in the holy city, but "without, are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." Never in that blessed abode shall the righteous soul be grieved by the sight of impurity or wrong; never shall the saint endure the sting of an angry, spiteful or slanderous tongue. There shall no shadow fall upon the spirit, no penalty for broken law, nor shall there "be any more curse," because the defiling touch of sin shall never stain that pure and holy home of the redeemed. There will be no discord in heaven, but union and peace forevermore.

I shall not draw upon my imagination for the employments of the happy dwellers. They will not be idle, nor will their employments be useless. They have on earth worked the work of God, and they will work it still; their earthly life has been a continual growth in divine knowledge, and heaven will not bring that growth to its end. If there be work forever for the angels, surely there will be work for God’s redeemed children. But one of the most delightful prospects of heaven is the blessed company that shall gather in the holy, happy land. Socrates, in the Phaedo, is made to speak of the worthies beyond, whom he expects to see when he passes through the gates of which the hemlock was to be the key. And what a holy and happy reunion will be ours on the celestial shores! Not only will we be greeted by our own sainted dead, the loved ones whom regretful memory still keeps near us, but also by the grand heroes of whom the world was not worthy, who have laid themselves upon the altar of humanity. In that heavenly society we will meet Judson, and Luther, and Savonarola, and the mighty host of sufferers, male and female, who loved not their own lives; the ever glorious Paul, and the other members of that immortal band of apostles, evangelists and martyrs who put in motion the new forces that changed the world; the sweet and blessed women who told the first news of the Risen Lord; and there, too, will "gather many from the east and the west who will sit down in the kingdom with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob," and the rest of the men of God of the infant world.

"There the saints of all ages in harmony meet,
Their Savior and brethren transported to greet;
While the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll,
And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul." When the day comes for the parting of the nations of men, will it be found that your name, dear reader, is recorded in the Book of Life?