Heaven, a State

“T£ contentment were here, heaven were not heaven. I wonder that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what his Lord is preparing for him. I know not a thing worth the buying but heaven.”

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

HE, city is of heavenly and divine birth, shaped and built by God in heavenly mold with heavenly air about her. The heavenly life will come from God directly, and will be heavenly, not earthly. Many earthly things, by chance, by happenings and of direct purpose and appointment, shape our earthly lives, but in a direct and most evident and all inclusive way, our heavenly lives will be from God, and the air and conditions of heaven will shape them. Earth will not be forgotten, but the former things will scarcely be remembered. Nor will the things of old be considered, but crowded out, overwhelmed and retired by the magnificent grandeur, ever new and expanding glories of the present. Earth will be too little, its most sacred relations, its most pleasing things all too poor to come into mind in heaven.

“And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21: 1-5).

A transfigured mind and memory, a purified thought and love, a transfigured body, shining like a sun in noonday splendor, which has no eclipse and fears no night — a transfigured heaven and earth — this will be the saint’s eternal inheritance.

God’s power and glory making all things new — a bride adorned for her husband — the marriage hour — the bridal array — one and all are emblems of the beauty of the heavenly life. The marriage of heaven and earth on their festal day. Heaven the place of perfect beauty, perfect taste, perfect joy — the bridal life and all that life — this be heaven’s honeymoon.;

The tabernacle has reference to the place where God dwells and manifested Himself to Moses. God will be essentially and immediately present with man in the heavenly world. God shall be with them in a sense in which He is not with them in this life. They will draw their being and their blessing directly from Him without the aid of intermediaries. “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”

And again it is said: “And they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.” In this life we cannot understand this. Secondary causes are the agencies through which God ministers to us in this world. In that higher life these agencies will not intervene and hide God, but with open vision, face to face, we shall see Him. No temple there, no gorgeous temple service, no brilliant sun to shine, no simpler service will be there. The glory of God, brighter than the light of a thousand suns, will be our light, and the mild sweet rays from the Lamb will cast their radiance over all the land, dispelling darkness and gloom and sorrow. “For there shall be no night there,” and to make it strong and clear it is declared, the second time, “‘ And there shall be no night there.”

In heaven no tears will be shed, for God will wipe all tears from their eyes. “There shall be no death, neither sorrow nor crying nor pain.”” What a changed world! How difficult to imagine such a world! ‘Tears are the sad heritage of this life. Serrow and pain flow from a thousand sources, and deepen and widen and darken earth’s sorrow. Our sweetest relations give birth to our greatest sorrows. Our distresses often flow from our joys. Death reigns. All this will be changed, and everything which gives pain and sorrow anyway, will be forever barred from heaven. God will shut it out. How bright the eyes undimmed by a tear! How strong and free our souls and bodies will be, utter and eternal strangers to pain! How bright and joyous our hearts, with never a cloud, never a sorrow. How full of richest and largest life, untouched by decay, unshadowed by - death, will heaven be!

All things are to be made new. No marks of age, no common things, no freshened or repainted old things, but absolutely new, all things will be — a new world, a new life, a new career, a new history, new environments, new conditions, new employments, new destiny, all, all things will be new. World dreams, pictures, poetry, fiction, music — all have failed to give the faintest idea of that new world and its marvelous life, its melody, and charms. To live there is a rapture, ecstasy, ineffable, and full of glory. Its climax is, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” It is the wonder and spectacle of angels.

Type and shadow, precept and promise, both in the Old and New Testaments are given tokens and seals of the saints’ inheritance after death. No truth is fuller in statement, more necessary to man, none more in accordance with God’s character, none more necessary to His glory, than the truth, and doctrine of heaven. An eternal heaven of unsullied purity, of unalloyed bliss through its endless years, is a doctrine which enables man and honors God. ‘The existence of heaven and its matchless perfection is a truth, based upon the advent, the person and work of Jesus Christ, for He makes heaven. Christ is the way to heaven.

Many are the lessons in the Bible, which declare in word, by figure and by picture the fact of heaven. Heaven lies beyond this life. It is located in another world. The boundary line, death, must be crossed ere its portals can be entered, its happy land possessed and enjoyed.

Among the many varied illustrations by which the fact and nature of heaven are conveyed to us, that of a city is conspicuous. It seems to convey more clearly and fully the idea and characteristic of that unseen and to us unknown land. A city teems with life. A busy life-stirred and life-stirring scene is a city, life in its most opulent and strenuous form. Heaven is a city of life. It has never felt the touch, or chill of death. A life unlimited by conditions, or time, unrestrained by any of the environments of this earthly life. Graves have never been digged there, cemeteries are unknown, tombstones and coffins are alien to that land. A city of life heaven is, majestic, glorious life — a life which knows no tears, never felt a sorrow — eternal, fadeless, decayless life.

A city is a picture of closest union. Life there is forced into closest proximity. Unity, compactness, nearness, are the essentials to the city life.

Heaven is the place of unity, nearness. Earth is broken into discord. Separation is the law of earth. There are no distances in heaven. Oceans and mountains are not. It is called the “Beloved City.” Affections center there, longings go thither in strong restless current. Beloved of earth and beloved of heaven, the saintly of earth have turned their feet to heaven and placed their heart’s dearest love there. Angels hold it in tenderest love. Friends are there. In that city they have found their home. Centuries have come and gone since the tired feet of earth’s saintly pilgrims found sweet rest and home in that beloved city. None ever go out of that city. Love holds them. “The city of my God,” says Christ, “the city of the Living God. God hath prepared for them a city, a city that hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God.’ God has much to do, everything to do with that city. He drew its plans, digged and laid its deep foundations. God built it, God fitted it, God finished it. God lives in it. All life is there, all life direct from God, life in its fulness, vigor, brightness. God is its life. Its maker and builder is God.

God is its Architect and Contractor; no archangel’s matchless taste and incomparable genius were used in drafting the plan of this glorious city, this eternal inheritance. God drew the plan. The exhaustless stores of God’s own wisdom, His divine skill and faultless taste brought into perfect perfection the design of that City which was to be the abiding home of His children. Neither were the ability and resources of an archangel brought into requisition to execute the high and holy design. God was its builder. He only could carry out the original. The God who laid the deep foundations of the world, and brought into being and order its mightily framed and mighty movements, condescends to enter again into the work of creation, and builds a city as the superb home for His elect ones of earth.

No night with its darkness rests as a pall on this heavenly city. It is emphatically called, “the city of the living God.’”’ God is more immediately, more personally, more gloriously there than elsewhere. Life is there with God as its immediate source and supply, and it is life in its most opulent fulness, and redolent of all that is sweet, gracious, and attractive, and free from all that could in any way affect the perfection of its joy, or restrain or stint its endless advance. Glorious city — God-built, glorious inhabitants — who can paint its glories!

Who can picture the glories of its blissful inhabitants? It would be a little heaven to see the city and get a sight of its ravished and princely citizens.

It is a walled city, for protection, and jeweled are its walls. A city was a treasure deposit. Its walls its security. ‘The treasure safe. The New Jerusalem it is called not only in opposition to and distinction from the Old Jerusalem, but also to designate its freshness, forever new. Never is it to know decay or dulness. It is called the heavenly Jerusalem to distinguish it from the earthly one, and also to emphasize its glories. The earthly Jerusalem was the center of Jewish hopes. Their hearts were there. No song, nothing but sadness and exile, when away from it. Their hearts were always trembling to that pole, their prayers were made with windows open to Jerusalem. All this but symbolizes what the heavenly Jerusalem should be tous. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.” Heaven ought to be far more to us than Jerusalem was to the Jew. In this “we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.”

These Bible symbols are designed to draw, stir and allure, and also to instruct us in the nature of heaven so far as earth by language can convey eternal and heavenly things. What is heaven, by the Bible is called a city. This is a familiar Bible symbol of heaven — a city, a great city, a city that hath foundations, the city of the living God. It is not by accident that this term is a familiarized and favorite one. It is suggestive of heaven’s manifold nature.

Out of deference to Jewish sanctities and devotion and as a memorial, it was called “The New Jerusalem.” The Jew will find full compensation for the loss of his earthly Jerusalem in this new city which will endure eternally without decay of luster, renown or glory.

The term “city” is a familiar type of the heavenly land and of the heavenly life, a city being the center of power and of life. A great city is heaven. All the principles and facts, of which the term city is the exponent, find their full expression there. A jeweled and a golden city express the unsurpassed loveliness and preciousness of that country and its life. The jewels are in the foundations of its walls and gold is the substance of which its pavements are made. The most costly materials of earth are used for the lowest and most common uses of heaven, and if its most common and meanest things are jeweled and golden, we have no figures or values to represent the exceeding richness of its higher things. A Great City it is, God’s capital, effulgent with all the glory of His presence.

Heaven is called a city, in reference to the original meaning of the word city, “fulness, throng.”

Heaven will be full. “An innumerable company which no man can number” will gather within its walls. Not sparsely settled will heaven be. Its thoroughfares will be crowded, its golden pavements will be pressed by throngs of enraptured feet.

The road to heaven is indeed narrow, the gate straight, and few there be that find it, but each community, each generation contributes its few, who dare to be singular, who are brave enough to walk and struggle alone, but on through the revolving ages, the few precious ones are being housed in heaven until the aggregate will be great. If you and I miss that happy land, others will shoulder the cross, pass out of the popular, pleasing wide way, and make the solitary journey, and take our crown which we have so ignobly and foolishly lost.

A city is the symbol of life in its magnificence, perfections and glory. Heaven will be the realization of all this. Doubtless in this figure of a city is found the closeness of sympathy, love, and fellowship which will abound there.

It is called by Scripture designation and contrast, “a continuing city.’ The inconstant, ephemeral nature of earth’s most substantial and social things is proverbial. Poetry and fiction speak of it. It is part of the sad experience of life, and the most cursory observation confirms experience, that earth is mutable, its fairest flowers fade away, and its most precious joys soon wither. But heaven is enduring. It is not the pilgrim’s inn. It is home, it abides, settled forever.

A “prepared city,” ready, fitted up, complete. No virgin soil, nor virgin forests will salute us. There no toil in building homes, no taxing labor to build, arrange, culture will face us; but everything ready, everything anticipated, furnished, by a taste and care, a knowledge and ability which knows all wants, furnishes all comforts, supplies all luxuries, which stops not at expense.

A “holy city” pure, unsullied in character, nothing which stains, nothing impure can gain an entrance there. Everything is as brilliant as the diamond and as pure. It is said to be great in its goodness and light, great in its attractive power, and great in frame, in beauty and in grandeur. All about the city is most exquisite in charms, most precious in value, most costly in richness.

That it is a holy city is more to our purpose and for our good than its greatness. The term “holy” — its origin baffles the critics to define with certainty and clearness. It certainly means separated to God, devoted to Him. It certainly means purity. Earthly cities are great, but their purity is not infrequently in the inverse ratio to their greatness. In heaven greatness is never divorced from goodness. Not so on earth. Heaven is a city whose purity clarifies its atmosphere and causes it to sparkle and glitter like crystal. A city whose light is in its purity, its brightness and permanency, an emanation from God and the Lamb.

“And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; And had a wall great and high” (Rev. 21: 9-12).

It took the light and power of the Spirit and the perspective elevation and sublimity of a mountain top to view this city in its exhaustless magnificence and the dazzling charms of its ever increasing glory. What grandeur in that vision, the ecstasy of the spirit, the entrancing city, and the inspiration, awe, sublimity of the great and high mountains! All these heightened and made the view ravishing, but could transfer but a faint resemblance to the reality. It is a picture of exquisite and fadeless beauty, but a picture only. The life, the reality, the substance, no inspired trance, no grand and lofty mountain view could portray.

She had “the glory of God” — what is that? Who can tell? God was there, as we have been told, but “the glory of God,” the brightest, the highest, and the greatest display and revelations of

God, the most effulgent brightness of His uncreated glory. It is certainly the highest order of brightness, the completed exhibition of highest excellence, the supreme beauty. All comprehensive of all glory is the expression, “the glory of God,” not simply God, but the preéminent and conspicuous manifestation of all that is glorious, majestic, all glorious in God. ‘The revelation of God is this glory, and it forms the light, blessedness and splendor of the city. What a land! What a life! where the glory of God constitutes the loveliness and glory of the land. ‘The opulence and wealth of its life! Her light was like a stone most precious. God’s glory the sun! The light coming from such a sun would dazzle and flame like earth’s most costly, beautiful, effulgent, and sparkling diamond.

The walls and the gates find their expressive significance in Isaiah: ‘“Thy walls are salvation and thy gates praise.” Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colors and lay thy foundations with sapphires, and will make the windows of agates and thy gates of carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones. We have a strong city: “Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.”

The walls represent the strength and power of the salvation of the heavenly life. So evident and mighty are the forces of their salvation in heaven that it fills with transporting rapture and goes out with unrestrained, spontaneous and mighty energy:

ai HEAVEN, A CITY

“After this I beheld and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands: And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four living creatures, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen” (Rev. 7: 9-12).

Salvation ought to be much to us on earth, in present joy, unspeakable and full of glory, and its most inspiring hope. But much as it is to us, it is much more to them in heaven. We have the rill, they its ocean streams; we have the glitter and mildness of its starlight, they have the sun in his unclouded strength.

The wall is great and high:

“And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.... And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones” (Rev. 21: 14-19).

The walls are for protection, the foundations of which are twelve, which indicates their strength, while the jewels represent the beauty and preciousness of its strength. ‘The heavenly life will be a protected life, walled in by massive strength and jeweled beauty, to adorn and enrich. We will be held in heaven. We will go out no more. The motives and influences which hold us to heaven will be strong, but not iron, dull, heavy and strong. Jasper are the walls and all the twelve foundations are gemmed with every variety of precious stones. The forces binding us to heaven will not imprison us, but will hold us there by forces as strong as walls of iron, and as resplendent as jasper — as strong as twelve foundations can make it, but as rich, as various, as brightly glorious, as the brilliants which emblazon each.

The building material of the walls of the city was jasper. We have in the third chapter this description of God: “And immediately I was in the Spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone.”

How remarkable are the walls of the heavenly city, made out of the same material! How closely God and His city are allied and unified, when this same book says:

“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven, from my God: and I will write upon him my new name” (Rev. a: 12).

The city was pure gold, transparent, and reflecting every form of beauty, far surpassing in richness and purity and value any earthly gold.

Its walls are made of jasper — foundations of jewels of every hue and value, — gates of pearl — city, pure transparent gold. All figures and values and beauty are exhausted in description. What can exceed these! No earthly values of wealth and loveliness! Earthly and angelic vocabularies are exhausted, and yet but the outside is described. What there is of wealth:and good inside defies all language to convey, all beauty to describe. Diamonds and gold, all jewels, are valueless and mean and dull compared to that glorious city heaven, its life and its purified beings, the employments and engagements inside those gates of pearl, those walls of jasper.

All these outward adornments, so unparalleled in their value and preciousness, are indicative in their richness and rareness of the principal joys and pursuits of the heavenly life. How godlike are the persons whose stable and precious characters are represented by twelve jeweled foundations! What a glorious land whose light and purity glitter like brilliant diamonds, whose society is as flawless and pure as transparent gold.

“Thy gates praise ’’ — the gates were places of council, wisdom, adornment and power. The gates were of one pearl each. ‘There are twelve of them, of unrivaled beauty, cost and purity. They are for entrances, and impress us with the unity, purity, and worth of all who enter there. ‘‘ Those holy gates forever bar pollution, sin and shame.” The angels have much to do with the entrance into the heavenly gates, and much to do with the stay in there. All that is termed kingly, all that belongs to honor and glory, are in that heavenly city.

The very pavement, trodden under foot, lowly, and dishonored, is made of earth’s purest gold, which mirror the forms of heavenly saints who walk along its streets. The forms are too beautiful to rest their shadows on any substance less precious than gold, and that gold refined and polished to its highest perfection, and those forms too peerless in beauty, not to be reflected and constantly mirrored as they pass along. ‘These forms and images of perfect beauty add much to the charms of the city.

In this world death reigns. There life reigns:

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life which bore twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree shall be for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and the

Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him” (Rev. 22: 1-3).

It will be life in its full vigor, like a river, deep and exhaustless and wide. A river it will be, not a branch, nor well, but a river ever expanding, ever moving on. It is a river of water. All things in heaven will be to refresh and gladden and to give and increase life. A powerful river, it flows out of the throne of God. God’s throne is the symbol of God’s rule and God’s power. Heaven will be the place where God’s power shall be seen and felt. He will rule with unlimited power and absolute authority, but the issuance will be the “river of the water of life, clear as crystal.” We are constantly reminded that heaven is all purity. Its life is a river, full charged and strong in current, but transparent, mirroring, crystalline in its purity.

The throne is not separate from the Lamb. The Son of God and His atoning sacrifice unite with the throne to make the full deep current of the heavenly life. In the heavenly world, through all its happy life, with every one of its teeming inhabitants, as the source of its most entrancing vision, as the school of its profoundest lessons, it will always and everywhere and in everything be “a Lamb as it had been slain.” Forever will the melody of heaven go on:

“And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Rev. 5: 9-12).

“The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Every new avenue of delight, every new discovery in the heavenly life, will be the unfolding of the wonderful mystery, illimitable glories, and exhaustless power of the Lamb, the Christ crucified, as well as the enthroned God. Everything in heaven will conspire to further the vigor, expansion, and glory of that life. The tree of life ever giving out its fruit, with the freshness, frequency, and energy of monthly crops, and the very leaves, are health-giving and invigorating. ‘The curse with its withering and deadening blight! All the dire effects of Adam’s fall shall be removed. No traces of the first man’s blasting steps shall be seen or felt. The cause of earth’s groaning and sighing shall be destroyed.

Not the power of Adam, nor the dire effects of sin inherited or committed, but the power of God, with all its benign and recreating energy and the power of the cross to redeem, renew and perfect, will be there.

Service of the highest, most adoring and enrapturing form will characterize heaven. All will be melody and praise, with not a discordant note in its melody.

Of God, the inhabitants of heaven will have perfect vision. That vision will be the melody, the study, and the pursuit of glorified spirits. To know God, and to know more and more of Him, will be the employment and bliss of heaven. They will be sealed for Him with His name in their foreheads, the seat of intelligence. The sign of ownership, the distinctive mark of loyalty and consecration to God, without the hands of church or priest, of sacrament or ceremony, rite or ritual, is placed on them, and they come in person to His person, and from Him they receive directly all His outlay of treasure each passing moment of the eternal life. All lesser lights are obscured, all intermediaries retired. God and Christ, with all the fulness of their Divine and eternal affluence, are in constant, personal contact and outgoing. The light of God’s presence hides and disperses all the feeble lights of earth. God shines with ineffable splendor on the glorified ones, and all the Divine potencies of the cross lift them to royal privileges. They are not only priests, but kings to God. Earth has no insight into the exalted glories into which its inhabitants shall be lifted in heaven, no conception of the grandeur to which they shall be exalted: no thought or imagination of the scepter which will be put into the hands of the heirs when their inheritance is received.

Does the vision of St. John transport and ravish us? ‘Then heaven is the place where our thirstings for Him are satisfied and our vision of Him is perfect, glorious and ineffable.

With what sublime and soothing verity does the Bible declare everywhere the ineffable superiority of the heavenly life, the heavenly home to this earthly life, and to this earthly home. Heaven robes the saints and transports them with a deathless, painless life.. Its length is eternal, its conditions are absolute, and there is eternal freedom from every form of evil — and the presence of every form of good and greatness. How glorious is this when its truth possesses us and lifts us above the earthly life with its incomparable littleness and its unmeasurable ills! The heavenly home — a crown of glory — a joy unspeakable and full of

glory!

“And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 22: 3-5).

We are somewhat aware of the difficulties of interpretation when applied to the Revelation of John. The diversities and antagonism of construction are almost endless. But to whatever school of interpretation the truth may attach, one thing is sure that the description of the heavenly Jerusalem in its last chapters, if it be not primarily the description of heaven, it is a pattern of the heavenly, after which the earthly is to be shaped. As Moses’ tabernacle was the pattern of the heavenly, so the literal, real heaven, the heaven of fact, and place, the third heaven where God abides and is seen in His unveiled glory, is photographed by John and presented as the model and final results of God’s work on earth. ‘The tabernacle was only showed to Moses in the mount, but the pattern of it was shaped by the original in heaven, and the Jew who studied and followed the pattern understood the principles and substance of the original. We study this picture of the heavenly to know what heaven is.

To that Jerusalem above
With singing I repair;
While in the flesh, my hope and love,
My heart and soul, are there:
There my exalted Saviour stands,
My merciful High Priest,
And still extends his wounded hands,
To take me to his breast. — Charles Wesley.