Graces Which Fit for Heaven Love of Jesus and Heaven
“The soul is renewed in the glory world. The body will be fashioned after the glorious body of Jesus Christ, and both will be joined together in an indestructible bond, clearer than the indestructible Moon, brighter than the Sun, and more resplendent than all the heavenly spheres. For having conquered and triumphed in the church militant, the saint is now sit down with Jesus on His throne. Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth, And His children shall reign with Him forever.
“An unholy man cannot enter heaven, and were he in heaven, it would be no enjoyment to him, because it is not suited to him. The nature of resident must be suited to the place of residence.... There is a fellowship among the devils in hell, and with those who are of a diabolic nature, and we know that holy inhabitants of heaven are brethren with holy souls.”
—ADAM CLARK.
HE results of Paul’s profound and matchless argument on the resurrection of the body and its transfiguration for the
heavenly world, is summarized and pointed thus: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” ‘That is to be settled, fixed
in purpose, not moved, firmly persistent, settled to stay. Of King Rehoboam it is said, “He did evil because he set not his heart to seek the Lord” (Revised Version). “He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Instability loses heaven. “My heart is fixed, oh God, my heart is fixed.” That is, his heart was seated, settled, immovable for heaven. No one goes to heaven whose heart is not already there.
Perseverance is a heaven-winning grace, to be at it always, to stay at it all the time. The king of Israel lost his conquest because he smote on the ground but three times when he should have smitten twice that number. He missed by stopping. We miss heaven by not persevering. Faint-heartedness, or weariness and letting go, are fatal conditions in the ascent to heaven. “And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” It takes strength to gain heaven. ‘They need strong men there. They are strong who gain heaven. Much there will be in this life to create faint-heartedness and much to discourage. ‘To hold on will require resolute fortitude and persevering courage and steady ongoing.
The ability to die is a heaven-gaining virtue. Paul says, “I die daily.” He wanted his dying fashioned after the perfect pattern of Christ, “Confortned to his death.” “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Again the apostle says: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Along the heavenly way the cross is to be borne. The cross is the true sign that we are in the heavenly way. As Jesus bore the cross, so must all His true disciples do the same. As Jesus died on the cross to save from sin, so must we die to sin, to self and to the world, a painful death, but it is the crowning death. As Jesus went to His Father’s right hand from the cross, so we go to His right hand by way of the cross. If no shame of the cross, no joys of the crown. If no death of the cross, no life of the crown. If no depression of the cross, no elevation of the throne. “It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him; If we suffer, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him he also will deny us.”
In the first chapter of second Peter we have a catalogue of the heavenly-fitting graces! ‘ And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity.” The apostle has been writing of the wonderful provision God had made for our salvation. ‘“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue; whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” We have in this statement a summary of God’s great outlay, laid out, laid down before us, and we are to contribute, besides what God has done, our quota, or, as the Revised Version says: “Yea and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence,” introducing by the side of God’s great works, all diligence. In all things concerning heaven, diligence is a necessary virtue. Sustained, persevering, deeply interested effort, is a matter of vital importance. Sloth and ease, so criminal and so ensnaring in every department of earthly action and effort, are peculiarly so in the effort for heaven. Not to be in earnest about heaven — here is a crime of great magnitude, eternal in fatal consequences. At the very threshold of the way to heaven, we are confronted with the fact that he who would win eternal life must be deeply in earnest, and express that earnestness by most laborious and persistent effort. To this struggle for heaven, every contestant must bring all diligence at the outset. Through all the way till the heavenly gates are entered, there can be no slacking of diligence. ‘This diligence is to be put forth to bring to being and perfection all the graces which fit for heaven.
Faith is the first, the foundation stone. Faith builds on Jesus Christ. Here faith is the foundation on which the whole spiritual building is reared. A foundation will do no good and will be ruined if no house is built on it. The snow, the rain, the dew, the frost, the air, the sunshine, the breeze, will dissolve a foundation of adamant if no house be built on it. On faith’s foundation, by all diligence, the spiritual superstructure must be reared. ‘The word “add” is taken from the leader of a chorus, which means to bring forward and supply all things necessary to fit out the chorus. We are to add all things requisite to make the heavenly character complete and harmonious.
Virtue is to be added. Virtue is an eminent endowment, a combination of all virtues, at least of many of them. In this place it means vigor, manly vigor, made of all manly qualities. Courage is a chief and distinguishing idea in virtue. Knowledge is general understanding and intelligence, that knowledge of Jesus and Divine things which instruct. It involves the intelligent apprehension of Divine truths and a thorough conviction of their importance. This knowledge is gained in the Holy
Bible and by the light of God’s Spirit. We are to seek the Spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Jesus. More and more are we to know of Jesus. More and more are we to “know Him and the power of His resurrection.” Knowledge is power and strength and light. We are to be deeply convicted of the truths of religion, and must have a personal knowledge of what the Scriptures teach, and an intelligent grasp and apprehension of Bible facts and truths. Light and wisdom in the inner man — all these are to be added day by day as the lessons for heaven’s graduating day.
Temperance follows, and this word is not limited in its meaning to intoxicants. It means self-government. We have learned of ourselves by knowledge. Self-control comes in to bear its fruit of heavenly wisdom. The tempers and passions, appetites and desires, are all held in by the strong reins of temperance. It cannot be that intemperance can enter heaven. Desires are to be limited, as well as appetites and passion. A passionless man may be in excess through his desires after -noney, after business success and after pleasures. Selfgoverned for God — this expresses its meaning. Trained in the school of temperance for heaven — this is the idea.
Patience comes to prominence again, and combines with these other graces to perfect in us the Christian character and fit us for the heavenly life. In this noble word there is always a background of manliness. It is the brave patience with which the Christian contends against the various hindrances, persecutions and temptations which befall him in his conflict with the inner self and outer world. It is that manliness which never loses heart or courage, never charges God foolishly, and is not hasty nor revengeful to man.
Godliness, God-likeness, brings the heavenly racer into a heavenly atmosphere. He is no longer simply after virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, which are principles, facts, restraints, but after the pattern of a person. He is looking heavenward for a pattern after which to shape his conduct and character. He hears the law speaking through the soft tunes of the Gospel, “Be ye holy for I am holy.” It is God who speaks, and the struggle for heaven reaches its brightest point when it begins to be a struggle to be like God. Higher relations than earth bind him, higher duties than those to man. He is rising to God. He is struggling for God’s perfect image, that he may be a reflection of the Divine Person.
He has passed into the Divine family. His relation to God gives him a new kinship to man. Love is to rule in a family circle. A brotherhood has been established, which is the family of God, the brotherhood of heaven. Brotherly Love is one of the germs of our conversion to God. One of the elements of the heavenly life. The brotherhood of earth is the type of the brotherhood of heaven.
Grace has many of the natural virtues. It keeps and polishes these. While not exactly transformed, they are burnished and refined, and adorn humanity with a richness not wholly their own. But grace must have its distinctive features which separate it from and elevate it above all other systems. It must be original and unrivaled in its super-excellence.
Paul, in the twelfth chapter of Romans, has a masterly and beautiful presentation of the practical side of piety, its most beautiful side, for in no shape is religion so lovely as when in action. The crowning grace is set forth by Paul in these words: “Be kindly affectionate one to another; in honor preferring one another.” ‘This is a costly grace; like the most precious gems, rare and only secured with great labor and cost. Where is this one to be found? Who exemplifies it?
These jewels are found in God’s Word readily, they adorn almost every page; but to transfer them - to practical life among our fallen and marred race, is the point of chief difficulty. To transplant these sensitive and rare plants, so that they bloom and spread their odor in a strange soil, is a difficult and delicate task. These fine spiritual graces do not seem to be the product of this hurrying age. We value bulk rather than quality. These are the products of the Divine side of our religion, the proofs of its divinity. It must have something above the rude virtues which spring from the soil of humanity. ‘These heaven-induced graces must be seen and felt. The world demands this before it pays its homage. We are not barren of the ordinary graces. It costs but little to fashion them. But these of the first water, how rare!
It is the glory of Christianity not only to present an ideal of the highest type, but to supply practical illustrations.
“Jn honor preferring one another.” This may be fitly termed the crowning grace. To put others along side of us, is generous and gracious, but to put them before us, is divine. To halt that they may catch up, would be kindly, but to stop and step aside that others may pass before us in a race for honor and place, is far above nature. To prefer others before ourselves in heart and action, seems to bewilder and dizzy our untried heads. It is too high. We sigh out in despair. We cannot attain to it. But faith says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” ‘This crowning of others by discrowning self, this refusing that others may receive, is grievous to flesh and blood. Who can receive it? And yet it comes to us as a command, in the form of law. But the New Testament law unfolds the promise, and affords the helps to obedience. We are to do this — put others before ourselves. ‘This is the complete conquest — of self, and requires a great victory. He who has gained this is worthy a triumph through the gates into the City! Have we learned this lesson and gained this height? Have we received the crown of this grace? Can we in honor prefer another? Has the reign of ambition ceased, the love of the world been destroyed, and self crucified? The death of all these must enrich the soil ere it can produce this Divine fruit.
It is as if God speaks thus to His people: “‘ You by your unwearied diligence furnish these graces, and I will furnish heaven. You seek these spiritual graces in their abounding fulness, and I will supply to you an abounding entrance into heaven.” So to gain heaven hereafter, we must of necessity gain these rich graces here. Heaven grows in the soil of the God-prepared heart. We seek heaven by seeking these heavenly virtues.
Peter in concluding this earnest exhortation, so full of meaning, concerning those graces which fit us for heaven, gives us these words: “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” ‘To fail in having, in abounding fulness, these heavenly characteristics, is to be blind to eternal matters, and short-sighted about heaven and all the things pertaining to it, and also to lose what we have already obtained. Past forgiveness amounts to nothing if we do not “add to” this initial step the succeeding stages, which mark the way to heaven. “But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” Again does this homely apostle call us to diligence, ongoing, and the addition of these graces to the sum already secured, as the only safeguard from backsliding and final apostasy. “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.”
Then with a master stroke he shows the bearing of all this diligence, toil, and the securement of all these divine graces, on heaven: “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Or, as the Revised Version has it, “For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Let cares like a wild deluge come,
And storms of sorrow fall,
So I but safely reach my home,
My God, my heaven, my all.
There I shall bathe my weary soul
In seas of heavenly rest,
And not a wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast. — Isaac Watts.