When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed…Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world… I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." (John 17:1-5 ,24,26 )
The greatest one sentence description of heaven I have ever heard is by Jonathan Edwards who said that “heaven is a world of love.”Heaven is a world of love, remarks Edwards, because God Who is love is its sun. "The glorious presence of God in heaven, fills heaven with love, as the sun, placed in the midst of the visible heavens in a clear day, fills the world with light." (Rev. 21:23) Edwards further reflects that by the very nature of God, the fountain of love that fills heaven must be infinite, all-sufficient, unchangeable, and eternal:"There this glorious God is manifested, and shines forth, in full glory, in beams of love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!"
Eternity is A Life Filled with the Infinite God
Jesus prayed for this for us Jesus prays a most wonderful prayer for us in John 17 that God would glorify him, and that we would see His glory. Seeing the glory of God in Christ is the highest gift and the greatest pleasure we are capable of.
In 17:24 Jesus makes it clear that he prays for his own glory so that we would be able to see his glory. "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory." The love of Jesus drives him to pray for us, and then die for us, that his glory may be central, and so that we may see it and savor it for all eternity. This is the greatest good in the good news of the gospel. "Father, I desire that they . . . be with me . . . to see my glory."
In Eternity We Will See Glory, and We Will Be Glorious
We will see the beauty of God, and we will reflect the beauty of God. We will see glory, and we will be glorious. Jonathan Edwards put it like this:
How happy is that love in which there is an eternal progress in all these things, wherein new beauties are continually discovered, and more and more loveliness, and in which we shall forever increase in beauty ourselves. When we shall be made capable of finding out, and giving, and shall receive more and more endearing expressions of love forever, our union will become more close and communion more intimate.
Both seeing and being will increase forever: "New beauties are continually discovered" in God, and "we shall forever increase in beauty ourselves." A finite mind cannot fully know an infinite mind. Our finite capacities for pleasure cannot fully know all the joy there is to be had in an infinite fountain. Therefore, the age to come will be an eternal increase of learning and loving.' This means that the truth of 2 Corinthians 3:18 never ceases. "Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another." The better we see him, the better we will reflect him—to all eternity.
Jonathan Edwards considers the fact that there are only perfectly lovely objects in heaven. Seriously imagine now a world where there was no sickness, pain, unhappiness, or disappointment. Instead "wherever the inhabitants of that blessed world shall turn their eyes, they shall see nothing but dignity, and beauty, and glory." Further, Edwards observes that every fleeting moment of happiness, peace, and kindness enjoyed on earth are experienced as mere trickles of goodness flowing on their way into heaven:
"As the streams tend to the ocean, so all these are tending to the great ocean of infinite purity and bliss. The progress of time does but bear them on to its blessedness; and us, if we are holy, to be united to them there. Every gem which death rudely tears away from us here is a glorious jewel forever shining there; every Christian friend that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven. There will be the infant of days that we have lost below, through grace to be found above; there the Christian father, and mother, and wife, and child, and friend, with whom we shall renew the holy fellowship of the saints, which was interrupted by death here, but shall be commenced again in the upper sanctuary, and then shall never end. There we shall have company with the patriarchs and fathers and saints of the Old and New Testaments, and those of whom the world was not worthy, with whom on earth we were only conversant by faith. And there, above all, we shall enjoy and dwell with God the Father, whom we have loved with all our hearts on earth; and with Jesus Christ, our beloved Savior, who has always been to us the chief among ten thousands, and altogether lovely; and with the Holy Ghost, our Sanctifier, and Guide, and Comforter; and shall be filled with all the fullness of the Godhead forever!"
To be continued...
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