Heaven Is a World of Love, Part 1 (1 Corinthians Sermon 53)

Well, I don’t think it’s an overstatement for me to say I’ve been looking forward to preaching this sermon for five years. I’ve been working on heaven, on a book on heaven and thoughts on heaven, and it all began with me reading Jonathan Edwards meditations on the end of 1 Corinthians 13, a 40-page message that Edwards wrote, 40 pages entitled Heaven is a World of Love. Now, you’re gonna get a thin extract of that over two sermons, but I have such an electric feeling in my heart today, such a joy to be able to deliver this to you so that you might be buoyed as I prayed a moment ago, that you might be filled with hope, you might be filled with energy and joy and be able more and more to live a life worthy of the calling that you’ve received, to be strengthened in hope, and be able to do the good works God has for you to do, speak more about that at the end of the message.

So as we look at 1 Corinthians 13, we reach the end of this chapter, Paul’s language just seems to elevate into the heavenly realms, he’s speaking of the eternal future of love, he has spoken and taught us that all spiritual gifts are temporary, they all have a temporary function in the saving work of almighty God and the human soul. They play a vital role, the spiritual gifts do, in delivering truth to individuals through faith in Christ, but when Christ returns and when he ends this world, and when he ushers the elect into the new heaven, new earth, the new Jerusalem, which will be our eternal home, all of the spiritual gifts will be obsolete at that time, even faith and hope will be obsolete, or we could say fulfilled by the reality of heaven, but love will remain eternally.

So Edwards, as he was working on Charity and its Fruits finished with this work: Heaven is a World of Love. I wrote out something like 25 pages of handwritten notes. I sent a photo of it to a relative, I won’t say her name, but she said that I’m a mad scientist. Alright, so all I could do is just take these notes and say, “Wow, what Edwards does is quite remarkable,” and he just works and works and works on this theological exegetical theme, and he uses reason and he continues with this methodology and said, “I want to take that methodology and apply it as well.” Now, my angle of the book I’m writing asserts that a large part of our experience of the glory of God in heaven will be looking backward at history, that we’ll be looking back at what God has done to assemble the multitude from every tribe, language, people, and nation. How they got there, what God did to get all of us there. Edwards doesn’t even mention that or even allude to it, but what he does do is he takes us effectively on an exegetical, theological rational tour of heaven, and he gives us those 40 pages on heaven as a world of love.

And so what I’m gonna do is be leaning on him this week and next week. I do urge you to read it. I’m giving you right now my official massive footnote, so I’m free from plagiarizing. If you go this afternoon and say, “No wait, wait, wait, pastor said this, so he got it right from Edwards.” That’s exactly where it came from. I remember I was at a conference a number of years ago, this was kind of funny, and it was R. C. Sproul, who’s since gone on to be with the Lord, and John MacArthur, and John MacArthur sermons are all over the country, and I used to lean on them and just love him, grace to you. He got a letter from a woman in San Antonio that was very angry at Jonathan Edwards- I’m sorry, not Edwards, angry at John MacArthur because he was consistently using this woman’s pastor’s sermons and not giving any credit. And so R. C. Sproul introduced then, John MacArthur saying, “And now here’s Pastor John with yet another message from that pastor in San Antonio.” So I’m going to do the reverse thing, and I’m going to say, I’m giving all credit for the structure and the approach to Jonathan Edwards.

And my desire here is that as I talk about heaven as a world of love, it’ll stimulate you to heavenly meditation and to a more heavenly lifestyle, that as much as possible you will, by the power of the Spirit, begin or more and more live a life of love because you have understood what heaven will be like, and that’s my desire. And beyond that, that buoyed strengthened by hope, you will do the good works God has left you here on earth to do, works of personal holiness in which you are growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ and works of ministry to other people, both the Christians and non-Christians, that’s what God’s left you here to do, for his glory, and that you would be energized to do that.

Let’s do some brief exegesis on 1 Corinthians 13. Paul has been showing the superiority of love to all spiritual gifts, so much so that even if you have the extreme display of every spiritual gift, if you could speak in the tongue of men and even of angels, or if you have the gift of prophecy and you could fathom all theological truths, nothing was a mystery to you, you have that level of theological knowledge, or even if you could die as a martyr, giving away your body to the flames after having given away all your possessions to the poor and needy, even if you did all of these things, but if you had not love, you would be nothing, you would accomplish nothing for the church of Christ and you would gain nothing in terms of heavenly rewards. That’s how important love is in all of these things.

He then goes on in the chapter to give 15 descriptions of love, some of them positive, but most of them are negative. Look at verses 4-8, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” So over the last number of weeks, we’ve walked through each of those and talked about them, and Paul having described therefore what love is and what it isn’t, or what love does do and what love doesn’t do, he then speaks of the limitations of the spiritual gifts, remember this chapter 13 is right in the middle of a three chapter treatment on spiritual gifts, and he wants them to understand how limited those gifts are, and that even the best of us, in the highest level of knowledge that we gain of God through the spiritual gifts, is like we’re speaking baby talk compared to what we will be like when we get to heaven.

And I felt that as I was hearing Andy read that text, I was thinking, “I’m about to get up and do a little more baby talk babbling with you through this sermon, that you would all continue to think you’re limited, immature and imperfect to some degree, thoughts about God.” because it’s the best we can do. It’s what we have now is to see through a glass darkly like we’re squinting in a mirror, and we get a little bit of a distorted view of God, it’s not a perfect view, but when we get to heaven, it will be a mature perfect view.

“Even if you did all of these things, but if you had not love, you would be nothing, you would accomplish nothing for the church of Christ and you would gain nothing in terms of heavenly rewards.”

Now again, as I said last week, not that the words of the prophets or the apostles are flawed, there’s nothing wrong with scripture. All Scripture is God-breathed. It’s a perfect, flawless like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times over. Every assertion, every propositional truth taught in scripture is true and valid, but the depth and the dimensions of our knowledge of God are as nothing compared to what we would have when at last we see God face-to-face. And we know him fully, even as we have been fully known. And we talked about that last time. So having done that, overview and some introductions, let’s get to what Edward shares, the insights that came from him in 1738, 282 years ago. And he divides his essay into six headings, first, the cause and fountain of the love that is in heaven. Secondly, the objects of love that is in heaven; thirdly, the subjects of that love that is in heaven; fourth, the principle or nature of that love that is in heaven; fifth, the circumstances in which heavenly love will be exercised, expressed and enjoyed in heaven; and sixth, the happy effects and fruits of that love that is in heaven. That’s his whole essay. We won’t get to all of that today, but God willing, over these two weeks, we’ll look at it, so let’s walk through it.

Now, before we do, I wanna say this about reading something written by Jonathan Edwards, his language is not easy to understand, he’s very philosophical, he writes at a high level. And he works and works and works the details. And he begins with things that you’re like, you feel are a no-brainer, and he adds some more no-brainer things, and he adds some other kind of obvious things and more and more obvious things. And before you know it you’re in a whole different place than you ever were before, you’re wondering how you got there, and every step has been supported by careful reasoning and by scripture, step by step, suddenly your eyes open and you’re in heaven as a world of love, thinking thoughts you’ve never thought before.

So you have to be patient, because he works it and works it, he’s a very diligent laborer, he is skillful in what he does, that whole process reminds me some of CS Lewis’s Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, some of you have read that story, many of you know about it, so a wardrobe for us Americans is a closet, like a walk-in closet, probably stand-alone thing, and some kids are there in this mansion, it’s during war time years and they’re playing hide and seek, and so a kid goes into the wardrobe, into the closet and hides, close the door shut and feels the garments, the coats and all that sort of stuff, brushing on the face and goes further and further and further back in, and then suddenly it’s not coats anymore, it’s like you’re feeling branches on your face and it starts to feel cold, it’s like winter, and then next thing you know you’re in another world. You’re in Narnia in that particular book, you’ve moved through it, so that the wardrobe is like a portal to another world.

And so it is with the kind of meditation that Edwards does, he’s using scripture and put things together in such a way that he makes these confident assertions and you wonder where he gets it, but you can see by the process and you’ve moved through into heaven as a world of love. Edwards takes seeing through a glass darkly and steps through that looking glass into another world, and that world is defined by theology and by exegesis of scripture and reason, logic.

Now, let me stop right here and say, I do not enjoy books that are written about heaven, that are based on near-death experiences. Have you seen some of them? You know what I’m talking about? It’s what they call as genre, heavenly tourism, and I have all kinds of things I could say about those things, but that is not my methodology, not this morning, not in the book I’m writing, not at all. It’s a little bit hard because the publisher that’s publishing my book also publishes one of those books, but another comment for another day, I guess we can have it- me and that author can have a debate. The problem is that the heavenly tourism books and the near death experiences don’t corroborate with one another, there’s not any unified system of truth, because they’re basically just people’s dreams, things that they have experiences. So for me, it’s all about scripture and what we can deduce from scripture and put together, that’s the work of theology, so let’s begin.

I. The Cause and Fountain of that Love in Heaven

The cause and fountain of that love in heaven, the cause and fountain, the God of love himself dwells in heaven. God himself is the cause and fountain of the love that we will experience in heaven. Heaven is the place where God dwells and where he most clearly reveals himself. The new heavens and the new earth, and the new Jerusalem will glow and be completely illuminated and will radiate with the glory of God. So Heaven is a world of love, because the God of love especially dwells there. Now, of course, you will say, “But God is omnipresent. There was nowhere you can go in the universe that God does not exist.” Psalm 139 clearly asserts this, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there,” if I go down to the depths, you’re there, if I go to the far side of the sea, you’re there. God’s everywhere, that is true, but God relationally, especially chooses to reveal himself in one place or in some special places, more than another, like Moses of the burning bush, “Take off your sandals, for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground.” 100 feet over isn’t. God is choosing to reveal himself there at the burning bush.

“God himself is the cause and fountain of the love that we will experience in heaven.”

So in the Old Testament, God was in that sense, more in Israel than he was any other nation on earth, and he was more in Jerusalem than he was in any other city in that nation of Israel, and he was more in the temple than he was in any other building in Jerusalem. And he was more in the Holy of Holies than he was at any other part of the temple, and he was more above the mercy seat then he was any other place in the Holy of Holies. But God is more in heaven than he is in any place we’ve ever experienced on earth. Heaven is God’s throne, his dwelling place. Now, I believe in the eternal future, where there’s the sense of the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven, prepared. I have a sense then with the throne of God seated right in the middle, that heaven and earth will become one, because God will dwell right in the midst of his people in the new heaven and the new earth and they will, in that sense, become one and then will be fulfilled what we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There’ll be a unification of heaven and earth.

Well, since God is a God of love, so heaven then will be a world of love, a concentrated experience of love, God the perfect source and fountain of all love. For it says in 1 John 4:8, “God is love.” Now, you should meditate with me on the difference between “God is love” and “God is loving.” We can be loving, but we’re not love. God is love, and he is loving, and he is loving because he is love. And, therefore, that’s the sense that Edwards means, that the source, the fountain of love that will make heaven a world of love will be God because God will be there. All true love ultimately has its source in God the Almighty, the creator of all things.

Now because God is all-sufficient, the uncreated Creator of all things, he will be a limitless source of love. The love that fills heaven will never end, even out to eternity. It’ll be full. It’ll be eternal. It’ll be overflowing. In this sense, it’s very much like the river of the water of life in Revelation 22:1-2, it says, “There the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.” So there’s this limitless water supply, the river of the water of life coming from the seat of God, never ends. We can easily then in our minds move over and then extend that to love, that God just flows out love, limitless source of love from the throne of God forever and ever. And this river you could picture as in the strange vision in Ezekiel flows deeper and wider and broader as it goes, until you end up with this picture of an ocean of love in which we will be saturated and immersed and picture- I picture swimming in it.

Now, the love that we will experience in heaven is relational, person to person, because it’s based in the Triune God, the Trinity is a God of love, has always been a God of love. We believe as Christians in the Father, the Son and the Spirit, one God in three persons. And so the relational aspect: Father to Son, Son to Spirit, Spirit to the Father, and the inter-Trinitarian relationship is a pattern of the love we will experience in heaven. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and the Father loves the Spirit and the Spirit loves the Father and the Son loves the Spirit, and the Spirit loves the Son. There is that perfect, full relational love that was happening before God said, “Let there be light,” before God created anything. So we should know, and we do know, that God did not create anything out of neediness or loneliness or emptiness, but out of fullness, he has always been a full being of love.

Now, the persons of the Trinity are infinitely dear and precious to one another with an incomprehensible love flowing from one person to the other and back again, a fullness of love. The Father loves the Son with a perfect love. In fact, you can’t measure the depth of the Father’s love for the Son, I picture it as the sun out in outer space, it’s just radiant and powerful and glowing and never ending, that is the zeal, the energy, the power that the Father has in his love for his Son, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” All of those assertions made by the Father are great under statements, infinite understatements, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him, I am well pleased.” Infinitely well pleased. But the Father extends his love for the Son to us amazingly. He will love us as he loves his son. It’s hard to believe, but he does. And Jesus will too, the Son, Jesus Christ loves the Father and showed his love for the Father by obeying him perfectly, even to death, even death on a cross. That’s how much he loved his father. But he extends that love horizontally to us, he loves his bride, the church, he died for her, he cherishes her. Jesus is perfect in love for the bride.

The Holy Spirit is the one who has delivered this love to our hearts for the entirety of our Christian lives. The Holy Spirit is the delivery system of the inter-Trinitarian love. The love that Jesus has for you has been delivered to you by the Holy Spirit. As it says in Romans 5:5 that, “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.” So if you’re a Christian today, you sense and you feel the love that God has for you because the Holy Spirit has delivered that love that the Father has through the Son, Jesus Christ, to you. Also Galatians 5:22, it says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” almost feel like you can stop right there, that says it all, but there are other details as the fruit of the Spirit goes on, but he delivers love.

II. The Objects of Love in Heaven

So heaven is a world of love because this perfectly loving triune God is a God of love. Second main heading: the objects of love in heaven, so that is what we will love in heaven. There will be nothing but lovely objects in heaven. Everything in heaven will be lovely, perfect in form and function. There’ll be nothing odious, there’ll be nothing ugly or blemish, or disgusting, or malformed or corrupt, or diseased, or repulsive, or broken, or dark or evil or wicked in heaven, but all of that will have been healed, transformed, weeded out, as it says in Revelation 21:27, “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” All the angels of heaven will be holy and good, and glorious and radiant, filled with love for God and for Christ. All of the evil angels, including the devil himself; will have been weeded out and thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity.

The only people permitted in that world, as Revelation 21:27 clearly says, will be the redeemed, those who have been made perfect and glorious by their faith in Jesus Christ, redeemed from every tribe, language, people, and nation. Those are the only people that will be there. Therefore, there’ll be no hypocrites, no false professors of Christianity, no nominals, there’ll also be no open rebels, no one who follows false gods and goddesses or demonic religions, all of those have been converted if they are elect before the foundation of the world, or they’ve been weeded out by the judgment of God. So only perfectly delightful beings will be in heaven. Not only so, but the redeemed themselves will be perfectly lovely, radiantly glorious. All the redeemed in heaven will be perfectly lovely, radiant, beautiful; for Jesus said, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” Matthew 13:43. So if I can say to you, your best days are yet to come. You are coming to a world where you, if you are a genuine believer in Christ, will be radiant and glorious and you will shine like the sun in the kingdom of your Father.

“Your best days are yet to come. You are coming to a world where you, if you are a genuine believer in Christ, will be radiant and glorious and you will shine like the sun in the kingdom of your Father.”

Now, this present world is flawed and imperfect, even the sun has sunspots, in the same way in this world, even the most eminent saints have flaws and imperfections and failings. As James said very plainly, we all stumble in many ways. And David said, “My sins are more numerous than the hairs of my head.” But in heaven, the saints will all have been glorified, perfectly conformed to Christ, mentally, morally, emotionally, volitionally, spiritually in every way we will have been conformed to Jesus Christ. We will have gone beyond the finish line of our salvation and we will be perfectly conformed to Jesus forever.

I can speak for myself, and probably for many of you; the greatest grief in my life is my own sinfulness, by far. I see the sinfulness of others, and it brings me grief, it’s true, but that the Lord should have gotten so little return on his investment of me, after all these years, is a grief to me, and I think the Apostle Paul felt the same way because he just said, “I am the chief of sinners,” and you feel that as you go, but I am looking forward to a day when that will all be finished, aren’t you? That you’ll never sin again; never sin again. You will be beautiful and so will every one of your brothers and sisters in Christ, perfectly lovely. Love will be fulfilled in every single one of them. If you look at the list in verses 4-8, all of those problems will have been solved; some of it will be obsolete, praise God. No need to be patient with the brothers and sisters in heaven anymore, no need to not keep a record of wrongs ’cause they won’t wrong you.

But you look at all the other things, you won’t be envious, you won’t be arrogant anymore, you will be perfectly other-centered in heaven, all of those things will be fulfilled in you in heaven, you’ll get them all. Jonathan Edwards put it this way, “No string in the heavenly symphony shall vibrate out of tune. There will not be a single discordant note in the heavenly song of worship to the Lamb, everything in perfect harmony. The place itself will be beautiful, what you will see with your eyes will be radiantly beautiful, the new heavens and the new Earth shall be free forever from its bondage to decay. The creation shall be perfectly radiant; it’ll be glowing with the glory of God and the details of creation, it will attract from us our love and delight continually whenever we look at it in heaven.” I can’t wait to explore the new earth. I think it’ll be very much like this present world, but no decay, no bondage to decay, but just beautiful and worthy of exploration. So also the city itself, the new Jerusalem will be radiantly beautiful and perfect, even the most spectacular city in this present age, think of the most beautiful city you’ve ever seen, the most breathtaking city.

I’ve been to some really remarkable cities in my life. I’ve seen Paris called the City of Lights. I went up on the first level of the Eiffel Tower. That was enough for me. I have a kind of a marginal fear of heights, and you’re like, you can see real good peripheral vision and down below you the whole time you’re climbing, and it’s like I know it’s impossible to fall, but I was thinking these thoughts. Anyway, I got to the first level and I looked around and the sun was setting and the light started coming up and it was really beautiful. But even though as beautiful earthly city has a dark side, a dirty side, a filthy and nasty side, alleyways and garbage, crime and other things, but the New Jerusalem will be radiantly beautiful, it beggars description. How can you read Revelation 21? It’s like, I have a hard time picturing this, but the beauty is indescribable and perfect.

The things that we love most will be in heaven, the things that God put in our hearts, the things we love most as Christians have to do with the glory of God. So that’s what you’ll see in heaven, you’ll see the glory of God in everything that you see all around you, so also the saints that we cherish most in lifetime will be there, and we will know them as such. That’s essential to my book. No weird heavenly memory wipe. You’ll know them as such, this is your spouse that you spent all those years with, this is your best friend who died seven years before you died, this is your grandmother who led you to Christ, all of these, you’ll know them and you’ll know others that you never met as such: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob. And you will know them based on their history, and I could go on and on, it’s not my outline, I’m endangered, and I’m already passed, I’m already over. But just to know the selective way that God glorifies us, and then what about our sins and all that, if I ever finish the book, read it, you’ll find out what I say about all that. But we will know each other as such, but perfected and holy.

III. The Subjects of Heavenly Love

Thirdly: the subjects of heavenly love. Now, by this Edwards means the source of love in us, in other words: the ones who do the loving, the ones who do the loving, so that’s both God and us. Let’s talk about our hearts. All right, the heart of God, as we’ve said, is the original seat of love, the capacity to love. Love is in God as light is in the sun, as we’ve talked about. Not as the moon or the planets, which has a reflected light, you know, you look at the planets, you’re not seeing- they don’t generate light they reflect it, okay? The moon reflects light. And so it is. We don’t generate- alright, God generates love. But beyond that, let’s think more about God’s love for us, God will be truly attracted to all the redeemed in heaven. He will love them, each one of them dearly and deeply and fully, none of the redeemed in Heaven will be merely tolerated by God or ignored by God or slighted by God, but God will have full, rich, comprehensive love to each and everyone of his redeemed children, he has graven them in the palms of his hands. They are each and every one of them the apple of his eye. All of them.

Now here’s an illustration that I have, it’s not in Edwards, but I thought of it, to illustrate this point: you could imagine some wealthy art collector, billionaire art collector who wants to collect as much art as he can in life, and so he has workers working all over the world to buy pieces of art for him, and he’s given certain criteria, certain styles and all that, and it just runs like a machine, and his buyers are buying art that he never sees, and when they buy it they wrap it up in bubble wrap and put it in the warehouses all over the world, but his favorite pieces of art, the ones he has hand-selected, they are in his mansion on the California coast line, and he looks at them every day, and he cherishes them because a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

That is not what heaven will be like when it comes to all the redeemed, where he has the really super ones right around him and then the rest he doesn’t know anything about them. Rather, each and every one of the redeemed in heaven are his craftsmanship, his workmanship, his painting, his sculpture. He worked on every one of us. He knit us together in our mother’s womb and then redeemed us and worked on us every day of our lives by the Holy Spirit, and now he has consummated that work and brought you into final perfection and glory, and he will cherish you individually and personally, he knows you by name. It says in Isaiah 43:1, “This is what the Lord says, ‘He who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine.’” And again, Jesus says, “As a good shepherd [John 10:3] he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

Let me give another opposite example of what it will not be like in heaven: sometimes a king or other may allow former enemies to live in his kingdom as a display of his benevolence. They might even be allowed to live in his capital city. He might even pay for their food, clothing and shelter out of the royal treasury, but the king has no desire for a relationship with them. They don’t sit at the king’s table, they have no access to the king, he doesn’t want a relationship with them; they’re in the city, that’s true, but there is no connection at all, that is not what heaven is gonna be like for you and me brothers and sisters.

Think about David with Absalom, remember how Absalom killed his half-brother, Amnon and then fled? And for years, he lived in exile, he wanted to come back, but his father never brought him back, David never bought him back. Finally, a prophet comes and says some things to him, gets David to bring his son back, he brings him back, but he didn’t bring him back into the capital city, he doesn’t bring him back to the palace, he’s just living there, and then Absalom gets restless and rambunctious and angry and burns Joab’s field so he can get some access to his own father. Finally, he gets back in, but he’s never welcomed back in. Isn’t it incredible that we who were at one time rebels and enemies will be welcomed and dearly loved by an adoptive Father who wants an intimate relationship with every one of us for all eternity? So that’s the love of the Father for each one of us.

Also the love of Christ, Christ delights fully and personally in each one of his saints, they are united to him, he is their head, we are his, the members of his body. He cherishes each one of us, he is the bridegroom and we are the bride and so the heart of Jesus expands horizontally to have an intimate and perfect love for you, so much so that married love is a mysterious picture, we are told in Ephesians, of the love that Christ has for his bride, the church. Every member of the church has that affection. Now, in the same way, the hearts of the saints and angels will be perfectly full of love, our hearts will be filled with love for God and for each other, they’ll not be a single open or concealed enemy in our midst. No one will be out in the cold. No one shunned, no one outcast or lonely.

IV. Of the Nature and Degree of Heavenly Love

Fourth: of the nature and degree of heavenly love. First, the nature of heavenly love: it is all together holy and divine, it’s totally conformed to the love of God, it’s not carnal, it’s not lustful, it’s not impure or corrupt. It is a love that we will have that will be pure as light. Our love for God will finally be perfected. Finally you will love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You’ve yearned for it your whole life, but you’ve not been able to attain it because you’re a divided being, so am I. But in Heaven, you won’t be divided anymore; you will finally love your Heavenly Father perfectly. You will love him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength. Not only that, your love for God will be based on a perfect knowledge of God. Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life, that they will know you, the only true God.” We will see Him face-to-face, and we’ll know him fully as he is fully known.

Now, Edwards does not mention this, let me interject it to you, this is really exciting, we will never, ever achieve omniscience. We will never achieve omniscience. You know what that means? Heaven will be pretty exciting. Like one pastor said, “Has it ever occurred to you that nothing’s ever occurred to God?” That’s the kind of thing that makes circuit breakers trip. Nothing’s ever popped into God’s mind, ’cause that means it wasn’t there before. Omniscience means it’s already up and running, every idea there could possibly be, that’s what omniscience is. We’ll never be omniscient ’cause we’re not gonna become God. So what that means is heaven will be an exciting place of learning, you’ll be learning the glory of God forever and ever, you’ll meet some brother or sister in Christ who lived 500 years before you did, and you’ll find out what he or she did for the glory of God, and you will love that person and learn and you will give glory to God and you’ll find new aspects of God’s glory forever. It will never end, friends, never end. And so it’s all based on an ever expanding, ever-improving love for God, no missteps, no false steps, not false understand at every moment, you will have right thoughts of God, there’s just more of them to come. More of them to come.

“We will never achieve omniscience. You know what that means? Heaven will be pretty exciting.”

So the saints’ love for God in heaven will be pure and accurate based on truth, free from idolatrous conceptions and ever expanding. So also horizontally, our love for others will be perfected as well. The second great commandment will be perfected in heaven. All the redeemed will love all the other redeemed with a perfectly free love. We will be free from all evil motives, there’ll be no base carnal lust, as I said, no selfish principles, there’ll be no pride, no envy, no greed, and no boasting. We will also love the angels perfectly, purely and freely, we will not worship them, they’re creatures, and we’ll know that, but we’ll see their glory, we’ll see their elegance, their dignity, the way that they served God.

Do you remember when Zechariah questioned Gabriel’s message about his wife bearing John the Baptist in old age? It seemed like Gabriel took offence. “You don’t seem to know who I am. I am Gabriel and I stand in the presence of God and my words are gonna come true.” Well, that’s all gonna get sorted out in heaven, we’ll understand who Gabriel is and what he did throughout redemptive history, and we’ll give him the proper honor, but we will not worship him because we’re just fellow servants with him and he with us.

What about the degree of our love in heaven? Our heavenly love will be perfect in degrees, simply put, we will love God more than we will love anything else, to love God more than you love- to love anything else, any created thing more than you love God is the essence of idolatry, we won’t be idolaters in heaven. We will love God more than we will love the saints, we’ll love God more than we will love the angels. We will love God more than we love anything. And get this, we will love God more than we love him now, more than you love him now, vastly more, like comparing a spark to a raging inferno, that’s how much more you will love God in heaven. Our love for God is weak right now, but it’s based on truth. As we get to heaven, we will see God and understand who he is and our love will be proportional. So we will love God and worship him and not worship any other creature, but all other created beings will have a proportional level of love, because they will have a proportional level of glory.

What is most glorious will be loved the most, and what is least glorious will be loved the least, but every glorious thing will receive its appropriate level of affection from the hearts of the saints, proportional love. So picture this, I have no biblical evidence that there will be wildflowers in the new earth, I just think there probably will be, so imagine you’re walking through a new earth fields and you stop and you pick a new earth wildflower, and you will do what Jesus said in the Sermon at the Mount, “Consider the lilies of the field,” and you’ll consider it with a perfect mind and you will give God directly glory for that picked wildflower. Then I imagine you’ll drop it and move on with your heavenly life.

And it could be that five heavenly minutes down the road, you’ll meet some brother or sister in Christ who was a martyr for the gospel, who laid down his or her life so that Muslims, let’s say, in some country might come to faith in Christ, and you will have a greater love and attraction to that person than you had for the wildflower, that’s what I think Edwards mean by proportional love. Not everything is equally glorious, now, that is one of the most exciting and challenging things I learned from Edwards, there’ll be differing levels of glory, even among people, differing levels of glory. That, I learned from Edwards about five or six years ago, is one of the most explosive concepts. I had a very simplistic theology of heaven, ran something like this, maybe it was like yours when you walked in here this morning: “I don’t know, we die, go to heaven and we’re happy. Let’s eat lunch.” I think there’s more that we could say about what happens after we die. We will die and go to heaven and be happy.

Then I learned the doctrine of glorification. We’ll shine like the sun and the kingdom- “Alright, so we’ll die, go to heaven shine like the sun and be happy. Let’s eat.” Look, there’s a lot more that we could say, but there will be differing levels of glory, because it says in 1 Corinthians 15:41-42 that, “star differs from star in glory, so it will be with the resurrection from the dead.” star differs from star in glory. Edwards actually spends a great deal of time on the differing levels of glory for the saints in heaven and how heavenly love will be perfect in reference to that reality.

Now, glorification will drive away all enmity and distaste and coldness toward God, at every moment we will be ardent in our love for him, but it will also be going horizontally toward other saints, we will not envy other people their glory. So wherever you’re gonna be on the hierarchy of glory, wherever, whatever place you’ll have in that, you will not deal improperly with those above you in glory or those below you in glory, as in the words of 1 Corinthians 13, “You will not envy those above you, nor will you be arrogant toward those beneath you in glory.” And we’re gonna totally delight in the honors and crowns and esteem that God gives to our brothers and sisters in heaven for the way that they served him on earth. And we just know, if you know anything about church history, there are some people that just paid more for the gospel than we did, they just did, they put their lives on the line and their blood on the line in ways we didn’t. A

nd so what that does for me, first and foremost, I am 100% fine with them having more glory and honor than me in heaven. I’m also motivated to do better now, in whatever ways I can be courageous and energetic and serve God now, I want to. But when I get to heaven, I’m going to honor those that are highest in glory with a proportional honoring, and I am free then to do some of that now. I can talk to some of my brothers and sisters now that are serving in ways that I think require a higher level of sacrifice than my life does, and tell them how much I honor what they’re doing, and I’m not jealous in that sense, it’s helpful, as Edward says, “It will not be a grief to any saint to see another saint elevated and honored above himself, actually it will draw forth greater love and admiration and honor because God has done it, and God has revealed this and is revealed and glorified by that person.” So first and foremost, we’ll just think, “God did it, I’m fine with it,” that’s how we’ll be in heaven.

Now, we also will have, therefore, variable experiences in heaven. Not every heavenly experience will be the same. The varying level of glory concept opens up also the concept of varying levels of experiences in heaven. Edwards said this, “All shall have as much love as they desire and as great manifestations as they can bear, and so shall all be fully satisfied and where there is perfect satisfaction, there can be no envy.” So here’s my illustration, not Edwards, imagine an amazing, pure, rich, lavish feast, in which there are almost countless different numbers of dishes with different spices and cooked in different styles and the limitless supplies of each dish, and you’re invited to the banquet table and you sit down to eat and you can eat as much or as little of each dish as you want and generally and totally as much or little food as you want, it’s all up to you, and let’s just take gluttony and set it off, no such thing as gluttony in this feast. So there it is, but as you’re eating and eating, you get to a point where you’re full and you push back away from the table, now you might have eaten just one dish, it’s your favorite, and you just ate that, but then you got full and you’re done eating. Or you might have been like a seven-year-old at Golden Corral and you got 16 different disparate things and put it all on your tray and who knows what you have, and you have chocolate pudding and pepperoni pizza and Salisbury steak and those little gummy worms and it just really- alright, so there’s a heavenly version of that, so you’re eating all these different dishes and there’s a limitless supply of each of the dish, and when you get done, you’re done. But people have different appetites.

So the most exciting thing for me about all this is you’re actually how you’re living now is affecting your heavenly appetite. The measure you use now is the measure you’ll receive in heaven, the more self-denying and self-sacrificial and holy you are now the greater taste for God’s glory you’ll have in heaven, there is a link between the two. I think that’s of the essence of heavenly rewards, rewards is all about experience with God. So, as I’ve said in one sermon years ago, how much heaven do you want? You show it by how you live, how holy you are, and how courageous you are with the gospel and the things that you do for the glory of God, how much heaven do you want, but in any case, once we all get there, there’ll be no envy because you get to eat as much as you want of everything that’s available there. And we’ll have a perfect love for the saints in heaven.

As Edwards said, “There is undoubtedly an inconceivable, pure, sweet, fervent love between the saints in glory, and the love is in proportion to the perfection and attractiveness of the objects beloved.” And the most glorious ones, amazingly, according to Edwards, will be the most humble as well, ’cause they’ll be the closest to God, and they’ll know how small they are, because they’re that close to God. And so these that are the most esteemed have the seats at the right and left hand of Jesus, as was mentioned in the account, “To sit at my right or my left is not for me to give, is for those for whom they’re prepared.” Somebody- there are people there. But they will be the humblest people in heaven, if you can imagine in some sense that, ’cause they will have a sense of their own smallness as creatures, and they will be delightful people to interact with in heaven. No arrogance at all. Edwards said this, “Such will be the sweet and perfect harmony among the heavenly saints, and such will be the perfect love reigning in every heart toward every other without limiter, alloy or interruption, and no envy or malice or revenge or contempt or selfishness will ever enter there. But all such feelings will be kept as far away as sin is from holiness and is hell is from heaven.”

V. Applications

Alright, that’s enough for now. Let’s take some applications. If heaven is like this, how should you live now? That’s the question that’s in front of us, right? Let’s begin by looking at 1 Corinthians 13 again and say, “Lord, would you please work this love in me, because this is what I’m gonna spend eternity being”. So begin looking at your closest relationships, begin looking at your family relationships. Begin, you marry people, looking at your relationship with your spouse, are you loving your spouse as you will love him or her in heaven? And that’s part of your inheritance. Ask the Holy Spirit, the deposit, the down payment, the one who gives heaven to you now, as much as he chooses to, give you as much heavenly love as you can possibly have for other people now, especially those that are in close proximity to you.

Secondly, see how happy must be those people that will be in heaven, how happy it will be to be there. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I need some of that happiness these days. It’s not been a happy year for many people and I think we need to drink at this fountain more than we do. So let these meditations make you joyful in the Lord, as the scripture says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Find in this meditation joy even when facing COVID 19 and systemic racism and injustice issues and poverty issues and all of those things, as you face these seemingly insurmountable intractable problems, let the meditation of your heavenly future give you joy, but it can’t stop there. Let it give you energy, ambition, in a healthy way, drive to do the good works that God has called on us as Christians to do, we’re left here on earth to do good works, having come to faith in Christ. That’s it.

And it’s a matter of the two journeys of growing in holiness, putting sin to death, do it in light of eternity so I can have a great taste for you in heaven, give it to me now on earth, let it drive away earthly lusts and ambitions and corrupted desires and let me have a pure desire for God, but then beyond that, we as Christians are called on to go toward misery and suffering and alleviate it as best we can. One of the big charges that I’ve heard, I’ve watched a lot of documentaries on race relations in our country, it’s been sad. It’s been depressing. It’s been educational. It’s been hard to watch, but one of the charges made by some of the scholars, black scholars, who are not Christians and are hostile toward Christianity, is that heaven in particular saps people’s strength to make any changes on earth. Let me tell you something right now: It ought not to!

I think a healthy meditation on heaven should give you so much hope and robust energy that it will cause you to move out in the direction God wants you to go, and I don’t know what that is, I don’t know what your calling is, but God’s position each one of you, to do good works for his glory. We’re surrounded by lost-ness, by people who don’t know the Lord. They’re without hope and without God in the world. Be so radiant with hope that they ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But there are widows and orphans in their distress; we’re called on, as James said, to help them. There are various wars going on that the world cannot solve, like war on poverty, war on racism, war on terror, all these war’s on, how are they doing? Poorly.

But we know that the gospel has the answer. So we’re called on to be salt and light, we’re called on to do things that God’s called on us to do, and so this meditation should give us energy to put sin to death, to be less selfish, and to see what ways God is calling on us to make an impact on the suffering in this world, and wouldn’t it be delightful to take someone who’s just wiped out by sin and depressed and hopeless and all that, and see them cross over into light and start teaching them these kind of things, let me tell you where you’re headed, dear brother and dear sister, now that you’ve come to Christ, now that you’ve trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, all your sins are forgiven. Guess where you’re going, let me tell you something about it.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the extended meditation we’ve had today, thank you for our brother Jonathan Edwards for things that he did years ago, almost 300 years ago. And I pray that you would take the truths that we’ve walked through today and press them in our hearts, let them transform us, let them move in us, help us to see you, Lord, as the source, the endless fountain of all true love there is in the universe, and help us to draw close to that and be transformed by it, and to go towards suffering, not away from it and to embrace difficult ministries that you’ve called us to, so that we can see people who are lost, find salvation in Christ, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

1 Corinthians 13:9-13 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Paul is speaking of the eternal future of love. He has shown that all the spiritual gifts are temporary… they all have a temporary function in the saving work of Almighty God in the human soul. They play a vital role in delivering truth to the soul as part of our salvation from sin through faith in Christ. But when Christ returns and ends the world, and when he ushers his elect into the New Heavens and New Earth, which will be our eternal home, all the spiritual gifts will become obsolete… even faith and hope will be obsolete… fulfilled by the reality of heaven. But love will remain eternally.

Jonathan Edwards culminated his seventeen sermons in 1 Corinthians 13 with a forty-page message entitled “Heaven is a world of love.” It is one of the greatest pieces of theological reasoning and explanation I have ever read. It moved me over five years ago to begin a similar theological, exegetical, and rational exploration of heaven that continues to this day. I drank in Edwards’s approach and methodology, and sat at the feet of the master… my angle, that a large part of our experience of the glory of God in heaven will be LOOKING BACKWARD at God’s mighty actions in history, Edwards never mentions or even alludes to!! But what he does do it take us on a tour of heaven as it will be… a world in which the love taught in the New Testament (and especially in this love chapter… 1 Corinthians 13) will be perfectly fulfilled—“Heaven is a world of love.”

This sermon (and next week’s) are just my own restating and simplification of and interaction with Edwards’s essay. I swam in the sea of his words and have understood some aspects of it. I will follow his outline and quote him freely. Occasionally, I will use my own illustrations or words to describe what I think Edwards meant or where his words took me.

My desire is that my efforts will stimulate you to heavenly meditations and to a much more heavenly lifestyle… that as much as possible you will begin to live a life of love because you have understood what heaven will be like… a world of love.

Brief exegesis: Paul has been showing the superiority of love to all spiritual gifts… so much so that, even if you have an extreme, even supernatural level of the spiritual gifts (speaking in the tongues of angels, or fathoming all mysteries of theology, or having all theological knowledge, or dying in the flames as a martyr after giving away everything you possess to the poor and needy)… the greatest displays of each spiritual gift known to the history of the church… even if you did all this, if you had no love—you would be nothing, you would accomplish nothing for Christ’s Kingdom, and you would receive nothing—no rewards from God.

Paul then goes on to give fifteen descriptions of love… some positive, but mostly negative:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

Having described what love is and isn’t… what it does do and what it doesn’t… Paul then speaks of the limitations of the gifts: the gifts are TEMPORARY and deliver at best a limited, immature, imperfect knowledge of God… like we are little children, babbling “dadda” and trying to understand the person that our Daddy is… like we are squinting through a mirror which gives to our minds a slightly distorted and limited picture of God

NOT THAT the words given us by the prophets are flawed… not at all, for all scripture is God-breathed, flawless like silver perfectly refined in a crucible. BUT words themselves are limited, and the knowledge they deliver of God limited, imperfect, and immature compared to the level of knowledge we will have of God and of Christ when we see them FACE TO FACE… then we shall have a mature, perfect, limitless knowledge of God—we shall know him fully, even as we have been fully known.

Alright. Now we have some introductions out of the way. Let’s get to the insights that came from the pen of Jonathan Edwards in 1738 … 282 years ago

Edwards divided his essay into six headings:

1)    The Cause and Fountain of the Love that is in Heaven

2)    The Objects of that Love that is in Heaven

3)    The Subjects of that Love that is in Heaven

4)    The Principle (or Nature) of that Love that is in Heaven

5)    The Circumstances in which Heavenly Love is Exercised, Expressed, and Enjoyed

6)    The Happy Effects/Fruits of that Love that is in Heaven Let’s see how many of these we can get through today.

Let me say one thing about listening to Edwards… he works and works and works the details, in ways that sometimes seem repetitive… sometimes he says things that seem to be obvious, but as he begins to put things together, suddenly your eyes start to widen and you start to see things you never saw before and in the end, it’s like you’ve been escorted into a new world. Like the “wardrobe”… the stand-alone clothing closet in C.S. Lewis’s classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe… you slip into the closet to hide in your game of hide and seek; you feel the brush of coats and other garments on your face as you push further and further back into the closet… then suddenly you feel tree branches and it seems like it’s winter and you push out and look around—you have stepped into another world

Edwards takes “seeing through a glass darkly” and steps through the looking glass into a future world… defined by theology and exegesis of scripture and reason—logic.

So follow me as I follow Jonathan Edwards into the future world… heaven… a world of love

I.   The Cause and Fountain of that Love in Heaven

A.   The God of Love HIMSELF Dwells in Heaven

1.   Heaven is the place where God dwells and where he most clearly reveals himself

2.   The New Heavens and New Earth and the New Jerusalem will glow and be completely illuminated and will radiate with the glory of God

3.   So, heaven is a world of love because the God of love especially dwells there

a.   Now of course you will say, “But God is omnipresent…” As Psalm 139 says “Where can I go from your Spirit, where can I flee from your presence?”

b.   But God especially chooses to reveal himself more in one place than another

c.   In the Old Testament, God was in that sense MORE in Israel than in any other nation on earth

d.   And God was more in Jerusalem than in any other city in Israel

e.   And God was more in the temple than in any other building in Jerusalem

f.   And God was more in the holy of holies than any other part of the temple

g.   And God was more in the mercy seat above the ark than any other part of the holy of holies

4.   BUT God is MORE in heaven than in any other part in the universe… for it is said to be his throne and his dwelling place

5.   In our eternal future, when God brings in the New Heaven, the New Earth, and the New Jerusalem… God will in some sense DESCEND forever to make heaven and earth become ONE… and there God will dwell in the midst of his people

6.   Since God is a God of love, so heaven will be a world of love… a concentrated experience of love… God the perfect source and fountain of all love

1 John 4:8 God is love

7.   All true love ultimately has its source in God, the Almighty Creator of all things

8.   Because God is all-sufficient, he will be a limitless source of love… the love that fills heaven will never end, even out to eternity… full, eternal, overflowing

9.   In this sense, it will be like the river of the water of life

Revelation 22:1-2 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city.

But also picture this heavenly love which flows from the throne of God also as filling up an endless ocean in which we can swim forever… a picture of complete saturation in the love of God

B.   The Triune God is a God of Love

1.   From eternity past to eternity future, the three persons of the Trinity have been loving each other

2.   The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father; and the Father loves the Spirit and the Son loves the Spirit… so on

3.   The persons of the Trinity are infinitely dear and precious to one another, with an incomprehensible love flowing and reflowing within the godhead

4.   The Father: loves the Son with a perfect love; in fact the depths of the Father’s love for his only begotten Son cannot be measured or captured in any words… it is hotter and brighter than the sun shining in space; but the Father also loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son on the cross for the salvation of all who believe in him

5.   The Son, Jesus Christ, perfectly loves his Father… loved him so perfectly as to die to fulfill his will; but he also loves his people… having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end; he loved his Bride enough to die for her; Jesus is perfect in love

6.   The Holy Spirit is the one who has personally delivered the love of God and of Christ directly to the minds and souls of the elect in every generation; the fruit of the Spirit is love

7.   So, heaven is a world of love because this perfectly loving Triune God is a God of love

C.   Perfect Fellowship with the God of Love

1.   In heaven, our fellowship with God will be perfect, face to face, without any blockage or hindrance or distance

2.   We will see God and drink in God’s love and swim in it for all eternity

II.   The Objects of Love in Heaven

A.   There Will be Nothing but LOVELY Objects in Heaven

1.   There will be nothing odious, ugly, blemished, disgusting, malformed, corrupt, diseased, repulsive, broken, dark, or evil in heaven

Revelation 21:27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

2.   All the angels in heaven will be holy, good, glorious, radiant, filled with love for God and for Christ… all of the evil angels (including the devil himself) will have been thrown into the Lake of Fire

3.   The only people permitted in that world will be the redeemed from every nation on earth

4.   There will be no hypocrites, false professors of Christianity, nominal Christians… there will also certainly be no open rebels, or wicked people, or followers of other gods and goddesses

5.   Not only so…

B.   All the Redeemed will be Perfectly Lovely… Radiantly Glorious

1.   All the redeemed in heaven will be perfectly lovely, radiant, beautiful… for Jesus said “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” (Mt. 13:43)

2.   The present world is flawed and imperfect… even the sun has sunspots… in the same way, in this world even the most eminent saints have flaws and imperfections and failings; as James said “We all stumble in many ways” and King David said “My sins are more numerous than the hairs on my head”

3.   But in heaven, the saints will all have been glorified… perfectly conformed to Christ mentally, morally, physically, emotionally, spiritually… perfect in every way

4.   Love will be fulfilled in every single one of them: they will be perfectly kind, perfectly free from envy, boasting, pride, rudeness, anger

Edwards: “No string in the heavenly symphony shall vibrate out of tune”; not a single discordant note in the heavenly song of worship to the Lamb

C.   The Place Shall Be Perfectly Beautiful

1.   The world shall be perfectly beautiful: the New Heavens and New Earth shall be free forever from its bondage to decay… the creation shall be perfectly radiant, glowing with the glory of God in the details of creation; it will attract our love and delight continually whenever we look at it in heaven

2.   So also the city will perfectly beautiful: even the most spectacular city in this present age—maybe Paris (the City of Lights) or Prague—has dirt on its streets and filth in its alleyways; but the New Jerusalem is described in its radiant beauty in Revelation 21- 22… it will attract our loving admiration for its beauty and proportions forever

D.   The Things We Loved THE MOST will be There, Perfectly Beautiful

1.   The deepest desire of our hearts as Christians was the glory of God… to see the source of all beauty will ravish our resurrected eyes forever

2.   So also the saints we cherished the most in this world will be there, free from all sin and decay of age and disease… the Christian spouse; the Christian friend; the Christian father or mother; the Christian leader; all the best people we knew in this world will be perfected in the next world

So… the OBJECTS of our love will be perfectly beautiful in heaven

III.   The Subjects of our Heavenly Love

By this, Edwards means the HEARTS of those who love… both the HEART of God and the HEARTS of the redeemed…

A.   The Heart of God is the original seat of Love… the capacity to love

B.   Love is in God as Light is in the Sun

1.   Not as the moon or the planets which reflect the light of the sun

2.   But God generates his own love… his heart is attracted to the inhabitants of heaven… it moves out in love toward all his perfected creations

C.   God is TRULY ATTRACTED TO all the Redeemed in Heaven

1.   He loves all the saints truly and deeply and fully

2.   None of the redeemed will be merely tolerated by God or ignored or slighted by God… but God will have a full, rich, comprehensive love to each and every one of his redeemed children… he has graven them in the palms of his hands; they are the apple of his eye, the delight of his soul… all of them

By contrast: we could imagine some art collector that has a vast art collection, many of the items bought by his employees at galleries and auctions with his permission and money but without his knowledge; they are bought according to certain criteria he gives, but he never sees the actual pieces or delights in them at all… they are wrapped up in bubble wrap and stored in one of his vast repositories in some city he never visits… but he displays his favorite art pieces in his mansion on the California coastline… he looks at them every day, gazing and at them, for “a thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

THAT IS NOT how it is with God and the redeemed…. Rather God has an intimate and personal knowledge of each and every one of his children; he knows each of them by name… they are fashioned by his hand, sanctified carefully by his direct activity, and he delights in each one as a masterpiece of his grace andpower… he truly and perfectly and individually KNOWS and LOVES each one BY NAME

Isaiah 43:1 this is what the LORD says– he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”

John 10:3 He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

Another opposite example: Some kings may allow former enemies to live in his kingdom… even in his capitol city; he may even pay for their needs from the royal treasury; but the king has no desire for a relationship with them… he does not invite them to dine with him at his personal table; he does not get to know them or allow them to know him or call him by his first name.

Think of David with his rebellious son Absalom. He banished him after he murdered his half-brother Amnon… then he was persuaded to bring him back to the Kingdom; but David never invited him back into his life; Absalom was back home, but not back into his father’s heart. He had to burn Joab’s field to get his attention, so that Joab could intercede for him to his own father, to ask if he might be welcomed back into the palace.

NOT SO the redeemed in heaven! God will have a full, rich, complete delight in every single one of his children… allowing full access to them, pouring out his affection on each one. His limitless mind and limitless heart allows limitless access and limitless love relationship with each and every one of the multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people and nation.

D.   So also the HEART of Christ delights fully and personally in all of his saints

1.   They are united to him as he is their HEAD and they are all members of his Body

2.   They are intimately one with him as the mystery of marriage pictured the mystical union of Christ and his Bride

3.   The heart of Jesus is expanded to include and delight in every single one of his redeemed

E.   In the Same Way… the Hearts of the Saints and Angels will be perfectly full of love

1.   Love toward God… and to each other

2.   All members of the glorious society of heaven will be united perfectly in love for one another and for God

3.   Not a single open or concealed enemy in their midst; none out in the cold or shunned or despised or outcast or lonely

IV.   Of the Nature and Degree of Heavenly Love

A.   Nature

1.   Altogether holy and divine… totally conformed to God’s love

a.   Not carnal, lustful, impure, or corrupt

b.   A love that is pure as light

2.   Love for God perfected

a.     The saints in heaven love God with a holy and perfect love… finally we will fulfill for all eternity the first and greatest commandment… we will love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our minds, and with all our strength

b.   Our love for God will be based on a perfect KNOWLEDGE of God… we will see him face to face and know him fully as he has known us fully

Edwards does not mention this, but let me interject here: we will never be OMNISCIENT… therefore, our knowledge of God will keep expanding for all eternity… as we keep learning new things God has done, new reasons to praise him; therefore our love for God will also keep expanding and improving

c.   So the saints’ love for God in heaven will be pure, accurate, based on truth, free from idolatrous conceptions and false motives

3.   Love for others is perfected as well

a.   The second great commandment will be perfected in heaven as well

b.   All the redeemed will love all the other redeemed with a perfectly pure love… free from all evil motives; no base carnal lusts or selfish principles; no pride, no envy, no greed, no boasting

c.   We will also love the angels purely and perfectly; we will not worship the angels, but will delight in their beauty and power and perfect service to God

B.   Degree

1.   Our heavenly love will be perfect in degree

2.   Simply put, we will love God vastly MORE in heaven than we ever could on earth; our intensity of love toward him will be overpoweringly strong

3.   As a spark becomes a roaring inferno, so our love for God here on earth is a weak fragile spark that will become a powerful inferno in heaven

4.   As I said, it will be based on truth… so our love for God and for all radiant creatures in heaven will be PROPORTIONAL to their glory

a.   Infinite and ultimate glory is God’s alone… so we will worship God and God alone

b.   BUT other created beings will have proportional levels of glory, and our love for each of them will be intelligent and proportional

c.   What is MOST glorious will be loved the MOST; what is LEAST glorious will be loved the LEAST, but every glorious

thing will receive its appropriate level of affection from the hearts of the saints… PROPORTIONAL LOVE

A wildflower standing with simple beauty in a field in the New Earth will have a measure of beauty and glory given it by God…

Jesus said “Consider the lilies of the field”; in heaven we will have plenty of time to “stop and smell the roses”… so if we pluck that wildflower and gaze thoughtfully at it, knowing that God made it, we will love it as such—a simple display of my Father’s creative power; I will love that heavenly wildflower at one level; but I will love a redeemed martyr who died for the spread of the gospel in a Muslim country MORE… I will have a more ardent attraction to their glory, because they will display MORE of God’s glory than the simple wildflower will

C.   Key Concept: DIFFERING LEVELS OF GLORY

1.   It was from Edwards’s “Heaven is a World of Love” that I first considered the possibility that the saints in heaven would all be perfectly glorious but not equally glorious

2.   I used to have an underdeveloped theology of heaven… very simple… just we’ll die and go to heaven and be happy there; then I learned about glorification, and I added… “We’ll all die and go to heaven and be glorious and happy there.” I just assumed we would all be equal.

3.   But it was Edwards that pointed out to my mind that there will be differing levels of glory in the resurrection, for as 1 Corinthians 15:41-42 says “Star differs from star in glory… so will it be with the resurrection from the dead.”

4.   Edwards spends a great deal of time on the differing levels of glory for the saints in heaven, and how heavenly love will be perfect in reference to that reality

5.   Glorification will drive away all enmity, distaste, coldness toward God… we will at every moment be ardent in our love for him; but it will also be gone toward other saints; no ENVY or ARROGANCE toward other saints

6.   We will totally delight in the honors and blessings and rewards and crowns bestowed by God on each of our brothers and sisters in heaven; the greater the prosperity and blessedness of each in heaven, the greater will our delight be for that person

7.   Those that are HIGHEST IN GLORY will also be those that are HIGHEST IN HOLINESS; so the more radiantly they display the glory of God, the more the other saints will delight in that superior glory

Edwards: “It will not be a grief to any saint to see another saint elevated and honored above himself; actually it will draw forth greater love and admiration and honor because God has done it and God is revealed and glorified by that person.”

D.   Variable Experiences in Heaven

1.   This varying level of glory in heaven opens up the concept of varying levels of experience in heaven

2.   Edwards said “All shall have as much love as they desire and as great manifestations as they can bear; and so all shall be FULLY SATISFIED, and where there is perfect satisfaction, there can be no envy.”

Illus.: Imagine a perfectly pure and wonderful feast in which there are a vast number of different dishes, with different spices

cooked of a different style… but plenty of each dish; and each person at the banquet can eat as much or as little of each dish as he or she wishes; some like a little of this and a lot of that; others have a smaller appetite; others like just one dish and eat a lot of it, but there’s still plenty of that dish for anyone else to share as well… at the end of the meal, after each has eaten his or her fill and can’t eat another bite, but there is still plenty of each dish left over… how could there possibly by any ENVY or JEALOUSY about how someone chose to eat? So in heaven, each will have as much of God and of the varying aspects of his glory as he desires…

Interesting factor: HOW WE LIVE ON EARTH WILL AFFECT HOW MUCH OF GOD’S GLORY WE EXPERIENCE AND ENJOY IN

HEAVEN! “The measure you use on earth will be the measure you receive in heaven.”

3.   There will be some saints vastly more honored and radiantly more glorious than I will be… there service to Christ on earth will merit such glory; but I will not be jealous in the least, but will feel absolutely delighted that they are so glorious… and will see the justice and rightness of the way God honored them above me

E.   Perfect Love for the Saints

Edwards: “There is undoubtedly an inconceivably pure, sweet, and fervent love between the saints in glory; and that love is in proportion to the perfection and attractiveness of the objects beloved.”

F.   Perfect in Glory = Perfect in Humility

1.   In the same way, those most glorious in heaven will also have the greatest vision of the glory of God and a clearer sense of their own LITTLENESS before him… so they will paradoxically be the most HUMBLE… the most HONORED in heaven will also be the most HUMBLE!

2.   Those that are most glorious will have the greatest capacity to understand God in his infinite majesty… that will be deeply fully completely satisfying and humbling to them

Edwards: “Such will be the sweet and perfect harmony among the heavenly saints, and such will be the perfect love reigning in every heart toward every other, without limit or alloy or interruption; and no envy or malice or revenge or contempt or selfishness will ever enter there, but all such feelings will be kept as far away as sin is from holiness and as hell is from heaven.”

Let’s stop there… we will resume next week, God willing!

V.   Applications

A.   If heaven is like this, the see how repulsive ought to be our present sinfulness with each other

1.   Look at your family life… start with your marriage… are you displaying a heavenly selfless love toward your spouse? Of course not! But in whatever ways you aren’t, you are hurting your sense of heavenly hope

2.   You own assurance of heaven is dependent on the degree to which you imitate this heavenly love NOW by the Spirit

B.   See How HAPPY Must Be All Who are ENTITLED to Heaven as their Inheritance

Revelation 22:14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.

C.   Note How the Spirit Marks Those on the Road to Heaven

1.   Deposits guaranteeing full inheritance (Eph. 1:14); foretastes

2.   Love for the world is exposed, dims and is strangled in a delightful way

3.   They struggle after holiness so that they may enjoy as much of heaven NOW as they can

D.   Alarm and Awaken All On the Outside!

1.   There should be no greater “fear of missing out” than this

2.   The alternative is hell… a world of HATRED

3.   Come to Christ