Heaven! # 1

Heaven! # 1

Heaven is represented in the New Testament as a social state. Jesus speaks of it as His Father's house, where there "are many mansions." Paul alludes to "the family of Heaven," and to "the innumerable company, the spirits of the just made perfect, and the assembly of the church of the first-born." John brings before us an immense multitude, redeemed out of every nation, kindred, people, and tongue; constituting, with the angelic hosts, the community of the skies.

Man is formed for social life. Unfitted for the solitude of the desert - his energies expand, his character improves, his joys are multiplied and heightened in society. The distinguishing principles of human nature will no doubt be preserved in Heaven, and social tendencies will there find perpetual and undisturbed sources of gratification.

Some people conceive of Heaven as the furthest possible removed from earth - as affording a contrast to it in every respect. But does not the Scripture revelation of the future, under all kinds of images drawn from the present life, rather lead us to believe, that hereafter our condition will resemble what it is now, so far as that can be consistently with perfect holiness and perfect bliss? Is not this, too, most in harmony with the beautiful belief, that the eternal life of the Christian is one only spent in different worlds and under different conditions? Is it not also most rational and probable in itself? And certainly it is a view most calculated to interest our minds, and to attach our thoughts to the subject.

Some have a habit of representing Heaven in a way which, though they may think it very grand and sublime, is very uninviting to human creatures. Vast as must be the difference, in many respects, between the glorified condition of the saints and everything they have experienced here - yet I doubt whether there may not be more resemblance between the two states - the earthly and the heavenly - then some suppose.

Sins and infirmities will, of course, be excluded from the better world - the enjoyments and perfections of sincere Christians will be immensely heightened - but, if we look on the brightest and purest spots of human nature, and human life as it is here, we may be led to form, I think, reasonable conjectures as to some things that will be hereafter.

The society of Heaven will comprehend at least the myriads of the redeemed. All the excellent of the earth will form one family. Bearing in mind the intellectual and moral nature of the redeemed in glory, we see at once that the fellowship of Heaven must be perfect. How sublime and holy will be their converse, wedded to each other in the ties of an indissoluble affection; and freed from those trifling and frivolous affairs which here obtain and even require so much attention, and bring so much annoyance. In Heaven, no obstruction to the enjoyment of friendship will arise from dissimilarity of views or from petulance of temper. Angry controversies can never disturb harmony, nor can indifference try love, nor can suspicion shake confidence.

Extensive as the community will be, no one in his excursions through those happy regions, will ever meet an individual whose heart will not be the mirror of his own holy heart, and whose feelings will not flow in the same direction.

Man here on earth, may be alone in society, cut off from communion when surrounded by a multitude, through his alienation from all their tastes and habits. But there, in whatever circle the redeemed saint may move, whether conversing with fellow-creatures or with angels, he will find them friends and brethren, engaged in kindred employments, and embued with the same spirit.

Looking at what seems an indestructible principle in our social nature - that is, the strong affinity we feel to some in preference to others - we cannot but think there will be special friendships formed and enjoyed hereafter. Surely, in that world of innumerale inhabitants, every one will not be known and loved alike. The idea of a sort of perfected socialism hereafter - a cosmopolitan kind of existence, in which all fellow-beings will seem the same to each - a society on the basis of an indistinguishing universal philanthropy, is certainly very repellant, even to the most loving hearts and the best of men in the present world. And we see no ground for it, either in reason or in Scripture.

~John Stoughton~

(continued with # 2)