Life. “But the gift of God is eternal life.” We should like any other future than a hellish one, even if we have to play country-gospel on a harp for the first thousand years. We should pray God to give us, through any process that is necessary: comfort instead of torment; instead of regret, relief; instead of weeping, laughing; instead of banishment, welcome; instead of isolation, company; instead of outer darkness, the glory of God and the light of Christ; and instead of being forgotten, that white stone with our heavenly name written inside it (Revelation 2.17.) We should like for our future, anything but the loneliness that being ‘cast out’ by God entails.
Incorruptible riches will be the treasure, and holy raptures the experience, of all sinners who abandon their condemning sins here and now. Heaven might not seem like an attractive option to those sinners among us who fancy themselves tough guys—until they’ve been breathing suffocating fumes for a minute or so, or bobbing in the lake of fire for a second or two. It is one thing to snicker at the rigors of this little world when we have been blessed with a strong constitution. But we should be mindful that when it gets hot, we run for shade and water; that when we get weary, we go to sleep; that when we get lonely, we talk to someone; that when we suffer a setback, we receive help. How would we bear an eternity of heat? What is it like to never be allowed to sleep? Everyone has been lonely. But once a person has hell for his abandonment, there can be no visitation or consolation ever. That will be, in fact, the perfection of loneliness. To scoff at heaven and joke about hell is easy to do from an easy chair with a beer in the hand. But he who thinks himself too mighty to need soft living in the kingdom of heaven does not take account of his own weakness. One moment in hell, and, like the rich man in the parable, the sinner will change his mind.
Think not that heaven is powerless to keep a sinner out if suddenly the sinner decides he wants in. The heavenly realm is not the harmless place that it has been made out to be. The commonest angels there can overtake the mightiest kings here. “And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces” (1 Chronicles 21.16.) The way people talk when a loved one dies, they must suppose that they and their loved ones will have it just as they like hereafter. Whoever thinks that he will go automatically to heaven no matter how he has lived his life is in for the worst kind of awakening. Whoever thinks that he will be able to break out of hell, take heaven by storm, and fashion a beer commercial to live in, is ignorant of basic metaphysical facts. Whoever thinks that he will be able to cross the chasm between hell and heaven in order to rule in heaven as he ruled on earth is ignorant of his own impotence. The powers of heaven will never be overcome, neither by partiers nor politicians. Because heaven is so impossible to imagine, I frequently meditate on what the Bible tells me will not be included there. “As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God” (Psalm 68.2.) This judgment will be fulfilled to benefit the saints in heaven. ‘The poor of this world’ will be found ‘heirs of the kingdom’ (James 2.5), while the rich oppressors who blasphemed God by their conduct will be locked out (verse 6.) If the men who control the world right now could get into heaven in their impenitent state, they would tear down the pearly gates, paint the streets of gold in gaudy colors, and begin immediately to contrive ways to take over and oppress. Heaven would be too hot; so they would impose taxes. Heaven would be unhealthy; so they would force vaccines. Heaven would be too holy; so they would announce pride parades, ban heavenly speech, and imprison every outspoken angel and saint. Heaven will be free of oppressors because it will be free of sinful indulgences. The kind of restraint that we need on earth will be operative in heaven; and yet heaven’s new inhabitants will be freer than they ever imagined a sinless state to involve.
Life in heaven will be the enjoyment of what God himself is satisfied with: his expulsive glory. It is a controlled expulsion; but it is more than merely self-generated. Glory is the resplendent emanation of who God is. Whatever the Creator of creatures, worlds, and spirits is satisfied to bask in is unimaginable, which is why heaven is practically indescribable.
