NEW BELIEVERS
Heaven, Day 3
Excerpted from the book, “Heaven: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything the Bible Says About Our Eternal Home (Clear Answers to 44 Real Questions About the Afterlife, Angels, Resurrection, and the Kingdom of God)”
Day Three: Seeing God’s face.
Revelation 22:4 says, “God’s servants will see His face.” John Donne wrote, “I shall rise from the dead. I shall see the Son of God, the Sun of Glory, and shine myself as that sun shines. I shall be united to the Ancient of Days, to God Himself, who had no morning, never began. No man ever saw God and lived, and yet, I shall not live until I see God. And when I have seen Him, I shall never die.”
Our longing for Heaven is a longing for God, a longing that involves not only our inner selves but our bodies as well. Being with God is the heart and soul of Heaven. Every other heavenly pleasure will derive from and be secondary to His holy presence. God’s greatest gift to us is and always will be Himself. His presence brings satisfaction. His absence brings thirst and longing. Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” Psalm 63:1 says, “Oh God, you are my God. Earnestly, I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
Ancient theologians often spoke of the beatific vision. The term comes from three Latin words that together mean a happy-making sight. The sight they spoke of was God. To see God’s face is the loftiest of all aspirations. It’s sad then that for most of us, it’s not at the top of our list of desires. When Moses said to God, “Show me your glory,” God responded, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, but you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face must not be seen.” Exodus 33. Moses saw God, but not God’s face.
The New Testament says that God lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. Thus, when we’re told in Revelation 22:4 that we’ll see God’s face, it should astound us. Hebrews 12 says, “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.” The obstacles to seeing God are daunting. It’s
only because we’ll be fully righteous in Christ and completely sinless that we’ll be able to see God and live.
To see God will be our greatest joy, the joy by which all other joys will be measured. David says in Psalm 27:4, “One thing I ask of the Lord. This is what I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” David was preoccupied with God’s person and also with God’s place. He longed to be where God was and to gaze on His beauty. To see God’s face is to behold His beauty. When Jesus Christ came to earth as one of us, God, who is transcendent, became imminent. Thus, one of the names given to Jesus is Emmanuel, which means God with us. Because God the Father and God the Son are one, as John 10:30 says, whenever we see Jesus in Heaven, we will see God. Because Jesus Christ is a permanent manifestation of God, he could say to His disciple Philip in John 14:9, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” Certainly then, a primary way we will see God the Father on the new Earth is through His Son, Jesus. Jesus also says in Matthew 5, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” In Revelation 22 when it says they will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads, it appears to be referring to seeing the face of God the Father.
Does God, who is not inherently physical, have a face in any sense but a figurative one? I’m not certain, and I don’t pretend to understand how we will see His face, but I rejoice in the anticipation that we will.
Scripture is full of great promises about what awaits us in Heaven. However, none is greater than the promise that we, as resurrected human beings, will actually see God. If you’re a follower of Jesus, what would you like to say now to the God whom you will one day see?
Father, fill us with the wonder of being able to see you face to face, to walk beside your Son and behold His eternally human and divine face. What a delight to gaze at you, the source of all good, all beauty, all mystery. And what an incomparable experience to not only imagine but one day actually see your face. You, who spun the galaxies into existence, who wove together the earth with its animals and oceans and forests and flowers, who created us in your glorious image. May we never lose sight of our highest destiny, to see you, and may we pass on that vision to those around us, including our children and our grandchildren.
– Randy Alcorn
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MY WORDS
I am looking forward to the day when I will see my Creator face to face!
I know I have not lived a perfect life, but Christ has given me a hope beyond this life!
I once heard a minister give a sermon on the New Heaven and the New Earth. In the middle of his sermon, he pulled out a 100-foot-long piece of rope. It was white in color.
Next, he took a marking pen and colored the first half inch of the rope red.
Then, he spread out the rope on the floor of his church. It went down the platform to the left, down the stairs, and onto the floor of the audiotorium. It finished near the back of the church.
Finally, the minister said this:
“See this half-inch, red-colored, area of the rope? This represents the 70-80 years you get to live on planet earth. The other ninety-nine feet, eleven and a half inches? Well, that represents your first 10,000 years of living life on the New Heaven and the New Earth along with Jesus, family, friends, Adam, Eve, Moses, Abraham, Ruth, David, Mary, Peter and many others. Don’t get so focused on the red area of the rope that you forget about the other ninety-nine feet, eleven and a half inches!”
If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me here!
Roy