The Gaining of God and All Things
One of the most interesting but “unofficial” disagreements over what the Bible says that I have witnessed over the course of my two decades pastoring is a debate over whether heaven will fundamentally be worship of God or else inheriting all good things. If your immediate response to this is, “Why can’t it be both?” then you may be inclined to skip this little article as you may not struggle with such a thought. On the other hand, it may be helpful to reflect on why these two ideas go together.
In our own circles, this discussion arose because of some in the church reading a book written by Randy Alcorn called Heaven. Anyone who has read it knows that there is much in there that can easily be accused of “speculation,” or even, perhaps, over-emphasis on the bodily experience, or even too many assumptions of continuity between this age and the age to come when it pertains to vocation or customs of time and place. I will leave aside what I personally think of such criticisms.
All of this was against the backdrop of several of John Piper’s books that our same circles had been very familiar with for years in books like Desiring God or When I Don’t Desire God or God is the Gospel, and so on. From the fundamental principle of Piper’s so-called Christian Hedonism—namely that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him”—one would seem to get the exact opposite impression that one receives from Alcorn’s picture of heaven. At least that was the tension: How can we truly worship God in the purest form if any lesser thing is a source of our joy?
Now I could go on and on with passages of Scripture where we are in fact promised a restoration of things, a glorification of our bodies, and even a vindication of the truth in matters in this life where we have been slandered or mistreated in one way or another. I could speak of how the Bible paints a picture of an earth renewed, of fellowship and feasting with the saints, and even of plants and animals and rooms and city streets. But that is not the purpose here. I only want to provide a devotional-size dose of common sense to get the reader out of a false dilemma. Although I will point to two main passages toward that end.
Jesus Appeals to the Hope of All Things Restored
In a recent sermon I preached on Matthew 19:25-30, our congregation saw that only the infinite is going to overcome the impossible. That is, only a conviction that what we will gain in the age to come will infinitely surpass what we lose in following Christ—only this incentive can move the new heart from the City of Destruction to brave all trials on the path to the Celestial City (to use Bunyan’s imagery). Christ’s figurative use of the “hundredfold” measure was a means of communicating that these are indeed infinite returns.
For instance, the return is infinite,
First, because the duration of time is made infinite. Jesus promises that we “shall never perish” (Jn. 10:28), that “whoever does the will of God lives forever” (1 Jn. 2:17), “and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17).
Second, the return is infinite because the resources of the new world are made infinite: “But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst” (Jn. 4:14); “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst” (Rev. 7:16). Not only about physical sustenance, but we expect a world of delight that will make the original Paradise of Eden pale by comparison: “at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11).
Third, the return is infinite because the capacities of the soul for happiness are made infinite. He has “qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12). As the source of light, so its channels. Our souls will no longer be shriveled up, feeding on the spiritual toxins that corrupt; but being made holy, we will grow to desire only that which is holy and especially from the fountain of holiness, which is God Himself: “then you shall delight yourself in the LORD” (Isa. 58:14), so that as “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), we will be reflections of an ever-increasing joy that can never grow old.
Fourth, the return is infinite because the God who is the Giver of all good things is infinite. He is that “Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17), “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty’” (Rev. 1:8). So the King of this Kingdom is infinite, having boundless life and eternity in His own Person.
The Fountain of Joy is Magnified in its Channels
It is the relationship of that fourth reason to the others that begins to open up how gaining God Himself can be the ultimate good news and, for that very reason, how the good things restored do not conflict with His glory, but rather reflect and channel His glory to our hearts and, through our enjoyment of them, outward toward others.
Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon called “Heaven: A World of Love,”1 that gives us a glimpse of how a diversity of things, including even a diversity in the capacities of our soul and excellence in gifts, becomes a means of increasing the joy of all. He argues that those who are nearest to God in holiness will be happiest for it; yet those who are most satisfied in God will reflect more of God. But if the souls of all people were made for that same delight, then the sight of such a saint’s particular joys will cause the very opposite of that pettiness that comprises all that we know of coveting in this life. Likewise in the disposition of the more exalted saint toward his brothers and sisters.
Just when we may be tempted to think that this is all merely theoretical, we may recall a few things Jesus prayed to the Father for us in John 17. There we learn that to know God is life itself, eternal life (v. 3), that the greatest treasure in this is to behold the glory of Christ (vv. 2, 5, 24), and that we would all be one in this, even as the Son is one with the Father (vv. 21, 23). And if one studies it out, the connection is that the seeing of Christ’s glory in the only state they could (in His glorified humanity) becomes the cause of their knowing more of God and therefore all that life (vv. 10, 13, 22).
Holiness, happiness, and humility tend to rise together. The greater one’s capacity to enjoy God, the more of Him one sees and thus, when it comes to the glorified creature, the comparative littleness is sensed of oneself.
What causes admiration in one creature for another will be unnoticeable for the object of that admiration, since his or her focus will be entirely on God. The more good my neighbor has, the more of God I get to behold. And the more good, personally tailored for the individual, we realize is coming from God’s hand, the more we will learn of His artistry, as the Mind which contrived each particular wonder must be far greater than its effect in the creaturely experience.
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1. Jonathan Edwards, “Heaven: A World of Love,” in Charity and its Fruits (Orlando: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2005).
