“We are going to a Country surpassing for glory and beauty the utmost stretch of the human imagination—Heaven. Concerning it we often sing:
“Heaven is our Fatherland,
Heaven is our Home! “
Through infinite grace we have become the children of God, redeemed by “the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18-19), and can look up to Heaven to the One who fills the Throne, and say, Father! We are going to “a Land that is fairer than day,” with the sweet thought that it is our Home.
Heaven is a Place, literally (John 14:2), not simply a condition. It is a place to which our Lord has gone, calling it “My Father’s House,” where there are many “mansions” or abiding places. Yonder He has prepared a “place “for us, and if it were not so He would have told us, so He said.
Heaven is a Paradise (2 Cor. 12:4). God made a Paradise for our first parents, a specially beautiful spot in the fair creation fresh from His hand; there He walked and talked with them until sin was committed. What a charming “garden of delights “it must have been! It has gone from this scene; yet there is another, a fairer one, in the realms above, where sinners saved by “the Blood of the Lamb,” will “eat of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God “(Rev. 2:7); where no sin can enter, nor the communion be hindered. How gladsome is the prospect!
Heaven is a Country (Heb. 11:14-16), transcending all human conception. If this world, still wonderfully lovely, has a charm all its own, then what will the Heavenly be like, the “better country,” where indeed “every prospect pleases “and man no longer is vile, and God and the Lamb are there?
There are Inheritances in Heaven (1 Pet. 1:4), to be truly possessed and enjoyed; likewise many and great rewards for faithful service (1 Cor. 3:14). We know how a country will honour its illustrious citizens; even thus will it be with those whom the King Eternal delights to honour, honour surpassing all earthly glory (compare Esther 6:7-9).
The Conditions of Heaven will differ greatly from our present experiences. There will be no night there, but one eternal glorious day; no sun or moon will give their light, for God Himself will lighten all the fair scene; the inhabitants feel no fatigue, they never grow old, and they count not time by years; nor shall sorrow, pain, tears, or death be known any more at all, for God will wipe away all tears and make all things new (Rev. 21:4-5).
In Beautiful new Bodies, like our Lord’s resurrection body, we shall appear; for no other is suited to the Heavenly environment, and none other could bear the “eternal weight of glory.” How strangely does the thought of Heaven move us at times; setting the heart-yearning for the day when the eyes shall at last behold our beautiful and everlasting Home. And the best of all our beloved Lord will welcome us there, who loved us and gave Himself for us, ever to be with Him.