Well on Sunday mornings here at First Presbyterian Church, we are engaged in a short series considering some of the biblical teaching on the subject of heaven. We’re trying to set our minds on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. And so far, we have looked at the history of heaven, its creation and its current character. And then last time, we looked at the future of heaven, thinking about that glorious day coming at the end of the age when the new heavens and the new earth will arrive at last and all things will be made new. And now today, I want us to try and answer the question, “What will we do in heaven? What is life like for those who dwell there?” So the history of heaven, the future of heaven last week, now today the life of heaven.
And to help us get at some of what the Bible says about the life of heaven, we are going to read three passages together. There are many places we might turn to, but we are going to start here – Revelation 6:9-11 and chapter 7:9-17, and chapter 14:1-13. And we will try to summarize the teaching of those texts and the teaching of the New Testament more generally under three headings. First – righteousness. That is, we will be holy in heaven. A large part of the biblical characterization of the experience of believers when they go to be with the Lord is the final removal of the last remnants of sin and what a joy it will be at long last to be truly holy. Righteousness. We will be holy in heaven. Secondly – rejoicing. We will be happy in heaven as we see our Savior at last face to face and the emblems of His love, His wounds, glorified at the right hand of God. What joy will fill our hearts. Righteousness. We’ll be holy in heaven, rejoicing; we’ll be happy in heaven. Then finally – rest. We will be home in heaven. Rest. What a relief it will be for sin and sorrow and sickness and death to be done at last. Righteousness – we will be holy. Rejoicing – we will be happy. Rest – we will be home when we get to heaven.
Before we unpack those headings, let’s pray and then we’ll begin by reading Revelation chapter 6 beginning at the ninth verse. Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, You reign right now in the same body in which You were crucified, in which You rose and ascended. Right now You reign in glory from the Father’s right hand, King of kings and Lord of lords. And we worship and adore You and we pray, send us Your Spirit now that we may catch just a glimpse of that glory that awaits us in Your presence forever. For we ask this in Your name, amen.
Revelation chapter 6 at the ninth verse. This is the Word of God:
“When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.”
Then chapter 7, at the ninth verse. Revelation 7 at verse 9:
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”
Then turn forward to chapter 14. Revelation chapter 14 at the first verse:
“Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.’
Another angel, a second, followed, saying, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.’
And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.’
Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’”
Amen.
After the first sermon in this short series, Dr. Ric Cannada, a former chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary and part of our congregation, Dr. Cannada emailed me. “When I was first with RTS,” he said, “I always signed my letters and emails, ‘For a new reformation.’ Then I heard Paul Kloistra talk about one of his students at Covenant Seminary who was from Africa about the time when he preached his senior sermon at CTS. That student said he wanted to preach on something he had not heard preached about in the three years he studied in the United States, but something that was preached about almost every Sunday back home in Africa – heaven. The student suggested that perhaps we in the US don’t preach much about heaven because we have it so good and easy here, but that they preach about heaven every Sunday back home because they have people in their churches dying almost weekly from AIDS and malnutrition and other things. After I heard that from Kloistra, I changed my signature and have used this change now for over 20 years – ‘For a new reformation now and with the joyful hope of the new heavens and the new earth to come.’”
That African student was onto something wasn’t he? We live lives of such relative comfort and ease that we rarely think about heaven, and when we do, if we are honest, it really doesn’t seem all that attractive a prospect. Truth be told, we rather prefer the abundance of our material prosperity here than the hard to picture raptures of our heavenly home hereafter. And that’s why it’s so important for us to take the time to bring the biblical teaching on the life of heaven into clearer focus. It will awaken in us a proper longing for the life to come. It will form in us a renewed resolve to prepare for that life even while we live in this one. And it will weaken our addiction to the fleeting pleasures of this life as we begin to see how much sweeter are the “solid joys and lasting treasures none but Zion’s children know” in the life that lies ahead of us. Heavenly-mindedness, let’s remember, is the biblical antidote to worldliness. And so we need, as Paul has been teaching us, we need to set our minds on things that are above and not on things on earth. That’s the business of this short sermon series. And so it matters, doesn’t it? It will help us live for God here in anticipation of the life we will have with Him hereafter.
A Life of Righteousness
And so what can we say about the life of heaven? Well first of all, heaven will be a life of righteousness. We will be holy in heaven. You will notice when we read Revelation chapter 6 that in verse 11, the believing dead are given white robes to wear. Likewise, chapter 7 verse 9, the great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne of God and of the Lamb are clothed in white robes. Now look at chapter 7 verse 13. Chapter 7 verse 13, John says, “One of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?’” And I love John’s diplomatic answer. Not wanting to get the answer wrong, he says, “Sir, you know.” He’s saying, “This is your show. You are the elder here. You tell me!” That’s an elder’s job, after all, isn’t it? To explain the Word of God. Newly ordained elders take note. And now look at the elder’s answer. Who are these in white robes? “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.”
Now hit the pause button there for a second. It is common today to view “the great tribulation” there as a reference to a special period of intense suffering just before the final return of Christ. But that is not John’s understanding of that phrase. That is a more recent interpretation that I believe to be incorrect. Back in chapter 1 verse 9, John actually introduces himself to the readers of the book of Revelation in this way. “I John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and kingdom and patient endurance that are in Christ Jesus.” By the way, those three things always go together, don’t they? The tribulation, the kingdom, and the patient endurance. They always come together for those who are in Jesus. To be in Jesus, to be a Christian means you are a citizen of the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. And that kingdom comes into direct conflict with the kingdom of the world. Hence, tribulation, opposition, suffering, which is why every citizen of the kingdom enduring the tribulation needs patient endurance. And so those three always go together.
And did you see when, in John’s mind, that tribulation begins? He’s writing to the churches of his own day and he says, “You are already in the tribulation and I am your partner in it along with you.” The great tribulation, in other words, actually is a reference to the whole period between the first and final coming of Jesus Christ, viewed from the vantage point of the suffering Church. It’s where we are living right now. And so when John sees this vast multitude from which no one can number, from every tribe and people and language who have come out of the great tribulation, who is he talking about? He’s talking about the whole Church; the whole company of the Lord’s redeemed who have been faithful and endured and come out of the sufferings and tribulations with which this age is characterized.
William Hendriksen, one of the commentators on the book of Revelation – if you want a reliable guide to interpreting Revelation, read More than Conquerors by William Hendriksen. It’s not long and it is outstanding. Let me commend it to you. It will be a very useful guide, especially in correcting some of the errors of dispensational theology. William Hendriksen says – he’s Dutch – “The Dutch have a term for dying, which literally means ‘to get over’ or ‘get beyond suffering.’” That’s the reality that John is seeing right here in the passage – believers who have gotten over, gotten through, gotten beyond suffering, the tribulation; they’ve reached the far shore. When you get to heaven, that’s what’s happened! At long last you’ve come out of the great tribulation that is our lives here as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
And what about their white robes? Remember the elders asking, “Who are these wearing white robes and from where have they come?” A soldier who’s come out of a battlezone, out of the frontlines of a war zone, he doesn’t come out of it in a pristine dress uniform, does he? So how can these have come through the great tribulation and still have white robes? Look at what the elder says. “These are they coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” They’re dressed in white robes because they’ve washed them and made them white in the Lamb’s blood.
Now blood stains, doesn’t it? It ruins clothes. It doesn’t make them white. But the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, “His blood,” Wesley sang, “His blood can make the foulest clean.” We sometimes sing, “For nothing good have I, whereby thy grace to claim. I’ll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary’s Lamb. Jesus paid it all! All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow.” That is the song of every citizen of heaven. They are robed in the righteousness of Christ, clean and pure and holy. And of course if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is already true of us even now, even here, isn’t it? Right now in the sight of God, before the bar of heaven’s justice, we are clean and righteous. Not because we are intrinsically; we remain yet still sinners. But because we are robed with the righteousness of Christ credited to us, reckoned as though it were our own, God hides our sin beneath the clean, white record of Jesus’ perfect obedience and blood.
And yet, in ourselves, there remains so much of our old life, of our wicked rebellion. There is so much remaining corruption in ourselves, isn’t there? Not so for these residents in heaven. Their white robes are the symbol not merely of a legal righteousness, satisfying divine justice, but of a pervasive, intrinsic holiness. They’re pure all the way through. That’s why, do you remember last week in Revelation 21, in the New Jerusalem John says nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who is detestable or false, only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Heaven will be, as 2 Peter 3 describes it, “the place where righteousness dwells,” where righteousness has its natural home, it’s natural habitat. And every citizen will be perfectly, comprehensively holy there. Hebrews 12:23, in heaven we come to “the spirits of the righteous made perfect.”
Now that’s not yet where we are, is it? We may be legally, forensically righteous, justified in Jesus Christ before the judgment of God right now, but we are not yet made perfect intrinsically, inherently. Are we? Not yet. God is working in us by His Word and Spirit, for sure, to mortify our sin and cause holiness, Christlikenss, to grow and ripen and mature in our lives. But the work is slow and hard, isn’t it? We are stubborn. We are addicted to our sin, aren’t we? And so our sanctification, our progress in holiness, it’s imperfect. It’s incomplete in this life. But in the moment that we die, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it, “Our souls are made perfect in righteousness and do pass immediately into glory.” The last remnants of sin will fall away, it will sluff off, then we will be free of its pollution and its power, and now even from its very presence.
Our sin in this life, it’s like heavy, iron shackles, like great chains constraining our wrists and our ankles. Do you remember Jacob Marley in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, bound, weighed down with his long, heavy chain. “I wear the chain,” he said. “I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard.” That’s our sin, all of us, and we’ve had to haul it around with us. It’s held us back. It’s frustrated us. We are not who we want to be. “The good that we want to do we do not do, but rather the evil we do not want to do, that we do. Who can save me,” we cry with the apostle Paul, “from this body of death?” That’s life here, isn’t it? But one day, for a believer in Jesus Christ, suddenly at death, when your eyes close on this mortal scene and open them to gaze at the face of Jesus Christ, the shackles will be unlocked, they will fall away, never to hinder you again. What a day that will be. Not another pang of conscience ever again! Not another moment’s guilt ever again! All the weight of our wicked hearts lifted from our shoulders forever, clean and pure and holy, outside and in. On that day, the white robes of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, with which we are already right now clothed if we are believers, will be matched by a perfectly clean heart as the Spirit of Christ will have finished His work in us and made us like Jesus. It will be a place of righteousness. We will be holy in heaven.
A Life of Rejoicing
Secondly, it will be a place of rejoicing. We will be happy in heaven. In Revelation 14, in verses 1 through 3, we read then, “Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.” Now again, a bit like the great tribulation, the 144,000 is another aspect of John’s vision that is often, in today’s evangelical world, is often misinterpreted to refer only to a specific number of individuals who believe in Jesus at the very end of history. But again, that is a misreading of Revelation. The number is symbolic, isn’t it? It’s 12 times 12 times 1,000. You might say it’s 12 to the “n”th degree. It’s 12 to the max. Twelve, of course, being the number of the tribes of Israel and of the apostles of Christ. So 12 times 12 times 1,000 is a symbol for the whole people of God, every single one of them. You are here in John’s vision if you are a believer in Jesus, your face in this great congregation.
And notice what they are doing. “I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, singing a new song.” They’re singing praises to God. The volume, John says, the noise is so deafening it’s like storm surge pounding the shore during a hurricane. It’s like Niagara Falls, deafening. It’s like constant thunder, he says, breaking directly overhead. So it’s vast and untamed and dramatic and wild. And yet it is not ominous or threatening or ugly or jarring. It sounds – did you notice this, isn’t it interesting – 144,000 people singing, he says, sounds like “a voice.” Just one voice. “I heard a voice from heaven.” In Romans 15, verses 5 and 6, Paul prays that the Romans might live in such harmony with one another “that they together, with one voice,” literally one mouth, “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He wants there to be such profound unity expressed in particular in our worship, that we worship as though it were with only a single mouth. Here is that prayer perfectly fulfilled in the unity and harmony. There’s no cacophony, only harmony in heaven.
And yet at the same time, he says it sounds like many harpists, many harps all being played at once. So it’s lovely, it’s complex, it’s compelling, it is beautiful. Some of you will have watched the coronation of King Charles yesterday. The music in particular was stunning. But the anthems of heaven, in which you will join one day, will make the coronation look like amateur hour. And John says they are singing a new song. You see that language in verse 3? Sing “a new song.” That’s actually a phrase that echoes throughout the Scriptures. It’s used about eight times, nine times maybe in the Scriptures, six of them in the Old Testament, often in conjunction with a command to play instruments sometimes summoning the whole of creation to join the song and always the command comes in connection to and in response to God’s gracious intervention to save. “Sing to Him a new song, play skillfully and shout for joy,” Psalm 33 verse 3. “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God,” Psalm 40 verse 3. “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord all the earth,” Psalm 96 verse 1. “Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things!” Psalm 98 verse 1. “I sing a new song to You, O God. On the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to You,” Psalm 144 verse 9. “Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise in the assembly of the saints,” Psalm 149 verse 1. “Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise from the ends of the earth!” Isaiah 42 verse 10.
The Bible summons us and all things to sing a new song. The new song, of course, that’s not a command to write new lyrics. It is the song of newness that we will sing; the song that springs with gladness from the heart of everyone made new. When your heart is made new, this is the song that you sing. And we are watching here in Revelation 14 as all these commands, all of them to sing a new song are at last fulfilled in that place where God makes all things new. Here are resurrected tongues singing a new song in a new creation. And John says only the redeemed can sing that song because only they have the capacity and the right and the title to sing it. Every song they sing in heaven is part of the new song.
In Revelation chapter 5, however, where that phrase is used again, “the new song,” we actually get to see some of the contents. “They sang a new song,” John says, “saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.’” Notice they sing in celebration of the Lord Jesus Christ. He opens the scroll of God’s sovereign purposes. He brings the plan of God to pass. And the right to do so, His right to do so, rests upon His atoning sacrifice for sinners. “Worthy are you, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” We will be gloriously happy in heaven, but what is the reason for our joy? We will be happy, we will rejoice, we will worship and sing praises because we will see Jesus. We will see Jesus. His glorified wounds, the marks of His cross, of His love for you. Think about that. His glorified wounds, visible to your glorified eyes.
In one of his letters, the great Samuel Rutherford said, “The bride takes not by a thousand degrees so much delight in her wedding garment as she does in her bridegroom. So we, in the life to come, shall not be so much accepted with the glory that goes about us as with our bridegroom’s joyful face and presence.” That’s the line taken up by Anne Cousin and incorporated into her famous hymn, “The Sands of Time are Sinking.” Do you remember how it goes? “The bride eyes not her garments, but her dear bridegroom’s face. I will not gaze at glory, but on my King of grace. Not at the crown He giveth, but at His pierced hands. The Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel’s Land.” Sometimes the thought of a perpetual heavenly worship service fills us with dismay. It sounds dreary. And that maybe reveals more about how you think about worship here than it does about what heaven will be like. But you see, when you see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, when you see His majesty radiating from His wounds, His pierced hands, you won’t be able to help yourself. You are never going to tire of adoring the triune God and pouring out your love for the Lamb of God who has so loved you.
There are books about heaven out there that are preoccupied with whether we’ll get to listen to our favorite music or whether we’ll have particular jobs and work to do in heaven. Or I dare say it, whether or not cats will make it to glory! And look, maybe I’ll concede, maybe we will enjoy all of those things in the new creation, but brothers and sisters, the Bible is just not very concerned with them. They are not the center and the brightness and the beauty of heaven and they will not fill our wonder or animate our praises. Jesus will! You will see Him and the sight will set your heart on fire. Righteousness – we will be holy in heaven. Rejoicing – we will be happy in heaven because we will be at last with our Redeemer.
A Life of Rest
And finally, the life of heaven is marked by rest. We will be home in heaven. In Revelation 6:11, the souls of believers under the altar, longing for the final day of justice and vindication that is still to come, they are given white robes to wear and they are told – do you see it – they are told to rest. Heaven, right now, heaven is already a place of rest. Rest from sin. Rest from sickness. Rest from sorrow. In Revelation 14:3, John says, “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’” Spiritual warfare will be over. Combat with remaining corruption, wrestling your thoughts from their wicked direction back to something that is pleasing to God – the fight will be over! Opposition and persecution from outside will be over. When Paul says he wants to be “at home with the Lord,” this is what he had in mind. You will be home. Home!
You’re most yourself at home, aren’t you? You don’t put on any airs; you don’t fake it at home. There’s no keeping up appearances at home. You really relax at home. In heaven, we will be forever, completely at home. Paul says, “I want to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” “He will dwell with us and be our God and we will be His people. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away.” That’s a picture, isn’t it, of true, final, perfect rest. Rest.
Righteousness. We’ll be holy in heaven with the holiness of Christ fully mirrored in our hearts and lives at last. Every last vestige of our sin, gone forever. Rejoicing. We will be happy in heaven as we see Jesus and worship Him with unceasing delight. The new song of heaven will never get old and we will never tire of singing it because the sight of “His rich wounds, yet visible above in beauty glorified,” will fuel our wonder. And rest. We’ll be home in heaven with God in Christ. What a relief to be there with Jesus. Every barrier between us, removed. Every sin that clouds His smile and hides it from our view here, gone. Perfect peace with Jesus.
How we ought to long for that day. Do you long for that day, brothers and sisters? How should you live now while you wait for it to come? We ought to be preparing here, for life hereafter. Right? Those who are made perfectly righteous in heaven, they are the ones who have labored hard for holiness on earth. Those who rejoice in heaven, they’ve worked to fuel the flames of adoration and praise on earth. Those who rest in heaven are those who are resting by faith upon the finished work of Christ on earth. And so here’s the question we ought each to be asking ourselves as we meditate on the life of the world to come. Here’s the question – “What is there of the life of the saints in heaven that can be seen today in my Christian life on earth?” After his death, it was said of the Puritan, Richard Sibbes, “Of this blessed man let just praise be given. Heaven was in him before he was in heaven.” Heaven was in him before he was in heaven. Those who belong there, start living like it here. How do you live?
It doesn’t take long in conversation with me or my wife to realize we are not natives to the United States. Right? The evidence of our homeland comes out in our speech, in our customs. Scotland is in us even though we don’t live in Scotland. Is heaven in you before you are in heaven? What can be seen of heaven, of righteousness and joy in the Gospel and rest upon Christ? What is there of the life of heaven in your life on earth? Heaven must be in you before you can be in heaven. May God make it so. Let’s pray together.
O Lord, it’s true that our lives of comparative comfort and ease keep our eyes fixed right here and we do not often think as we ought of the life to come. And when we do, our views of it are so dull, so dreary, that we say because we’re supposed to say that we want to be there, but truth is, we’re rather worried that it will be boring, not so thrilling as the pursuit of all our earthly idols. But as we see just a little glimpse this morning of the life of the world yet to be, our idols are exposed and so we confess we’ve been living for this world’s fleeting pleasures. O God, awaken in us a longing for the solid joys and lasting treasures none but Zion’s children know. Bring us back to Jesus to find our righteousness and our rejoicing and our rest in Him that heaven might indeed be in us now before we ever are in heaven. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.