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Kindle Notes & Highlights
hope,
Romans 8:20-25,
zeteo,
“Diligently, actively, single-mindedly pursue the things above”—in a word, Heaven.
What have you been doing daily to set your mind on things above, to seek Heaven? What should you do differently?
If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.
It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.[8]
We need a generation of heavenly minded people who see human beings and the earth itself not simply as they are, but as God intends them to be. Such people will pass on a heritage to their children far more valuable than any inheritance.
In the words of Francis Schaeffer, “The Christian is the really free man—he is free to have imagination. This too is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.”[9]
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 till I see God; and when I have seen him, I shall never die.[11] — JOHN DONNE
“beatific vision.”
“a happy-making sight.”
God.
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immanent.
Immanuel,
none is greater than the promise that we, as resurrected human beings, will actually see God.
And even though Job’s body would be destroyed through physical death, he knew that he would in his own flesh see God. It’s hard to imagine a clearer reference to the coming resurrection.
“After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday [when he lived on Earth] and today [when he lives in the intermediate Heaven] and forever [when he will live on the New Earth, in the eternal Heaven].”
Eden has been trampled, torched, and savaged. Nevertheless, the stars in the sky declare God’s glory (Psalm 19:1); in our own bodies we can see the intricacy of God’s craftsmanship; and in flowers and rain and art and music we see vestiges of God’s beauty and creativity.
the Curse will be reversed. One day, both we and the universe will be forever set free. In that day, we will see God.
Seeing God will be like seeing everything else for the first time. Why? Because not only will we see God, he will be the lens through which we see everything else—other people, ourselves, and the events of our earthly lives.
God is the Fountainhead, the Source of all lesser streams of our desire. When we desire food, friendship, work, play, music, drama, or art, we are ultimately desiring God.
because God is the ultimate source of joy, and all secondary joys derive from him, to love secondary joys on this earth can be —and in Heaven always will be —to love God, their source.
But that doesn’t mean we will eat and drink in the present Heaven, the place where God’s people who have departed from Earth now live. Remember, those now in Heaven do not yet have resurrection bodies.
Likewise, when we describe the present Heaven, it will not necessarily correspond with what the eternal Heaven—the New Earth—will be like.
Because God created Heaven, it had a beginning and thus is neither timeless nor changeless. It had a past — the time prior to Christ’s incarnation. It has a present — the intermediate Heaven, where believers go when they die. And it will have a future — the eternal Heaven, or New Earth.
The past Heaven, the present Heaven, and the future Heaven can all be called Heaven because they are God’s central dwelling place. Yet they are not synonymous. The present, intermediate Heaven is in the angelic realm, distinctly separate from Earth. By contrast, the future Heaven will be in the human realm, on Earth, in a resurrected universe. The dwelling place of God will be the dwelling place of humanity: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . . . I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. . . . And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the
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The New Earth will be Heaven incarnate, just as Jesus Christ is God incarnate.
Their present incompatibility is due to a temporary aberration— Earth is under sin and the Curse. Once that aberration is corrected, Heaven and Earth will be fully compatible again (Ephesians 1:10).
God is a spirit and angels are spirit beings, but both can—and will on the New Earth—live in a physical environment.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. — ISAIAH 11:9-10
“The glory of the LORD fills the whole earth” (Numbers 14:21).
“the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it” (Isaiah 40:5).
“Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our
land” (Psalm 85:9).
“I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east . . . and the land was radiant wit...
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“The nations will fear the name of the LORD, all the kings of the earth will revere your glory. For the LORD will rebuild Zion and appear in his glory” (Psalm 102:15-16).
‘They will proclaim my glory among the nations. And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the LORD—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels,’ says the LORD” (Isaiah 66:19-20).
No more let sins and sorrows grow Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the Curse is found. — ISAAC WATTS, “JOY TO THE WORLD”
The hymn “This Is My Father’s World” expresses this truth in its final words: “Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one.”[41]
“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them” (Revelation 21:3).
Christ came to remove the curse of sin and death (Romans 8:2).
In bringing us salvation, Christ has already undone some of the damage in our hearts, but in the end he will finally and completely restore his entire creation to what God originally intended (Romans 8:19-21).
God] will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth” (Isaiah 25:7-8).
God will lift the Curse, not only morally (in terms of sin) and psychologically (in terms of sorrows), but also physically (in terms of thorns in the ground).
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. — 1 CORINTHIANS 15:17-19
“In my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another” (Job 19:26-27).
The Lord Jesus Christ . . . will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. — PHILIPPIANS 3:20-21
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2, RSV). “Just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49).
