Heaven is the dimension in which God is enthroned in the fulness of His glory. Though God is present in all places at all times throughout the universe, heaven is the place of His unveiled presence. It is the dimension to which Jesus ascended after His resurrection, the place to which the souls of the righteous dead ascend.
What will our relationship with God be like in heaven?
1. We will be with God.
We already have fellowship with God. The Apostle John reminds us, Our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ (I John 1:3).
Even now in this life we have fellowship with God because the relationship, which was broken by sin, has now been restored through the sacrifice of Jesus. All who trust in Christ’s atoning work are forgiven of sin and restored to fellowship with the Father, as Paul says, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:17-19).
We have been immersed into fellowship with God the Son, For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ (Gal. 3:27). Baptized into Christ is not a reference to water baptism but to the work of the Holy Spirit whereby we are immersed into intimate relationship with Christ, brought into union with Him at our new birth. This union is so complete that Paul says we have clothed (ourselves) with Christ. And he said elsewhere, I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20).
We enjoy fellowship with the indwelling Holy Spirit, Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (I Cor. 3:16).
Jesus said, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him (John 14:23).
We have fellowship now with God and we enjoy this fellowship in celebrating Holy Communion, Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? (I Cor. 10:16).
We enjoy fellowship with God as we worship Him, entering His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise (Psalm 100:4). He inhabits, is enthroned upon our praises (Psalm. 22:3).
We enjoy fellowship with God as we read His word and He opens His mind to us.
We enjoy fellowship with God now in this life but it is partial, incomplete, interrupted by sin and by the impact of the corrupt, depraved world around us. However, in heaven our fellowship will be unhindered, uninterrupted and perfect. We will be with Him.
This was Jesus’ prayer on the night He was betrayed, Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24).
This was Jesus’ promise, In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also (Jn. 14:2,3).
Jesus wants us to be with Him in heaven. This is the defining quality of our relationship with God in heaven — we will be with Him. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself — not going to a place as much as going to a Person. Once we enter heaven, we will never again be outside or apart from the manifest presence of God.
That where I am there you may be also. All in heaven are in this house and the house is God Himself. It is God who fills the infinite universe with His infinite Being and anywhere you go in the universe you will be in the Father’s house, in His presence.
The Apostle John wrote, And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them (Rev. 21:3).
Tabernacle means dwelling and in heaven, the dwelling of God is among the redeemed. John saw the white-robed multitude standing before the throne in heaven and an elder said to him, He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them (Rev. 7:15). It is not simply that we will see God — we will be with Him. He will spread His dwelling place over us.
This was always God’s desire, to tabernacle with His beloved human creature. That’s why God gave to Adam and Eve the spiritual capacity to know Him. That’s why the Lord warned Adam about sin for sin would separate him from fellowship with God. That’s why when Adam and Eve did sin, it was the Lord who came to them, covered them, made promises to send a Redeemer who would someday reconcile them to Himself.
That’s why when the Lord led Israel out of Egypt, He said, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself (Ex. 19:4). God led Israel out of Egypt so they could be with Him, worship Him.
This is why the Lord commanded Moses to build a tabernacle in the wilderness and commanded Solomon to build a temple in Jerusalem — so He could tabernacle among His people.
Thus it will be in heaven. All of the redeemed in heaven will live in the tabernacle of God’s presence and the tabernacle is God Himself. It is God who fills the infinite universe with His infinite Being and anywhere you go in the universe you will be in the Father’s house, in His manifest presence.
Since God is infinite in beauty, majesty, holiness, wisdom and creative power, our fellowship will never become stale or boring because there will always be more of God’s infinite being to behold. We will experience forever the unfolding of His infinite, glorious being as we live in His manifest presence.
In heaven we will be with God, we will tabernacle with God.
2. We will see God.
Jesus prayed, Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world (Jn 17:24). Jesus longs for us to be with Him so we can behold His glory, see Him in the fulness of His being. Peter, James and John glimpsed the unveiled glory of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:11-8). But in heaven all the redeemed will behold Christ’s glory and the glorious manifestation of the Father continually.
We will see God but not just as spectators. We will see Him from the perspective of participants, communers with Him, worshippers in His presence.
Remember how Moses prayed to the Lord, Show me Your glory! And the Lord replied, You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live! (Ex. 33:18,20).
Jesus said, Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father (John 6:46).
Paul said of the Lord, that He alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see (I Tim. 6:16).
Direct sight of God is inaccessible to mortal man. God is too holy, too pure for us to look upon Him and He is too holy, too pure to allow sinful humanity to look on Him. Though we are forgiven, we are still mortal and sinful and cannot look upon God.
But in Revelation 22:4 we read, They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. We will see His face. We will look upon the face of God.
In heaven you will be the same you, I will be the same me but we will look upon God. How is this possible?
a. We will be perfected in holiness, all taint of sin removed, all impurities washed away. We will be able to stand in the presence of perfect holiness because we will be perfected in holiness. We will be able to look upon God because there will be nothing to mar our sight or expel us from His presence.
b. We will have a perfected capacity to perceive, to understand. Seeing the face of God involves more than mere visual acuity. It involves a vastly greater capacity to understand what we see.
c. Our resurrection bodies will have the ability to stand in the explosive presence of God’s power and glory and not be consumed.
Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8). Already we are seeing God more truly as we grow in holiness, in purity of heart. But in heaven this work of purity will have been perfected and we shall see God. We will continually behold God and this will be our continual desire — to see, to understand God.
The Psalmist said, As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? (Ps. 42,1,2). That thirst will be perfectly and continually satisfied in heaven as we gaze into the perfections of God.
But what will we see? God the Father is Spirit and when Ezekiel and John were given visions of heaven, God manifested as blazing light, a brilliant radiance of exploding color. So how will we see God? In Revelation we read, And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them (Rev. 22:5). The Lord will illumine us, enable us with perfected eyes and sinless being to see into the glorious being of God.
This has to do with more than mere perception. It has to do with comprehension. We will see with the inward sight of the spirit — we will comprehend the being of God as completely as the perfected human mind and soul can comprehend. However, even in heaven we will not see all that God is because God is infinite and we are not infinite. We will not ever contain, in our minds, all that God is. But there will be an eternal, unveiling of God, unending revelation and we will comprehend God with a depth of perception that we do not now possess.
Paul says, For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known (I Cor. 13:12). Now we comprehend the truth of God partially, incompletely, but in heaven we will see fully, with glorified, perfected souls the revelation of God in light. Now we know in part but then we will know fully with perfected minds the revelation of the fulness of God insofar as a perfected but finite mind can perceive the infinite fulness of the being of God.
We will see Jesus in His resurrection body and we will see Him as He is, will see Him in the reality of His glory, deity. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is (I Jn 3:2).
The Psalmist said, As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake (Ps 17:15).
We will be with Jesus and because we will be like Him, we will behold Him. We will be deeply, entirely satisfied with this revelation of God as we tabernacle with Him.
3. Our relationship with God in heaven will include the experience and enjoyment of the fulness of His love. On Jesus’ final night with His disciples before He went to the cross, we read, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end (John 13:1). The word end is telos — meaning perfection, completeness, fullness.
Jesus loved His disciples, and loves us, with the perfection of divine love, loves us with the infinite fulness of God’s capacity to love. But in this world our experience of God’s love is often interrupted, marred, diluted by our own incompleteness — shame, fear, guilt, anxiety and by the noise and depravity of the world around us. But in heaven, as we live in the tabernacle of God’s presence perfected in mind and soul and body, we will experience, enjoy and celebrate the perfect fulness of God’s love. And our love for Him will be perfect in expression.
4. We will experience and enjoy the fulness of God’s creative mind. Paul said to the church at Corinth, and to all the redeemed, We have the mind of Christ (I Cor. 2:16). In this life, the Holy Spirit opens to us the wisdom and purposes of our Lord, primarily through the Bible but also as we pray and worship the Lord. But this impartation of wisdom and revelation is limited to our capacity to hear and to understand. Jesus said to His disciples, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12). He shared with His disciples, and shares with us, what we are able to receive. But in heaven, with perfected minds and souls, with nothing to interrupt our fellowship with the Lord, we will be able to experience and enjoy the fulness of God’s creativity and revelation.
5. We will enjoy the continual, uninterrupted flow of life from God. John said, Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1). Eternal life is sharing the life of God and this river of the water of life is a way of picturing the life which flows from God without interruption forever. We will partake of that life, the life of God forever and ever.
What will our relationship with God be like in heaven?
1. We will be with God.
2. We will see God.
3. We will experience and enjoy the fulness of His love.
4. We will experience and enjoy the fulness of God’s creative mind.
5. We will enjoy the continual, uninterrupted flow of life from God.
When Helen Keller was 19 months old, she contracted a disease which robbed her of her hearing and her sight. For the rest of her life on earth she did not see a human face or hear a human voice. A kind woman became Helen’s teacher and taught her to communicate by tapping. One day, her teacher began to tell her about Jesus. Helen tapped back, excitedly, “Oh, I know Him, I just didn’t know His name.” This means that when Helen died, she went to heaven and the first face she saw, and with perfected vision, and the first voice she heard, and with perfected hearing, since she was 19 months old, was the face and the voice of Jesus. That’s heaven.
Study Questions
1. In your mind, what will be the most important quality of our relationship with God in heaven and why?
2. What is eternal life?