Heaven is the dimension in which God is enthroned in the full manifestation of His glory. It is where Jesus ascended after He rose from the dead. It is where the soul of the redeemed saint goes when the body dies. It is where the redeemed will live forever when clothed with a resurrection body. Our life there will be defined by perfect joy in a perfected body and soul dwelling in the presence of a perfect God in perfect fellowship forever.
But what will we be doing?
In Revelation 1:5,6, we read, To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood—and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father — to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
All that we do in heaven we will do as priests. What do priests do?
1. Priests worship the Lord.
Every activity in heaven will be an act of worship unto the Lord. Any place we go in the universe will be a place of worship because heaven’s temple is God and He will fill the universe with His presence.
We will worship the Lord with as much knowledge and understanding of God as a perfected human mind and soul can contain. We will know so much more of God than we now know. That does not mean that we will worship all that God is because God is infinite and we cannot contain infinity in our finite minds. But insofar as a perfected human mind and soul can know God, can grasp the perfection of His majesty, His mercy, His justice, His power, His wisdom, His glory, we will worship the Lord. Our praise and worship will be uninterrupted by any evil or worldly distraction or weariness — unrestrained, uninhibited, continual.
Furthermore, because God is infinite in every aspect of His being, we will forever discover new aspects of God and therefore, we will be continually, freshly inspired in our worship. We will worship with every capacity of our perfected soul and body — in music and dance and spoken word, with instruments we will recognize and instruments we have never imagined. Worship will be corporate with the enormous multitude of saints and angels and we will worship in deeply personal, intimate ways.
The twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ‘Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created’ (Rev. 4:10). The twenty four elders represent the redeemed saints in heaven worshipping God.
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation 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’ (Rev. 7:9-12).
And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, ‘Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; for all the nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed’ (Rev. 15:2-4).
After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God because His judgments are true and righteous’ (Rev. 19:1,2)
Worship will be the highest expression of our perfected being. We will see with perfect clarity the glory, majesty, mercy, holiness, justice and perfection of God displayed before us. Worship will be our delight. No one will be idle but no one will work because of want. Our worship is our work and all our work will be done as worship.
2. Royal priests exercise authority.
Peter reminds us that we are a royal priesthood (I Peter 2:9). In the passage we read a moment ago, He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, the King James translates and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father (Rev. 1:6).
Kings and priests, a royal priesthood. One exercise of priestly authority is that we reign with the Lord on earth. John heard the worship of saints and angels before the throne of God, And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth (Rev. 5:9,10).
We have been given authority as royal priests which we exercise now in this life, at this time on earth, as we pray and worship and proclaim truth with our witness and our living. In our prayers we exercise authority with Jesus in the establishing of His kingdom purpose on earth. In our worship we are enthroning God in our circumstances. With our witness of truth we are casting down powers and principalities which are built on lies. We exercise authority now as royal priests, though imperfectly.
We will also exercise authority with Jesus on earth when He returns. Jesus says, He who overcomes (that’s us, the redeemed) I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne (Rev. 3:21). Sitting on His throne represents shared authority with Jesus in the restoration and government of planet earth during His thousand year reign.
But also in heaven we will exercise authority, not independently of God but under the authority of a God who delegates a sphere of authority to each of us. Paul said to the Church at Corinth, Do you not know that we will judge angels? (I Cor. 6:3). It is not clear if this refers to our participation in the judgment of fallen angels. However, the word judge may also be translated rule or govern and may refer to our exercise of authority over holy angels in heaven.
Though it is not entirely clear all the ways we will exercise authority in eternity, we know that Christ has been seated far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come (Eph. 1:21). We know the Father has put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:22). We know that the Father has raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6). Therefore we are confident with the Apostle Paul that, If we endure, we will also reign with Him (2 Tim. 2:12).
3. Priests serve, carry out holy responsibilities.
We will be given responsibilities, duties and authority in the ongoing operation of the eternal kingdom of God. We will serve God as holy, royal priests and we will never fail to fulfill our responsibilities because we will be perfect in body, emotions and intellect.
One aspect of priestly service is the offer of sacrifices. Under the Old Covenant, priests continually offered sacrifice for their own sin and the sin of the people. However, Jesus our great High Priest offered Himself as the holy Sacrifice for our sin, once and for all time. So we will not be offering sacrifices for sin. So what sacrifice will we offer?
We will offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name (Hebr. 13:15). This will be a continual sacrifice, forever and ever. All that we do in service to the Lord will be offered as a sacrifice of praise. But our service will be more intimate than that of the Old Covenant priest. No ordinary Israelite could attend to the things of worship or even touch implements used in worship. Only priests could stand behind the altar of sacrifice, and only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifice and only once a year and only after ceremonial cleansing. There was a limited experience of intimacy with God.
However, when Jesus offered Himself as the holy sacrificed Lamb, the curtain guarding the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple was torn from top to bottom which proclaimed this New Covenant reality: all who believe in Christ, all who have trusted in His atoning sacrifice for sin, are cleansed of sin and may enter the holy presence of God.
Under the Old Covenant, if anyone other than the High Priest had entered the Holy of Holies, the Shekinah glory of God would have consumed them. Now, today, under the New Covenant, all the redeemed are invited to step into the holy presence of a God calls us a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for (His) own possession (1 Peter 2:9). Now, we are invited to come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebr. 4:16).
If that is true in this life, how much moreso in heaven. In this life, we must stop at the throne of grace because, though redeemed, we still are sinful. But in heaven, with perfect, pure, sinless souls and perfected resurrection bodies, as perfected priests we will come to the throne of grace and pass beyond into the throne of glory. We will stand in the explosive presence of God’s majestic glory.
The temple of the Lamb is as vast as the universe and there, in the presence of God, we will render eternal service in perfect intimacy — God will dwell with us, will pitch His tent over us and we will minister as priests, offering the sacrifice of our praise to Him in the tabernacle of His presence.
The Apostle Peter says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you (I Peter 1:3,4).
Our inheritance includes resurrection life in heaven with God. But it also includes that sphere of responsibility / rule / service which God has delegated to each of us. We will be stewards of the eternal responsibilities, dominion, authority which the Lord will share with us in His kingdom.
As we said, priests serve, carry out holy responsibilities and all that we do will be offered as a sacrifice of praise. But within the context of this continual sacrifice of praise, will we be doing other things? And if so, what will we be doing?
We will do whatever God assigns us to do. We will not be floating around on clouds. We will be busy serving God with assignments which we cannot even imagine now and we will fulfill these responsibilities perfectly with perfected minds, emotions, abilities. We will be unwearied, unhurried and undistracted in the performance of our responsibilities.
There is a relationship between our faithfulness on earth and our responsibilities in heaven. In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus taught about a man who, before he went on a long journey, left his servants in charge of varying amounts of money. When he returned, he said to his faithful servants, Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master (Matt. 25:21).
Those servants who made the most of their opportunity to know and serve the Lord were then put in charge of many things and this responsibility involved sharing in the joy of their master. God is infinitely creative and we will share in the joy of working with Him.
Our service in eternity will be in proportion to our faithfulness in this life. The responsibility we fulfilled in this life will lead to greater responsibility in the next life.
In the parable, and in life, we see that some are given more gifts, more responsibility than others but there will be no sense of comparison or jealousy or conceit in heaven. With perfected minds and emotions, we will not ever be jealous or boastful, prideful or envious. Some have served Christ longer than others and are given more but God is just in His rewards.
Obviously, some reward is equal: forgiveness of sin, resurrection and eternal life with God. But other rewards are proportional to our faithfulness. It is not a matter of smaller or greater reward — it is a matter of God’s perfect, creative design for each of us and our response to that design.
We will be the the perfection of the person God created us to be in the likeness of Christ and what we will do will be the perfect expression of what God designed and redeemed us to do.We will not desire to be or do more than the perfect expression of God’s design.
We will be busier than we have ever been, we will carry out our duties with perfection and never grow weary. There will be no need to sleep because our energy / strength is never depleted. We will rest as we fulfill our duties, forever fulfilled in the worshipful exercise of the life and service God designed for us, forever fulfilling responsibilities perfectly which will always be an offering, a sacrifice of praise and worship to the Lord.
Our work will occupy our perfected mind and talent to the fullest extent — employing our talent / intellect to the maximum, accomplishing our assignment to the perfection of our ability, doing things we never dreamed of doing and doing them with flawless excellence, producing a continual sense of joyful fulfillment. It seems reasonable that our assignments in eternity will correlate to our talents, gifts and abilities here. But it may also be that we will be blessed with giftings far beyond our present imagination.
Nothing we are asked to do will be left undone. Nothing will be done poorly. All things will be perfectly fulfilled. We will not assume our work is better or greater or less than or inferior to anyone else’s work. All that we do will be accomplished perfectly, motivated by a loving desire to serve our Lord and our fellow saints. We will not glory in our work but in our Lord. Though our accomplishments will outshine anything we did or even imagined on earth, we will not boast proudly but rather, bask humbly in the satisfaction of service to our Lord.
In the Parable of the Vineyard (Matt. 20:1-17), the workers who were hired early in the day were jealous of those who were hired late, angry that those who labored less received the same reward as those who labored longer. There will be none of that in heaven. We will love the other servants of Christ with the fulness of His love for them. We will also understand that all of our reward is a gift of grace. Our true reward was everlasting damnation but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 6:23). The talents and opportunities we received in this life were the gift of God. We will understand that all is grace and therefore, we cannot possibly be jealous of others.
Because the extent of our responsibilities in heaven will correlate to our faithfulness here, we don’t want to waste the opportunity here in time. We want to be zealous in serving the Lord now so that in eternity we can worship the Lord with the maximum level of service.
So, just as we are now royal priests under one great High Priest, so in heaven. And just as there is accountability and reward here on earth, so in heaven.
God does not measure the size of our gifts. He measures the heart of the giver and His reward is always greater than the gift we first gave: You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things (Matt. 25:21).The reward is proportionally more that our labor. But we will not wear our reward on our head like a crown. Our reward is not stripes on a robe, not rooms in a mega mansion that looks better than other mansions. Our reward is the capacity for service and as we said, the greater the service here, the greater the opportunity in heaven. Our reward for serving and glorifying God on earth is greater opportunity to serve and glorify God in heaven.
There will be an accounting for our service here. Paul says, Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God (I Cor. 4:5). He says that the final evaluation of our lives will be when the Lord returns. Jesus will disclose the inner motives and attitudes that produced the works which we can see. Then each man’s praise will come to him from God.
Paul also said, Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire (I Cor. 3:12-15).
In that day of accountability, the fire of God’s glory and all-discerning sight will disclose the truthfulness of our priesthood here on earth. Wood, hay and straw are not worthless or evil but not as valuable as gold, silver, precious stones and will be consumed. But that which endures the fire of God’s evaluation will be saved and rewarded. As we have said, the reward is a greater sphere of responsibility, the opportunity to give and do more to the glory of God.
We have an instinctive desire, a need to give, to create, to accomplish and this will be our life in heaven. As holy priests we will worship the Lord. As royal priests we will share authority with the Lord. As servant priests we will serve the Lord.
Study Questions
1. Do you see yourself as a holy, royal priest?
2. What are three things that priests do?