What is it like there now? What will it be like in the City of the Living God?  What about those who have gone before us?  

 

I try to see, but vision is dim. Maybe some of you can help. This is what I see:

 

I know that Jesus is now in infinite, unchangeable glory. It is written that He is the very Brightness of that glory, eclipsing created suns. He is Heir of all things—through whom the immense and complex universe is made and upheld. Though in time Christ meekly became our flesh so He can sympathize with our individual pain and yet He is also infinitely aware of all of His sheep.  In time we see Him enduring the cross, acquainted with grief. And so now in Glory all our grief touches Him. He feels even now all our losses, the same as when he wept with Mary and Martha. He died with with the goal that we should live, thus He now deserves that we should live. He is accepted now as your Surety so you might be accepted in Him – all this notwithstanding our common, natural unworthiness and forgetfulness of His gracious Person.

 

John called the Son, Jesus Christ, “that Eternal Life.’ He is there in glory as our Eternal Life.  

 

Let’s have grace, and speak of Christ and His infinite appeal without considering personal unworthiness to approach such a divine One.  He has been made to be our Life. Ponder what it is for Christ to be enough to fill all thought and comprehension. No sense of self-worth has any place here. He is our Worthiness.

 

I believe that in the paradise of glory, Jesus Christ’s very name sends forth the pleasing, invigorating, savors of precious ointments— beyond earthly senses. His name is as ointment poured forth, perpetually reviving the lives of heaven’s inhabitants. It happens like this, His Name is spoken there by saints and angels and is always attended with knowledge of His Person, there is never the slightest hint of carelessness or mindlessness attending His Name—the knowledge of Him is so present that all hearers are ravished with delight.

 

What is precious there? Everything about Christ is precious there. He is known and loved freely there. The least of His brethren are personally received by Him, His humility and approachability are glorious, magnified by His infinite holiness and power. All saints think of Him with pleasure and are thought of with equal pleasure. Love and relationship are not shifting; there is no darkness to hide one from another. No restlessness of self. Christ’s perfectly sufficient sacrifice is always remembered and fully known. As one hymn says, “He will never be forgotten throughout heaven’s eternal days”.

 

This is a call to remember our hope “that in the ages to come, our Father will show forth the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” “God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all.” Eph 2:7; 1 John 1:5