HEAVEN’S ACTIVITIES

The question is a common one: What will heaven be like? What will people do there? Will it be all singing and feasting?

The answer is as difficult as the question is common. Not only because it’s hard to know what any place will be like without having been there, but also because the Bible nowhere affords us a systematic list of heaven’s activities. And that for good reason. Else we would be prone to forget that heaven is ultimately the Triune God: being with God, knowing God, seeing God, enjoying God, glorifying God. Samuel Rutherford was not far off when he described heaven as “being with Christ.” Didn’t Christ Himself depict the heavenly paradise as having its heartbeat in a “thou with Me” relationship (Lk. 23:43)?

Nevertheless, the question is not inherently wrong or sinful. On scriptural grounds, our Reformed, and particularly Puritan, forebears heartily encouraged the militant church to meditate on the activities of the triumphant church. The Puritans were fond of using the expression, “meditating on heaven’s holy occupations.” They certainly did not think of heaven as a stagnant place of little activity, confined primarily to singing. Rather, they viewed heaven as a place teeming with holy, sacred activity. Meditation upon such activity, though partial, ought to serve the church in good stead for strength in the daily activity and warfare of the Christian life on earth.

Happily, Scripture is not altogether silent on “heaven’s holy occupations” either. It encourages believers to meditate on heaven’s activities (Heb. 11:9–10). This meditation-mandate to God’s children is most encouraging.

First, meditate on heaven’s holy worship, for this is heaven’s greatest and most continuous activity (Rev. 19:1–8). Such worship will be resplendent, varied, infinitely rich — beyond the imagination of eye, ear, and heart (1 Cor. 2:9). Much of this worship will be conducted in the framework of sacred music. The Psalms excepted, no Bible book contains the number of songs that Revelation does — fourteen in all. Each of these is sung by a heavenly choir: some by angels, some by elders, but the majority by the united choir of redeemed saints. Each song has the same central theme: the praise of God’s grace and glory.

Second, meditate on heaven’s holy service, knowing that the redeemed “shall serve Him” in eternal bliss (Rev. 22:3). The concepts of service/grace-rewards are basic themes in Christ’s teaching relative to His return (Mt. 24:45–46; 25:14, 19, 21, 23). Though known on earth partially at best, there will be numerous activities in heaven which will be a glorious continuation of labor expended in Christ’s name on earth — without, of course, weariness or failure.

Meditate on heaven’s holy authority, knowing that believers will reign with Christ and reign upon (literally, over) the earth (Rev. 1:6; 19:8, 11–16). Seek increasing prophetical grace to “confess His Name,” priestly grace to present yourself “a living sacrifice to Him,” and royal grace to “fight against sin and Satan in this life with a free and good conscience,” if you would afterwards reign with Him eternally, over all creatures” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 32).

Meditate on heaven’s holy fellowship and reunion. You cannot seek too much communion with God in this life in preparation for eternal fellowship with God Triune. Though such communion via Christ always remains your axiomatic desire, do not neglect scriptural passages that underscore the communion of saints in glory (cf. Heb. 12:23; Rev. 19:19). No discordant note shall permeate heaven’s trinitarian, angelic, saintly choir. Zwingli and Luther will be of one spirit.

Again, meditate on heaven’s holy education. Two glasses of water may be full, but one glass may hold more water than the other. Heaven’s joy will be ever full, but the capacity of joy will expand eternally. Heaven spells infinite growth, spiralling realization, and eternal enrollment. Your song will be the true Song of Degrees (cf. Psalms 120–134), for you will ever attain new views of God, new unfoldings of His gracious purposes, new fountains of living waters. Not to one fountain has Christ promised to lead you, but to “living fountains of waters.” Like the four-branched river in the Edenic paradise, heaven’s trinitarian river will branch into many streams which make glad the city of God (Ps. 46:3).

Meditate on heaven’s holy rest. Your eternal mansion is not the rented possession of an earthly landlord, but your purchased gift from the heavenly Father through His Son. In heaven you shall rest from all sin, infirmity, pollution, enemies, and, above all, self. All good shall be walled in; all evil, walled out. You shall rest in the Triune God with the very rest with which God, in His inter-trinitarian economy, rests in His own love: “He will rest in His love” (Zeph. 3:17). A Puritan said it best: “O blessed day, when I shall rest with God; when I shall rest in knowing, loving, rejoicing, and praising; when my perfect soul and body together, shall perfectly enjoy the perfect God; when God also, who is love itself, shall perfectly love me; yea, and rest in His love to me, as I shall rest in my love to Him.”

Finally, meditate on heaven’s holy glory with John Howe when he writes: “Communicated glory fills the whole soul, and leaves no place for anything that is vile or inglorious; ‘tis pure glory, free from mixture of anything that is alien to it. It is substantial, solid glory, a massive, weighty glory … a glory to be wrought out by afflictions, which are the files and furnaces, as it were, to polish or refine the soul into a glorious frame. ‘Tis cumulated glory, glory added to a glorious glory. Here ‘tis growing, progressive glory, [for] we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. It shall now be stabel, consistent glory, [for] God hath now put the last hand to this glorious image.”

Prepare us, Lord, for “heaven’s holy occupations”: worship, service, authority, fellowship, education, rest, glory. Like Abraham, teach us to look “for a city which hath foundation, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10).

Note: Commencing with this issue of the Banner of Truth, we hope to introduce two new departments from a Reformed perspective under the rubric of “Questions Answered” and “Current Events.” Forward any question you may have relative to religious issues to: 55 Robin Hood Way, Wayne, N.J. 07470.

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