"THE HEAVEN OF HEAVENS"
THE HEAVEN OF HEAVENS
(Deut. 10:14)
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
September 28, 2015, the year of Our Lord
If earth is so lovely, what must Heaven be? If God’s footstool is so glorious---what must be the place where He has erected His throne! The one has no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excels. (2 Co. 3:10)
“O blessed realm of which such glorious things are spoken! Its soil is not cursed for man’s sake; no thorns or thistles does it produce; its pastures are always green, and all its flowers unfading. Its inhabitants shall never say they are sick----and the people therein are forgiven all their iniquities. O tranquil region! Where there is nothing but continued peace and undisturbed security. There is no night there---the sun forever shines in meridian splendor. There is no winter there---all seasons are woven into one, and that one season an eternal spring.” (J.R.M.)
Enter into the joy of the Lord. The joy is His, not merely because He is the author of it and the object of it---but that He is the subject of it. It is the joy which was set before Him, in anticipation of which, He endured the cross and despised its shame. This joy is now the joy of His people. We are to partake of it with Him! The Head and the body will be glorified together as much as we have the capacity to receive it.
We are to be completely absorbed and swallowed up by it. The joy will possess us rather than us possessing the joy. The streams which refresh and gladden our spirits here are an over-flowing fountain in Heaven. Our joy is to be a fathomless ocean without a bottom or a shore! O Lord enlarge our Spirit that we may receive you to full capacity.
Heaven is perfect knowledge, perfect love and perfect purity.
Rev. 4:1: “Behold, I looked and a door was opened to Heaven…”
The thin veil between Heaven and earth, the natural and the spiritual is opened and John like Isaiah and Ezekiel is given a Pisgah view into the heaven of heavens (Deut. 10:14). A door is opened and heaven is there. John beholds a vision of the glorious Person, the King of Kings, seated on a throne of jasper and sardine in a blaze of light---with the clear pavement of rock-crystal before Him. The Rainbow of God spans the firmament.
John knew that the world was on the eve of great events; that even the throne of the Caesars would soon rock to its foundation.
But what of that? The One seated on the Throne of Heaven lives for the ages of the ages---a King above all human kings, a power that would outlive all human dynasties and empires.
“The Lord God Almighty” is the name by which He is adored by the living Beings.
Heaven is now! If you have not been given a glimpse of Heaven here, we will one day enter within the gates into the city---like John---we will be given the full vision of God---in His covenant aspect, as the God of Salvation---His throne encompassed with the emerald rainbow.
The worshippers who surround Him which I believe include the redeemed in earth and heaven as well as the other hosts of created intelligences.
The Redeemed are represented in their two-fold character as kings wearing golden crowns and priests wearing white raiment. The worshippers under the fourfold similitude are described as “full of eyes” (or “teeming with eyes”). They do not rest night or day.
All events in the world’s history and our own are planned and appointed. “Come, said that voice, and I will show you things which must be hereafter.”
The Heaven where the Lord reigns supreme is a world of order. In the calm blue of these serene ethereal heights, there are no more rolling clouds, or moral hurricanes---no more darkness and gloominess. Justice and Judgment are the habitation of His throne; Mercy and Truth go before His face.
Heaven is no far distant star---no land that is very far off. There is but a narrow curtain separating us from the true inner sanctuary. A door is opened, and Heaven is there! We are ushered in a moment (in the twinkling of an eye) before “God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect.” (Heb. 12:23)
Jesus, the incarnate Son, pitched His tabernacle in the midst of human hearts. “The Word” says St. John in his gospel, “came and dwelt (tented) among us.”
When we reach the concluding act of the great drama of John’s vision, “The Things which shall be hereafter”. John sees the joyful overcoming Church in the metaphor of a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. The bridal day of the Church Triumphant is the consummated bliss of Christ and His beloved. It is the clear shining after rain; the morning without clouds; (2 Sam. 2: 3-4) “The darkness is past and the true light shines.” (1 Jo. 2:8)
In days past, we have traversed verse by verse the Book of Revelation. We are assured the number of God’s elect will be accomplished. All of our fierce Armageddons will be fought. The Books will be closed. The inquiry will be hushed.
We, the Bride of Christ rose from our water-baptism clothed in fresh loveliness. So will it be also in the second and last fiery baptism. The earth will be in a state of “fervent heat” (2 Pet. 3:12). Can we say that surely the fire has begun to burn?
Satan knows it and is calling it global warming. Though there will be displacement, dislocation, decomposition, there will be no annihilation. This “fervent heat” will be no more than purifiers.
As John gazes he sees a resplendent city and one of gigantic proportions with towers, walls, and gates. The city is marked four square. It has twelve gates and each gate sentinelled by angels. These gates are never shut at all by day. There is no night there. All the costliest material---gold, crystal and every stone of priceless value, from jasper to amethyst are employed as the earthly symbols and exponents of a glory which otherwise could not be translated into human language.
The Overcoming Church is the “City”. We are the “Bride”. We are the “Temple”. We are the Sons of God. New Jerusalem is the church in purity. All of this beauty describes the glory of Christ and His Bride.
The Bridegroom has come. The enthroned Lord has left the judgment-hall for the coronation-hall. Make way for the Bride the Lamb’s wife! ---the glorified Church without spot or blemish. “The new heaven and the new earth” are her royal bridal chambers. “I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband!”
“Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.” (Rev. 21:3-4)
The name of the city is Jehovah Shamash---“The Lord is there.” Where is the Lord today? “The Kingdom of God/Heaven is within you.” Immanuel – God with us.
Every gate, jasper wall and sapphire pavement in that jeweled city owe their brilliancy and glory to the altogether lovely One. The tabernacle of the great God is with redeemed man! The ranks of the unredeemed (cherubim and seraphim) gather around the Holy city---hovering with their bright wings over the New Jerusalem.
The morning stars who sung when the earth was created are singing and all of the sons of God are shouting for joy.
Are you looking for this city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God?
“Open ye the gates that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in” (Isa. 26:2). There are no permanent foundations for anything here. We have no “continuing city”. Earth’s most stable social and domestic structures are sand-built, not rock-built.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
Let us take down our harp from the willows; and sing. “God is not ashamed to be called our God, for He has prepared for us a city!” (Heb. 11:16)
“He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
Here John sees Heaven as a restored Paradise with its Crystal River and perennial Tree of Life.
“The glorious Lord will be to us in the place of broad rivers and streams…” (Isa. 33:21) “God is the midst of her” (Ps. 46:5). The song of earth will be the song of eternity, ---“All my springs are in Thee;” (Ps. 87:7) ---“With Thee is the fountain of life!” (Ps. 36:9)
If we take the River as symbolic of the believer’s bliss, its purity is a “pure river of the Water of Life.” “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Present happiness and peace can be marred and polluted by impurity. The breath of sin blurs the windows of the soul. The curse of sin blights the fairest flowers in the earthly garden. The corruption of the heart, like the wind on the surface of the lake, disturbs its loveliest reflections.
The world around us and even within Christians, there are plottings and counter-plottings; envyings and slanders; frauds and ambitions; feuds and hatred---and intense love of self. By that River of Life there will be no such disturbing causes. There will be one vast community of holy beings pervaded by one law---the law of love.
“When he shall appear, we shall be like him.” (1 Jo. 3:2) Heavenly citizenship is a pure river of the water of life on whose banks the Redeemed are to recline, and of whose streams we are to drink. “Without holiness no man can see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14)
The Tree of Life is Christ. No flaming sword now guards the way in Paradise regained. The Tree stands in the open street, free to every glorified citizen---the pledge and guarantee of his immortal joy. In Jesus, this ever-living Tree, there is found every kind of exalted happiness; bliss suited to the varied tastes and capacities and spiritual longings of His ransomed people.
“There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God.” (Ps. 46:4)
The believer’s bliss is a covenant one and divine in origin (flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb). It is changeless and inexhaustible. No darkness can cloud it. It flows on and on forever, “to the ages of the ages!” (Eph. 2:7)
“I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness”… (Ps. 17:15)
Here will be the true “Peniel” (Gen. 32:30), where we shall see God face to face. There will be the goodly company of the prophets, the glorious fellowship of the apostles, the noble army of martyrs, yet all will be subordinate to the vision and fruition of God Himself! Like Jacob, we, too can experience this divine presence during our earthly pilgrimage. His favor is life. His smile is Heaven.
“Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and enter in through the gates into the City.” (Rev. 22:14)
These blessings are not just for the other side of the grave. They are ours now! We are invited now to partake of these fruits, and to rest under that shelter. “Christ who is our Life” (Col. 3:4). Life is now alone found in Him. The curse is broken by faith, the blood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. There is no more curse for the Christian! We are living in the light of the Risen Lamb.
The Tree bears fruit every month.
‘He that dwells in the secret place of the most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty!”
Our praises here on earth are feeble at best; but when all the glorified throng of heaven and earth join in full concert, rising in higher and still higher strings---then heaven’s eternal arches will ring with their shouts, while they ascribe “Blessing and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might---unto Him who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!”
YES! Heaven joins us when we sing. We join with that great cloud of witnesses in Heaven and they join with us in the song of the Redeemed.
“If such the sweetness of the stream,
What must the fountain be?
Where saints and angels draw their bliss,
Immediately from Thee!”
The joy of Heaven! Think of its plentitude and its perpetuity. “Fullness of joy”, “pleasures for evermore.” Our vessel filled to the brimful---running over from a fountain which will never be dry.
Deut. 10:14: “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s your God, the earth also, with all that is therein.”
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V.
I entered into the labors of John Ross MacDuff, the Promised Land and Memories of Patmos. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Dr. MacDuff.