Welcome to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm Phil Johnson. What does the Bible say about heaven?
Well, over the years, John MacArthur has dug deep into biblical truth about the believer's eternal home. And as you've probably heard by now, it's the home that John is enjoying right now. He passed away a little over a week ago, and we certainly miss John, but we are thankful for his legacy of verse-by-verse Bible teaching that will continue through grace to you for as long as the Lord allows. And we're thankful that John knows now better than ever the glories of heaven that he studied and preached about in such great detail.
So follow along now as we continue John's study titled Heaven. I'm going to give you the first half of our discussion of heaven from the viewpoint of what will our relationship to God be. We won't have time to cover it all, and that's probably just as well because of the richness of this particular theme. The Apostle Paul made an amazing statement when he said, For to me to live is Christ, to die is gain. For someone to say to die is gain reflects certainly a different attitude than most people would have in this world.
Most people in our society, and reasonably so, fear death. For Paul to say To die is gain, or to die brings advantage to me. To die is to gain something advantageous is quite a remarkable statement. And that kind of confident statement assumes that Paul felt that the life to come was better than the life he was living. He had a personal experience.
Sometime prior to saying that, in which he was caught up into the third heaven. According to 2 Corinthians 12, 2. There he saw in some way the abode of God. There he saw the heaven of heavens. It was indescribable.
It was unspeakable. But he saw enough. to know that to die was gain. John The apostle lived in such anticipation of heaven that he could say, even so, come, Lord Jesus. And I believe that it's not uncommon for any believer who walks with Christ and who rightly ascertains this life and the life to come to be able to echo the words of Paul and John and hope for that which is yet ahead.
Now we've been learning why heaven is so attractive. We've been learning about the fact that it is gain to leave this world and go into the presence of the Lord. that eternal dwelling place where God lives and where He lives with all the redeemed of all the ages, a place where there is infinite perfection of body and soul, a place where there is a perfect environment of love and joy and peace and fulfillment and satisfaction. We have noted many wonderful truths about heaven. We come to the most glorious reality of heaven, that which surpasses everything else, and that is our relationship to God in heaven.
And so we pose the next in our list of questions: what will be our relationship to God in heaven? And the Bible delineates several wonderful features. Let's jump right into it. Number one. In considering what our relationship to God will be in heaven, the first thing we can note is we will be with Him.
We will be with him. We can label that simply fellowship or communion, which is another way to say the same thing. This in itself is the supreme joy of heaven because God is the supreme being, the supreme occupant of heaven. Being with Him is the supreme joy. Fellowship with the Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you look back a little bit in your thoughts to the reality of salvation, you remember that John defined salvation in 1 John chapter 1 as having fellowship. He said, We have fellowship. with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. When a person becomes a believer, we enter into communion with God. His life becomes our life.
We become so identified with him that, as the psalmist said, the reproaches that fall on him are fallen on us. We become so identified with Him that His will is our will. His purpose is our purpose. His desire is our desire. His objective is our objective.
Even if Hindered by sin, nonetheless, at the deepest part of our being, regenerated souls are in union with the living God and fellowship with the living Christ.
So, salvation brought us into communion. We can talk with God, we can commune with Him, we pray to Him, we hear Him speak in the Word, He moves in those silent ways in our lives by providence to reveal Himself. We are living in real spiritual communion with God. But in a sense, that communion is hindered. It is not the fullness of communion.
When we go to heaven, on the other hand, we will enter into full fellowship with God, into unhindered fellowship with God, a fellowship more imagined, more wonderful, I should say, than anything we can imagine. Let's just touch base with some of the scriptures that indicate that to us. We can start. Back in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. John chapter 17.
And we find in that chapter our Lord, of course, praying to the Father and asking that he would be returned to the glory that he had before the world began. Having anticipated the consummation of his earthly work, he was ready to go back to the Father. As he prays, He prays on behalf of those who are his own in the world. And in verse 24, particularly, he says, Father, I desire that they also They referring to believers in this age and all who believe in Christ, I desire that they also whom thou hast given me. Be with me where I am.
And stop at that point. That is the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is an amazing thing to me. That it is Christ's desire. to have eternal fellowship with us.
He says, Father, my prayer is... That those who believe in me Those you have given to me be with me where I am. What a remarkable statement. I mean, we often think about how much we long to be with Christ, but do you understand how much Christ longed to be with us? Do you understand that when a believer dies and goes to heaven, it is not only the fulfilling of the longing of the believer, but it is the fulfilling of the longing of Christ?
That's a remarkable thought. It's one thing that I should want to be with him. It's quite something else that he should want to be with me. And he tells why in verse 24. in order that they may behold my glory.
which thou hast given me. Father, I want them to see my glory. I want them to see me in the fullness of my manifest reality. I want them to see me for who I really am. I want them to see the majesty of my unveiled.
Deity. And so the Lord Jesus Christ longs for us to be in heaven. He prayed that to the Father. That we would be with him where I am, he says. The little phrase with him intrigues me.
It doesn't just say that we will see him, it says that we will be with him. He longs not for us to be spectators, but for us to be participants. Not for us to be watchers, but for us to be communers. With him. What a prayer.
Do you think that Christ has his prayers answered? I'm sure he does. And the reality of it is that the day will come, beloved, when we will be with him where he is for the purpose of beholding his glory which is given him of the Father. out of the Father's love, it says at the end of the verse. And so we find then that We can look forward to being with him where he is.
We will be with him. That's what heaven's all about. Our relationship to God the Father, our relationship to God the Son, our relationship to God the Holy Spirit will be to be in constant, unending, eternal communion with them.
Now, let's look at John 14, backing up in John's gospel, another scripture that gives us insight into this. The disciples have been informed that Jesus will be leaving them. He has spoken of his death and resurrection. He must go back to the Father. He must be like a corn of wheat that falls into the ground and dies so that it can bring forth life.
And he says to them that he will be leaving. He says In verse 36 of chapter 13, where I go, you can't follow me now, but you'll follow later. What a tremendous promise. I'm going, but you'll come later. Peter wants him to take him right on the spot and so he Says, I'll die with you right now.
I want to go now. Jesus says, No, you won't die right now. You won't lay your life down for me. In fact, you'll deny me.
So the setting is Jesus telling them that he was leaving. And that's what we find in verse 1 of chapter 14. Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. And why does he say that?
Because their hearts were troubled over the thought of Jesus leaving them. He was their resource for everything. When they needed comfort, he comforted them. When they needed wisdom, he taught them. When they needed food, he created it.
When they needed to pay their taxes, he pulled a fish out of the water, took the tax out of the fish's mouth. He was there. In every struggle and every trial and every situation, he was there. He was their life. It had become so in those nearly three years that they had been together, or even a little over that.
So he says, stop letting your hearts be troubled. You don't need to be anxious about my going away. You believe in God, then believe also in me. In my father's house, are many rooms. And if it were not so, I would have told you.
For I go to prepare a place for you. A place where? In my father's what? House, you will be with me. You will be with me in my father's house.
You will be with me, and you will be with my father. And I've said this many times before. Everybody in heaven is in the Father's house. There aren't many houses in heaven. There is one house, the dwelling place of God.
And God in His infinity fills all of the infinite, eternal heaven with His immediate presence.
So he says, In my father's house are many rooms, and I go to prepare a place for you. Then, verse 3. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to, here's the key word, myself. Why don't you underline that in your Bible? I will receive you to myself.
Can I put it simply, we're not going to a place, we're going to a person. Did you get that? We're not going to a place so much as we're going to a person. We're going into fellowship with God. We're going into fellowship with Christ.
We're not going to a place from which you can get to God. We're not going to a place from which you can get to Christ. We're going to a person, namely God and the Lord Jesus Christ. We will never be outside the presence of God or the presence of Christ.
So he says I will again come and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may what? Be also Being with Christ. Being with God. That's the essence of heaven.
So what will be our relationship to God? First of all, we'll be with him. It will be. Paradise regained only infinitely beyond anything Adam and Eve ever experienced in the garden. We will be with them.
All the time. Unending fellowship. And since God is infinite glory and infinite beauty and infinite majesty and infinite holiness and infinite everything else, you will never get bored with being with God forever and ever and ever because you will continually be the experiencing the unfolding of the realities of His infinite glory. The same with Christ. Let's look at Revelation chapter 21.
When you stop to think about the fact that the Lord is. The matchless, perfect Glorious God. to have the privilege of forever being with him. is almost inconceivable. In Revelation 21, we read about the new heaven and the new earth.
The first heaven, the first earth passed away. There's no longer any sea, nothing to divide, nothing to be afraid of. I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. Here's the capital city of heaven. This isn't all there is of heaven.
This is just the major city. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Here it comes, the tabernacle of God is among men, and he shall dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be. among them. Twice he says, among them, among them. Talk about intimate presence.
He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. God himself pitches his tent among men. The tabernacle of God is among men. He shall dwell among them. God Himself shall be among them.
That's the glory of heaven. Believers will be in the eternal, immediate presence of God Himself. Intimate communion with God, intimate communion with Christ. What an unbelievable thing. Fellowship.
Let me give you a second thought. First one will be with him. Second one, we'll see him. We will see him. The first one was fellowship, the second one is vision.
Are you ready for this? We will have direct sight. Of the Lord. We will see the Lord. You say, wait a minute.
Exodus 33, no man can see the Lord and live. The New Testament, John 1:18, 1 John 4:12, it says, No man has seen God at any time. 1 Peter 1.8, we love the one. We have not seen. God is not seen.
He is the one who possesses immortality, dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. You say, if nobody has seen God and nobody can see God, how are we going to be able to see God? We're going to have to be different than we are now. Exodus chapter 33. Moses got a little glimpse of God.
You remember in Exodus 20? 33 said, Show me your glory. God said, I can't show you my full glory, but I'll let you see a little of my back parts. Tucked him in a cave. And God moved by and put a veil over his eyes, and he could see a little bit of the glow of God.
It's true, God is inaccessible to mortal man. He is too holy, listen to this. He is too holy, too pure, and too spotless to look on iniquity. And he is too holy, too pure, and too spotless to have iniquitous man look on him.
So as long as we're in our sin, we can't see God. And I don't believe that even when we're in heaven, we'll see God in His infinity because I don't believe we have that capacity, or we would be God even in our glorified state. But we will see God in a way we will not be able to see Him here and now. We can only see a glimpse, like the disciples who saw Jesus pull back the veil of his flesh at the Transfiguration and He was light before them. They saw the back parts again.
They saw a little of the glow. but not the full blazing of God's presence. To endure that, you'd have to be a totally transformed person. All sin removed. And I do believe that when we go to glory in the perfection of body and soul, we'll have a greater capacity to see the revelation of God.
You say, well, how do you know we're going to see him? Let's look at a couple of scriptures just very briefly: Matthew 5:8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall what? See God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall absenta see God.
They shall be seeing God for themselves, a future continuous reality. They shall be living in an environment where they are continually seeing God. In the Oriental courts of ancient times, the kings were secluded, and it was a rare privilege for anyone to have an audience with a king. Let alone to see the king of kings all the time continuously. Psalm 42, I just love it.
Verses 1 and 2: As the deer pants after the water brook, so pants my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Then, this, when shall I come and appear before God? The psalmist says, When do I get to see you? And the disciples cried out in John 14:8, show us the Father.
It's always been in the heart of the redeemed to want to see God. In this life, We see God, but not with the physical eye. We see with the heart, we see with the mind, we see God moving in history, we see Him moving in circumstances. We see him in creation. We see him in providence.
We see him in revelation. We see him revealed in his grace, his mercy, and his love. We see him revealed in the work of his spirit. But I believe in the future there will be a vision of God with the eye. And we will see the glorious revelation of the blazing effulgence of God in heaven.
You remember in Exodus 33, it said, You can see my back parts. God said to Moses, You can see my back parts. Compare that with Revelation 22.3. And there shall no longer be any curse. And the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his bondservants shall serve him, and they shall see his face.
And the next verse, the Lord God shall illumine them. God turns on the light of His glory, and we will see with our perfect eyes in that perfect body. The blazing glory of God revealed in light.
So I believe we'll see God. I believe we'll see his blazing light. You can't see a spirit, but when God reveals himself, he reveals himself in light. But secondly, I also believe we will see with the eye of the mind. That is to say, we will comprehend God.
1 Corinthians 13:12, very important verse in this kind of consideration. You know the verse, it says this.
Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, just as I also have fully known. He says, We see dimly, we'll see clearly. We know in part, we'll know. in fullness. We will see, I believe, with a glorified and perfected eye the revelation of God in light, and we will know about God.
We will have an instantaneous awareness and sense and knowledge of the fullness of God as much as we have capacity for.
So when it says, Blessed are the pure in heart, they shall see God. They shall see God with the glorified eye, and they shall see God with the glorified mind and soul as well. And what about Christ? We'll see him too. We'll see him too.
1 John 3. One and two. It says See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God? And such we are. For this reason, the world doesn't know us because it didn't know him.
They can't understand, comprehend us. They don't know who we really are any more than they understood who he was. Beloved, now we are the children of God. That's true, present tense. But it has not yet appeared what we shall be.
We are now children of God, but you haven't seen anything yet. We know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall what? See him. As He is, or just as he is. The day will come when we see Christ.
and will be like him. It's incredible. When we see Christ, when we see blazing light revealing God, we'll be overwhelmed and eternally awed by what we see. But when in our minds we understand that glory and comprehend that glory, We will be ravished with delight and spend forever and ever. being exposed to the reality of that glory.
Let me close with a verse that I want you to turn to. It's in the Psalms. And it's Psalm 17. And just a simple verse. But oh, what a profound heart's desire.
Verse 15. As for me, Says the psalmist, as for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness. That's his hope for eternal life. I'll see you at your face. in righteousness.
If he was not in righteousness, he would not see his face and live. I will see your face in righteousness. And then, this: I will be satisfied. With thy likeness. When I Awake Can I just grab that one thought?
I will be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness. The authorized says I like it better that way. I will be satisfied when I awake. in thy likeness. Can I ask you a question?
What satisfies you? What really satisfies you. You close? New job, promotion, new house, new car. satisfies you and you got enough money at the end of the month to pay the bills?
What really satisfies you? Great meal? Fun time. A vacation? Sama said, I'll be satisfied.
But I'll be satisfied. When I see your face, And I'm like you. Is that your ultimate satisfaction? Should be. To know God.
To see his blazing glory. to know Christ. to see him, to be like him, to gaze on him, to know him. Heaven will provide for us that sight of God and the Lamb, an undiminished, unwearied sight. Since God is infinite and Christ is infinite, they are infinite glory and beauty, and there will be infinite facets of that infinite glory and beauty to bring us infinite and eternal delight.
Is it any wonder then that Peter wanted to stay on the Mount of Transfiguration and make a house and live there? Fanny Crosby put it this way. When my life work is ended and I cross the swelling tide, When the bright and glorious morning I shall see I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side, and his smile will be the first to welcome me. Through the gates to the city in a robe of spotless white, he will lead me where no tears shall ever fall. In the glad song of ages, I shall mingle with delight, but I long to meet my Savior.
First of all. I long to meet my Savior, first of all. She was blind, you know. And the first person she ever saw was Jesus Christ. What will be our relationship to the Lord in heaven?
We'll be with him. And we'll see him. I hope that's your ultimate. Satisfaction. Let's pray together.
Thank you, Father, for the promise you've given us. that we do not just have hope in this world. But we hope we have hope in the world to come. We long for the day when our life work is ended, we cross that swelling tide. On the bright and glorious morning we see The day when we know our Redeemer.
We've reached the other side. and His smile is the first to welcome us. What a joyous time. May we be satisfied with nothing less. Nothing less.
Amen. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, and his current study is titled Heaven. As you may have heard on this broadcast or elsewhere, John recently went to heaven, and it just seems appropriate to let you hear some of his classic teaching on the eternal home that every believer longs for.
Now, throughout more than five decades as a Bible teacher, John was committed not only to teaching scripture in detail, verse by verse, but also to equipping believers to be students of scripture for themselves. And so, to help you dig deeper into what the Bible says about heaven, we want to send you a booklet by John called The Truth About Heaven. It's yours free of charge. Just request your copy when you contact us today. You can email your request to letters at gty.org.
You can also request your free copy of The Truth About Heaven from. our website gty.org. And keep in mind, you can listen again to today's message when you visit gty.org. In fact, at the website, you can download John's entire sermon archive. That's more than 3,600 sermons, going all the way back to 1969 and John's first message as the pastor of Grace Church in Los Angeles.
Each message is free of charge in MP3 and transcript format.
So dive in today at gty.org. And let me take a moment here to say thank you for all of the kind messages and words of encouragement that we have received in recent days from friends like you. Thanks also for your continued prayers for John's family, for the Congregation of Grace Church, and for us here at Grace to U. Your prayers are vital, especially now.
So again, thank you for bringing us before the Lord. And now, on behalf of the entire Grace to You staff, I'm your host, Phil Johnson, inviting you to join us for another half hour of Unleashing God's Truth, one verse at a time, on the next Grace to You.
