Love and the Afterlife

Isaiah criticized the false priorities of the people of his day by referring to how they would rise up early and stay up late to consume wine and pursue other pleasures, but didn't have much concern for the things of God (Isaiah 5:11-12). Similarly, how many parents today are occupied with preparing their children for school, a career, and marriage, but do little or nothing to prepare them for eternity? Shouldn't love compel a parent to be more concerned with leading his child to God and to Heaven than leading him to a football championship and a college degree?

One indication that a pastor loves the people he's entrusted with is that he warns them about Hell. I read a collection of Samuel Rutherford's letters a few years ago, and I noticed that Rutherford, unlike many false shepherds today, loved the sheep enough to warn them of the danger of Hell. Similarly, Robert McCheyne wrote to his church:

"Be sure of this, that you will only have yourselves to blame if you awake in hell. You will not be able to plead God's secret decrees, nor the sins of your minister, nor the carelessness of your godly neighbors. You will be speechless. If you die, it is because you will die; and if you will die, then you must die." (Pastoral Letters [Shoals, Indiana: Kingsley Press, 2003], pp. 74-75)

None of this is to say that Heaven and concepts such as the grace and love of God aren't to be mentioned. They're to be mentioned, and they should be mentioned often.

Jonathan Edwards is well known for his sermon on Hell, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". I attended classes in high school and college in which Edwards' sermon seemed to be included in the curriculum not so much to appreciate it and learn from it, but more as a warning of the dangers of such narrow and uncharitable thinking. I remember sitting in a literature class at Penn State and hearing other students in the classroom laughing while the sermon was being discussed. Though Edwards is often associated with his famous sermon on Hell, he also wrote one of the most beautiful descriptions of Heaven I've read (Charity and Its Fruits [Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1998], pp. 323-368). I'm going to be quoting some portions of it below, though I recommend reading the whole thing. This is how Jonathan Edwards described Heaven as a world of love:

Love cherished in the soul on earth, will be to us the foretaste of, and the preparation for, that world which is a world of love, and where the Spirit of love reigns and blesses for ever....

Heaven is the palace or presence-chamber of the high and holy One, whose name is love, and who is both the cause and source of all holy love....heaven is his dwelling-place above all other places in the universe; and all those places in which he was said to dwell of old, were but types of this. Heaven is a part of creation that God has built for this end, to be the place of his glorious presence, and it is his abode for ever; and here will he dwell, and gloriously manifest himself to all eternity.

And this renders heaven a world of love; for God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light. And therefore the glorious presence of God in heaven, fills heaven with love, as the sun, placed in the midst of the visible heavens in a clear day, fills the world with light. The apostle tells us that "God is love;" and therefore, seeing he is an infinite being, it follows that he is an infinite fountain of
love....

There, even in heaven, dwells the God from whom every stream of holy love, yea, every drop that is, or ever was, proceeds. There dwells God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, united as one, in infinitely dear, and incomprehensible, and mutual, and eternal love....

And there this glorious fountain for ever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and there rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!...

Often there is in good men some defect of temper, or character, or conduct, that mars the excellence of what otherwise would seem most amiable; and even the very best of men, are, on earth, imperfect. But it is not so in heaven. There shall be no pollution, or deformity, or unamiable defect of any kind, seen in any person or thing; but every one shall be perfectly pure, and perfectly lovely in heaven....

There they will find those things that appeared most lovely to them while they dwelt on earth; the things that met the approbation of their judgments, and captivated their affections, and drew away their souls from the most dear and pleasant of earthly objects. There they will find those things that were their delight here below, and on which they rejoiced to meditate, and with the sweet contemplation of which their minds were often entertained; and there, too, the things which they chose for their portion, and which were so dear to them that they were ready for the sake of them to undergo the severest sufferings, and to forsake even father, and mother, and kindred, and friends, and wife, and children, and life itself. All the truly great and good, all the pure and holy and excellent from this world, and it may be from every part of the universe, are constantly tending toward heaven. As the streams tend to the ocean, so all these are tending to the great ocean of infinite purity and bliss. The progress of time does but bear them on to its blessedness; and us, if we are holy, to be united to them there. Every gem which death rudely tears away from us here is a glorious jewel for ever shining there; every Christian friend that goes before us from this world, is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven. There will be the infant of days that we have lost below, through grace to be found above; there the Christian father, and mother, and wife, and child, and friend, with whom we shall renew the holy fellowship of the saints, which was interrupted by death here, but shall be commenced again in the upper sanctuary, and then shall never end. There we shall have company with the patriarchs and fathers and saints of the Old and New Testaments, and those of whom the world was not worthy, with whom on earth we were only conversant by faith. And there, above all, we shall enjoy and dwell with God the Father, whom we have loved with all our hearts on earth; and with Jesus Christ, our beloved Saviour, who has always been to us the chief among ten thousands, and altogether lovely; and with the Holy Ghost, our Sanctifier, and Guide, and Comforter; and shall be filled with all the fulness of the Godhead for ever!...

Their love shall be without any remains of any contrary principle, having no pride or selfishness to interrupt it or hinder its exercises. Their hearts shall be full of love. That which was in the heart on earth as but a grain of mustard-seed, shall be as a great tree in heaven. The soul that in this world had only a little spark of divine love in it, in heaven shall be, as it were, turned into a bright and ardent flame, like
the sun in its fullest brightness, when it has no spot upon it....

As the saints will love God with an inconceivable ardency of heart, and to the utmost of their capacity, so they will know that he has loved them from all eternity, and still loves them, and will continue to love them for ever. And God will then gloriously manifest himself to them, and they shall know that all that happiness and glory which they are possessed of, are the fruits of his love. And with the same ardour and fervency will the saints love the Lord Jesus Christ; and their love will be accepted; and they shall know that he has loved them with a faithful, yea, even with a dying love. They shall then be more sensible than now they are, what great love it manifested in Christ that he should lay down his life for them; and then will Christ open to their view the great fountain of love in his heart for them, beyond all that they ever saw before....

There shall be no such thing as flattery or dissimulation in heaven, but there perfect sincerity shall reign through all and in all. Every one will be just what he seems to be, and will really have all the love that he seems to have....

In this world the saints find much to hinder them in this respect. They have a great deal of dulness and heaviness. They carry about with them a heavy-moulded body - a clod of earth - a mass of flesh and blood that is not fitted to be the organ for a soul inflamed with high exercises of divine love; but which is found a great clog and hindrance to the spirit, so that they cannot express their love to God as they would, and cannot be so active and lively in it as they desire. Often they fain would fly, but they are held down as with a dead weight upon their wings. Fain would they be active, and mount up, as a flame of fire, but they find themselves, as it were, hampered and chained down, so that they cannot do as their love inclines them to do. Love disposes them to burst forth in praise, but their tongues are not obedient; they want words to express the ardency of their souls, and cannot order their speech by reason of darkness (Job xxxvii. 19); and often, for want of expressions, they are forced to content themselves with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. viii. 26).

But in heaven they shall have no such hindrance. There they will have no dulness and unwieldiness, and no corruption of heart to war against divine love, and hinder its expressions; and there no earthly body shall clog with its heaviness the heavenly flame. The saints in heaven shall have no difficulty in expressing all their love. Their souls being on fire with holy love, shall not be like a fire pent up, but like a flame uncovered and at liberty. Their spirits, being winged with love, shall have no weight upon them to hinder their flight. There shall be no want of strength or activity, nor any want of words wherewith to praise the object of their affection. Nothing shall hinder them from communing with God, and praising and serving him just as their love inclines them to do. Love naturally desires to express itself; and in heaven the love of the saints shall be at full liberty to express itself as it desires, whether it be towards God or to created beings....

And oh! what joy will there be, springing up in the hearts of the saints, after they have passed through their wearisome pilgrimage, to be brought to such a paradise as this! Here is joy unspeakable indeed, and full of glory - joy that is humble, holy, enrapturing, and divine in its perfection! Love is always a sweet principle; and especially divine love. This, even on earth, is a spring of sweetness; but in heaven it shall become a stream, a river, an ocean!...

Turn, then, the stream of your thoughts and affections towards that world of love, and towards the God of love that dwells there, and toward the saints and angels that are at Christ's right hand. Let your thoughts, also, be much on the objects and enjoyments of the world of love. Commune much with God and Christ in prayer, and think often of all that is in heaven, of the friends who are there, and the praises and worship there, and of all that will make up the blessedness of that world of love. "Let your conversation be in heaven." [Philippians 3:20] (pp. 322, 326-332, 335, 338-342, 352, 366)