In past generations, our ancestors found great joy and benefit in being reminded about heaven’s magnificence. It’s not the appearance (as beautiful as it will be) or the conditions (as blissful as those will be) that should be most enticing to us. Neither will it be the loved ones with whom we will be re-united or even just the new condition of our hearts, no longer carrying the guilt and embarrassment of our sinful nature. No, the best part of heaven will be seeing our Savior, no longer through a glass darkly, but face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). What a tremendous thing for us to look forward to!
When we review literature of the godly writers of years gone by, even centuries before us, we find them speaking not infrequently about “the beatific vision.” Put most simply, that means the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise in the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount that the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8). Sadly, we tend to read that too figuratively, when we should read it more literally: that in some way, we will actually see God! And since God the Father is a spirit and does not have a physical body, this clearly means that we will see God in the person of the Son Jesus Christ. As Jesus Himself said to Thomas in John 14:8-9, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father; for I and the Father are one.”