HEAVEN, THE GOOD LAND THAT IS BEYOND THE JORDAN
[p. 286] HEAVEN, THE GOOD LAND THAT IS BEYOND THE JORDAN
Romans 8: 28, 29; 1 Corinthians 15: 48, 49; 2 Corinthians 5: 1 - 5
My thought is, by the Lord’s help, to throw a little light on the conditions that obtain in heaven. If we are destined for heaven, and if heaven is prepared for us, it should become of supreme interest to us and what lends it peculiar attractiveness is the fact that not only is Jesus there, but He has gone there to prepare a place for us. We shall trace the interest of His love in the conditions that we shall find there.
God, by His Spirit, garnished the heavens; the work of the Spirit is thus seen in the physical heavens, but inside we shall find the touch of the Lord Jesus. “I go”, He says, “to prepare a place for you”. Neither is our going to Him there left to the Spirit, for He comes Himself for us. The Holy Spirit is here as “another Comforter”, so that there should be nothing lacking to us, but then the Lord impresses upon us the interest of His affections, in that He actually comes back for us, and, coming back, He conducts us into the spot which He has prepared for us. We shall find traces of the Lord’s work there.
Now, as I said, it is obvious that that place should become of supreme interest to every believer. It is not that one would undertake to say much about it, for one has to own how little one knows; but, nevertheless, God would say to us, “Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art”, Genesis 13: 14. If God directs you to lift up your eyes, He will support your eyes. We are told that Stephen looked up steadfastly; that look was supported. There are looks which are not divinely supported. We are told of Lot, that he lifted up his eyes, but he was not told to do so. He lifted up his eyes towards [p. 287] the well-watered plain of Sodom. God did not tell him to do that, and, not telling him to do it, Lot had to look on the well watered plain in his own strength. If you look without divine support you will be deceived, but if the Lord directs you to lift up your eyes He will support your eyes; and therefore one is encouraged to ask the saints to look into heaven.
The word is, “look from the place where thou art”. You may ask, “Where am I now?” If you are in Christian fellowship, you have had to suffer loss; it was when Lot separated from him that God directed Abraham to lift up his eyes from where he was. He was in the right position; he was governed by divine principles, and from that point he could lift up his eyes.
Now, although one is conscious of how little we know of heaven, yet there is a means of looking into it, and so one may, as it were, travel with the Lord up to mount Nebo. Romans 8 is, as I understand it, mount Nebo; it is not exactly the land, but it is a point of eminence where you can survey, by the help of God, the land of promise. I would like by the aid of the Spirit to lead your minds and hearts to that point of eminence. You will remember how Aaron was conducted up to mount Hor to die; that is one evidence of grace in the book of Numbers, the believer goes up to die. Christ went down to die. In Moses you have an addition to that; he was conducted up to look at Canaan. Moses saw the land; it had been in his heart, and God showed it to him. Is it in your heart, or are the well watered plains of Sodom in your heart? If the latter, you will not be interested; but, if on the other hand, that “good land”, as Moses calls it, is in your heart, you will want to hear about it.
Now I want to trace as briefly as I can from the book of Genesis how the idea of heaven is developed [p. 288] in the Scriptures; the idea is so prominent in the mind of God that He introduces it on the second day of the creation. It was to be marked off specifically from what was called earth. In the New Testament we read that as God caused the light to shine out of darkness, so He has shone in the heart of man. Heaven gradually came into evidence and on the second day there was a line of demarcation between heaven and earth. On the fourth day you come to recognise that the heaven has the pre-eminence of the two. Most believers have not progressed beyond the first day; every day has light, as you are aware, and each day begins with an evening. Succession of days suggests continual movement.
I want to move on to the second day; there the heaven is distinct from the earth. Then, on the fourth day, you have the great truth that heaven has pre-eminence; and not only has it pre-eminence, but it is intended to entirely predominate the earth. The earth is seen to be absolutely dependent upon it. There are seen in it a great source of light and dependent luminaries. The disregard of the fourth day of the creation is the cause of all the disorder which exists on the earth at the present time. All the moral derangement that is apparent everywhere is the result of the disregard of the light of the fourth day of creation; that is to say, you must respect the authority that God has placed in heaven. You must come to that. There is derangement, dislocation and independence until that is recognised. The sun is a type of Christ in His glory in the heavens; if you understand the fourth day, you will see that glory and speak of it. Any one who has seen the glory of Christ is sure to speak of it. It says of Isaiah, “These things Esaias said, when he saw his glory and spake of him”. It is a wonderful thing to hear a man speak about Christ who has seen His glory; what a character it gives to the speaking! The glory [p. 289] that Isaiah saw was like the sun in the heavens, the whole earth was filled with it. Where is there a, luminary in that vast expanse to compare with the sun? He is the lord in that way. That is what Christ is to the spiritual man.
“Let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name”, Genesis 11: 4. Now that is what goes on at the present time! The earth is filled with the glory of man now, but for faith the earth is filled with the glory of Christ. In Genesis 12 we find Abraham called out. Who called him out? The God of glory. The world of man’s glory was abandoned. What has God in His mind? There is to be a family in heaven; in Abraham we get the idea of a family in heaven. The glory of God is bound up in Man, in Christ, and the glory of God has reference to what He is. He has affections, and He is to have heaven filled with men responsive to His heart. On earth there are to be men responsive to the heart of God. He takes up one man, and out of that man He evolves a wonderful system of glory. There is to spring from that man an innumerable company of men for heaven, and an innumerable company of men for earth. Think of that!
Now that was to be in Abraham’s seed, and that brings me to the second point I have in my mind, which is in connection with Isaac. I know of no man, in a way, more interesting in the Scriptures than Isaac, and the interest lies in the fact that he is a type of Christ as the heavenly Man. After his birth you find the first speaking out of heaven. I want you to take note of that. The first direct speaking out of heaven is after Isaac’s birth; and, mark you, the speaking has reference to a persecutor of Isaac. As born here upon earth, the heart of Christ was filled with sympathy, even for His [p. 290] enemies, and heaven was sympathetic with that. In Genesis 21, it says that Isaac was born, and when he was weaned Abraham made a great feast for him; Abraham saw Christ in Isaac, in a way, when the child was weaned.
What I want to point out is that Ishmael mocked Isaac, which is called persecution in the New Testament. Whom did he mock? A little child as Isaac was then could do no one any harm. That is the type of Christ. The Lord Jesus did no one any harm, yet He had to say, “they have both seen and hated both me and my Father”. I want to point out, that the voice of the boy who persecuted Isaac is heard in heaven. It had reference to the fact that Isaac, Christ in type, had come in and was recognised. Now chapter 21, in that way, shows you what Christ is in the mind of heaven. Ishmael came in, but very little testimony followed; his mother took for him a wife out of Egypt; there was no sympathy for God’s mind or heaven, but man cannot change heaven by his conduct. Thank God for that! You cannot change heaven from earth, earth will be changed from heaven.
When we come to Genesis 22, what we find is that heaven is directly occupied with Isaac; the angel of the Lord spake out of heaven as to Isaac. Then the angel called out of heaven to Abraham the second time. I do not know a passage in Scripture that has more interest to me than that; the interest in heaven for Christ Himself here upon earth. Now, that Man has a companion. He is of such supreme interest to heaven that He must have a companion there equal to Him as to lineage; hence the genealogy of Rebecca is given in the end of chapter 22. Isaac is not spoken of in Scripture as having brethren; he had brothers, as we know, but not brethren in the scriptural sense; in connection with Joseph we have brethren.
[p. 291] When you come to Joseph you come to a brother, and a brother who is “born for adversity”; therefore Joseph becomes a wonderful type of Christ. He goes through the most terrible adversity at first, but he is a brother “born for adversity”. You all remember the touching scene in Genesis 45, when he made himself known to his brethren. I want you to raise the question in your hearts as to whether Christ has made Himself known to you. He will make Himself known to you as in relation with you in this sense when you are equal to it.
Now I want to refer to Genesis 44. Here we have the record of Judah’s exercises, and there is a clear evidence of a brotherly spirit in them. The subject could be much enlarged upon, but I refer to it only briefly. He sympathised with his father, he sympathised with his brother Benjamin, and he undoubtedly felt in his soul the betrayal of Joseph. God had dealt with Jacob’s sons until they were brought back to their brother, and in Judah there was at the end the spirit of a brother. Have you come to that? Have you in your heart the spirit of a brother? Title to Christian fellowship and a place among the saints suppose that. Judah said he was prepared to be a slave for Benjamin; he has come to it now. God is working with us to bring us to the spirit of a brother, because really you cannot go to heaven without it. Who are going to be in heaven? Brethren. What kind of brethren are they going to be? Heavenly brethren; brethren of the heavenly Man. Thus when the time came for it, Joseph could not refrain himself. You may depend upon it that Christ will cause us to know in a very real way our relationship to Him as we possess the affections and sympathy suited to brethren. Joseph caused every man to go out from him, and he said, “I am Joseph, your brother”. What a marvellous revelation for them! He says, “Come near to me,
I pray you”; not only Judah, but every one of the eleven sons of Jacob now knew their near relationship to this great man.
In 1 Corinthians 15: 48, 49, we get the divine thought, that as brethren of Christ we are heavenly; “as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly”. Adam had no children in innocence; all his children were born in sin, and they bear the image of the earthy as sinful. We have borne the image of the earthy, but we shall bear the image of the heavenly. Think of that! We shall bear the image of the heavenly. What an effect that should have on the walk and ways of the believer. The divine thought is that heaven is to be inhabited by a race of men suited to it, all bearing the image of Him who is the heavenly Man.
In the passage I have read in 2 Corinthians 5: 1 - 5, we have the exercise of a man who not only saw what was in the mind of God, but desired it. “Not”, he says, “that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon”; clothed with our house from heaven. “Our house which is from heaven”. What a wonderful expression! I want especially to call attention to it. Think of the material of that house!
In the first epistle the body is said to be raised, but in the second epistle we come to the heavenly side; the house is from heaven. It is “a building of God ... eternal in the heavens”. It is not for earth, it is heavenly and for heaven; it is formed after the pattern of Christ. Think of what it will be to dwell there, each having his own heavenly house!
You will understand the apostle’s use of the word house; it refers to the body.
Then he goes on to say, “he that path wrought us for the selfsame thing is God”; it is then that the inner and outer will be equal. God builds the house and forms us for it, so that there is no disparity [p. 293] between the house and him who dwells in it. God is working in us now in order that we should come out then equal to the house that has been built for us; heaven is thus to be occupied with persons who are all formed after the pattern of the heavenly Man. The bodies we have here are not equal to the spiritual formation within; in them we groan; they are “tabernacle” houses; they may be taken down through death at any time, but the building from God is “eternal in the heavens”.
Now, when you come to Romans 8 you have the family side touched on. The apostle says, “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren”. That leads me to the thought I had in my mind to leave with you. You get in that verse in Romans 8, a look in, as it were, from mount Nebo. From mount Nebo Moses saw all the land, but he did not see the people there. In Deuteronomy 33 he had been occupied with the people; there he views the people as formed typically by the Spirit; they are fit for the land, and now in chapter 34 he sees the land which they are to occupy. He views the people according to the love he had for them, and he was also enabled to view the land in its entire extent. How wonderful that we are privileged to look, like Moses, into that land! It is only by the aid of the Spirit of God that we can do so. Christ was not there as Man when Moses looked in, but He is there now. Stephen saw Him there. We, too, may look in and see Him in heaven; He is there as the First-born among many brethren; by faith we may see the brethren there with Him. There is that vast spiritual domain filled with Christ and His brethren.
[p. 294] We acquire a knowledge of heavenly conditions now as we know and love Christ and the brethren. Our joy will be to be with Him and them there. Stephen “looked up steadfastly into heaven” and if we do this we shall see Christ there. May He enable us to do it!