The Saints Will Recognize each Other in Heaven
Question: Will there be mutual recognition in heaven?
Answer: Even though such knowledge will not be what it is here (it being associated with a physical relationship and affections), we nevertheless believe that ministers will know their members, members their minister, the husband his wife, the wife her husband, parents their children, and children their parents. Relatives and acquaintances will know each other. Furthermore, all men of renown in the Bible, and all who excel in glory will be known by all. All who are in heaven will mutually know each other by divine revelation and through the eternal fellowship they will have with each other. No one will be a stranger to each other or be considered as such by anyone, for there will be no loss of memory. Ignorance is a weakness, and there will be no imperfection. Mutual fellowship will be perfect there; it will not be engaged in ignorantly, but knowledgeably. I believe that they shall recount to each other the ways in which the Lord had led them. They shall then praise and magnify the perfections of God which manifested themselves at each step of the way. They shall thus not be occupied with the immediate beholding of God only, without thinking of each other. Rather, as glorified men they shall fellowship together, unitedly glorifying God. The disciples knew Moses and Elijah when they were on the holy mountain (Mat. 17:3). The poor will know their benefactors when "they may receive you into everlasting habitations" (Luke 16:9). The absence of relatives will not engender sorrow since all physical relationships and affections cease there. The righteousness of God will give as much reason for joy and rendering of glory to God as His goodness.
That they shall have the ability to speak is evident from the fact that inability to speak is an imperfection. How else would they be able to sing praises? Moses and Elijah spoke with Christ, its purpose being to render glory to God. We believe, however, that the difference between languages will cease, this being a consequence of sin. However, which language will be spoken there is not known. It may possibly be the language that Adam spoke, which up to the moment when the languages were confused (a period of nearly two thousand years) was the only language -- the Hebrew language. Perhaps it will be a language enabling the saints to express the essence of heavenly matters better than any earthly language, which is generally derived from temporal matters. Whatever the language will be, however, it will be the glorification of God.
Richard Baxter, The Saint's Everlasting Rest, pp. 39-40, 141:
But yet it much sweeteneth the thoughts of that place [heaven] to me, to remember that there are such a multitude of my most dear and precious friends in Christ: 'with whom I took sweet counsel, and with whom I went up to the house of God, who walked with me in the fear of God, and integrity of their hearts:' In the face of whose conversation there was written the name of Christ: whose sensible mention of his excellencies hath made my heart to burn within me. To think such a friend that died at such a time, and such a one at another time, and that all these are entered into rest: and we shall surely go to them. It is a question with some, Whether we shall know each other in heaven or no? Surely, there shall no knowledge cease which now we have; but only that which implieth our imperfection. And what imperfection can this imply? Nay our present knowledge shall be increased beyond belief: it shall indeed be done away, but as the light of the stars is done away by the rising of the sun; which is more properly doing away our ignorance than our knowledge; indeed we shall not know each other after the flesh; but by the image of Christ, and spiritual relation, and former faithfulness in improving our talents, beyond doubt, we shall know and be known. Nor is it only our old acquaintance, but all the saints of all ages, whose faces in the flesh we never saw, whom we shall there both know and comfortably enjoy. Yea, and angels as well as saints will be our blessed acquaintance. Those who now are willingly ministerial spirits for our good, will willingly then be our companions in joy for the perfecting of our good: and they who had such joy in heaven for our conversion, will gladly rejoice with us in our glorification. I think, christian, this will be a more honourable assembly than ever you heave beheld; and a more happy society than you were ever of before. Then we shall truly say as David, 'I am a companion of all them that fear thee: when we are come to mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly, and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of th enew covenant.' So then I conclude: This is one singular excellency of the rest of heaven. 'That we are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.'
...
I must profess, from the very experience of my soul, that is the belief that I shall love my friends in heaven, that principally kindles my love for them on earth. If I thought I should never know them after death, and consequently never love them more when this life ended, I should, in reason, number them with temporal things, and love them comparatively but a little: even as I love other transitory things, allowing for the excellency in the nature of grace. But now I converse with some delight with my godly friends, as believing I shall converse with them for ever, and take comfort in the very dead and absent, as believing we shall shortly meet in heaven: I love them, I hope, with a love that is of a heavenly nature, while I love them as the heirs of heaven, with a love which I expect shall there be perfected, and more fully and for ever exercised.
The last reason that I give you, to move you to bear the loss or absence of your friends, is, that it gives you the loudest call to retire from all the world, and to converse with God himself, and to long for heaven, where you shall be separated from your friends no more.
Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, p. 585:
We shall, in the kingdom of heaven, have sweet society with glorified saints; then the communion of saints will be illustrious. O what a blessed time will it be when those who have prayed, wept, suffered together, shall rejoice together! We shall see the saints in their white linen of purity, and see them as so many crowned kings: in beholding the saints glorified, we shall behold an heaven full of suns. Some move the question, whether we shall know one another in heaven? Surely our knowledge shall not be diminished, but increased. It is the judgment of Luther and Anselm, and many other divines, that we shall know one another -- yea, the saints of all ages, whose faces we never saw; and, when we shall see the saints in glory without their spots, viz. their infirmities, pride, and passion, this will be a glorious sight. We see how Peter was transported when he saw but two prophets in the transfiguration, Mat. xvii. 3.; but, what a blessed sight will it be when we shall see such a glorious company of prophets, and martyrs, and holy men of God! How sweet will the music be, when they shall sing together in concert, in the heavenly choir! And though, in this great assembly of saints and angels, "one star may differ from another in glory," yet no such weed as envy shall ever grow in the paradise of God; then there shall be perfect love, which, as it casts out fear, so also envy; though one vessel of glory may hold more than another, yet every vessel shall be full.
Martin Luther after the 1542 death of his daughter Magdalena:
As Adam, when he awoke from sleep, recognized the newly created Eve at once as flesh of his flesh....Even so and far better shall we, who have been renewed in Christ, recognize one another there.
No comments:
Post a Comment