The hope of our heavenly sanctification is that as we love Jesus more and more, our hearts and minds will increasingly turn to heaven. Jesus is the center of our heavenly home. Therefore, an interrelatedness exists between growing in Christ and increasing in heavenwardness. To love Jesus is to long to feel closer to him. To love Jesus is to long to see him. Since heaven involves optimal intimacy with Christ and the full vision of Christ, the natural momentum of the maturing believer moves toward eternity. To this end, Puritan theologian Jeremiah Burroughs wrote:
I remember it was written of Queen Mary, that she said if they ripped her open they would find tea in her heart. And so it may be said of saints whose conversation is in heaven, who walk with God and live here lives of heaven upon earth, if they were ripped open, you would find heaven in their hearts.
Imagine having this heavenly consumption of which Burroughs speaks! Imagine eternity permeating your whole being. Imagine the perspective, the patience, and the clarity you would have. Burroughs could simultaneously say that these saints’ hearts were filled with Jesus, since Christ is the center of heaven. For the Christian, being consumed with heaven necessarily means being consumed with Jesus. To long to be in heaven is to long to be with Christ.
With Paul, his heavenwardness operated in both a bottom-up and a top-down posture. When Paul wrote about a matter in life and then instinctively related it to heaven, this exhibited his bottom-up posture. He would begin with a specific matter and then relate it to the general principles of eternity. For example, in 1 Corinthians Paul rebuked the church for an incident of gross sexual immorality (1 Cor. 5:1–5). After reprimanding them, he exhorted the church to restore this particular member to godliness so “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (5:5). He connected his admonitions of repentance and moral purity to the condition of the sinner at the day of Christ. It’s not simply a “be good now” mentality; he had eternity in mind. The specific matter of sexual immorality was related to the general principles of eternity, namely, the final judgment.
Paul also thought in a top-down manner, when he ruminated on heaven, and that meditation then translated into practical insights related to life. In this way he started with the general principles of eternity and then moved down to the consideration of specific matters.
In 2 Timothy, Paul started by charging Timothy “in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:1–2). His conception of seeing Christ at his final appearing informed the way the pastor should think about preaching. This perspective, in effect, led him to communicate to Timothy, “Ministry and preaching are weighty business. Take it seriously.” The awareness of seeing God in his holiness at his appearing (the general principle of eternity) quickened the focus and gravity with which he considered preaching (the specific matter).
Church father Gregory of Nyssa exhibited this top-down heavenward posture in relation to worship and prayer. Gregory pondered heavenly beings constantly praising the Lord above in his glory:
When I hear of the altar of offering and the altar of incense, I understand the adoration of the heavenly beings which is perpetually offered in this tabernacle, for he says that not only the tongues of those on earth and in the underworld but also of those in the heavens render praise to the beginnings of all things. This is the sacrifice pleasing to God, a verbal sacrifice, as the Apostle says, the fragrance of prayer.
Gregory’s consideration of the worship of God in heaven (general principle of eternity) shaped the way he thought about praying to and praising the Lord (specific matter). It moved him to want to offer his life as a living sacrifice.
Whether it took on a bottom-up or top-down nature, heaven is above, below, and within the way Paul viewed the world. It saturated his perspective to the point that when asking the Philippians to help Clement and his other ministry partners, he referred to them as those “whose names are in the book of life” (Phil. 4:3). With all deference to the apostle Paul, this is a somewhat bizarre way to identify people. Nevertheless, this reference shows just how much heaven dominated Paul’s consciousness. The apostle certainly felt bound together with these (geographically) far-away friends through the knowledge of their mutual citizenship in heaven. In both the top-down and bottom-up examples, the common thread is a heart and mind anchored in glory such that the moment of the believer’s life is always moving heavenward.
If you’re a single person earnestly desiring a spouse, wondering when God will give you this gift can understandably cause pain. And in the midst of that longing and lament, how much does a heavenly consumption and your eternal marriage to Christ in heaven grant you patience?
When you lose perspective about worldly matters such as possessions and achievements, how does a persistent awareness that you will inherit the earth with Christ enable you to let go of these materialistic fixations and repent from that idolatry? When you think about the trillions of years we have in the new heavens and new earth, does it slow you down a step or two? When you envision Christ on his heavenly throne when tempted to enter defensively into a trivial argument, how much does it relax you and enable you to refrain from a potentially damaging debate?
A heavenward soul frees you. It settles you down. It grants you patience and comfort. It transforms you.
Content taken from Heavenward: How Eternity Can Change Your Life on Earth by Cameron Cole, ©2024. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
Footnotes
Jeremiah Burroughs, Two Treatises of Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs (Ligonier, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1991), 98.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 101.
