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Course 10 · Lesson 7.1

Heaven and the vision of God

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 10 outline

Module 1: Sin and Human Nature

  1. Human beings in the image of God
  2. The fall in Scripture: Genesis 3 and Romans 5
  3. Original sin in Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. Ancestral sin and mortality in the Eastern tradition

Module 2: Grace and Free Will

  1. Pelagius and Augustine
  2. The church responds: semi-Pelagianism and the Council of Orange
  3. Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will
  4. Monergism and synergism across the traditions

Module 3: Justification and Sanctification

  1. Justification in Paul and James
  2. Justification by faith alone in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions
  3. The Catholic teaching and the Council of Trent
  4. Sanctification, holiness and theosis
  5. Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

Module 4: Predestination and Election

  1. Election and predestination in Scripture
  2. Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on predestination
  3. Arminius, Wesley and conditional election
  4. Eastern and Catholic views on election and foreknowledge

Module 5: Atonement, Redemption and Adoption

  1. Atonement and its extent: for whom did Christ die?
  2. Redemption: the images of ransom, freedom and return
  3. Adoption: sons and daughters of God
  4. The order of salvation across the traditions

Module 6: Death, Resurrection and Judgment

  1. Death and the intermediate state
  2. The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds
  3. The final judgment: Christ the judge
  4. Purgatory, the Orthodox practice of praying for the dead, and the Protestant objection

Module 7: Heaven, Hell and the New Creation

  1. Heaven and the vision of God
  2. Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope
  3. The fate of those who have not heard the gospel
  4. The new heavens and the new earth

Module 8: The Millennium and Christian Eschatological Traditions

  1. Revelation and apocalyptic literature
  2. Premillennial views, historic and dispensational
  3. Amillennial and postmillennial views
  4. Preterist, historicist and futurist approaches
  5. What the traditions hold in common about the end

All courses

Program / Course 10: Salvation and Eschatology / Lesson 7.1

What you will learn

  • Describe what the Bible says about heaven and how its images should be read.
  • Explain the Western doctrine of the beatific vision and the Eastern teaching about seeing the divine light.
  • State how Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed and Arminian writers describe the joy of the blessed.
  • Distinguish heaven as the place of God’s presence from the new creation that the next lessons treat.

The big idea

In Christian teaching, heaven is first of all the presence of God, and the deepest joy of the blessed is to see him. Jesus says the pure in heart shall see God. Paul says that now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. The churches share this hope and describe it in different terms: the Western churches speak of the beatific vision, in which the blessed see God, and the Orthodox speak of sharing in the uncreated light and life of God. All say that heaven is not mainly a place of comfort but the fulfillment of love for God and for one another.

Key terms

Heaven
In the Bible the word can mean the sky, the dwelling place of God and the state of those who are with God. Christian doctrine uses it chiefly for the last.
Beatific vision
From Latin for ‘blessed seeing.’ The Western teaching that the saved will see God directly and find in this their complete happiness.
Light of glory
Aquinas’s phrase for the gift by which a created mind is enabled to see God’s essence, which it could not do by its own power.
Uncreated light
In Orthodox teaching, the divine light seen by the disciples at the Transfiguration and by the saints, which is God’s own energy and not a created thing.
Essence and energies
The Orthodox distinction between what God is in himself, which no creature can know, and his activities, in which he gives himself to be known and shared.
Communion of saints
The fellowship of all believers, living and dead, which the blessed enjoy in full.
Eschatological
Having to do with the last things. Heaven is an eschatological reality in that it is the goal of history.

Background

The Bible uses many images for the destiny of the faithful: a city with foundations (Hebrews 11:10), a wedding feast, a garden, a house with many rooms (John 14:2), a homeland (Hebrews 11:16) and the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21). It also uses images of reward, rest and joy. These are pictures, not descriptions, and the churches have usually said that what is promised is greater than what the images say: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Behind the images stands a simple conviction: that human beings were made for God. Augustine’s words at the start of the Confessions, that the heart is restless until it rests in God, express a theme common to all traditions. Heaven is therefore not first a reward added to the Christian life. It is the completion of what the Christian life has always been about.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The biblical hope of seeing God

The Psalms long to see God’s face: “In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11). Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Paul writes, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). John writes that “we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Revelation describes the redeemed as seeing God’s face, with his name on their foreheads (Revelation 22:4).

The Bible also says that no one has seen God at any time (John 1:18) and that no one can see his face and live (Exodus 33:20). Reading both together, Christians have said that seeing God in the age to come is a gift beyond natural power, made possible by Christ.

Step 2: The Western teaching of the beatific vision

Augustine described the final happiness as the vision of God, in which the saints rest, see, love and praise. Thomas Aquinas developed the doctrine. He taught that the final happiness of human beings can only be in the vision of God’s essence, since nothing less can satisfy the mind’s desire to know the first cause. Because a created mind cannot reach this by its own power, God gives the light of glory. Pope Benedict XII, in 1336, defined that the blessed see the divine essence directly and not through any creature.

The Catechism teaches that the blessed live in communion with the Trinity, with Mary, the angels and all the saints. Heaven is the state of supreme and definitive happiness. The vision is not static but is described as an ever-new joy, though theologians differ on how to speak of this.

Step 3: The Eastern teaching on light and theosis

Orthodox theology teaches that the divine essence is beyond the reach of every creature, even in heaven. What the saints see and share is God’s uncreated energies or light, the light that shone on Christ on Mount Tabor. Gregory Palamas, in the fourteenth century, defended this teaching against critics, and the Orthodox Church affirmed it in councils held at Constantinople. The goal is theosis, in which the saved are filled with the life of God, while remaining creatures.

Western critics have asked whether the distinction between essence and energies divides God. Orthodox writers reply that it protects both God’s transcendence and the real communion given to creatures. Some Western theologians today see the two accounts as closer than the controversy suggests, since both insist that the vision is a gift and that it is full communion with God. The question is still discussed.

Step 4: Protestant descriptions

The Reformers placed less emphasis on speculation about heaven, but they shared the hope. The Westminster Confession says that the souls of the righteous are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory. The Shorter Catechism says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Calvin described the future life as the joy of God’s presence. Luther spoke of heaven as the home where the faithful are freed from sin and sorrow and live with Christ. Wesley taught that the saved will be forever with God in a state of love.

Protestants have often stressed the resurrection and the new creation, which the next lessons examine, as the full form of heaven, and have tended to avoid detailed accounts of the intermediate state.

Step 5: Heaven as a communion

All the traditions speak of heaven as a communion of persons. Hebrews 12:22-24 speaks of the city of the living God, innumerable angels, the church of the firstborn, the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the mediator. Revelation shows a great crowd from every nation praising God together. Even those who stress solitary prayer on earth speak of the final life as fellowship, and of love as the one thing that does not end (1 Corinthians 13:8).

  1. Why might the Bible both say that no one has seen God and that the pure in heart will see him?
  2. What is lost if heaven is described only as a reward and not as the presence of God?
  3. Is the Eastern distinction between essence and energies a different account or a different way of speaking about the same hope?
  4. What does the phrase ‘face to face’ suggest about knowledge in the age to come?
  5. Why do so many biblical images of heaven involve a city or a feast?
  6. What does it mean to say that love is the one thing that does not end?

Examples

The restless heart

Augustine begins his Confessions by saying that God made humans for himself and that the heart is restless until it rests in him. A student reading this notes that the longing for fulfillment, which Augustine saw in himself, is for him already a sign of the goal. He suggests that heaven names what all desire.

An icon of the Transfiguration

In Orthodox churches the icon of the Transfiguration shows Christ in light on the mountain, with the disciples fallen to the ground. Orthodox teachers say it shows that the light of the age to come was visible to them, as a sign of what the saints will share. A visitor from a Protestant church says that he sees in it the same hope of 1 John 3:2.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The blessed see God face to face, in the beatific vision, which is their final happiness. They live in communion with the Trinity and the saints. The vision is a free gift, enabled by the light of glory. Heaven is the fulfillment of the deepest human desire.

Orthodox

The saved share in the uncreated light and energies of God and are drawn into theosis. The divine essence remains beyond creatures. Heaven is life in the Kingdom, in communion with Christ and all the saints, in the light of the Resurrection.

Lutheran

Believers who die are with Christ in the joy of his presence, and at the resurrection they will see God forever in a new creation. Lutherans speak of heaven as the fulfillment of justification and adoption, and are wary of detailed speculation.

Reformed

The blessed behold the face of God in light and glory. The chief end of human beings is to glorify and enjoy God forever, and heaven is the full enjoyment. Reformed teachers stress the glory of God as the center of heaven’s joy.

Arminian and Wesleyan

Wesley described heaven as the place where those perfected in love are with God forever. Wesleyan hymns, such as those of Charles Wesley, speak of seeing the Lord and of praising him with the saints. The emphasis falls on love as the heart of heaven.

Why it matters

How Christians picture heaven shapes how they live, grieve and hope. The vision of God as the heart of heaven corrects pictures that treat heaven as only a place of comfort or a prize. The comparison with the Eastern teaching shows that there are different ways of speaking about the same hope, and that careful reading can reduce some apparent disagreements.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Bible describes heaven as clouds, harps and wings.

Correction: Those images come from art and popular culture. The Bible’s images are of a city, a feast, light, a garden and the presence of God.

Misunderstanding: The beatific vision means seeing God with the physical eyes.

Correction: Catholic teaching describes it as an act of the mind and will elevated by grace. After the resurrection the glorified body also shares in the joy.

Misunderstanding: The Orthodox deny that the blessed see God.

Correction: The Orthodox teach that the saints see God’s uncreated light and share in his life, but not his essence. They affirm real communion.

Misunderstanding: Protestants do not believe in heaven in the same way.

Correction: Protestant confessions affirm heaven as the presence of God. They differ in emphasis and in rejecting purgatory and the invocation of saints.

Knowledge check

What is the beatific vision?

It is the Western teaching that the saved will see God directly and find in this their complete happiness. Aquinas taught that it is the vision of God’s essence, made possible by the light of glory. Pope Benedict XII defined in 1336 that the blessed see the divine essence immediately, not through any creature.

What is the Orthodox teaching on seeing God?

The Orthodox teach that no creature can see or know God’s essence, but the saved share in his uncreated energies and light, as seen at the Transfiguration. The goal is theosis, a real communion with God by grace. Gregory Palamas defended this teaching, and councils in Constantinople affirmed it.

Which biblical texts speak of seeing God?

Matthew 5:8 says the pure in heart shall see God. First Corinthians 13:12 says that now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face. First John 3:2 says that we shall see him as he is. Revelation 22:4 says that his servants shall see his face. Other texts, such as John 1:18, say no one has seen God.

How do Reformed teachers describe the blessedness of heaven?

The Westminster Confession says the souls of the righteous behold the face of God in light and glory. The Shorter Catechism teaches that the chief end of human beings is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Reformed writers treat the full enjoyment of God as the center of heaven and place it with the resurrection of the body.

Think it through

  1. What do you most hope heaven will be, and how does that hope compare with the biblical images?
  2. Is it easier to imagine heaven as a place or as a person? What does the Bible do?
  3. Why might a church wish to avoid detailed speculation about heaven?

Independent assignment

Images of heaven

In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Collect six biblical images of heaven from this lesson or your own reading. For each, write what it suggests about the nature of the hope. Then write a paragraph on what the beatific vision and the vision of uncreated light have in common, and one on where they seem to differ.

Further study