Latest / Reformed Thinking / Heaven: A World of Love (1 Corinthians 13:8-10) | Jonathan Edwards
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back to the show. We are shifting gears a little
- 0:03bit today. We're stepping away from the
- 0:04usual news and tech talk to do something a little different,
- 0:07something we're calling reformed thinking.
- 0:10It's great to be here and yeah, this is a definite change of
- 0:13pace. We have a real treasure to get
- 0:16into today. We really do.
- 0:18You know, usually when people hear the name Jonathan Edwards,
- 0:21their mind immediately goes to one place.
- 0:23Oh yeah, They see a guy in a wig in a pulpit somewhere in
- 0:27colonial New England, and he's staring at the bell rope at the
- 0:30back of the church. Right.
- 0:31And he's not making eye contact with anyone.
- 0:33Not at all. And all they can think of is
- 0:35fire and brimstone and a spider dangling over a fiery pit.
- 0:40They think of that one sermon, Sinners in the hands of an angry
- 0:44God. Which is, I mean, it's a
- 0:46rhetorical masterpiece, no doubt about it.
- 0:48It's probably the most famous sermon ever preached on American
- 0:50soil. It is.
- 0:51And it paints a very, very specific and sobering picture of
- 0:57God's wrath. But it's a huge mistake to think
- 0:59that's the only note Edwards ever played.
- 1:01If that's all you know of him, you're missing the core of the
- 1:03man. And that is exactly why I'm so
- 1:06excited to break down this text we have in front of us.
- 1:08It's the final chapter of his big work, Charity and Its
- 1:12Fruits, and the sermon itself is titled Heaven, the World of
- 1:16Love. And honestly, reading this, it
- 1:19felt like stepping into a totally different universe
- 1:21compared to that caricature of Edwards we all have.
- 1:24It's bright, it's warm, it's just overwhelmingly positive.
- 1:28It's the other side of the coin. You know, you can't really
- 1:31understand Edwards view of God's wrath if you don't also
- 1:35understand his view of God's love.
- 1:36They're two sides of the same reality.
- 1:39And this text, it's arguably one of the most beautiful, detailed
- 1:42descriptions of heaven ever written down in the English
- 1:45language. He's analyzing First Corinth
- 1:471013 verses 8 through 10. The famous love chapter, the one
- 1:50that gets read at like every single wedding.
- 1:52That's the one. And he's focusing on the part
- 1:54where Paul writes charity never faileth, but whether there be
- 1:57prophecies, they shall fail. But when that which is perfect
- 2:00is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
- 2:04So our mission for this deep dive is to unpack Edwards's
- 2:08massive argument here. He's making a claim that heaven
- 2:12isn't just, you know, a place with golden streets and pearly
- 2:15gates. I mean, those images are in the
- 2:16Bible, of course, but he's arguing that the very essence of
- 2:21heaven, the thing that actually makes it heaven, is that it's a
- 2:24state of perfect holy love. And in being that it resolves
- 2:27all the imperfections, all the frustrations we deal with here
- 2:30in the church on earth, it's the final answer.
- 2:33Let's start with that theological setup.
- 2:35Then. Edward spends a good bit of time
- 2:36at the beginning on this idea of that which is perfect has come.
- 2:41What is he actually talking about there?
- 2:42He's setting up a kind of timeline, a timeline of both
- 2:45church history and the believers own life.
- 2:48Edwards lays out this distinction between a twofold
- 2:51imperfect and a twofold perfect state of the church.
- 2:55He's wearing 2 hats here. Historian and theologian.
- 2:57OK, a twofold imperfect. Let's break that down.
- 3:01What's the first layer? First, he looks at the history
- 3:03of the Church as a whole. There was what he calls the
- 3:05childhood of the Church. So think of the Apostolic Age,
- 3:08the book of Acts. Miracles.
- 3:10Tongues. Prophecies.
- 3:12All of it direct revelations. Now, a lot of people today look
- 3:16back at that time and they think it was the absolute peak of
- 3:19spirituality, the golden age. Right, we just assumed the
- 3:22miracles meant they were on a higher level than we are.
- 3:25Edwards argues the complete opposite.
- 3:26He says those miraculous gifts were actually signs of an infant
- 3:30state. They were, you know, spiritual
- 3:32training wheels. They were necessary because the
- 3:35church wasn't fully established yet.
- 3:37And this is key. The Canon of Scripture wasn't
- 3:40complete. They needed those sort of direct
- 3:43lines to God because they didn't have the full written revelation
- 3:47in their hands. That's a fascinating way to look
- 3:50at it. So the miracles weren't the
- 3:51summit, they were just the support structure for the
- 3:54beginning phases. Precisely.
- 3:55That's the classic Reformed cessationist view that Edwards
- 3:58held. So when the manhood of the
- 4:01Church arrives, which for him is when we have the complete word
- 4:05of God, those partial, temporary ways of knowing God fall away.
- 4:10You don't need the training wheels once you know how to ride
- 4:12the bike. Right.
- 4:13But then, he adds that second layer, There's also the
- 4:16distinction between the Church Militant and the Church
- 4:19Triumphant. The Church Militant being us
- 4:22here on earth, you know, fighting in the good fight,
- 4:25dealing with everything. Correct.
- 4:26And even with the full Bible, even with mature theology and,
- 4:30you know, the Westminster Confession, the church on earth
- 4:33is still in a state of childhood compared to what's coming.
- 4:36We're still struggling with sin. Our understanding is limited.
- 4:39We have conflict. We see through a glass darkly,
- 4:43as Paul says. Yes.
- 4:45So the true perfect state that Edwards is pointing us toward is
- 4:48heaven. That's the final destination.
- 4:51And his main thesis here? It's really specific about the
- 4:54Holy Spirit's role in all this, isn't it?
- 4:56It is This is the theological engine that drives the whole
- 4:58sermon. Edwards identifies the Holy
- 5:00Spirit as specifically the spirit of love.
- 5:03OK, so when the Bible talks about that which is perfect
- 5:06coming, Edwards says this means the Holy Spirit will be given
- 5:08perfectly without measure. Here on earth we have the
- 5:11Spirit, but it's in measure we have the fruits of the Spirit
- 5:14that they're mixed in with our own corruption and sin.
- 5:17But in heaven. In heaven, the spirit is poured
- 5:20out without any restraint, and since the spirit is the spirit
- 5:23of love, heaven must by definition be a world of love.
- 5:28That's such a powerful connection.
- 5:29It means the end of those other gifts, like prophecy in tongues.
- 5:33It's not a loss. It's actually a massive upgrade.
- 5:37It is. It's like blowing out a candle
- 5:38because the sun just rose. You don't need the flickering
- 5:41light of partial knowledge when you're just, you know, bathing
- 5:43in the full sunlight of perfect love.
- 5:45That's a great way to put it, and Edward zacharily uses that
- 5:47sun analogy himself when he starts talking about the cause
- 5:50and the fountain of this love. OK, let's get into that.
- 5:53The first major segment of his argument is about the source.
- 5:57Where does this, this ocean of love even come from?
- 6:01It all starts with the very nature of God.
- 6:03Edwards asks us to think about heaven spatially for a moment.
- 6:06He knows, of course, that God is omnipresent.
- 6:09He's everywhere. But he says Scripture itself
- 6:12speaks of God being in certain places in a more concentrated
- 6:16way than other. Like the temple in the Old
- 6:17Testament, right? God was present everywhere, but
- 6:20His presence was specially located there.
- 6:22Exactly. God was present in the land of
- 6:24Israel in a way He wasn't in, say, Egypt.
- 6:27He was in Jerusalem more than other cities.
- 6:29He was in the Temple more than other buildings in Jerusalem
- 6:32and. Then in the Holy of Holies above
- 6:33the mercy seat, that was the focal point.
- 6:35The absolute focal point that was his throne on earth.
- 6:38And Edwards says heaven is the ultimate holy of holies.
- 6:41It's God's presence chamber. It's the palace where the High
- 6:45and Holy One truly resides. And because.
- 6:47God is love, not just that he has loving feelings, but that
- 6:50His very essence is love. His immediate presence fills
- 6:55that place with love. Just as the sun fills the
- 6:58atmosphere with light, you can't be in that room, in that
- 7:00presence chamber, without being completely saturated by it.
- 7:04He paints this picture of God as an inexhaustible fountain.
- 7:07And the logic is simple, right? Because God is infinite, the
- 7:10fountain of love must be infinite.
- 7:11Because He is eternal, the flow of love never stops or
- 7:14diminishes. And this is where, you know, we
- 7:16have to get trinitarian. You cannot understand Edwards or
- 7:19really the Bible without the Trinity.
- 7:21Edwards describes a flow of love within the Godhead itself.
- 7:25This isn't just God loving his creation, this is God loving
- 7:28God. I really love this part of the
- 7:30sermon. He breaks it down.
- 7:31Person by person. You have God the Father.
- 7:34The father of mercies. He's the one who so loved the
- 7:37world that he gave his son. Edwards sort of positions him as
- 7:42the the prime mover, the origin of this divine affection.
- 7:46And then, of course, the son. The Lamb of God, the Prince of
- 7:49Peace, the one who shed his blood out of love for his
- 7:51people. He's the perfect recipient and
- 7:53returner of the Father's love. And then the Holy Spirit.
- 7:56This is where it gets both technical and just incredibly
- 7:59beautiful. It really does.
- 8:00Edwards calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of divine Love
- 8:03itself. In Edwards's theology, and this
- 8:05is pretty standard Reformed thought, the Holy Spirit is the
- 8:08personal love that flows between the Father and the Son.
- 8:11He is the living bond of the Trinity.
- 8:14So when we say the Spirit dwells in US, or that the Spirit fills
- 8:17heaven, we're saying that the actual, living, personal love of
- 8:21God is dwelling there. It's not just an emotion or a
- 8:24feeling, it's a person. Yes, it is an infinite, eternal,
- 8:28mutual holy energy between the Father and the Son.
- 8:32And Edwards uses this incredible imagery of an ocean, the
- 8:36fountain. God himself flows out into
- 8:38rivers, and these rivers swell into a boundless ocean.
- 8:41And the redeemed souls in heaven, they aren't just
- 8:43standing on the shore watching this ocean.
- 8:45No, they're bathing in it. They're deluged by it.
- 8:48They're swimming in the very love that defines God's own
- 8:51inner life. It just completely removes the
- 8:53barrier between the believer in God.
- 8:56We were caught up somehow into the internal love life of the
- 8:59Trinity itself. That is a great Reformed hope.
- 9:01It's not just about looking at God from a distance.
- 9:04It's about union with him. We're invited into the very
- 9:06family circle of the Godhead. So we've established the source.
- 9:10It's got himself in his Trinitarian nature.
- 9:13Now let's talk about who is actually there.
- 9:15Edwards moves on to what he calls the objects of this love.
- 9:19What are the things that are loved in heaven?
- 9:21And the first thing he notes, which is just as important, is
- 9:24what is not there. It starts with an absence, the
- 9:26absence of the unlovely. No wicked people.
- 9:29No pollution, no deformity. And this is a big one for
- 9:32Edwards. No hypocrisy on earth.
- 9:35The visible church is always a mixed bag, right?
- 9:37Wheat and tares growing together.
- 9:40You have false professors, people who claim to be
- 9:42Christians, but their hearts are far from God.
- 9:44They put on a show in heaven. That mask is gone forever.
- 9:47Everyone there is completely genuine.
- 9:50He also talks about the perfection of loveliness, and he
- 9:53admits that even good, godly people on earth can be, well,
- 9:58annoying sometimes. We all know this from
- 10:00experience. He does.
- 10:01He calls them spots on the sun. You might know a very godly man
- 10:05or a very godly woman, but maybe they have a short temper, or
- 10:07they're socially awkward, or they have some other defective
- 10:10character. We have to be patient with one
- 10:12another here. But in heaven.
- 10:13In heaven, everyone is perfectly pure.
- 10:15He uses this musical analogy that no string vibrates out of
- 10:19tune. It's a perfect harmony.
- 10:21I like that a perfect harmony. And he also mentions that Christ
- 10:25himself will appear in his full glory there.
- 10:27Right on earth, Christ appeared in what Edwards calls outward
- 10:30meanness, which in his day just meant lowliness or humility.
- 10:35Like Isaiah says, he had no form or majesty that we should look
- 10:38at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
- 10:40Right. He was a Carpenter, dusty,
- 10:42humble, poor. In heaven we see the King in his
- 10:46beauty. We see Him as He truly is, in
- 10:48all His unveiled glory. There's a very tender section in
- 10:51this part of the sermon about the reunion of affection.
- 10:55I think this is something every person wonders about.
- 10:57Will I see my family? Will I recognize my friends?
- 11:00Edwards is very clear on this. He says the Saints in heaven
- 11:02will find the very things they loved most on earth, as long as
- 11:05those things were pure and holy and excellent.
- 11:08And he specifically mentions the infant of days lost below.
- 11:11That line hit me hard. The infant of days lost below is
- 11:14found above. I mean, given how common infant
- 11:18and child mortality was in the 18th century, that must have
- 11:20been such a powerful comfort to his Congregation A.
- 11:23Beautiful, necessary comfort. He talks about Christian friends
- 11:27and parents and children all being reunited.
- 11:29But notice the qualification there.
- 11:32The basis of the friendship has to be Christ.
- 11:35It's not just about natural affection.
- 11:36It's a holy affection that's been perfected.
- 11:39But yes, the interruption that death causes is finally over.
- 11:43And we also get to, you know, hang out with the heavy hitters,
- 11:46the patriarchs, the prophets, the.
- 11:48Fellowship is vertical with God, but it's also horizontal with
- 11:51the entire triumphant church throughout all of history.
- 11:54You're sitting down at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
- 11:58So those are the objects, the people and God whom we love.
- 12:01What about the subjects, the ones who are actually doing the
- 12:04loving? Well, first and foremost the
- 12:07primary subject is the heart of God.
- 12:09He is the original seed of love. His love flows first and
- 12:12necessarily toward His Son, and then secondarily it flows out
- 12:15toward all the created inhabitants of heaven.
- 12:18And then the Saints and the angels are subjects too, right?
- 12:20Yes, and he uses a great planet analogy here.
- 12:23God is the sun, the original source of light and heat.
- 12:27The Saints and angels are like planets.
- 12:29They don't generate their own light.
- 12:30They can't. They reflect the light of the
- 12:32sun. So we shine because we are
- 12:35shining back the love we first received from the fountain.
- 12:38That's it. Our love is a responsive love.
- 12:41And he focuses on this idea of universal harmony.
- 12:44There are no enemies in heaven. Every single heart is wedded to
- 12:47Christ, and because of that, every inhabitant is beloved by
- 12:51every other inhabitant. Where you never have to wonder,
- 12:55does that person like me or what do they think of me?
- 12:58The answer is always yes. There's no suspicion, no second
- 13:02guessing. Perfect trust.
- 13:03That brings us to the third segment, and this is where I
- 13:05think Edwards gets really, really analytically brilliant.
- 13:08He talks about the principle and the hierarchy of love.
- 13:10This is a critical section for understanding a reformed view of
- 13:14Heaven and how it deals with things like rewards.
- 13:16OK, so first he distinguishes the nature of this love.
- 13:19It's not carnal or selfish. Right.
- 13:21It's not based on what I can get from you or how you make me feel
- 13:24about myself. It's spiritual, holy and divine.
- 13:28And then in its degree it's perfect, he says.
- 13:31The tiny grain of mustard seed of love we have for God and
- 13:34others on earth becomes a great tree in heaven.
- 13:37The spark becomes a bright and ardent flame.
- 13:40But then he introduces this idea that I think for a lot of modern
- 13:43listeners might sound a little uncomfortable, he says.
- 13:46There are degrees of glory. Not everyone is equal in heaven.
- 13:50This is a standard biblical teaching that often gets glossed
- 13:53over. Edwards argues that while every
- 13:55person in heaven is perfectly happy and perfectly holy, their
- 13:59capacity for glory differs. Paul says one star differs from
- 14:03another in glory. So the apostles, the martyrs,
- 14:06people who served Christ in extraordinary ways, they might
- 14:09have a larger vessel to hold more of God's glory than, say,
- 14:12someone who was saved on their deathbed.
- 14:14That's the idea. OK, so here's the obvious
- 14:16question. If I'm a smaller vessel and I'm
- 14:19looking over the Apostle Paul, who is this massive vessel just
- 14:21overflowing with glory? Wouldn't I feel envious?
- 14:24That seems like a natural human reaction.
- 14:27Why does he get more than me? And that is the problem Edward
- 14:30sets out to solve so brilliantly.
- 14:32He breaks down perfect love into two types, the love of
- 14:36benevolence and the love of complacence.
- 14:39All right, define those for us. The love of benevolence is
- 14:42simply desiring the good of another person.
- 14:45Goodwill. If I love you perfectly with
- 14:48this kind of love, then your prosperity or happiness actually
- 14:52makes me happy. OK, so if you have more glory
- 14:54than I do, I will have more joy. Because I love you and I'm
- 14:57overjoyed at your great blessing.
- 14:59My joy piggybacks on your joy. So the greater the prosperity of
- 15:03the person I love, the greater my own joy becomes.
- 15:06That's it. So the lower Saints will look at
- 15:08the higher Saints, and they will rejoice because those higher
- 15:10Saints are so full of blessedness, there's no room for
- 15:13envy. Wow, OK, what about the love of
- 15:15complaisance? That's the delight we take in
- 15:17beauty or holiness. It's a love of appreciation.
- 15:19Since the higher Saints and glory are more holy, that's why
- 15:22they have more glory. They are also more lovely.
- 15:25They are more beautiful. So the lower Saints will
- 15:27actually love them more intensely.
- 15:28They will be more drawn to them, more attracted to their
- 15:31holiness. Yes.
- 15:32They will delight in their superior beauty.
- 15:35But what about the other way around?
- 15:37Won't the high-ranking Saints be, you know, proud?
- 15:40Won't they be tempted to look down on the little guys?
- 15:42Look at me. I'm the apostle Paul.
- 15:44Check out my crown. And this is what Edwards calls
- 15:47the humility paradox. It's incredible, he says.
- 15:50Those who are highest in glory are the ones who see more of
- 15:53God. They have a clearer, fuller
- 15:56vision of his infinite majesty. And because they see more of
- 15:59God's infinite greatness, they see more clearly the immense gap
- 16:03between God and themself. Consequently, they see more of
- 16:06their own comparative littleness and unworthiness.
- 16:09So the highest in glory are the lowest in humility.
- 16:12Precisely The person with the most rewards is the person who
- 16:15is most acutely aware that they deserve absolutely nothing.
- 16:18Pride is impossible. That is just.
- 16:19It turns our whole idea of status on its head.
- 16:22Completely. And there's one more layer.
- 16:24The superior Saints do not slight the inferior Saints.
- 16:26And why? Because the superior Saints have
- 16:29a greater capacity for love. They have more of the spirit of
- 16:32love. They are more like Christ.
- 16:33And who does Christ love? Weak, the lowly, the humble.
- 16:37So the greatest Saints will actually love the lesser Saints
- 16:40more intensely and more purely than the lesser Saints even love
- 16:43each other. It's a perfect system.
- 16:45The little guys are happy for the big guys because of
- 16:47benevolence. The big guys are humble and pour
- 16:50out even more love onto the little guys.
- 16:53It just completely destroys the very root of envy and pride.
- 16:57It's a social structure that is the exact inverse of every
- 17:01worldly hierarchy we've ever known.
- 17:03Let's move to segment 4 after explaining that Edwards gets
- 17:06very practical about what he calls the excellent
- 17:09circumstances of this love. What is the actual environment
- 17:13of heaven like? He starts with reciprocity and
- 17:15security. In heaven, love is always
- 17:18returned. That's a huge fear on Earth,
- 17:20isn't it? Unrequited love, or even worse,
- 17:22the fear that someone is just faking it.
- 17:24Edwards says there is 0 hypocrisy.
- 17:26There no flattery, no manipulation, and therefore no
- 17:29jealousy. You have perfect confidence in
- 17:31everyone's sincerity. You know for a fact that God has
- 17:34loved you from all eternity, and you know without a doubt that
- 17:37your fellow Saints genuinely love you too.
- 17:39He also talks about freedom from hindrances and he uses this
- 17:43really evocative phrase. The body is a clog of earth.
- 17:47A heavy molded body. It's so descriptive, isn't it?
- 17:50We all feel this. You want to pray, but you're
- 17:51tired and you fall asleep. You want to go serve someone,
- 17:54but you're sick. You want to express deep
- 17:56affection, but you can't find the right words, or you just
- 17:58feel awkward and clumsy. We want to fly, but we're
- 18:02chained down. And in heaven, that clog is
- 18:05gone. The resurrection body doesn't
- 18:08hinder the spirit, it perfectly facilitates it.
- 18:11The expression of love is not pent up anymore.
- 18:13It's a flame at liberty. He also mentions perfect
- 18:16decency. That's an interesting phrase.
- 18:18What does he mean by that? He means wisdom on Earth.
- 18:21Sometimes our attempts to show love are, well, indiscreet.
- 18:25We do it at the wrong time or in a clumsy way.
- 18:27We lack discretion in heaven. Perfect wisdom guides every
- 18:30single expression of love. It is always appropriate, always
- 18:33fitting, always beautiful. When we get to this concept he
- 18:35raises of intimacy and ownership, Edward says in heaven
- 18:39there are no walls. No distance, no
- 18:42misunderstandings, no differences of opinion that
- 18:45cause friction, no conflicting interests.
- 18:48But the ownership part is the most radical piece of this.
- 18:51He quotes the Song of Solomon. My beloved is mine, and I am
- 18:55his. And he applies this mutually to
- 18:57everyone in heaven. Yes, God belongs to the Saints.
- 19:00He gives himself to them. The Saints belong to God.
- 19:03But then he goes further. The Saints belong to one
- 19:06another. What does that even mean for
- 19:08Saints to belong to one another? It means we have freely given
- 19:12ourselves to each other according to the will of God.
- 19:14It is the full realization of what we call the communion of
- 19:17Saints. I'm not just an isolated
- 19:19individual protecting my property and my rights and my
- 19:21space. I am yours and you are mine in
- 19:23Christ. It's a total joyful surrender of
- 19:26selfishness. And this leads directly to what
- 19:28he calls shared prosperity. It has to.
- 19:31Because of that mutual love and ownership, Your glory becomes my
- 19:34glory. If I own you as my beloved
- 19:37friend in this holy sense, and you are crowned with immense
- 19:40honor, then I feel rich because of it.
- 19:42Your joy is my joy. It's the ultimate cure for FOMO
- 19:45for the fear of missing out. You can't miss out on anything
- 19:48because you get to enjoy everyone else's blessings
- 19:52through perfect empathy. And the whole atmosphere
- 19:54conspires to promote this. He mentions there are no busy
- 19:57bodies spreading gossip, no malicious adversaries trying to
- 20:00cause division. Even the visual environment, the
- 20:03light of the heavenly city, is the glory of the Lamb, which
- 20:07Edwards interprets as the light of meekness and love.
- 20:10Even the rainbow around the throne is an emerald, signifying
- 20:13the peace of the Covenant. It sounds perfect, but Edwards,
- 20:18being a good Reformed theologian, knows that you can't
- 20:20fully appreciate the light unless you also see the
- 20:23darkness. So segment 5 is the contrast,
- 20:27and this is genuinely terrifying.
- 20:28It is. He pivots sharply to discuss the
- 20:30world of hatred. He starts by saying that Earth
- 20:32is an intermediate world. Right Earth is a mix.
- 20:35We see amazing acts of kindness and love, and we see horrific
- 20:38acts of cruelty and hatred. This mixture proves for Edwards
- 20:42that our current world cannot last forever.
- 20:44It's unstable. It has to eventually resolve
- 20:47into the two final pure states. And the state of hell is the
- 20:51terrifying, perfect inversion of everything we just talked about.
- 20:55It is if heaven is a world of perfect love, hell is a world of
- 21:00perfect unrestrained hatred. He says there's a total absence
- 21:03of love. God extends no mercy, no grace,
- 21:07no common kindness. There It is a sink of wickedness
- 21:10that is used to cleanse the rest of the universe.
- 21:13The inhabitants are confirmed settled haters of God.
- 21:16He calls them venomous, high spirited serpents.
- 21:18And the scariest part for me was his description of mutual
- 21:22torment. You know how people joke?
- 21:24Well, if I go to hell, at least all my friends will be there.
- 21:26We'll have a party. Edwards just demolishes that
- 21:28delusion. He says there is no union, no
- 21:30friendship, no camaraderie among the wicked.
- 21:33They agree only on one thing, their hatred of God and their
- 21:37hatred of each other. He describes the devils as hell
- 21:39hounds. Yeah, that on Earth they watched
- 21:41for souls like prey, and now that they have them captured,
- 21:44they endlessly torment them. And what about the humans in
- 21:47hell? He says they act like brands in
- 21:49the fire, each one helping to burn the others.
- 21:53He says that former carnal friends, the people who partied
- 21:56together, who sinned together on earth, now have a perfect,
- 22:00undisguised, raw hatred for one another.
- 22:03Because on Earth they blew up the fires of lust for each
- 22:07other. Now they blow the fires of
- 22:09torment on each other. There's endless blame.
- 22:12You led me down this path. You tempted me to do that.
- 22:16This is your fault. It's a chilling picture of total
- 22:19relationship breakdown. It's the ultimate isolation,
- 22:22even while being in a massive crowd.
- 22:24Pure misery. It really does put the world of
- 22:26love into sharp relief. Yeah, it makes you realize you
- 22:29desperately want to be in one of those worlds and not the.
- 22:31Other And that's the whole point of the sermon.
- 22:32It's not just to give us interesting information, it's to
- 22:35motivate us to change us. Which brings us right to the
- 22:38final segment, the effects and the application.
- 22:41Edwards wants this theology to radically change how we live our
- 22:44lives now. He starts by recapping the
- 22:46fruits of love in heaven, just to show us the standard we're
- 22:49aiming for. Perfect behavior, perfect
- 22:51tranquility. He compares the joy there to
- 22:54flowers opening their bosoms to the sun to be filled with its
- 22:58light and warmth. But then he drops the hammer.
- 23:01The first application is about contention on Earth.
- 23:04This is application number one, and the argument is
- 23:07devastatingly simple. If heaven is a world of perfect
- 23:10love and you are hoping to go there, but your life right now
- 23:14is marked by strife, bitterness and contention, you have a
- 23:18serious problem. He says that living in strife
- 23:21darkens the evidence that you're fit for heaven.
- 23:23Right, it's a contradiction. Living in a state of contention
- 23:26puts the soul farthest from the frame and temple of heaven.
- 23:29He brings up first Peter 3 #7, which says that discord in a
- 23:33marriage actually hinders your prayers.
- 23:35If you're fighting with your spouse, you can't pray
- 23:37effectively. And if you can't pray, you're
- 23:39not really communing with heaven, are you?
- 23:42You're not. So if you're a person who loves
- 23:44drama, who enjoys a good argument, who holds on to
- 23:47grudges, who thrives on conflict, Edwards would say.
- 23:51You should be very, very worried about the state of your soul.
- 23:54He'd ask, Why on earth do you think you would enjoy heaven?
- 23:56Exactly. If heaven is perfect love and
- 23:59perfect harmony, and you hate those things here on earth, you
- 24:02wouldn't be happy there even if you were allowed in.
- 24:04You'd be miserable. That leads directly to his next
- 24:08point, the marks of the entitled.
- 24:10How can we have any assurance that we're actually going there?
- 24:13He lists 3 distinct marks. The first one is regeneration.
- 24:17You have to be born again. The seed of this heavenly divine
- 24:21love must be supernaturally implanted in your heart by the
- 24:24Holy Spirit. It is not natural to us.
- 24:27You can't just be a nice person or a moral person.
- 24:29It requires A fundamental change of your nature.
- 24:32The second mark is choice. And this one is subtle but so
- 24:36important. He says you must freely choose
- 24:38the happiness of holy love as your chief good.
- 24:41Lots of people want to go to heaven because they don't want
- 24:43to burn in hell. Right, this is a Basic Instinct
- 24:45for self preservation. That's all it is.
- 24:47But a true, St. Edwards argues, wants heaven
- 24:51because that's where God is. That's where holy love is.
- 24:54They desire the specific enjoyment of God and the
- 24:56fellowship of the Saints in perfect harmony.
- 24:59They're choosing the activity of heaven, not just the location.
- 25:02And the third mark. Yeah.
- 25:04I have to say I found this one really encouraging.
- 25:06It's meant to be, he says. A key mark of a true Christian
- 25:10is a life of struggling after holiness.
- 25:13The new holy nature, that spark of divine fire, is pent up
- 25:17inside our sinful bodies and its struggles for liberty.
- 25:21It fights against the opposite principles of our remaining sin.
- 25:24So the very fact that it's hard, the fact that I'm constantly
- 25:27fighting against my own sin and selfishness, is actually
- 25:30evidence that the new seed is there and it's alive.
- 25:33Yes, a dead fish just goes with the flow of the current.
- 25:36It takes a living fish to swim upstream.
- 25:38The struggle proves there's a new nature fighting against the
- 25:41old one. If there were no struggle, you'd
- 25:43have to wonder if there was a new nature at all.
- 25:44Finally, he gives us some directions for seeking heaven,
- 25:48some practical advice for the road.
- 25:49It's very straightforward. Don't seek the world as your
- 25:52chief good. Mortify vanity and pride and
- 25:56meditate on heavenly things. As Paul says, have your
- 25:59conversation, your citizenship in heaven.
- 26:01He says to be content to pass through difficulties because the
- 26:04way to heaven is uphill. It's not supposed to be easy.
- 26:08And above all, fix your eyes on Jesus.
- 26:10He's the forerunner. He's already there and he he's
- 26:13our intercessor. And ultimately he says you must
- 26:16live a life of love. That is the only way to actually
- 26:18become like the inhabitants of heaven.
- 26:20Practice now what you will be doing for eternity.
- 26:22It's just a. Beautiful all-encompassing
- 26:24vision. As we start to wrap up, I keep
- 26:26thinking about that image she used of the Garden of God.
- 26:30Where love is the fragrance. It's not just an idea, it's a
- 26:33sensory experience that fills the whole place.
- 26:35And that idea that the windows of heaven can open up upon the
- 26:38soul that lives in love even here on earth, we can actually
- 26:42get a foretaste of it. Now we.
- 26:43Can it's not all postponed until the afterlife?
- 26:46You know, the one thing from this whole deep dive that sticks
- 26:48with me the most is that concept of ownership we touched on
- 26:52earlier. The idea that in the Communion
- 26:54of Saints we truly belong to one another.
- 26:57It completely changes how you view your local church.
- 27:00Doesn't. It it really does.
- 27:02In our modern individualistic culture, we're so terrified of
- 27:05commitment, of belonging to anything or anyone.
- 27:08We want to be autonomous. We want to be free, but Edwards
- 27:11is saying that true joy, true freedom comes from being
- 27:15joyfully owned by God and owned by your brothers and sisters in
- 27:19Christ. It's being able to say my
- 27:20beloved is mine and also I am his.
- 27:24It removes that deep seated fear of rejection.
- 27:27If we all belong to Christ and Christ belongs to us, then we
- 27:30are safe with each other. Our belonging is secure.
- 27:33It's a security the world can't offer.
- 27:35So I want to leave our listener with that thought.
- 27:37Think about that idea of mutual ownership in your relationships.
- 27:40Edwards calls our arguments and our contentions on Earth sad
- 27:44experiments, their failed attempts at finding happiness.
- 27:47Maybe it's time to stop experimenting with strife and
- 27:49bitterness and start practicing the life of love.
- 27:52That's the only path that leads to the world of love.
- 27:55This has been reformed thinking. Thank you for diving deep with
- 27:59us into the heart and mind of Jonathan Edwards.
- 28:02It was a real pleasure. We'll see you next time.