Our joy in heaven will, above all, be derived from the perfection of
our moral being. We shall be "without fault before the throne of God."
"He shall present us to Himself without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle,
or any such thing."
Truly and beautifully has Sir Thomas Browne said,--"There is no
felicity in what the world adores: that wherein God himself is
happy, the holy angels are happy, and in whose defect the devils are
unhappy--that dare I call happiness; whatsoever else the world terms
happiness, is to me an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is
no more of happiness than the name." Following out this thought, let
us reverently inquire in what chiefly consists the joy of God, or what
especially constitutes His glory. Now, He is glorious in that creative
mind by which things are made so wisely with reference to the end
which each has to serve; and made so beautiful and grand in their
sculptured forms and harmonious colours. He surveys all His works, and
rejoices in them as "very good." He is glorious also in that miracle
of a wondrous providence by which without a miracle the wants of
all the endless worlds of His creatures are supplied; and by which
responsible persons also are created and trained to glorify and enjoy
Himself for ever. But while perfection beams in every feature of the
Divine mind, His glory, His joy, is in His _character_. Not His power,
but the character which wields the power; not His wisdom, but that
which His character accomplishes by it; not His majestic sovereignty,
but that majestic character which stamps His reign as one of right and
therefore of might, commanding, irresistible. This is the glory which
He made to pass before the eyes of Moses when upon the mount; which
shone in the face of Jesus Christ the Holy One of God; and which fills
the souls of the rapt seraphim when they cry, "Holy, holy, holy, is
the Lord God of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory!" Thus God
is happy and most blessed because He is "glorious in holiness," or, in
one word, because "His name is _Love_."
And in what, moreover, does the happiness of the angels consist, but
in sharing this life of God? These bright ones, indeed, experience joy
in contemplating His works of creation and redemption, and have been
glad in acquiring truth throughout many ages; but the atmosphere which
they breathe, the light in which they dwell, is love. They are happy
not merely in what they hear, or see, or know of the things of God,
but chiefly in what they are towards God himself. They know Him, and
this is life eternal.
And, finally, it is in the defect of this in which devils are unhappy.
For Satan, as he "goes to and fro in the earth, and in walking up and
down in it," may hear those sounds of loveliness which delight our
ears, but they are no music to his jarring and discordant spirit; and
he may behold those sights of loveliness which delight our eye, but he
does so as the prowling lion who perceives no grandeur in the glorious
mountains which echo to his savage roar. Nor does the exercise of his
subtle intellect afford him joy, because it is not in harmony with
truth, nor with the God of truth; but is as a "wandering star, to
which is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." And therefore,
though he is a king, he is king of darkness, and carries hell in his
own bosom, whether he moves among the beauteous bowers of Eden, or
dwells for days upon earth, in the wilderness, in the holy temple, or
on the high mountain, with even God manifest in the flesh beside him.
He has no holiness, no love, and therefore no peace or joy.
And thus does our joy depend on our fellowship with God in character.
Other things _may_ be, this _must_ be, if we are to be happy. Other
things are required to give our joy fulness; this is essential to
give it existence. For the body may be deprived of all pleasurable
sensation, and the intellect unable to grapple with the simplest
problem, "in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and those
that look out at the windows are darkened, and the daughters of music
are brought low,"--yet the light of joy may still shine in the soul,
so long as the mind can discern that "God is," and the heart feel that
"God is love." Not, therefore, in the gratification of his sentient
tastes; nor in the certainties of pure intellect; nor in science,
which "can put forth its hand and feel from star to star;" nor even in
the exercise of that genius--so like His own creative power!--whose
contrivances change the aspect of the world, and whose glorious
flights can speed to airy regions "which no fowl knoweth nor the
vulture's eye hath seen:" not in those outer courts of God's great
temple has the Father willed that His immortal children shall find
their true life, but in the holy of holies only of His own immediate
presence, and in the possession of the spirit of life and of love
which is in His first-born Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And this was
the glory and joy which Jesus himself manifested on earth, when "He
had no place to lay his head;" and was "despised and rejected of men;"
and His "countenance was marred like no man's;" when He carried His
cross; and revealed to us that true life which He died to obtain, and
rose from the dead to impart to us by His Spirit. He did not come
to teach us to become artists, orators, or men of mere intellectual
cultivation, capable of creating a hero-worship. The race who
built Nineveh and Thebes, or produced the artists, orators, poets,
historians, or the world--conquerors of Greece and Rome, needed no
such teaching as this. But He came to reveal to men--who, whatever
else they knew, did not know their Maker, but "changed the truth of
God into a lie"--that eternal life of love which was with the Father,
so that in its possession they might have fellowship with the Father,
with the Son, and with one another, and in this way only have His own
joy fulfilled in themselves. He taught us to follow Him, "with all
lowliness and meekness," and thus "to walk worthy of God who hath
called us to His kingdom and glory!"
I have dwelt, perhaps, at unnecessary length upon this part of my
subject, yet I am anxious to quicken in you the conviction of what you
cannot doubt, that our moral nature can be satisfied only with God's
likeness. So is it now; so will it be for ever. The sweet peace which
the believer enjoys in God here; the elevating delight he experiences
from contemplating His character, and saying, "My Father, let Thy name
be hallowed! let Thy kingdom come! let Thy will be done!"--his joy in
the possession of the graces of the Christian life, are not foretastes
only, but earnests also, and pledges of the coming fulness, the
first-fruits of the approaching harvest. "We shall be like Him!"
Oh blessed consummation, before which everything else vanishes in
comparison! Our souls cleansed from every stain of guilt, and made
white in the blood of the Lamb; and washed, too, from all the
pollution of sin with the waters of regeneration and the renewing of
the Holy Ghost, shall be "faultless," "not having spot, or wrinkle, or
any such thing." The pure and holy God resting on us as His own work
through His Son and Spirit, shall rejoice in that work as _perfect_;
and every redeemed soul will be as a mirror in whose transparent
depths the Divine glory is seen reflected. Oh comforting and exalting
thought! that the weakest and most imperfect, yet true child of God,
who possessed any real faith or real love, is thus at last "glorified
together with Christ"--their confessions of sin for ever over; their
sense of their own emptiness lost in a sense of Christ's fulness;
their ardent longings for unsullied holiness gratified as no faith or
foretaste here realised, even feebly, in their hours of most pious
fervour! Should it not delight us to think of even one whom we have
known and loved really possessing such joy as this; and ought we not
to give united thanks to God for their happiness with God, even while
we sorrow for their loss to ourselves during our earthly pilgrimage?