THE GLORY OF HEAVEN

THE GLORY OF HEAVEN

THE GLORY OF HEAVEN based on Rev. 21:22-27
By Glenn Pease

Try to picture in your mind a cake of ice one and a half mile square. Just imagine a total square mile of ice, and half of the next mile, and then imagine that enormous block rising into the sky, not just to the height of an ice cube, not even to the height of the Empire State Building, but rather, to the height of 93 million miles. In other words, from the earth to the sun. Scientists have calculated that this gigantic cake of ice could be completely melted in just 30 seconds, if the full power of the sun could be focused on it.

This is power so staggering that almost anything you can say about the sun is an understatement. It's like the guy who watched the first atomic bomb test, and said after the explosion, that stuff is dynamite. The sun is so powerful we do not have terms to describe it's energy. At it's core, where the temperature is 13 million degrees centigrade, 4 million tons of hydrogen explode every second. Man has not, since the dawn of civilization, used that much energy. The sun does this every second of every day, and has done so since God created it.

Believe it or not, the children of God will go on shining and radiating with even greater energy than the sun, even after the sun has passed away. John says in verse 23, that this great light will not be needed in the new Jerusalem-the heavenly city. The glory of God is so great that no created source of light is necessary. Neither sun nor moon are needed, for there will never be a night. There can be no darkness in the presence of God.

Here we see an example of how the final paradise is not a replica of the first paradise. We are not just getting back to Adam and Eve in Christ. Salvation is much more than mere restoration. The first paradise was far from perfect, for it had in it the potential for the fall. In Christ we go forward to perfection, and to the fulfillment of God's ideal...

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