They shall see his face.
—Revelations 22:4

It is the chief blessing of heaven, the cream of heaven, the heaven of heaven, that the saints shall there see Jesus. There will be other things to see: who dare despise those foundations of chrysolite, chrysoprasus and jacinth? Who shall speak lightly of streets of glassy gold and gates of pearl? We would not forget that we shall see angels, seraphim, and cherubim; nor would we fail to remember that we shall see apostles, martyrs, and confessors, together with those whom we have walked with and communed with in our Lord while here below. We shall assuredly behold those of our departed kindred who sleep in Jesus, dear to us here and dear to us still, “not lost, but gone before.” But still, for all this, the main thought that we now have of heaven, and certainly the main fullness of it when we shall come there, is just this: we shall see Jesus!

We shall care little for any of those imaginary occupations, which have such charms for a certain class of minds that they could even find a heaven in them. I have read fanciful periods in which the writer has found celestial joys to consist in an eternal progress in the knowledge of the laws of God’s universe. Such is not my heaven. Knowledge is not happiness, but on the contrary, is often an increase of sorrow. Knowing, of itself, does not make men happy nor holy. For mere knowing’s sake, I would as soon not know as know, if I had my choice: better to love an ounce than to know a pound; better a little service than much knowledge. I desire to know what God pleases to teach me; but beyond that, even ignorance shall be my bliss. Some have talked of flitting from star to star, seeing the wonders of God throughout the universe—who He rules in this province of His wide domain, [and] how He governs in that other region of His vast dominion. It may be so, but it would be no heaven to me.

I. WHAT IT IS TO SEE CHRIST

A. Seeing Christ

So far as I can at present judge, I would rather stop at home and sit at the feet of Christ forever, than roam over the wide creation.

The spacious earth and spreading flood
Proclaim the wise and powerful God,
And Thy rich glories from afar
Sparkle in every rolling star.
Yet in Christ’s looks a glory stands,
The noblest wonder of God’s hands;
He, in the person of His Son,
Has all His mightiest works outdone.

If Jesus were not infinite we should not speak so; but since He is in His person divine, and as to His manhood so nearly allied to us that the closest possible sympathy exists between us, there will always be fresh subjects for thought, fresh sources for enjoyment, for those who are taken up with Him. Certainly, brethren and sisters, to no believer would heaven be desirable if Jesus were not there, or, if being there, they could not enjoy the nearest and dearest fellowship with Him. A sight of Him first turned our sorrow into joy; renewed communion with Him lifts us above our present cares, and strengthens us to bear our heavy burdens: what must heavenly communion be? When we have Christ with us, we are content on a crust and satisfied with a cup of water; but if His face be hidden, the whole world cannot afford a solace, we are widowed of our Beloved, our sun has set, our moon is eclipsed, our candle is blown out. Christ is all in all to us here, and therefore we pant and long for a heaven in which He shall be all in all to us forever— and such will the heaven of God be. The paradise of God is not the Elysium of imagination, the Utopia of intellect, or the Eden of poetry; but it is the heaven of intense spiritual fellowship with the Lord Jesus—a place where it is promised to faithful souls that “they shall see his face.”

In the beatific vision, it is Christ Whom they see; and further, it is His face that they behold. They shall not see the skirts of His robe, as Moses saw the back parts of Jehovah (Exo 33:22-23); they shall not be satisfied to touch the hem of His garment, or to sit far down at His feet where they can only see His sandals, but they “shall see his face.” By [this] I understand two things: first, that they shall literally and physically, with their risen bodies, actually look into the face of Jesus; and secondly, that spiritually their mental faculties shall be enlarged, so that they shall be enabled to look into the very heart, soul, and character of Christ, so as to understand Him, His work, His love, His all in all, as they never understood Him before. They shall literally, I say, see His face; for Christ is no phantom; and in heaven, though divine and therefore spiritual, He is still a man, and therefore material like ourselves. The very flesh and blood that suffered upon Calvary is in heaven; the hand that was pierced with the nail, now, at this moment, grasps the scepter of all worlds; that very head which was bowed down with anguish, is now crowned with a royal diadem; and the face that was so marred, is the very face that beams resplendent amidst the thrones of heaven. Into that selfsame countenance we shall be permitted to gaze. O what a sight! Roll by, ye years; hasten on, ye laggard months and days—to let us but for once behold Him, our Beloved, our hearts’ care, Who “redeemed us to God by [his] blood” (Rev 5:9), Whose we are, and Whom we love with such a passionate desire, that to be in His embrace we would be satisfied to suffer ten thousand deaths! They shall actually see Jesus.

B. Knowing

Yet the spiritual sight will be sweeter still. I think the text implies that in the next world our powers of mind will be very different from what they are now. We are, the best of us, in our infancy as yet and know but in part; but we shall be men then, we shall “put away childish things” (1Co 13:11). We shall see and know even as we are known; and amongst the great things that we shall know will be this greatest of all: that we shall know Christ—we shall know the heights, depths, lengths, and breadths of the love of Christ that passeth knowledge (Eph 3:18-19). O how delightful it will be then to understand His everlasting love; how, without beginning or ever the earth was, His thoughts darted forward towards His dear ones, whom He had chosen in the sovereignty of His choice, that they should be His forever (Eph 1:4)!

What a subject for delightful meditation will the covenant be, and Christ’s suretyship engagements in that covenant when He undertook to take the debts of all His people upon Himself, to pay them all, and to stand and suffer in their room! And what thoughts shall we have then of our union with Christ—our federal, vital, conjugal oneness! We only talk about these things now, we do not really understand them. We merely plough the surface and gather a topsoil harvest, but a richer subsoil lies beneath. Brethren, in heaven we shall dive into the lowest depths of fellowship with Jesus. We “shall see his face,” that is, we shall see clearly and plainly all that has to do with our Lord (see 1Co 13:12); and this shall be the topmost bliss of heaven.

C. Always

In the blessed vision, the saints see Jesus, and they see Him clearly. We may also remark that they see Him always; for when the text says “They shall see his face,” it implies that they never at any time are without the sight. Never for a moment do they unlock their arm from the arm of their Beloved. They are not as we are—sometimes near the throne, and anon afar off by backslidings; sometimes hot with love, and then cold with indifference; sometimes bright as seraphs, and then dull as clods—but forever and ever they are in closest association with the Master, for “they shall see his face.”

D. As He Is

Best of all, they see His face as it is now in all its glory. John tells us what that will be like: In his first chapter [of the Revelation,] he says, “His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow” (v. 14), to mark His antiquity, for He is the Ancient of days. “And his eyes were as a flame of fire…and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength” (v. 14, 16). Such is the vision that the redeemed enjoy before the throne: their Lord is all brightness, and in Him there is nothing to weep over, nothing to mar His glory.

Traces there doubtless are upon that wondrous face of all the griefs He once endured, but these only make Him more glorious. He looks like a lamb that has been slain and wears His priesthood still; but all that has to do with the shame and the spitting and slaughter, has been so transformed that the sight is all blissful, all comforting, all glorious—in His face there is nothing to excite a tear or to beget a sigh. I wish my lips were unloosed and my thoughts were free, that I could tell you something more of this sight, but indeed it is not given unto mortal tongues to talk of these things. And I suppose that if we were caught up to see His face and should come back again, yet should we have to say, like Paul, that we had heard and seen that which it was not lawful for us to utter (2Co 12:4). God will not as yet reveal these things fully to us, but He reserves His best wine for the last. We can but give you a few glimpses; but O beloved, wait a little; it shall not be long ere you also shall see His face!

II. HOW WE SHALL SEE CHRIST

“They shall see his face.” The word see sounds in my ears with a clear, full, melodious note. Methinks we see but little here. This, indeed, is not the world of sight: “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2Co 5:7). Around us all is mist and cloud. What we do see, we see only as if men were trees walking (Mar 8:24). If ever we get a glimpse of the spirit-world, it is like yonder momentary lightning-flash in the darkness of the tempest, which opens for an instant the gates of heaven; and in the twinkling of an eye they are closed again, and the darkness is denser than before, as if it were enough for us poor mortals to know that there is a brightness denied to us as yet.

The saints see the face of Jesus in heaven because they are purified from sin. The pure in heart are blessed: they shall see God, and none others (Mat 5:8). It is because of our impurity which still remains that we cannot as yet see His face, but their eyes are touched with eye-salve and therefore they see. Ah, brethren, how often does our Lord Jesus hide Himself behind the clouds of dust that we ourselves make by our unholy walking. If we become proud, selfish, or slothful, or fall into any other of our besetting sins, then our eye loses its capacity to behold the brightness of our Lord; but up yonder they not only do not sin, but they cannot sin. They are not tempted; there is no space for the tempter to work upon, even could he be admitted to try them. They are without fault before the throne of God; and, surely, this alone is a heaven: to be rid of inbred sin and the plague of the heart, and to have ended forever the struggle of spiritual life against the crushing power of the fleshly power of death. They may well see His face when the scales of sin have been taken from their eyes, and they have become pure as God Himself is pure.

They surely see His face the more clearly because all the clouds of care are gone from them. Some of you while sitting here today have been trying to lift up your minds to heavenly contemplation, but you cannot; the business has gone so wrong this week; the children have vexed you so much; sickness has been in the house so sorely; you yourself feel in your body quite out of order for devotion—these enemies break your peace. Now they are vexed by none of these things in heaven, and therefore they can see their Master’s face. They are not cumbered with Martha’s cares; they still occupy Mary’s seat at His feet (Luk 10:41-42). When shall you and I have laid aside the farm, the merchandise, the marrying, and the burying, which come so fast upon each other’s heels, and when shall we be forever with the Lord,

Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in?

Moreover, as they have done with sins and cares, so have they done with sorrows. “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Rev 21:4). We are none of us quite strangers to grief, and with some of us pain is an inseparable companion; we dwell in the smoky tents of Kedar still (Psa 120:1, 5). Perhaps it is well that we should so be tried while we are here, for sanctified sorrow refines the soul; but in glory there is no affliction, for the pure gold needeth not the furnace. Well may they then behold Christ when there are no tears to dim their eyes, no smoke of this world to rise up between them and their Beloved; but they are alike free from sin, care, and sorrow. They see His face right gloriously in that cloudless atmosphere and in the light which He Himself supplies.

Moreover, the glorified see His face the more clearly because there are no idols to stand between Him and them. Our idolatrous love of worldly things is a chief cause of our knowing so little of spiritual things. Because we love this and that so much, we see so little of Christ. Thou canst not fill thy lifecup from the pools of earth, and yet have room in it for the crystal streams of heaven. But they have no idols there—nothing to occupy the heart, no rival for the Lord Jesus. He reigns supreme within their spirits, and therefore they see His face.

They have no veils of ignorance or prejudice to darken their sight in heaven. Those of us who most candidly endeavour to learn the truth, are nevertheless in some degree biased and warped by education. Let us struggle as we may, yet still our surroundings will not permit us to see things as they are. There is a deflection in our vision, a refraction in the air, a something everywhere which casts the beam of light out of its straight line, so that we see rather the appearance than the reality of truth. We see not with open sight; our vision is marred; but up yonder, among the golden harps, they know even as they are known (1Co 13:12). They have no prejudices, but a full desire to know the truth; the bias is gone, and therefore they are able to see His face. O blessed thought! One could almost wish to sit down and say no more, but just roll that sweet morsel under one’s tongue, and extract the essence and sweetness of it. “They see his face.” There is no long distance for the eye to travel over, for they are near Him; they are in His bosom; they are sitting on His throne at His right hand. No withdrawals there to mourn over: their sun shall no more go down. Here He stands behind our wall; He showeth Himself through the lattices; but He hides not Himself in heaven. O when shall the long summer days of glory be ours, and Jesus our undying joy forever and ever? In heaven they never pray, “Oh may no earthborn cloud arise To hide thee from thy servant’s eyes”; but forever and for aye they bask in the sunlight, or rather, like Milton’s angel, they live in the sun itself. They come not to the sea’s brink to wade into it up to the ankles, but they swim in bliss forever. In waves of everlasting rest, in richest, closest fellowship with Jesus, they disport themselves with ineffable delight.

From The Heaven of Heaven, 1868; Sermon 824; Vol. 14, 433