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WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT HEAVEN 
 
COKESBURY 
 DEVOTIONAL 
 SERIES 
 
 The Apostles’ Creed—A Romance in Religion 
 
 Arthur Talmage Abernethy 
 
 \ 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount—An Interpretation 
 I. C. Jenkins 
 
 What Jesus Said about Heaven—A Study in 
 the Four Gospels 
 J.T. Whitley 
 
 
 
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 NOV 1 2 1925 ; 
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 WHAT JESUS SAID | 
 ABOUT HEAVEN 
 
 A STUDY IN THE FOUR GOSPELS 
 
 ff BY 
 J. T. WHITLEY, D.D. 
 Author of ‘‘Filled with Messages from Thee,”’ Etc. 
 
 I AM THE WAY, AND THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. John 14: 6. 
 HEAVEN AND EARTH SHALL PASS AWAY, BUT MY WORDS SHALL 
 NOT PASS AWAY. Matthew 24: 35. 
 
 NASHVILLE, TENN. 
 COKESBURY PRESS 
 1925 
 
 
 
Copyricnt, 1925 
 BY 
 LaMAR & BARTON 
 
 at 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
TO 
 
 My Daughters 
 
 MARY ESTHER WHITLEY 
 ANNIE WHITLEY PLEASANTS 
 
 AFFECTIONATE, FaITHFUL 
 CapPaBLB 
 
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 nah ane i f a. 
 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 HE purpose of this book is to ascertain 
 and set forth with at least approximate 
 fullness the teachings of Jesus Christ concerning 
 Heaven. The teachings of the Apostles and 
 other Biblical writers are referred to as inter- 
 pretative of the Master’s doctrine; but no at- 
 tempt has been made to present all the passages 
 in the Epistles and elsewhere, which might have 
 been included if the object in view had been to 
 show what the Bible as a whole, or the entire 
 New Testament, has to say about the future life 
 of the saints. 
 
 The author’s method has been to examine the 
 four Gospels with great care, collate all the 
 passages in which Jesus spoke about Heaven, 
 classify them under appropriate heads, and in- 
 terpret them in a simple and straightforward 
 way, with such help as he found available in the 
 writings of wise and godly men who have 
 sought to interpret the Master’s teachings. 
 Passages containing the phrase, “‘the kingdom 
 of heaven,’’ have not been included, since these 
 do not relate to the future life so much as to the 
 reign of God on earth in the present moral order. 
 
 So far as the author is aware, this exact sub- 
 ject has not been treated in book form before. 
 
 (7) 
 
8 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 While Heaven has been written about in Com- 
 mentaries, Bible Dictionaries, and other forms 
 of literature, there seems not to have been 
 published any monograph, in which an attempt 
 has been made to exhibit and interpret all of 
 the recorded utterances of Jesus upon this vital 
 and engaging subject. It is hoped, therefore, 
 that the present discussion, however inadequate, 
 may serve to throw at least a few rays of light 
 upon matters which intimately concern the 
 eternal interests of all mankind. These chapters 
 have been written prayerfully with humble 
 trust in the Divine Spirit’s help, and the volume 
 is now sent forth in the hope that it may, in 
 some small measure at least, bring honor to 
 the Heavenly Father and his redeeming Son, 
 and may shed heavenly radiance upon many a 
 pilgrim path. J. T. WHITLEY. 
 NORFOLK, VA. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 PRE BOR iis Soin 0 6G cere alee ales CHER eet ae 'eIe 7 
 CHAPTER I 
 The Desire to Know: oie ek laced 6 rere Few es “11 
 CHAPTER II 
 The Only Qne'Who Knows: i. ..... fi ate ieee. 16 
 CHAPTER III 
 Dhe' Nature of Heavens ee re a a 24 
 CHAPTER IV 
 HE Mather in, Pea Vets se ies winch oe muerte alay 30 
 CHAPTER V 
 EDGE SAViOUL 10 FGA Velie aie sh io eae lee a ale eee 36 
 CHAPTER VI | 
 lie Aaiwels I RITCA VEE: ei es cicleratuse's AMG a eatecwret aie ws 45 
 CHAPTER VII 
 The Saints in Heaven: Certainty..............0.. 55 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The Saints in Heaven: Dignity... . 0.20.00... cee0 61 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Saints in Heaven: Fellowship............... 68 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Saints in Heaven: Experience............... 76 
 CHAPTER XI 
 The Saints in Heaven: Occupation............... 83 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The Saints in Heaven: Preparation............... 92 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 IP YeiKnow: These Thinga yo cin's as gala ctemeec's o cates 99 
 
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CHAPTER I 
 THE DESIRE TO KNOW 
 
 OR more than sixty years I have been in- 
 terested more or less keenly in the subject 
 
 of Heaven. As a child I heard my Christian 
 mother talk about it in reverent tones, and 
 listened to her singing of it as she went about 
 the household work. In the Sunday school I 
 heard and read about the ‘‘Home over there,’’ 
 and joined with teachers and scholars in singing 
 the familiar song of that day: ‘‘There is a 
 happy land, far, far away.’’ Later on, when in 
 my sixteenth year I came into a definite and 
 joyous religious experience and united with 
 the Church, it was a delight to read about 
 heaven in the pages of Holy Writ, to think of 
 it as the home which was to be mine in the far 
 future, to pray to Him whom I conceived to 
 have His throne in that beautiful city, and to 
 sing the hymns in which devout hearts had 
 poured out their aspirations for the ‘‘land of 
 pure delight, where saints immortal reign.” 
 In still later days, when I had been ordained to 
 the sacred ministry of the gospel and had found 
 in the pulpit an opportunity of speaking the 
 divine message, it was a joy to preach about 
 heaven, to depict its glories as I conceived them 
 
 (11) 
 
12 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 to be, and to invite the sinful and the heavy © 
 laden to have their sins cleansed away, and to 
 prepare for the ‘‘Home of the soul’”’ that Jesus’ 
 had gone to make ready for his disciples. And 
 now after many years, no longer privileged to 
 speak often from the pulpit because of gathering 
 infirmities, I find myself more deeply interested 
 in heaven than ever before, because I am ex- 
 pecting at no distant day to find out for myself 
 by actual experience the many things about 
 heaven that I have long wished to know. One 
 who is soon to change his residence from a shift- 
 ing tent to ‘“‘the city which hath the founda- 
 tions,’’ naturally desires to know as much as 
 possible about the place to which he is going, 
 and something of the details of the life that he 
 is to live forever there. 
 
 It is certain that this desire to know all that 
 is at present knowable about heaven is shared 
 by multitudes of Christians, and to some extent 
 by many who are not numbered in the member- 
 ship of any Church. Some persons profess to 
 believe that there is no heaven in reality, and 
 so they feel no interest in reading or hearing 
 about it. Others assume an agnostic attitude, 
 saying that we can know nothing at all in this 
 present life as to any life that may lie beyond. 
 But the great mass of men and women who live 
 in Christian lands do believe in the reality of 
 heaven, even if many are vague in their notions 
 
The Desire to Know 13 
 
 about it, and many are not shaping their con- 
 duct with reference to it. All devout souls 
 naturally look forward to the solemnities of their 
 passage from this world to that which lies 
 beyond, and their aspirations after what they 
 conceive to be the joys and glories of heaven 
 naturally find expression in prayer and praise. 
 In early life it is not so natural for thoughts of 
 heaven to be prominent in the mind, though 
 sometimes youth does aspire ardently after 
 the land of eternal youth. As the years go by 
 and thought matures while burdens accumulate, 
 one is apt to turn his thoughts more definitely 
 toward the life of rest and purity and nobler 
 usefulness that lies beyond the grave. And 
 when age advances to the period of infirmity, 
 and the pleasures of this life dwindle while its 
 cares and burdens increase, the child of God 
 becomes more and more deeply interested in 
 the home which the Master has promised his 
 disciples in the Father’s house of many man- 
 sions, “‘where the wicked cease from troubling, 
 and the weary are at rest.’”’ The soul thus 
 burdened, facing the fact that he is approaching 
 nigh to the place “‘where we lay our burdens 
 down,” is apt to resort to the Holy Scriptures 
 for light on the future, and especially to learn 
 all that can be known about heaven. In those 
 pages he finds that other souls in the long ago 
 desired to know about the future life. He finds 
 
14 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 in the book of Job the question: ‘‘If a man die, 
 shall he live again?’ (Job xiv. 14). He reads 
 the joyous words of David: “‘Thou wilt show 
 me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of 
 joy; in thy right hand there are pleasures for 
 evermore”’ (Ps. xvi. 11). And he dwells with 
 sympathetic understanding upon the great 
 saying of Paul: ‘‘Now we see in a mirror, 
 darkly; but then face to face; now I know in 
 part; but then shall I know fully even as also 
 I was fully known” (1 Cor. xiii. 12). 
 
 Turning from the pages of Scripture to the 
 recorded lives of good men and women of later 
 times, one finds everywhere a devout and eager 
 curiosity concerning the life beyond. Even 
 where that curiosity has not found expression 
 in biographies it has existed in greater or less 
 intensity in accordance with the natural work- 
 ings of the human mind. The desire to know 
 what lies in the future is inevitable to the 
 healthy mind, and the gratification of it is a 
 source of deep satisfaction to the devout soul. 
 Even where the light is most dim the eager one 
 lingers and longs for even the tiniest gleam 
 from the other shore of the mystic River. Many 
 questions press forward craving to be answered: 
 Where is heaven? Is it a place, or merely a 
 state? Ifa place, is it located in some distant 
 star, or is it to be found here upon a renovated 
 earth under the same familiar heavens? Shall 
 
The Desire to Know 15 
 
 the happy soul that wins heaven be privileged to 
 behold the Infinite Father Himself, or will the 
 Incarnate Son forever represent the invisible 
 Father to the sons and daughters whom he has 
 brought to glory? In what form will the Christ 
 be manifested to the saints in glory? Will 
 friends be brought together in heaven, and will 
 they recognize each other? Will families be 
 permitted to live in a fellowship as close and 
 intimate as that which marked their earthly 
 life? Will the little children who died here be 
 found there still in their immaturity, or will 
 they have developed into full-grown men and 
 women whose lives have never been marred 
 and stained by sin? What will be the occupa- 
 tions of the dwellers in heaven? Is rest the chief 
 feature, or is worship still more prominent, or 
 is holy service in behalf of others the chief 
 thing that will occupy the happy ones who have 
 inherited the great salvation? What are to be 
 the relations between the redeemed saints and 
 the angels who never fell from their original 
 innocency? Will there be eternal progress in 
 character and felicity in heaven? Such ques- 
 tions, and perhaps many others, arise from time 
 to time in the minds and hearts of those who 
 are looking forward to a home in the City of 
 God. Is there any way to know even a little 
 about heaven? Let us look and see. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS 
 
 HEN we begin to ask questions about 
 Heaven it is natural to look around for 
 sources of information. If any living person 
 can give the answers, it is important to find 
 him and learn what he knows. If any person or 
 persons of any past age knew the hidden things 
 of the life beyond, and if records of their know- 
 ledge have come down to us, it is important 
 that we find and study those records. If a 
 Hand from above has drawn aside the veil and 
 offered us even a glimpse of the Home of the 
 blest, it is a great privilege and a solemn duty 
 to make use of such an opportunity. Such 
 knowledge is to be coveted above all lore that 
 men are used to esteem. 
 
 In reading the accounts that we have of men 
 and nations other than those which are promi- 
 nent in the Bible, we find very little, if any, light 
 upon the problem before us. There seems to 
 have been among the ancients, even back to the 
 very dawn of history, some notion of a life 
 beyond the present, in which there are rewards 
 for those whom the divinities approve, as well 
 as retributions for those who have incurred the 
 displeasure of the supernatural powers. But 
 
 (16) 
 
The Only One Who Knows 17 
 
 there is no evidence that even the wisest 
 philosopher of the heathen world ever caught 
 a glimpse of a destiny which might be regarded 
 as comparable to the Heaven of our modern 
 thought. In fact, most of the sages were doubt- 
 ful upon the question of individual immortality, 
 not being able to affirm with any degree of con- 
 fidence that the soul of man survives the dis- 
 solution of the ties that bind it to the body. 
 Our questions about Heaven find no certain 
 answer there. 
 
 A similar result follows our application to the 
 modern cults that claim to hold communication 
 with the disembodied spirits that have passed 
 on before. All attempts to ascertain something 
 definite about the departed and the conditions 
 that surround them, well meant as they may 
 be conceded to be, are so beclouded by so-called 
 
 ‘‘mediums’”’ and by unauthorized inferences 
 from obscure phenomena, that no reliance can 
 be placed upon them in seeking light upon the 
 reality and conditions of Heaven. 
 
 When one is convinced that light cannot be 
 had from the quarters just mentioned, it is 
 natural and wise to turn to the one Book that 
 claims to have definite information concerning 
 the things that lie beyond the veil. But in 
 searching that great group of writings, number- 
 ing thirty-nine separate documents, which we 
 
 know as the Old Testament, one finds to his 
 7 ¢ 
 
18 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 disappointment a much less brilliant light upon 
 the problems of the future than he had hoped 
 to receive. Not that the Old Testament is 
 entirely silent upon the subject of the future life, 
 with its rewards for the good and its penalties 
 for the doers of evil. It is unnecessary to quote 
 passages here to prove this assertion. But it 
 remains true that the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment give us no definite knowledge of Heaven 
 as we understand the term. The Hebrew con- 
 ception of the state of the dead was that of a 
 region called Sheol, synonymous with the New 
 Testament word Hades, a place of shadows and 
 ghostly beings, some of whom indeed were 
 understood to be better off than when on earth, 
 but far from that keen intelligence and abound- 
 ing life and joy that we are accustomed to 
 associate with the notion of heaven. It has 
 been often and truly said that the rewards of 
 righteousness in the Old Testament are chiefly 
 material and temporary, while the prospect of 
 felicity beyond the grave is comparatively held 
 in the background. No doubt, men like David, 
 Isaiah, and Jeremiah fed their souls upon the 
 hope of a blessed immortality; but the writings 
 that have come down to our day do not answer 
 with any degree of definiteness the questions 
 that we are constantly asking about heaven. 
 Turning to the New Testament is like passing 
 out of the dim starlight, or at most out of moon- 
 
The Only One Who Knows 19 
 
 light, into the radiance of the rising sun. Here 
 we begin to find answers to at least some of our 
 anxious questions. There is more light beaming 
 forth from the twenty-seven booklets that we 
 call the New Testament than was ever shed by 
 all the literature of the wisest nations of the 
 world, combined with the utterances of all the 
 prophets and psalmists, historians and sages, 
 recorded in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 More than this may be said. There is clearer 
 light on the subject of Heaven in the Gospel 
 according to John, than in all the secular litera- 
 ture of the world, plus all the utterances of the 
 Old Testament Scriptures. 
 
 Reserving the four Gospels for consideration 
 further on, let us question the writers of the 
 Acts, the Epistles, and the Revelation of John 
 as to what testimony they present concerning 
 heaven. There is no space here to record that 
 testimony at length, even if it were not foreign 
 to the present discussion. It must suffice to 
 say that Paul, Peter, and the other New Testa- 
 ment writers not only take for granted the 
 reality of heaven, but in various places affirm 
 their belief in such a destiny for the saints in 
 explicit terms, and depict in such colors as they 
 can command the joys and glories of that better 
 life. Peter tells his brethren of the ‘‘inheritance 
 incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth 
 not away, reserved in heaven for you”’ (1 Pet. i. 
 
20 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 4). Paul tells of his being caught up into ‘‘the 
 third heaven,’’ where he ‘‘heard unspeakable 
 words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter”’ 
 (2 Cor. xii. 2-4). And the writer of the Revela- 
 tion thus vividly describes the joys of the 
 heavenly inhabitants: ‘‘They shall hunger no 
 more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the 
 sun strike upon them, nor any heat: for the 
 Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall 
 be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto 
 fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe 
 away every tear from their eyes”’ (Rev. vii. 16, 
 17). Itissafe to say that heaven is a conception 
 that runs like a bright stream of soul refresh- 
 ment through all the writings of the Apostles 
 and those associated with them in producing 
 the New Testament literature, and that the 
 goal of all their teaching is found in a holy and 
 blessed home for godly men and women and 
 innocent little children beyond this present life. 
 In this chapter, however, it is not purposed to 
 do more than mention this apostolic testimony, 
 reserving further reference to their teachings 
 to be used as interpretations of, and side lights 
 upon, the testimony of Him whose word is 
 supreme over all. 
 
 The only One who knew and still knows at 
 first-hand all about Heaven, and who can 
 answer, if he will, all our inquiries about it, is 
 the Only-Begotten Son of the Father, Jesus of 
 
The Only One Who Knows 21 
 
 Nazareth, God manifest in the flesh. What the 
 prophets and psalmists dimly glimpsed, and 
 the apostolic writers more clearly understood, 
 was secondhand information at best. What 
 Jesus said about heaven was based on absolute 
 knowledge. This is evident from the fact that 
 his original home was in heaven. He said over 
 and over again that he existed before his in- 
 carnation, that he descended out of heaven, 
 that the Father sent him into the world to do 
 his will, that he was about to leave the world 
 and go unto the Father, to share the glory that 
 he had with the Father before the creation of 
 the world. Hear his very words: ‘‘ Before 
 Abraham was born, I am” (John viii. 58). 
 “Father, glorify thou me with thine own self 
 with the glory which I had with thee before 
 the world was’ (John xvii. 5). ‘No one 
 hath ascended into heaven, but he that 
 descended out of heaven, even the Son of 
 man, who is in heaven”’ (John ii. 13). ‘I am 
 come down from heaven, not to do mine own 
 will, but the will of him that sent me”’ (John vi. 
 38). ‘“‘I am the living bread which came down 
 out of heaven’”’ (John vi. 51). ‘I came forth 
 and am come from God; for neither have I come 
 of myself, but he sent me’’ (John vili. 42). 
 ‘“As thou didst send me into the world, even so 
 sent I them [the disciples] into the world”’ 
 (John xvii. 18). 
 
22% What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 Not only had Christ existed with the Father 
 originally, and had been sent into the world by — 
 the Father, but he was going back to the Father ° 
 at the completion of his earthly mission. He 
 said to the disciples at a critical time in their 
 experience: ‘‘ What then if ye should behold the 
 Son of man ascending where he was before?”’ 
 (John vi. 62). ‘‘Yet.a little while am I with 
 you, and I go unto him that sent me”’ (John vii. 
 33). “I came out from the Father, and am 
 come into the world: again, I leave the world, 
 and go unto the Father’’ (John xvi: 28). After 
 his resurrection he said to Mary Magdalene: 
 *‘Go unto my brethren, and say to them, I 
 ascend unto my Father and your Father, and 
 my God and your God” (John xx. 17). Tothe 
 penitent robber on the cross beside him he gave 
 the pledge: “‘ Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt 
 thou be with me in Paradise ’’ (Luke xxiii.43). 
 
 In this connection it is worth while to call 
 attention to that remarkable expression found 
 in John iii. 13, already quoted: ‘‘No one hath 
 ascended into heaven, but he that descended 
 out of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in 
 heaven.’ 1 am aware that the last clause of this 
 verse is not found in some of the manuscripts, 
 and is omitted in some of the critical editions 
 of the New Testament text. But still the under- 
 lying thought is entirely harmonious with what 
 we know of the self-consciousness of Jesus, 
 
The Only One Who Knows 23 
 
 which one writer fitly expresses by the remark 
 that ‘‘Christ’s proper abode and home were in 
 ‘heaven,’’ and that ‘‘he maintained a vital and 
 continuous communion therewith, dwelling in 
 the Spirit in heaven, even while in the flesh upon 
 earth.”’ In a very real sense it was true that 
 Jesus was in heaven while yet he trod the hills 
 and vales of Judea and Galilee. 
 
 We reach the conclusion, therefore, in our 
 quest for knowledge about heaven, that no one 
 but Jesus Christ had first-hand information, 
 and that he did possess while on earth full 
 knowledge of those ‘‘heavenly things’’ which 
 he withheld from Nicodemus, because that 
 *“‘teacher of Israel’’ was incapable of receiving 
 them. This fullness of knowledge Jesus pos- 
 sessed and was able to impart to discerning men, 
 in virtue of the fact that he declared concerning 
 himself: that he lived in heaven before the in- 
 carnation, that he came down from heaven at 
 the bidding of his Father, that he was in com- 
 munion with heaven while still upon earth, 
 and that he was going to return to heaven at 
 the close of his earthly mission, to share in the 
 glory that he had with the Father before the 
 foundation of the world. Relying upon the 
 soundness of these conclusions, and believing 
 that Jesus knew all about heaven, let us examine 
 his words as recorded by the Evangelists and 
 reverently gather the information they contain. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE NATURE OF HEAVEN 
 
 NE of the age-long questions that men 
 have asked concerning Heaven is, whether 
 
 it is a place, or merely a state, or whether it is 
 both a place and a state of being. Consulting 
 the utterances of the only One who knows, we 
 hear Jesus saying to his disciples in that 
 memorable talk in the upper room on the even- 
 ing before his death: ‘‘Let not your heart be 
 troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 
 In my Father’s house are many mansions; if 
 it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to 
 prepare a place for you. And if I goand prepare 
 a place for you, I come again, and will receive 
 you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may 
 be also’”’ (John xiv. 1-3). This is the clearest 
 and most definite statement recorded in the 
 Gospels, wherein Jesus throws light upon the 
 question under consideration. He calls the 
 future home of his faithful disciples ‘‘a place,”’ 
 and further describes it as ‘‘my Father’s house,”’ 
 declaring that in that ‘‘house”’ are ‘‘many 
 mansions,’ or dwelling places. The word 
 translated ‘‘place’’ is the standard term used in 
 the New Testament to denote “any portion of 
 space marked off, as it were, from surrounding 
 
 (24) . 
 
The Nature of Heaven 25 
 
 space.” (See article ‘‘topos’’ in Thayer’s Greek- 
 English Lexicon of the New Testament.)! The 
 word rendered ‘‘house’’ means primarily ‘‘an 
 inhabited edifice, a dwelling,’’ and is used in 
 that sense uniformly by the New Testament 
 writers. (See article ‘‘ozkza’’ in Thayer’s 
 Lexicon.) In harmony with these terms de- 
 noting place is the utterance of Jesus as recorded 
 in Matthew v. 34: ‘‘Swear not... by heaven, for 
 it is the throne of God.’’ If there is a throne, 
 it is fair to infer that there must be space for 
 it to occupy, and this means that heaven is a 
 place. The word translated ‘‘mansions’’ ap- 
 pears to confirm this view. The Greek word 
 ““monat”’ in John xiv. 2 means dwellings, 
 places of abode, and of these Jesus says there 
 are many in his Father’s house. Note also that 
 he uses the adverb ‘‘where”’ in speaking of the 
 future home of his disciples: ‘If any man serve 
 me, let him follow me; and where I am, there 
 shall also my servant be’’ (John xii. 26). 
 ‘‘Where”’ and “‘there’’ in their literal sense 
 imply location or place. Futhermore in the 
 Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, one of the 
 most solemn utterances that ever fell from the 
 lips of Jesus, he represents the beggar as being 
 carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom, 
 which is a figurative way of saying that Lazarus 
 went to heaven. Is not this an intimation that 
 
 1tarper & Brothers, publishers, New York. 
 
26 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 space is a characteristic of the future home of 
 the saints? 
 
 If the plan of this treatise included a discus- 
 sion of the testimony of the Apostles and other 
 New Testament writers, many passages might 
 be quoted to show the harmony of their utter- 
 ances with the words of their Divine Master. 
 But we are concerned chiefly with what Christ 
 himself taught. It may be said in general, how- 
 ever, that outside the utterances of the Master, 
 as recorded in the four Gospels, we have no 
 new and definite light in the New Testament con- 
 cerning the question as to whether heaven is a 
 place, or a state, or both. Where the Apostles 
 speak at all they simply echo the words and 
 thoughts of Him who “spake as never man 
 spake.” 
 
 It may not be without interest and a certain 
 degree of value, however, to quote in exposition 
 of the words of Jesus a few opinions which wise 
 and devout men have expressed on this subject. 
 Dr. Augustus H. Strong, an eminent theologian, 
 uses this language: ‘‘Is heaven a place, as well 
 as a state? We answer that this is probable, 
 for the reason that the presence of Christ’s 
 human body is essential to heaven, and 
 that this body must be confined to place. 
 Since deity and humanity are _ indissolubly 
 united in Christ’s single person, we cannot 
 regard Christ’s human soul as limited to place 
 
The Nature of Heaven 27 
 
 without vacating his person of its divinity. 
 But we cannot conceive of his human body as 
 thus omnipresent. As the new bodies of the 
 saints are confined to place, so, it would seem, 
 must be the body of their Lord. But, though 
 heaven be the place where Christ manifests his 
 glory through the human body which he as- 
 sumed in the incarnation, our ruling conception 
 of heaven must be something higher even than 
 this—namely, that of a state of holy com- 
 munion with God. Although heaven is prob- 
 ably a place, we are by no means to allow this 
 conception to become the preponderant one 
 in our minds. ... Heaven and hell are es- 
 sentially conditions, corresponding to character, 
 conditions in which the body and the surround- 
 ings of the soul express and reflect its inward 
 state. The main thing to be insisted on is there- 
 fore the state; place is merely incidental. The 
 fact that Christ ascended to heaven with a 
 human body, and that the saints are to possess 
 glorified bodies, would seem to imply that 
 heaven is a place.’ 
 
 To similar purpose is the opinion expressed 
 by the great Swiss theologian, F. L. Godet: 
 ‘“This heavenly dwelling is above all the emblem 
 of a spiritual state: that of communion with 
 
 2‘‘Systematic Theology,” by Augustus Hopkins 
 Strong, D.D., LL.D.; American Baptist Publication 
 Society, publishers, Philadelphia. 
 
28 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 the Father, the filial position which is accorded 
 to Christ in the divine glory, and in which he 
 will give believers a share. But this state will 
 be realized in a definite place, the place where 
 God most illustriously manifests his presence 
 and his glory—heaven.’ Dr. Marcus Dods 
 makes this comment: ‘‘‘My Father’s house’ is 
 used here [in John xiv. 2] of the immediate 
 presence of the Father and of that condition 
 in which his love and protection are uninter- 
 ruptedly and directly experienced. ‘This is most 
 naturally thought of as a place, but with the 
 corrective that ‘it is not in heaven one finds 
 God, but in God one finds heaven.’’’4 Let one 
 more quotation suffice, from the Dictionary of 
 Religious Knowledge, by Abbott and Conant:® 
 “Is heaven a place, or a state? Both a place 
 and a state—a place infinitely more beautiful 
 than any eye hath ever seen—a state infinitely 
 more blessed than any heart hath ever con- 
 ceived.’ 
 
 These opinions of wise and devout men are 
 offered, not as having authority, but merely as 
 interpretative of the Master’s words, and like 
 all interpretation should be taken for only what 
 they are worth. I see no reason, however, for 
 
 ’Godet’s Commentary on John, Funk & Wagnalls, 
 publishers, New York. 
 
 4Expositor’s Greek Testament, George H. Doran 
 
 Company, publishers, New York. 
 6’ Harper & Brothers, publishers, New York. 
 
The Nature of Heaven 29 
 
 dissenting from the view that what the Scrip- 
 tures call ‘‘heaven’’ combines the characteristics 
 of both a state anda place. Yet, while the idea 
 of state, or condition, seems to call for no special 
 comment just here, it should be said that we 
 cannot definitely know what is included in the 
 Scriptural use of “place’’ as applied to the 
 future abode of the saints. How far spatial 
 relations may be predicated of the world to 
 come, must remain an insoluble problem while 
 our present limitations remain. 
 
 If heaven is a place, where is it? Some have 
 conjectured the great star Sirius, while others 
 think that this earth, renovated and refitted, 
 will be the future abode of the saints. All such 
 speculations are vain. A veil of impenetrable 
 mystery conceals the location of heaven, and 
 with this we must be content. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE FATHER IN HEAVEN 
 
 JF Jesus said but little about Heaven as a 
 
 place, leaving the question of locality un- 
 certain, as of but little importance, not so has 
 he left us in doubt as to who are the inhabitants 
 of the House of Many Mansions. First of all, 
 he said over and over again that Heaven is the 
 Home of the Father—his Father and ours. It 
 is interesting to note that the first recorded 
 utterance of Jesus, when he was twelve years 
 old, reveals his consciousness of the Fatherhood 
 of God. To his mother, in reply to her chiding 
 question as to why he had detached himself 
 from their company when they started home- 
 ward from Jerusalem, he said: ‘‘ How is it that 
 ye sought me? knew ye not that I must be in 
 my Father’s house?’ Nearly a score of years 
 later, when he uttered those revolutionary 
 sayings that are commonly called the Sermon 
 on the Mount, he used the expression ‘‘ your 
 Father who is in heaven,” or its equivalent, no 
 less than twenty-nine times. In this filial rela- 
 tion toward his Father he associates himself 
 with his disciples, as may be seen in the message 
 which he sent to his brethren by Mary Magda- 
 lene on the morning of his resurrection: ‘‘Go 
 
 (30) 
 
The Father in Heaven 31 
 
 unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend 
 unto my Father and your Father, and my God 
 and your God”’ (John xx. 17). 
 
 There is a wealth of meaning in the way in 
 which Jesus associates Heaven with the Father- 
 hood of God. The literature of the world, aside 
 from the New Testament and writings based 
 upon it, knows little if anything of the paternal 
 relation of the Infinite One to mankind. Even 
 the Old Testament saints appear to have had 
 but a dim idea of such a relation. To them he 
 was Creator, King, Lawgiver, Judge, Deliverer, 
 but rarely ever realized as Father. At least 
 that is the impression conveyed by the utter- 
 ances of psalmists and prophets, the most 
 spiritual men of the ages before the advent of 
 the Son, who alone reveals the Father in his 
 fullness to men. Jesus also knew perfectly that 
 God is Sovereign over the universe, as he voiced 
 the truth on a memorable occasion: ‘I thank 
 thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that 
 thou didst hide these things from the wise and 
 understanding, and didst reveal them unto 
 babes”’ (Matt. xi. 25). But the favorite word 
 of Jesus when talking with God or telling others 
 about him was “Father,” as the Gospels 
 abundantly show. In prayer he appeals to the 
 Hearer of prayer as “Father,” or as ‘‘Holy 
 Father,” or ‘‘Righteous Father,’’ as recorded 
 in the prayer before the cross (John xvii. 11-25). 
 
32 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 And in his intimate conversations with the 
 disciples, as well as in his more public teaching 
 when crowds hung upon his words, every al-— 
 lusion to God is made in the words ‘‘the Fa- 
 ther,’ or ‘‘my Father,” or “your Father.” 
 Accordingly, when he speaks of heaven he calls 
 it ‘‘my Father’s house,” thus associating the 
 future home of the redeemed soul with the 
 presence and blessing of the Supreme Father, 
 ‘from whom every fatherhood in heaven and 
 on earth is named”’ (Eph. iii. 15). In harmony 
 with this utterance is the explicit declaration 
 of Jesus to his disciples: ‘‘One is your Father, 
 even he who is in heaven”’ (Matt. xxiii. 9). 
 Jesus represents the Father in heaven as be- 
 holding His human children even in their 
 closest retirement, with ears open to their pray- 
 ers and hands full of blessings to bestow upon 
 them. He said: ‘‘When thou prayest, enter into 
 thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, 
 pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy 
 Father who seeth in secret shall recompense 
 thee’? (Matt. vi. 6). ‘Your Father knoweth 
 what things ye have need of before ye ask him. 
 After this manner therefore pray ye; Our Fa- 
 ther, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy 
 name.’ Then follow expressions of ardent 
 desire that the Father’s kingdom may come, 
 and the Father’s will may be done on earth as 
 it is done in heaven. Last come humble peti- 
 
The Father in Heaven 33 
 
 tions for daily bread, forgiveness of debts, and 
 protection from the temptations of the Evil 
 One. It is heartening to remember that this 
 prayer of God’s children is addressed to Him 
 who is not merely Maker and Ruler, but in a 
 special sense the Father of those who are voicing 
 their aspirations and needs. And that Father 
 is ‘in heaven,’ far removed from all the 
 limitations of earthly parentage. Even human 
 parents, in spite of their ‘‘being evil’’ and 
 limited by many hampering conditions, know 
 how to give good gifts to their children; how 
 much more then, says Jesus, will your Father 
 in heaven, who is free from alli evil and un- 
 hampered by circumstances, give good things 
 to them that ask Him (Matt. vii. 11). He 
 sheds forth the Holy Spirit from the fountain 
 of his Fatherhood, and he gives not only bread 
 for the body, but ‘“‘the true bread out of 
 heaven,’’ which means his only-begotten Son, 
 who gave his body for the life of the world 
 (John vi. 32-51). 
 
 From the stores of his boundless wisdom the 
 Father in heaven reveals to his human children 
 all that they need to know in this world con- 
 cerning his Son and the redeeming work that 
 he came to accomplish. When Jesus asked his 
 disciples, ““Who say ye that I am?” and Simon 
 Peter answered, ‘‘ Thou art the Christ, the Son 
 
 of the living God,” the Master said to him: 
 3 
 
34 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah; for flesh 
 and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
 my Father who is in heaven’’ (Matt. xvi. 15- 
 17). In harmony with this are the words of 
 Jesus to the disciples, conveying the assurance 
 that the Holy Spirit, the promised Helper, 
 *‘shall guide you into all the truth” (John xvi. 
 13). 
 
 The Father in heaven is one who delights to 
 forgive sins; but he requires that men shall 
 repent and forsake their sins in order to for- 
 giveness. Moreover, he will not accept any 
 man’s repentance as sincere and adequate 
 until he has forgiven those who have sinned 
 against him. Jesus emphasizes this requirement 
 in the words that immediately follow the Lord’s 
 Prayer: ‘‘But if ye forgive not men their tres- 
 passes, neither will your Father forgive your 
 trespasses’’ (Matt. vi. 15). But when these 
 conditions are met, the Father’s heart sheds 
 forth its balm of pardon from the heavenly 
 home into the waiting heart of his penitent and 
 forgiving child. Akin to this are the words of 
 Jesus giving his disciples commandment to love 
 their enemies and to pray for their persecutors, 
 with the assurance that they shall thus become 
 “‘the sons of your Father who is in heaven; for 
 he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the 
 good, and sendeth rain on the just and the un- 
 just”? (Matt. v. 44, 45). In doing such things 
 
The Father in Heaven 35 
 
 he declares that his disciples become, in imita- 
 tion of himself, ‘‘the light of the world,’ and 
 his charge to all who would be sons and heirs of 
 the Heavenly Parenthood is this: ‘‘Let your 
 light so shine before men, that they may see 
 your good works, and glorify your Father who 
 is in heaven’’ (Matt. v. 16). 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE SAVIOUR IN HEAVEN 
 
 ESUS said that Heaven is the Home, not of 
 
 the Father only, but also of himself, the 
 Divine Saviour of men. To the hostile Jews 
 who hung about him with their evil designs, 
 he declared on a memorable occasion: ‘‘ Before 
 Abraham was born, I am”’ (John viii. 58). In 
 the prayer that he offered in the presence of 
 his disciples on the evening before his death, 
 he prayed: “Father, glorify thou me with thine 
 own self with the glory which I had with thee 
 before the world was”’ (John xvii. 5). To some 
 of his disciples who were murmuring their 
 dissent at some things he had just spoken, he 
 put the question: ‘‘What then if ye should be- 
 hold the Son of man ascending where he was 
 before?”’ (John vi. 62). In these passages he 
 distinctly asserts his preéxistence in a sphere 
 where he shared the glory of the Father before 
 the world was created. In another passage he 
 affirms that the Father loved him before crea- 
 tion: ‘‘Thou lovedst me before the foundation 
 of the world”’ (John xvii. 24). In harmony with 
 these words of Jesus is the declaration of the 
 Apostle John in the Prologue to his Gospel: ‘‘In 
 the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
 
 (36) ‘ 
 
The Saviour in Heaven 37 
 
 with God, and the Word was God. The same 
 was in the beginning with God’’ (John i. 1, 2). 
 And the Apostle Paul wrote of ‘Christ Jesus, 
 who, existing in the form of God, counted not 
 the being on an equality with God a thing to be 
 grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form 
 of aservant’’ (Phil. ii. 5-7). In the face of these 
 explicit statements there is no room for doubt 
 concerning the teaching that the original home 
 of the Son was in Heaven with the Infinite 
 Father. 
 
 Jesus affirmed also, over and over again, that 
 he left his home in heaven for a time, to dwell 
 among men in order to execute his Father’s 
 gracious purpose of salvation. He speaks of 
 himself as ‘‘He that descended out of heaven”’ 
 (John iii. 13), ‘‘Him whom the Father conse- 
 crated and sent into the world’’ (John x. 36). 
 He declared: ‘‘I am from above;... Iam not of 
 this world’’ (John viii. 23); ‘‘I am come down 
 from heaven”’ (John vi. 38); ‘‘I am the living 
 bread which came down out of heaven’”’ (John 
 vi. 51); ‘I came forth and am come from God”’ 
 (John viii. 42); ‘‘I came out from the Father, 
 and am come into the world”’ (John xvi. 28). 
 And in his prayer before the cross, he said to 
 the Father: ‘‘As thou didst send me into the 
 world, even so sent J them into the world” 
 (John xvii. 18). If language means anything, 
 and if the veracity of the Holy Nazarene is 
 
38 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 beyond all question, not only his preéxistence, 
 but his coming to earth and taking human 
 nature upon him in the incarnation, is a glorious 
 fact surcharged with hope and help for human- 
 ity. 
 
 Certain words of Jesus, along with other 
 considerations, appear to warrant the statement 
 that while he dwelt on earth he was also ina 
 real sense a dweller in heaven. Not in heaven 
 as a place, for place implies bodily presence; 
 but in heaven asa state, this affirmation is made. 
 One passage may here be cited: ‘‘No one hath 
 ascended into heaven, but he that descended 
 out of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in 
 heaven’ (John iii. 13). Jesus said this to 
 Nicodemus in that noted interview by night in 
 Jerusalem. As previously stated, I am aware 
 that the words, ‘‘even the Son of man, who is in 
 heaven,’ are not found in some of the oldest 
 manuscripts, though included in some ancient 
 authorities. It is possible that they were in- 
 serted later by some copyist, though some 
 eminent scholars think they are the very words 
 of Jesus. On the whole, the comment of Lyman 
 Abbott commends itself: “‘The expression 
 ‘which is in heaven’ indicates not merely that 
 Christ’s proper abode and home were in heaven, 
 but also that he maintained a vital and con- 
 tinuous communion therewith, dwelling in the 
 Spirit in heaven, even while in the flesh upon 
 
The Saviour in Heaven 39 
 
 earth. The Christian’s experience interprets, 
 though it does not fully measure, this mystery 
 of the heavenly life in the flesh’’ (Com. on John).! 
 Marcus Dods gives it as his opinion that these 
 words ‘‘affirm that although he had come out 
 of heaven he was still in it, and they show that 
 a condition of being, not a locality, was meant 
 by heaven’? (Com. on John in Expositor’s 
 Greek Testament).2 The great exegete Godet 
 says in his comment on this verse: “‘The Lord 
 (Jesus) led two lives parallel to each other, an 
 earthly life and a heavenly life. He lived in his 
 Father, and, while living thus with the Father, 
 he gave himself unceasingly to men in his human 
 life. The teaching in parables, in which the 
 heavenly things take on his lips an earthly dress, 
 is the true language answering to that existence 
 which is formed of two simultaneous lives, the 
 one penetrating the other’’ (Com. on John).’ 
 The view here expressed harmonizes with what 
 we know of the consciousness of Jesus, revealed 
 in his intimate prayers to the Father, and also 
 in many of his teachings to his disciples. His 
 frequent and protracted seasons of private com- 
 munion with God, his familiar intercourse with 
 the heavenly world in the Transfiguration 
 
 ‘From Dr. Abbott’s SHR ey on John, copyright 
 by A. S. Barnes & Company, publishers, New York. 
 
 *George H. Doran Company, publishers, New York. 
 ’Funk & Wagnalls, publishers, New York. 
 
40 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 scene, his joyous habit of mind in the midst of 
 all the provocations of his strenuous ministry, 
 his majestic calmness in the presence of the _ 
 Sanhedrin and the Roman governor when on 
 trial for his life, are some of the evidences that 
 justify the belief, that, while yet on earth in 
 the body, he was a resident of heaven in the 
 Spirit. 
 
 After his brief but far-reaching earthly minis- 
 try, Jesus went back to his home in heaven. 
 This he foretold in various terms on several 
 occasions. When the hostile Pharisees sent 
 officers to arrest him, he said: ‘‘Yet a little 
 while I am with you, and I go unto him that 
 sent me’’ (John vii. 33). In similar vein he 
 told his disciples on the evening before his death: 
 ‘‘I leave the world, and go unto the Father’”’ 
 (John xvi. 28). The purpose of his going away 
 he announced to them in the same familiar 
 talk: ‘I go to prepare a place for you”’ (John 
 xiv. 2). In the prayer that followed this com- 
 munication he said to the Father: ‘‘ Now I come 
 to thee’? (John xvii. 13). On the morning of 
 his resurrection he said to Mary Magdalene, 
 who had been weeping at the open sepulcher, 
 but was now rejoicing to find her Lord again: 
 “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto 
 the Father; but go unto my brethren, and say 
 to them, I ascend unto my Father and your 
 Father, and my God and your God”’ (John xx. 
 
The Saviour in Heaven 41 
 
 17). In the evening of the same day as in 
 disguise he was talking with Cleopas and 
 another disciple who were walking sorrowfully 
 toward the village of Emmaus: ‘‘ Behooved it 
 not the Christ to suffer these things, and to 
 enter into his glory?’’ (Luke xxiv. 26). Add to 
 these declarations of his purpose the assurance 
 that he gave the penitent robber who suffered 
 crucifixion by his side: ‘‘ Verily I say unto thee, 
 To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise”’ 
 (Luke xxiii. 43). The passages quoted above 
 clearly reveal the consciousness of Jesus, and 
 show that he knew his home to be in heaven 
 with the Father. Shortly after saying these 
 things he vanished from the scenes of his 
 earthly ministry. The Evangelists who wrote 
 the story of his life recorded their explanation 
 of his departure from earth in these words: ‘‘As 
 they [the disciples] were looking, he was taken 
 up; and a cloud received him out of their sight”’ 
 (Acts i. 9). ‘‘He led them out until they were 
 over against Bethany; and he lifted up his hands, 
 and blessed them. And it came to pass, while 
 he blessed them, he parted from them, and was 
 carried up into heaven’’ (Luke xxiv. 50, 51). 
 ‘So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken 
 unto them, was received up into heaven, and 
 sat down at the right hand of God”’ (Mark xvi. 
 19). This is the only rational explanation of 
 
42 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 his disappearance from among men, and upon 
 the truth of it we may confidently rely. 
 
 While Heaven is the permanent home of the 
 Saviour, he foretold on various occasions a 
 return to earth, which is usually spoken of as 
 the Second Coming of Christ. A few days 
 before his transfiguration he said to the dis- 
 ciples: ‘‘The Son of man shall come in the glory 
 of his Father with his angels; and then shall he 
 render unto every man according to his deeds”’ 
 (Matt. xvi. 27). At his so-called trial by the 
 Sanhedrin, when the high priest put Jesus on 
 oath and said, ‘‘I adjure thee by the living God, 
 that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the 
 Son of God,”’ the prisoner calmly replied in the 
 affirmative and solemnly added: ‘I say unto 
 you, Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man 
 sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming 
 on the clouds of heaven”’ (Matt. xxvi. 63, 64). 
 To his own disciples he had given the gracious 
 assurance only a few hours before the trial: 
 ‘If I go and prepare a place for you, I come 
 again, and will receive you unto myself; that 
 where I am, there ye may be also’’ (John xiv. 
 3). Upon another occasion he called unto him 
 the multitude with his disciples, spoke to them 
 of the necessity of self-denial, and added these 
 words of warning: ‘‘ Whosoever shall be ashamed 
 of me and of my words in this adulterous and 
 sinful generation, the Son of man also shall be 
 
The Saviour in Heaven 43 
 
 ashamed of him, when he cometh in the glory 
 of his Father with the holy angels’’ (Mark viii. 
 38). In this connection should be read and 
 pondered the description of the Final Judgment 
 as recorded by Matthew (xxv. 31-46), in which 
 Jesus reaffirms his purpose to come again from 
 heaven to earth, and sets forth the purpose and 
 results of his coming. 
 
 If the scope of this book included an exposi- 
 tion of the teachings of Paul and the writers 
 of the other Epistles upon the subject under 
 consideration, much more might be said con- 
 cerning the relationship of Christ to heaven. 
 But it is here intended to set forth only what 
 Jesus said about heaven, leaving the reader to 
 make his own investigation into the teachings 
 of the inspired men who wrote the Acts, the 
 Epistles, and the Revelation. The field is an 
 inviting one, and will repay careful exploration. 
 Suffice it here to say, by way of summing up, 
 that Jesus affirmed his own preéxistence with 
 the Father, his coming down from heaven as 
 the Father’s representative, his spiritual resi- 
 dence in heaven while on earth in the body, his 
 return to the Father after his earthly mission 
 was completed, and his purpose to come again 
 from Heaven, to judge the righteous and receive 
 them to himself, and to judge the wicked and 
 dismiss them to the place of retribution for 
 which alone they are prepared. Good and wise 
 
44. What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 men have differed in the details of their inter- 
 pretation of these recorded words of Christ; 
 but we may safely feel that we have in sub- 
 stance, if not in every minute detail, what the 
 Master said about heaven as his own eternal 
 home. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE ANGELS IN HEAVEN 
 
 N the four Gospels Jesus is nowhere repre- 
 sented as affirming directly the existence of 
 
 angels and their residence in heaven, but in 
 many of his recorded sayings there is recogni- 
 tion of these facts as familiar in the thought of 
 those to whom he spoke. The Old Testament 
 Scriptures had familiarized the people of his day 
 with the thought of angels as superior beings 
 employed in the service of God for the execution 
 of his purposes among men. Accordingly the 
 existence and heavenly residence of angels are 
 taken for granted, not only in the Gospels, but 
 throughout the New Testament writings. 
 
 As to the moral character of angels, the 
 Saviour calls them ‘‘holy,”’ as both Mark and 
 Luke record in almost identical words: ‘‘ Whoso- 
 ever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, 
 of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when 
 he cometh in his own glory, and the glory of 
 the Father, and of the holy angels’’ (Mark viii. 
 38; Luke ix. 26). They are holy, not because 
 they never had any opportunity of doing wrong, 
 but because, unlike man, they stood the test of 
 probation, chose to obey God rather than yield 
 
 to temptation, and thus had their original in- 
 (45) 
 
46 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 nocence transformed into holiness. As holy 
 beings they are associates and ministers of the 
 holy God. 
 
 That the angels yield prompt and glad 
 obedience to the will of their Maker is implied 
 in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘‘Thy will be done, as in 
 heaven, so on earth’”’ (Matt. vi. 10). Jesus 
 here implies that the inhabitants of heaven, 
 which of course include the angels, do the Fa- 
 ther’s will, and that they do it with such fidelity 
 and completeness as to make them fit examples 
 of conduct for men who dwell upon earth. If 
 an ancient psalmist could say: ‘‘I delight to do 
 thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my 
 heart’’ (Ps. xl. 8), even more joyously can the 
 unfallen angels around the throne affirm in song 
 and in deeds their perfect loyalty to the will of 
 their God and King. 
 
 Jesus in various utterances, as recorded by 
 the Evangelists, affirms that the angels are 
 subject to him. They were and still are what 
 the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls 
 ‘‘ministering spirits,’ as various passages will 
 show. At the very beginning of his ministry 
 Jesus told Nathanael of Cana, and others who 
 stood by, that angels were intimately associated 
 with him in bringing the gifts of heaven to the 
 inhabitants of earth: “Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you, Ye shall see the heaven opened, and the 
 angels of God ascending and descending upon 
 
The Angels in Heaven 47 
 
 the Son of man” (John i. 51). The form of the 
 affirmation is suggested, no doubt, by the ladder 
 that Jacob saw in his dream at Bethel (Gen. 
 xxvill. 12); but the underlying truth that Jesus 
 here taught is the intercourse between God and 
 his human children which the atoning Son has 
 made real by his mediation, and in which the 
 angels are his ready assistants and messengers. 
 As Frederic Louis Godet well puts it: ‘‘The 
 angels are here presented by Jesus as an army 
 grouped around their chief, the Son of man, 
 who says to one, Go, and to another, Do this. 
 These servants ascend first, to seek power in the 
 presence of God; afterwards, they descend again 
 to accomplish the work’? (Com. on John, 
 tn loc.).1 Dr. Lyman Abbott gives his interpre- 
 tation of this passage as follows: ‘‘ Christ opened 
 the communication between earth and heaven; 
 manifested that fact by the angelic appearances 
 which accompanied his coming, his presence, 
 and his departure; still manifests it, by the 
 spiritual blessings which he constantly confers 
 in answer to the prayers of his people; and will 
 finally manifest it yet more gloriously when he 
 comes to take possession of his established 
 kingdom, with his holy angels with him. The 
 past and present fulfillments of this prophecy 
 are but fragmentary and imperfect. The final 
 
 ‘Funk & Wagnalls, publishers, New York. 
 
48 Whai Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 and perfect fulfillment awaits us in the future” 
 (Com. on John, zz loc.).? 
 
 That the angels are subject to Christ is 
 evidenced by the words he spoke to Simon 
 Peter, who had just struck off the ear of a 
 servant of the high priest in attempting to 
 prevent the arrest of Jesus that night in Geth- 
 semane. The rash act of his disciple was re- 
 buked by the Master in these stern words: 
 ‘‘Put up again thy sword into its place; for 
 all they that take the sword shall perish with 
 the sword. Or thinkest thou that I cannot 
 beseech my Father, and he shall even now send 
 me more than twelve legions of angels?’’ (Matt. 
 xxvi. 52, 53). The implication is unmistakable 
 that the angels of heaven were ever ready to 
 come to the side of Jesus with all their loyalty 
 and strength, to render him service when he so 
 desired. 
 
 As servants of Christ the angels will attend 
 him when he shall come in his glory to judge 
 the nations (Matt. xxv. 31, 32). ‘“‘And he shall 
 send forth his angels with a great sound of a 
 trumpet, and they shall gather together his 
 elect from the four winds, from one end of 
 heaven to the other’? (Matt. xxiv. 31). In 
 explaining to his disciples the Parable of the 
 Tares, Jesus said: ‘‘ The harvest is the end of the 
 
 2A. S. Barnes & Company, publishers, New York. 
 
The Angels in Heaven 49 
 
 world; and the reapers are angels. ... The Son 
 of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall 
 gather out of his kingdom all things that cause 
 stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall 
 cast them into the furnace of fire’’ (Matt. xiii. 
 39, 41, 42). These utterances of Jesus abun- 
 dantly sustain the assertion that the angels of 
 heaven were at his command in the days of his 
 earthly ministry, and that they are still subject 
 to him, ready to do his bidding at the end of the 
 world and beyond in all the ages to come. 
 
 Jesus taught also that angels are guardians 
 of little children and of childlike disciples. The 
 Apostles were inclined to repel those who 
 brought their little ones to him for a blessing; 
 but he rebuked the objectors, told them that 
 his kingdom belonged to such as these, and 
 warned them against underrating the lowly and 
 obscure: ‘‘See that ye despise not one of these 
 little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven 
 their angels do always behold the face of my 
 Father who is in heaven” (Matt xviii. 10). 
 From this passage chiefly has arisen the doctrine 
 of guardian angels, concerning which various 
 views are held. Dr. John A. Broadus says: 
 “There is in this no sufficient warrant for the 
 popular notion of ‘guardian angels,’ one angel 
 especially assigned to each individual; it is 
 simply said of believers as a class that there are 
 angels which are their angels; but there is 
 
 4 
 
50 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 nothing here or elsewhere to show that one 
 angel has special charge of one believer. ... 
 However humble in the estimation of worldly 
 men, believers have angels as their attendants, 
 sent forth to serve God for their benefit (Heb. 1. 
 14), and these angels of theirs enjoy in heaven 
 the highest dignity and consideration, like 
 persons admitted to the very presence of a 
 monarch, and allowed, not once, but continual- 
 ly, to behold his face. .. . It cannot be positively 
 asserted that the idea of guardian angels is an 
 error, but there is no Scripture which proves 
 it true, and passages which merely might be 
 understood that way do not suffice for the 
 basis of a doctrine’? (Com. on Matt., 27 loc.).3 
 On the other hand, the great exegete Meyer 
 comments on this passage in these plain words, 
 ** The belief that every individual has a guardian 
 angel . . . is here confirmed by Jesus’’; and he 
 further says that these angels always behold the 
 Father’s face, ‘‘inasmuch as they are ever in 
 immediate proximity to God’s glory in heaven, 
 and therefore belong to the highest order 
 of angels’? (Com. on Matt., zu /oc.).4. With this 
 view Dr. Lyman Abbott is in substantial ac- 
 cord. He says that ‘“‘their angels’’ here means 
 
 3American Commentary on Matthew, by Dr. John 
 A. Broadus; American Baptist Publication Society, 
 publishers, Philadelphia. 
 
 4Funk & Wagnalls, publishers, New York. 
 
The Angels 1n Heaven 51 
 
 their guardian angels. ‘Here are intended the 
 celestial messengers who are allotted as the 
 special guardians of God’s children. Not their 
 departed spirits after death, but their guardian 
 angels while they live, are represented as near- 
 est the throne. That is, they always have im- 
 mediate and direct access to God. The picture 
 is interpreted by the usage of courts, where 
 certain special favorite officers always have 
 access to the throne. Without pressing the 
 language, which is seemingly metaphorical, as 
 all language descriptive of the spiritual world 
 must be, it evidently implies the doctrine of 
 guardian angels—that angels are not only in 
 general the ministering servants of God, but 
 that special angels are allotted as the special 
 guardians and attendants of individuals; and 
 that the weakest and feeblest of God’s flock, 
 not merely the children, but the little ones in 
 intellectual and spiritual power and in ecclesias- 
 tical position and earthly honor, have the readi- 
 est and nearest access to God’’ (Com. on Matt.).5 
 In this case, as in others where eminent exposi- 
 tors express different opinions, it becomes the 
 rest of us to avoid dogmatism and judge for our- 
 selves in the light of all the knowledge that we 
 may possess. 
 
 In the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus 
 
 5A, S. Barnes & Company, publishers, New York. 
 
52 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 there is at least a strong suggestion that angels 
 include in their functions as ‘ministering 
 spirits’? the conveying those who die in the 
 Lord to their home in heaven. Jesus says of 
 Lazarus: ‘‘It came to pass that the beggar died, 
 and that he was carried away by the angels into 
 Abraham’s bosom”’ (Luke xvi. 22). The drap- 
 ery is figurative, of course, heaven being 
 presented to the imagination as a banquet hall, 
 where host and guests recline on couches, with 
 Abraham, father of the faithful, in the chief 
 place, and the former beggar lying next to him, 
 with his head resting close to the patriarch’s 
 breast. Such a figure made strong appeal to 
 the Jewish mind. To us, of course, Abraham’s 
 bosom means Paradise, or heaven; and the fact 
 that angels are shown as the agents who carried 
 Lazarus home makes it probable, if not certain, 
 that they are appointed to render a similar 
 service to every dying saint. This thought has 
 gladdened the hearts of many weary pilgrims, 
 and one of them who lived more than three- 
 score years ago expressed his feelings in the 
 well-known lines: 
 
 “I’ve almost gained my heavenly home, 
 My spirit loudly sings; 
 
 Thy holy ones, behold, they come! 
 I hear the noise of wings. 
 
The Angels in Heaven ie 
 
 *O come, angel band, 
 Come and around me stand; 
 O bear me away on your snowy wings 
 To my immortal home.”’ 
 
 Jesus explicitly teaches also that the angels 
 in heaven are acquainted with at least some of 
 the events that are taking place in this world, 
 that they are deeply interested in human affairs, 
 and that their hearts rejoice whenever a sinful 
 soul on earth renounces his sins and seeks 
 pardon and cleansing in the mercy of God. In 
 the twin Parables of the Lost Sheep and the 
 Lost Coin he says, ‘‘ There shall be joy in heaven 
 over one sinner that repenteth, more than over 
 ninety and nine righteous persons, who need 
 no repentance’’; and he expressly includes the 
 angels in the further saying: ‘‘I say unto you, 
 there is joy in the presence of the angels of God 
 over one sinner that repenteth’’ (Luke xv. 7, 
 10). No doubt, this joy is shared by redeemed 
 saints in heaven, if they too are cognizant of 
 what is occurring here below. But it is not 
 revealed in the words of Jesus whether or not 
 they are included in this knowledge and the 
 resultant joy. Of angelic sympathy and glad- 
 ness, however, we are sure. 
 
 But the knowledge of the angels is limited, 
 for they are finite. Concerning the Second 
 Coming of the Son of man, Jesus said: “‘Of that 
 
54. What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the 
 angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the 
 Father’? (Mark xiii. 32). While inhabiting a 
 human body even Christ was to some extent 
 limited in knowledge; the angels, who are created 
 beings, cannot be omniscient. Like ourselves, 
 they must be taught. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN: CERTAINTY 
 
 HAT Christ’s true disciples are destined 
 
 to dwell in Heaven eternally is just as 
 certain as it is that he himself will be there. 
 In many terms and at various times he gave 
 that assurance in the teachings which the 
 Evangelists recorded. When the _ seventy 
 heralds of the kingdom of God that he sent forth 
 had completed their mission and returned to 
 him with joy, saying, ‘‘Lord, even the demons 
 are subject unto us in thy name,” he told them 
 not to let their chief gladness be inspired by the 
 subjection of evil spirits, but to ‘‘rejoice that 
 your names are written in heaven’”’ (Luke x. 
 17-20). The figure is that of a register in which 
 are enrolled the names of those who are already 
 citizens of heaven, even while they yet dwell 
 upon earth. Both in the Old Testament and in 
 the New the figure of a heavenly register is 
 repeatedly used. ‘Our citizenship is in 
 heaven,’’ says the Apostle Paul (Phil. iii. 20), 
 and while the saint is a sojourner in this world 
 his true home is above and his name is on the 
 register of the Heavenly Commonwealth. Ac- 
 cordingly, in the same Epistle, Paul speaks of 
 certain godly women and other “‘fellow work- 
 
 (55) 
 
56 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 ers, whose names are in the book of life’’ (Phil. 
 iv. 3). In similar phrase the writer of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews alludes to ‘‘the general 
 assembly and church of the firstborn who are 
 enrolled in heaven’’ (Heb. xii. 23). And inthe - 
 Revelation of John (xxi. 27) it is declared that 
 nothing unclean shall enter the Heavenly City, 
 ‘but only they that are written in the Lamb’s 
 book of life.’’ Let it be said again that this is a 
 figure of speech, for only thus can spiritual 
 realities be conveyed to our dull human com- 
 prehension. But at the same time it should be 
 carefully noted that there is a divine reality 
 behind the figure, which is that the saints of 
 God, Christ’s true disciples, are set apart in this 
 world to a glorious destiny in the world to come. 
 To use the words of the Apostle Peter, there is 
 ‘fan inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, 
 and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven 
 for you, who by the power of God are guarded 
 through faith unto a salvation ready to be 
 revealed in the last time’’ (1 Pet. i. 4, 5). 
 
 That heaven is assured to those who are found 
 at last with names inscribed in the Book of Life 
 is implied in the assurance of Jesus to his dis- 
 ciples as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount. 
 Announcing the Beatitude of those who are 
 ‘‘persecuted for righteousness’ sake,’’ he said to 
 al! such: ‘‘ Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for 
 great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Certainty 57 
 
 they the prophets that were before you”’ (Matt. 
 v. 10-12). Here the Master not only affirms the 
 heavenly residence of his followers in the future 
 life, but tells them explicitly that they shall find 
 there a reward for all their hardships and 
 fidelity in this world, and that the reward shall 
 be great. Something of the nature and extent 
 of that “‘reward’’ is indicated in the Parable 
 of the Talents, where the ‘good and faithful 
 servant’’ who had been “faithful over a few 
 things’? was promoted to a more important 
 trust, and told, “‘Enter thou into the joy of thy 
 lord.” This reward was bestowed by the 
 master of those servants, not only upon the 
 one who improved five talents, but also and 
 equally upon him who had improved two 
 talents (Matt. xxv. 21, 23). Fidelity to trusts 
 committed, not the largeness of results at- 
 tained, was the basis and measure of the re- 
 ward. The “lord’’ in the Parable represents 
 the Lord of the Kingdom of Heaven; and Jesus 
 here meant to teach that his saints are to be 
 rewarded in heaven for their fidelity upon earth, 
 and that the reward of each will be great and 
 satisfying. 
 
 This great reward is presented in another 
 form by our Lord in the closing sentence of his 
 description of the Judgment scene as recorded 
 in the Gospel according to Matthew (xxv. 46): 
 Speaking of the wicked, whose doom is pro- 
 
58 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 nounced by the King, it is said, ‘‘These shall 
 go away into eternal punishment’; but the 
 destiny of those on the right hand is declared in 
 the words, ‘‘ but the righteous into eternal life.’ 
 To similar purpose, but in somewhat different 
 terms, Jesus characterized this great reward in 
 an assurance given to Peter and the other dis- 
 ciples. Peter had somewhat indelicately alluded 
 to the sacrifices that he and the others had made 
 in order to follow him, and the Master’s reply 
 was: ‘‘Verily I say unto you, There is no man 
 that hath left house, or wife, or brethren, or 
 parents, or children, for the kingdom of God’s 
 sake, who shall not receive manifold more in 
 this time, and in the world to come eternal life’’ 
 (Luke xviii. 28-30). The full contents of that 
 familiar phrase ‘‘eternal life’? no human mind 
 and heart can compass in this world, and eterni- 
 ty itself may not suffice to reveal all its glories. 
 Let it be said with emphasis, however, that its 
 meaning is not chiefly an affirmation of ever- 
 lasting duration, though that is certainly 
 implied. Eternal life is chiefly a thing of quali- 
 ty, and not of quantity or duration. Its leading 
 characteristic seems to be intimate and pro- 
 gressive fellowship with God the Father and 
 with Jesus Christ his Son, as expressed by Jesus 
 himself in the prayer which he uttered on the 
 evening before his death: ‘‘ Father, the hour is 
 come; glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Certainty 59 
 
 thee: even as thou gavest him authority over 
 all flesh, that to all whom thou hast given him, 
 he should give eternal life. And this is life 
 eternal, that they should know thee the only 
 true God, and him whom thou didst send, even 
 Jesus Christ’’ (John xvii. 1-3). In our present 
 state of knowledge it must content us to know 
 that there is great reward in heaven for those 
 who are faithful to the Master on earth, and 
 that a chief element of that reward will be life 
 eternal with all the glories that the term implies. 
 
 When is that great reward to begin? Is there 
 to be a long interval between the fidelity of the 
 earthly life and the glory of the life to come? 
 Shall the saints be consigned to some shadowy 
 place called Sheol, or Hades, to grope their way 
 in semi-darkness, as many of the ancients and 
 some of the Old Testament writers imagined? 
 Or must the soul along with the body be interred 
 in the grave and remain unconscious until the 
 Last Day? Such ideas have been advocated by 
 good people. Be sure that this is not the teach- 
 ing of Jesus. On the cross amid the agonies of 
 crucifixion he shed light upon the destiny of the 
 repentant and trusting soul. When one of the 
 robbers who were crucified with him implored, 
 ‘Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy 
 kingdom,”’ the dying but omnipotent Saviour 
 replied: “‘ Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt 
 thou be with me in Paradise” (Luke xxiii. 42, 
 
60 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 43). In the vocabulary of Jesus Paradise was 
 identical with heaven. The inference is valid, 
 if not irresistible, that the dying saint enters 
 heaven immediately and that the great reward 
 begins at once. It seems to me that these 
 things are as certain as that Christ is true. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN: DIGNITY 
 
 HE great reward which Jesus assured his 
 disciples was to be their portion in heaven, 
 and which extends to all his saints in every age 
 and clime, implies certain dignities and honors 
 that may well claim our attention just here. 
 One of these dignities is equality with the 
 angels who never sinned, and whose privilege 
 it is to behold the Father’s face and go forth to 
 do his will. Jesus told the Sadducees who were 
 trying to entrap him with a question about the 
 resurrection, that they were in error because 
 they knew not the Scriptures, nor the power of 
 God. In the resurrection, he said, the righteous 
 will not be bound by the conditions that 
 marked their earthly lives, but will be ‘‘equal 
 unto the angels”’ (Luke xx. 36; Matt. xxii. 30; 
 Mark xii. 25). This does not mean, it is worth 
 while to say, that saints when they reach heaven 
 will become angels, thus losing something of 
 their human identity. The once-popular Sun- 
 day school song, ‘‘I want to be an angel, and 
 with the angels stand,’ may have voiced a 
 worthy aspiration, but there is no warrant in 
 the teachings of Jesus to show that the con- 
 ception is accurate. ‘As the angels,’’ or ‘‘equal 
 
 (61) 
 
62 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 unto the angels,’”’ is what the Master said. 
 He specified two things in which this equality 
 with angels consists: one of them, that there is 
 no more death for them, and the other, that 
 the marriage relation will have ceased forever. 
 We have seen in a previous chapter that the . 
 angels are highly exalted. Jesus said they are 
 “‘holy’’; that they are his trusted agents in con- 
 veying heavenly gifts to mankind; that they 
 will attend him when he comes to judge. the 
 nations; that they are intrusted with the 
 guardianship of little children and adults of 
 childlike spirit; that they are filled with joy 
 when sinners repent; in short, his words imply 
 that angels are holy and happy in communion 
 with God and one another, and honored with 
 the privilege of ministration to God’s earthly 
 children in their times of need. It is evident, 
 therefore, that the saints will be clothed with 
 honors beyond our present ability to conceive, 
 when they take their places in the celestial 
 world as the peers and companions of angels. 
 In connection with his declaration to the 
 Sadducees, as quoted above, Jesus made 
 another affirmation—that ‘‘they who are ac- 
 counted worthy to attain to that world, and 
 the resurrection from the dead, .. . are sons of 
 God, being sons of the resurrection’’ (Luke xx. 
 35, 36). The meaning seems to be that the son- 
 ship which existed while the saint was still upon 
 
The Saints tn Heaven: Dignity 63 
 
 earth, and which enabled him to say, ‘‘Abba, 
 Father,’’ to God, is exalted into some higher 
 degree in heaven as he takes his place in the 
 ranks of the glorified. Being now “‘sons of the 
 resurrection,’ having passed through the trans- 
 formation which the resurrection with its spirit- 
 ual body effects, the saints are endued with a 
 dignity of divine sonship that was impossible to 
 them while still hampered by earthly conditions. 
 Assons of theresurrection and children of Godin 
 heaven, the saints will realize as never before 
 the fullness of meaning embraced in that saying 
 of Jesus on a crucial occasion: ‘‘ Whosoever shall 
 do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is 
 my brother, and sister, and mother’’ (Matt. xii. 
 50). While this close relation between the Son 
 of God and his true disciples is a glorious fact 
 even here on earth, its glory is enhanced by the 
 resurrection experience which the saint has 
 passed through in fellowship with his Saviour. 
 So that, when the Risen Christ shall take the 
 risen saint by the hand and with a smile of 
 welcome say, ‘‘My brother, my sister, my 
 mother,’’ a new and brighter element will be 
 added to that heavenly relationship. 
 
 This exalted relation will receive public 
 recognition, according to these words of Jesus: 
 ‘‘Every one therefore who shall confess me be- 
 fore men, him will I also confess before my 
 Father who is in heaven” (Matt. x. 32). And 
 
64 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 if in the Father’s presence this great confession 
 is made, then it will be made also in the presence 
 of angels, archangels, glorified saints of all the 
 ages from Abel to the last one who entered the 
 gates of Paradise, and of all the holy and happy 
 intelligences of the universe. Is there any 
 dignity higher than this? 
 
 Yes, there seems to be a further exaltation 
 implied in certain other sayings of Jesus. On 
 a certain occasion late in his earthly ministry, 
 when a contention had arisen among his dis- 
 ciples as to which of them was accounted to be 
 greatest, he explained to them patiently that 
 greatness in his kingdom was based upon 
 humble service, and then assured them that, as 
 they had continued with him in his temptations, 
 he would reward them with appropriate honors: 
 “I appoint unto you a kingdom, even as my 
 Father appointed unto me, that ye may eat 
 and drink at my table in my kingdom; and ye 
 shall sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of 
 Israel’? (Luke xxii. 29, 30). Substantially the 
 same promise was given in reply to Peter’s ques- 
 tion: ‘‘Lo, we have left all, and followed thee; 
 what then shall we have? And Jesus said unto 
 them, Verily I say unto you, that ye who have 
 followed me, in the regeneration when the Son 
 of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye 
 also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the 
 twelve tribes of Israel’? (Matt. xix. 27, 28). 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Dignity 65 
 
 Note in this connection the invitation extended 
 to those on the right hand of the Judge in the 
 scene depicted by Jesus in Matthew’s record: 
 ‘‘Then shall the King say unto them on his 
 right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
 inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world’? (Matt. xxv. 34). 
 In these passages Jesus declares not merely 
 that his disciples will be admitted to share as 
 subjects in his heavenly kingdom, but also that 
 they are to possess great dignity and authority. 
 It has been remarked by a wise interpreter that 
 while the promise of sitting upon thrones and 
 exercising the functions of judge is upon its 
 face a personal promise to the disciples who were 
 with Jesus at the time, yet ‘‘elsewhere are to 
 be found promises, apparently to all the saints, 
 of sharing with Christ, in a manner which is not 
 explained, in his office of Judge and King.”’ 
 The same writer adds this conclusion: ‘‘What- 
 ever else this promise may mean, it certainly 
 imports the possession of a celestial office of 
 great trust, dignity, and importance’”’ (Lyman 
 Abbott, Com. on Matt.).!. A reminiscence of this 
 great promise may be found in Paul’s appeal to 
 the Christians of the Corinthian Church, who 
 were suing one another in the heathen courts: 
 ‘‘Know ye not that the saints shall judge the 
 
 
 
 1A, S. Barnes & Company, publishers, New York, 
 5 
 
66 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 world? and if the world is judged by you, are ye 
 unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know 
 ye not that we shall judge angels? how much 
 more, things that pertain to this life?’’ (1 Cor. 
 vi. 2, 3). In our necessary ignorance of the 
 details of the heavenly life it is impossible to 
 give a more definite judgment of what is implied 
 in the kingdom, thrones, and judicial powers 
 that Jesus promises in these passages. We can 
 only say, with the writer quoted above, that 
 they certainly mean the possession of a celestial 
 office of great trust, dignity, and importance. 
 What this office includes of dignity and honor, 
 as well as of responsibility, will be revealed to 
 each of us when “‘this mortal shall have put on 
 immortality.” 
 
 ‘‘Then shall the righteous shine forth as the 
 sun in the kingdom of their Father,’’ said Jesus 
 in his interpretation of his Parable of the Tares 
 of the Field (Matt. xiii. 43). He had just said 
 that ‘‘in the end of the world the Son of man 
 shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather 
 out of his kingdom all things that cause stum- 
 bling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast 
 them into the furnace of fire; there shall be the 
 weeping and the gnashing of teeth.’”’ And in 
 sharp contrast with this gloom and anguish 
 he places the entrancing picture of a great 
 company of redeemed saints, whose faces are 
 shining like the sun and whose garments are 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Dignity 67 
 
 luminous as the light. We are reminded of the 
 glory of the Transfiguration, in which the sub- 
 lime figure of the Son of God appeared to the 
 three disciples through the surrounding dark- 
 ness—‘‘his face did shine as the sun, and his 
 garments became white as the light’’ (Matt. 
 xvii. 2). And we remember the words of the 
 Beloved Disciple: ‘‘ Now are we children of God, 
 and it is not yet made manifest what we shall 
 be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, 
 we shall be like him; for we shall see him even 
 as he is’’ (1 John iii. 2). In this world the true 
 disciples of the lowly Nazarene are often obscure 
 and but little appreciated by those who are 
 striving after wealth and carnal pleasure. But 
 in the world to come they shall be forever 
 separate from all evil associations and allure- 
 ments, their real worth will be manifest to 
 rejoicing angels, and as children of their Father 
 they will ‘‘shine forth as the sun,”’ whose radiant 
 beams shall nevermore be dimmed. Surely 
 these coming honors and dignities that are 
 reserved for the saints in heaven may well 
 cheer their hearts while still in the house of 
 their pilgrimage. 
 
CHAPTER IX | 
 THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN: FELLOWSHIP 
 
 S social beings the followers of Christ have 
 found one of their richest privileges on 
 earth to be association with their fellow Chris- 
 tians and communion by faith with their unseen 
 but adored Redeemer. That the ‘“‘fellowship 
 of kindred minds’”’ will form a chief element in 
 the bliss of the saints in heaven is only what we 
 are warranted in expecting from the fore- 
 glimpses that come to us here in the flesh. 
 Accordingly, it is no surprise to a child of 
 God when he reads such words as these that fell 
 from the lips of Jesus: ‘If any man serve me, 
 let him follow me; and where I am, there shall 
 also my servant be’”’ (John xii. 26). Certain 
 Greeks desired to see him during Passover week 
 in Jerusalem, and he made their visit an oc- 
 casion for renewing his teaching about self- 
 denial and holy service. The point to be noted 
 here is that he who faithfully follows the Master 
 in this life will continue to follow him in the life 
 to come—that the fellowship of earthly service 
 will merge into the fellowship of heavenly com- 
 munion. This great fact of fellowship with the 
 Saviour in heaven is expressed in the most 
 explicit manner in those classic words that have 
 (68) 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Fellowship 69 
 
 made music in the hearts and lives of his dis- 
 ciples throughout all the Christian centuries: 
 “In my Father’s house are many mansions; 
 if it were not so, I would have told you; for I 
 go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and 
 prepare a place for you, I come again, and will 
 receive you unto myself; that where I am, there 
 ye may be also”’ (John xiv. 2, 3). On the same 
 occasion—the evening before his death—he 
 uttered this wish in the prayer which reveals 
 his innermost heart: “‘ Father, I desire that they 
 also whom thou hast given me be with me where 
 I am, that they may behold my glory, which 
 thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before 
 the foundation of the world’”’ (John xvii. 24). 
 Dwell upon these glorious words: ‘‘ Where I am, 
 there shall my servant be; there ye may be also; 
 that they may behold my glory.” Eternal 
 fellowship with Him who loved us and gave 
 Himself up for us! The privilege of looking into 
 the face of Him who is the brightness of the 
 Father’s glory and the express image of His 
 person! To hear the entrancing music of His 
 voice, who said to the toil-wornand heavy-laden: 
 “‘Come unto me, and I will give you rest!” 
 To behold His glory, which the Father has 
 given to His well-beloved Son, and to share that 
 glory through eternal ages, with no fear of 
 change, no dread of sin, no apprehension of 
 
70 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 death! Truly, as Jesus said: ‘“‘Great is your 
 reward in heaven.” 
 
 Along with this supreme fellowship with 
 Christ we are permitted to anticipate associa- 
 tion with our fellow saints in glory. How great 
 is their number no mind of man can compute. 
 They have been gathering up there from the 
 days of righteous Abel until now. Think of 
 knowing and associating in heaven with Enoch, 
 Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and his fellow 
 prophets, John the Baptist, John the Beloved 
 Disciple, Peter, Paul, Martha -and Mary of 
 Bethany, Polycarp, and a myriad of saints who 
 followed these illustrious ones in later years. 
 Imagine the fellowship of those godly men and 
 women, whose memoirs we have read and whose 
 characters we have admired and loved, though 
 we never beheld their faces nor heard the tones 
 of their voices. Picture the joy of clasping 
 hands with the pastor who ministered to your 
 spiritual needs long ago, the teacher who led 
 your young footsteps upward in the Sunday 
 school, the comrades who labored by your side 
 for years and then preceded you to the land of 
 rest and reward. What pleasures await the 
 child of God in realizing these anticipations! 
 
 Our own most intimate ones, too—those 
 whom we “loved long since and lost awhile”’ 
 —father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister, 
 son, daughter, and others who were bound to 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Fellowship 71 
 
 us on earth by closest ties of love and confidence! 
 Think of the reunion with them in the home 
 where no prospect of separation will shadow the 
 perfect joy of fellowship! Is all this in store for 
 the faithful disciples of Jesus? The whole 
 teaching of the Master implies it, even if there 
 is no explicit declaration of it in his recorded 
 words. A careful and candid reading of the 
 four Gospels will assure any inquirer that the 
 reunion of saints with their loved ones who died 
 in the faith and hope of salvation through 
 Christ is as certain as the promises of God. 
 ‘Shall we know each other there?’’ is a 
 question often asked by those who have suffered 
 keen bereavement. Certainly we shall—why 
 not? It is implied in the very nature of things. 
 Will heaven bring us into a state of knowledge 
 inferior to our intelligence on earth? Could 
 there be fellowship without recognition? And 
 is not fellowship a cardinal element of that 
 heaven which Jesus reveals? It would seem 
 that no doubt of the recognition of friends in the 
 future life of the saints should ever have arisen 
 at all, in view of the implications of Scripture 
 and the dictates of sound reason. True, there 
 are some shadows that we cannot brush away 
 in the present imperfect state of our knowledge 
 —as, for example, the apprehension in some 
 minds that happiness would be impossible even 
 in heaven, if recognition of our saved friends 
 
42 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 should cause us to miss other friends who were 
 not there. The solution of this doubt is in the 
 mind of our loving Father, and there it must be. 
 left until he shall choose to make it known. 
 Meanwhile, we are free to believe most heartily 
 in heavenly recognition, because the opposite 
 supposition is repugnant to all our social in- 
 stincts, and also because it is negatived by the 
 whole tenor of New Testament teaching. Let 
 us join the Apostle Paul in his confession of 
 faith: ‘‘ Now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then 
 face to face: now I know in part; but then shall 
 I know fully even as also I was fully known’’ 
 (1 Cor. xiii. 12). 
 
 Does heavenly recognition involve the re- 
 sumption of family relationships, especially 
 the marriage tie? Not so. Jesus teaches in 
 explicit terms that these ties, at least in their 
 physical features, are unknown in heaven. He 
 said: ‘‘The sons of this world marry, and are 
 given in marriage; but they that are accounted 
 worthy to attain to that world, and the resur- 
 rection from the dead, neither marry, nor are 
 given in marriage: for neither can they die any 
 more: for they are equal unto the angels; and 
 are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection”’ 
 (Luke xx. 34-36; Matt. xxii. 30; Mark xii. 25). 
 The Master’s meaning is well interpreted by 
 Dr. Lyman Abbott, who says: ‘‘This declara- 
 tion does not imply that the angels are the 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Fellowship 73 
 
 spirits of the departed; on the contrary, it 
 discriminates between the two, for it com- 
 pares the one to the other. Nor does it imply 
 that there is no recognition of friends in heaven 
 and no perpetuation of friendship. Nor does it 
 involve the literal resurrection of the earthly 
 body; on the contrary, it implies a radical differ- 
 ence between the celestial and the terrestrial 
 body. (Compare 1 Cor. xv. 42-44, 50.) But 
 Christ declares that as in heaven there will be 
 no more death (Luke xx. 36), so there will be no 
 succession and renewal of life, which is the main 
 object of marriage; hence the physical relations 
 of marriage will not continue to exist’? (Com. 
 on Matt.)' Dr. John A. Broadus agrees with 
 this view in substance, but is somewhat more 
 explicit. He says: “‘There is nothing in this 
 statement (of Christ) to forbid the persuasion, 
 elsewhere countenanced in Scripture, that the 
 relations of earthly life will be remembered in 
 the future state, the persons recognized, and 
 special affections cherished with delight; and 
 we can imagine that exalted and spiritualized 
 conjugal affections may then and there exist 
 toward more persons than one. The idea is 
 hard to accept now, only because we do not 
 realize how great changes of feeling will ac- 
 company existence in the glorified body (1 Cor. 
 xv. 44; Phil. iii. 21). In heaven, the love of 
 
 1A,S. Barnes & Company, publishers, New York. 
 
74 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 two that were successive husbands may be as 
 little mutually exclusive as the love of two 
 children or two sisters, and yet be intense, 
 peculiar, and delightful. This is another of 
 those sayings by which our Lord at one stroke 
 cut into the heart of some difficulty, and laid 
 it open’? (Commentary on Matt.).2. Let the 
 interpretations of these wise men be taken for 
 what they are worth; the present writer has 
 nothing better to present. 
 
 It is legitimate to inquire, in connection with 
 the fellowship of the saints in heaven, whether 
 it includes a vision of the Father as well as 
 familiar communion with the Saviour, the 
 angels, and spirits of just men made perfect. 
 Will the Father manifest himself to his human 
 children in the future state, apart from the 
 revelation which he makes through the Son, and 
 will the saints be rewarded with what has been 
 called ‘‘the Beatific Vision,’ a direct and vivid 
 disclosure of the Father’s face? There are some 
 sayings of Scripture which on the surface appear 
 to require a negative answer, while others ap- 
 pear to favor the affirmative. ‘‘ Blessed are the 
 pure in heart, for they shall see God,’”’ may mean 
 a vision of the Father up there, as well as a 
 spiritual apprehension of him down here. And 
 if in heaven the guardian angels of God’s little 
 
 2American Baptist Publication Society, publishers, 
 Philadelphia; quoted by permission. 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Fellowship 75 
 
 ones do always behold the Father’s face, why 
 not also the saints whom the Son shall confess 
 to the Father in the presence of the angels? 
 ‘‘Coming the vision of God; coming my bloom 
 and my power!’’ So sang one of his saints in 
 triumph of faith, and so it is our privilege to 
 voice our glad anticipation of the fellowship 
 above. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN: EXPERIENCE 
 
 NTERWOVEN with the dignities that the 
 
 saints in heaven shall receive and the fellow- 
 ship they shall enjoy are certain experiences 
 which Jesus promised his disciples, that call for 
 special notice in addition to allusions to them 
 that have already been made. 
 
 One of those experiences foretold in explicit 
 terms by Him is that of immortality. In his 
 Gospel Luke has preserved for us a saying of 
 Jesus that does not appear in the other Synop- 
 tics. Refuting the error of the Sadducees, who 
 sought to confound him with a hard question 
 about marriage in the life to come, Jesus replied 
 that “they who are accounted worthy to attain 
 to that world, and the resurrection from the 
 dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” 
 And then he adds the priceless assurance: 
 ‘‘Neither can they die any more: for they are 
 equal unto the angels; and are sons of God, 
 being sons of the resurrection’? (Luke xx. 35, 
 36). Here is a definite pledge of immortal life 
 to all who are numbered among the true 
 disciples of Jesus. When once they have passed 
 through the gates of death into the heavenly 
 
 (76) 
 
The Satnis in Heaven: Experience 77 
 
 world, they can never die again, but are death- 
 less like the unfallen angels. 
 
 It is difficult to realize in our present limited 
 condition what a relief it will be to enter upon a 
 state and reside in a place from which death in 
 every form is absolutely excluded. We are so 
 familiar with sickness, death, funerals, burials, 
 with all their attendant heartbreak, that 
 imagination staggers in the attempt to conceive 
 a condition in which none of these gloomy 
 objects can ever have place. The dread of 
 death is the cause of many of the densest shadows 
 that darken our earthly pathway. Ev ca the 
 very best of God’s saints look forward to the 
 experience of dissolution with feelings of dis- 
 comfort, although they have no reason to fear 
 what lies beyond the grave. Truly does the 
 writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii. 15) 
 speak of them ‘‘who through fear of death were 
 all their lifetime subject to bondage’’; for, 
 indeed, this fear enslaves our humanity with 
 a bondage as cruel as it is universal. But the 
 same writer in connection with these words lays 
 emphasis upon the cheering fact that Christ 
 partook of our human nature and submitted to 
 die in our behalf, ‘that through death he might 
 bring to naught him that had the power of 
 death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all 
 them who through fear of death’’ were thus 
 enslaved. And now that Christ has risen from 
 
78 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 the dead, to die no more, his word to all his 
 true disciples is: ‘‘Because I live, ye shall live 
 also’’ (John xiv. 19). This assurance of immor- 
 tality in union with the Lord finds its worthy 
 echo from the Isle of Patmos in the words that 
 John heard from “‘a great voice out of heaven’’: 
 ‘*God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; 
 and 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. 
 xxi. 4). 
 
 The passage just quoted leads us to speak 
 more particularly of the experience of comfort 
 which the saints in heaven will enjoy. Not only 
 is death excluded from heaven, but sorrow, pain, 
 tears, and all other discomforts are forever shut 
 out. The whole tenor of Christ’s teaching, as 
 recorded in the Gospels, gives assurance of this 
 heavenly comfort. There is more than a hint 
 of it in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus 
 where Abraham is represented as telling the man 
 whose cry for help had reached him across the 
 ‘“‘oreat gulf’? that separated between Paradise 
 and the place of torment, that while he, the once 
 rich man, was in anguish, Lazarus, the poor 
 afflicted beggar, whom the angels had conveyed 
 to the celestial banquet hall, was the subject 
 of loving comfort. ‘‘ Now here he is comforted,”’ 
 said Father Abraham. Taken in connection 
 with other sayings of Jesus, this glimpse of the 
 
The Sainis in Heaven: Experience 79 
 
 life above is full of cheer to those who are in 
 need of heavenly comfort. The mission of Jesus 
 to this world was largely one of comfort to the 
 distressed. One of the Beatitudes in the Sermon 
 on the Mount declares: ‘‘ Blessed are they that 
 mourn; for they shall be comforted’’ (Matt. v. 
 4). ‘‘Be of good comfort,’ was.a favorite ex- 
 pression of his, when the afflicted appealed to 
 him for help. ‘I will not leave you comfort- 
 less,’’ was an assurance which he gave his dis- 
 ciples when they were dismayed at the news of 
 his approaching departure from them. “I will 
 pray the Father, and he shall give you another 
 Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, 
 even the Spirit of truth,’’ was the promise with 
 which he consoled them for the loss to be 
 occasioned by his own withdrawal. It is in 
 harmony with all these words of the Master 
 concerning the comfort that His people should 
 have on earth under the ministrations of the 
 Divine Spirit, that the heavenly life is repre- 
 sented as free from all that which might cause 
 unhappiness, and full of that comfort which all 
 weary souls covet but never experience in per- 
 fection here below. It is no matter of surprise 
 that we find in the writings of Paul and the 
 other Apostolic authors many echoes of the 
 teachings of the Master upon this subject. 
 Akin to this experience of comfort in the 
 heavenly life is that of joy, which may be viewed 
 
80 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 as comfort intensified. In the Parable of the 
 Talents (Matt. xxv.), Jesus represents the lord 
 of the servants as saying to the one who had 
 been faithful in using his capital of five talents: 
 ‘‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant: 
 thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will 
 set thee over many things; enter thou into the 
 joy of thy lord.”” —The same commendation with 
 its gracious invitation is given to the servant 
 who had improved the two talents intrusted to 
 him. What was meant by entering into the joy 
 of his lord is left to our imagination to conceive. 
 No doubt, it meant honor, closer fellowship with 
 the master, probably a banquet and feasting; 
 at all events, it indicated a promotion that 
 would be fraught with joy. Let it be remem- 
 bered that this “‘lord’’ in the parable is meant 
 to represent our Lord and Master, who will 
 reward each of his faithful servants with com- 
 mendation of his faithfulness, promotion to a 
 place of greater dignity and _ responsibility, 
 and admission into closer fellowship with him- 
 self. To disciples of Jesus the invitation of their 
 Master, ‘‘ Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,” 
 will mean introduction to an experience of bliss 
 beyond all power of human mind and heart 
 to conceive until this mortal shall have put on 
 immortality. On the lips of Jesus the words 
 ‘‘my joy’’ was an expression that his disciples 
 often heard and sometimes recorded. For 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Experience 81 
 
 example, he said: ‘‘These things have I spoken 
 unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that 
 your joy may be made full” (John xv. 11). And 
 in his prayer on the evening before his death 
 he said to the Father: ‘‘ Now I come to thee; and 
 these things I speak in the world, that they (the 
 disciples) may have my joy made full in them- 
 selves’? (John xvii. 13). The joy which filled 
 the heart of Jesus, even while burdened with the 
 sins and sorrows of the people about him, found 
 its source in conscious purity from personal sin 
 and fault, unbroken fellowship with the Father 
 whose beloved Son and Representative he was, 
 and the opportunity and power of service to 
 the souls and bodies of men which his earthly 
 life afforded him. It was the joy of holiness, 
 of love to God and man, of opening up before 
 despairing humanity the way of salvation from 
 all sin and ultimately from all evil whatso- 
 ever. 
 
 When he finished the work which the Father 
 had given him to do on earth, and ascended to 
 his mediatorial seat at the Father’s right hand in 
 heaven, his joy was intensified, no doubt, as he 
 found his own purity reflected in all the happy 
 spirits about him, as communion with the 
 Father and with saints and angels became more 
 vivid than had been possible while enveloped in 
 the shadows of his earthly experience, and as he 
 
 saw the auspicious beginnings and progress of 
 6 
 
82 What Jesus Said aboui Heaven 
 
 that Kingdom which he had given his life to 
 introduce and establish on earth. This in part 
 is what is included in the expression, ‘‘the joy 
 of thy Lord.”’ | 
 
 To participate in this joy of the Saviour in 
 heaven will be the crowning experience of the 
 the saints. Theirs will be the joy of conscious 
 purity also, and to them will it be given to have 
 unbroken and satisfying fellowship with Christ 
 and the Father whose love gave Christ to man- 
 kind, and communion with unfallen angels, as 
 well as with a great multitude of noble human 
 souls from all lands and every age. To them 
 will come also the gladness of knowing that the 
 good work which they did on earth in the 
 Master’s name for the benefit of their fellow 
 men abides in the lives of many, and will go on 
 multiplying in gracious and redeeming in- 
 fluences through all the ages to come. Said 
 Jesus to his disciples on one occasion: ‘‘ Rejoice 
 that your names are written in heaven.” If 
 the foreknowledge that our names have been 
 entered upon the celestial register as citizens 
 of heaven is a matter of rejoicing, how much 
 greater will be the joy when we come into the 
 fullness of that citizenship, and take our places 
 in that innumerable company who, having come 
 out of great tribulation, ‘‘have washed their 
 robes and made them white in the blood of the 
 Lamb”’ (Rev. vii. 14). 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN: OCCUPATION 
 
 T seems somewhat remarkable that there is 
 no explicit word of Jesus recorded in the 
 Gospels concerning the occupations, or employ- 
 ments, of redeemed souls in heaven. There are 
 utterances of his that set forth definitely the 
 certainty of the blessed hereafter, the dignities 
 and honors that the saints are to receive, the 
 fellowship they are destined to enjoy, and the 
 blessed experiences of comfort and gladness 
 that are reserved for them in the Celestial City. 
 But concerning the employments and activities 
 of the saints in glory there is no plain affirmation 
 in the recorded sayings of Jesus, and we are left 
 to gather what light we can from his general 
 teachings with their apparent implications. 
 One of his utterances that may serve us here is a 
 sentence in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘‘Thy will be 
 done, as in heaven, so on earth’”’ (Matt. vi. 10). 
 Here it is plainly implied that the Heavenly 
 Father’s will is done in heaven, and this means, 
 of course, that it is done by saints as well as by 
 the unfallen angels. It is certain that in heaven 
 all the inhabitants do the will of God promptly, 
 gladly, and with all possible efficiency. 
 When we try to specify what the will of the 
 (83) 
 
84 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 Father is in connection with the employments 
 of the saints above, it is possible to obtain some 
 light from the Master’s words elsewhere. For 
 example, in the Parable of the Rich Man and 
 Lazarus Jesus represents Abraham as telling the 
 former rich man in the other world: ‘‘ Remember 
 that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good 
 things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; 
 but now here he is comforted, and thou art in 
 anguish’”’ (Luke xvi. 25). As the former beggar 
 is here pictured enjoying a banquet in company 
 with Abraham in Paradise, it is inevitable that 
 his condition should be associated with the idea 
 of Rest. So that we may take our Lord’s word 
 here as at least a strong hint that one of the 
 occupations of the saints in glory will be to rest 
 from the toil and weariness of their earthly life. 
 This thought receives explicit and repeated con- 
 firmation in other parts of the New Testament. 
 The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in 
 delineating the experience of the toil-worn 
 Israelites in the wilderness under the leadership 
 of Moses and Joshua, concludes with this gen- 
 eral assurance: ‘‘ There remaineth therefore a 
 sabbath rest for the people of God’”’ (Heb. iv. 9). 
 This rest is to be spiritual as well as physical, 
 and its sphere is heaven rather than earth. 
 
 John upon the island of Patmos heard a voice | 
 
 from heaven saying: ‘‘Write, Blessed are the 
 dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Occupation 85 
 
 saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their 
 labors; for their works follow with them”’ (Rev. 
 xiv. 13). In view of passages like these it is not 
 a perversion of the Master’s meaning to believe 
 that the final rest of heaven is included in his 
 great invitation and promise: ‘‘Come unto me, 
 all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and 
 learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: 
 and ye shall find rest unto your souls’”’ (Matt. 
 xi. 29). The rest that Jesus imparts to earth’s 
 weary ones who trust in him is a rest that 
 begins and develops in the life that now is, and 
 finds its complete fulfillment in the life to come. 
 
 It is very certain that the element of Worship 
 will enter largely into the occupations of the 
 saints in heaven. It will be no hardship for the 
 redeemed to vary the rest of heaven with fre- 
 quent seasons of adoration and praise to the 
 Father and his redeeming Son. Indeed it is 
 certain that a deep current of joyous worship 
 will flow continually in the hearts of the saints, 
 even while resting quietly from their labors. 
 As to worship as one of the occupations of the 
 dwellers in heaven, we have a hint in the song 
 of the angels who saluted the ears of the shep- 
 herds on the night that Jesus was born with 
 their strains of praise: ‘‘Glory to God in the 
 highest, and on earth peace among men in 
 whom he is well pleased’”’ (Luke ii. 14). But it 
 
86 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 is in the Revelation of John that we find vivid 
 pictures of heaven as a place of worship, in 
 which both saints and angels participate. Of 
 the various passages, this one may be quoted as 
 representative of all: ‘‘After these things I saw, 
 and behold, a great multitude, which no man 
 could number, out of every nation and of all 
 tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before 
 the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in 
 white robes, and palms in their hands; and they 
 cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto 
 our God who sitteth on the throne, and unto the 
 Lamb. And all the angels’ were standing 
 round about the throne, and about the elders 
 and the four living creatures; and they fell 
 before the throne on their faces, and worshiped 
 God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and 
 wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and 
 power, and might, be unto our God for ever and 
 ever. Amen.”’ (Rev. vii. 9-12). Such a picture 
 is adapted to fire one’s imagination, and to 
 quicken his desire to join that happy throng 
 whose praises mingle with the anthems of the 
 angels in the presence of the eternal throne. 
 There is ample reason to believe that one of 
 the chief occupations of the saints in heaven 
 will be the rendering of Service to others ac- 
 cording to plans that the Infinite Father will 
 reveal in the onward progress of the ages. “‘Thy 
 will be done in heaven”’ can surely mean no less 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Occupation 87 
 
 than this, for in the earthly life God’s servants 
 do his will best when they are best serving their 
 fellows. Is it not true also, that equality with 
 the angels which Jesus affirms of the saints in 
 glory will include fellowship with them in useful 
 service, as well as in rendering worship to God 
 and the Lamb? This seems to be a fair infer- 
 ence, and it opens up an inviting vista of happy 
 occupation for Christ’s redeemed. Another 
 significant utterance of Jesus is recorded by 
 John in connection with the visit of certain 
 Greeks during Passion Week: “‘If any man serve 
 me, let him follow me; and where I am, there 
 shall also my servant be’’ (John xii. 26). Here 
 there seems to be an intimation that those who 
 follow Jesus and serve him in this world shall 
 not only be with him in heaven but shall serve 
 him there also. Death shall have no power to 
 put an end to, nor even seriously interrupt, the 
 glad service that the disciple shall render his 
 beloved Master. ‘‘O death, where is thy vic- 
 tory?” There is a glad recognition of this 
 heavenly service in the Revelation of St. John. 
 In his vision of the great multitude before the 
 throne, John heard one of the elders say to him: 
 “These are they that come out of the gteat 
 tribulation, and they washed their robes, and 
 made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 
 Therefore are they before the throne of Gow; 
 and they serve him day and night in his temple” 
 
88 What Jesus Said aboui Heaven 
 
 (Rev. vii. 14,15). A kindred passage is in Rev- 
 elation xxii. 3: ‘And there shall be no curse any 
 more; and the throne of God and of the Lamb 
 shall be therein; and his servants shall serve 
 him; and they shall see his face.”’ 
 
 This view of heaven as a place of holy service 
 is expressed in various ways by eminent 
 scholars. Dr. A. H. Strong says: ‘‘The repre- 
 sentation of heaven as a city seems intended 
 to suggest intensity of life, variety of occupa- 
 tion, and closeness of relation to others. . . 
 Heaven will involve rest from defective physical 
 organization and surroundings, as well as from 
 the remains of evil in our hearts. It will be a 
 rest consistent with service, an activity without 
 weariness, a service which is perfect freedom”’ 
 (‘Systematic Theology,’ p. 585).1. Another 
 writer says: ‘“We must suppose, then, that 
 there will be, even in the heavenly world, a 
 diversity of tastes, of labors, and of employ- 
 ments, and that to one person this, to another 
 that field, in the boundless kingdom of truth 
 and of useful occupation, will be assigned for 
 his cultivation, according to his peculiar 
 powers, qualifications, and tastes’? (McClintock 
 and Strong’s Cyclopedia, Vol. IV, p. 127).2 
 And that most winsome of theologians, Dr. 
 
 ‘American Baptist Publication Society, publishers, 
 Philadelphia. 
 *Harper & Brothers, publishers, New York. 
 
‘The Saints in Heaven: Occupation 89 
 
 William Newton Clarke, says concerning the 
 soul that has attained to the heavenly life: ‘‘He 
 is under the most holy and inspiring influences, 
 where all that is best in him is constantly helped 
 to increase. All characteristic activities of the 
 Christ-like life are open to him. The grade 
 of being in which he finds himself is higher than 
 that which he has left, and fresh opportunities 
 of holy service and of holy growth and blessed- 
 ness are constantly set before him. He is in 
 the life that he loves and ought to love, and the 
 course of free and Godlike activity stretches on 
 before him without end. This is the life that is 
 life indeed, laid hold of on earth, but experienced 
 in its fullness only in the world beyond”’ (‘‘Out- 
 line of Christian Theology,”’ pp. 469-472).5 In 
 this connection Dr. Clarke makes the deeply 
 impressive suggestion that a large part of the 
 service that mature saints will be appointed 
 to render in heaven may be in the form of 
 instruction and help to immature souls of 
 children and perhaps others, who were unable 
 to receive it on earth. He says: “Infants cannot 
 grow to maturity and attain to character in any 
 world without living a life of free and responsible 
 action. It is a vast enrichment of our ideas of 
 that world to think of innumerable youthful 
 spirits as there opening for the first time to the 
 knowledge and love of the Heavenly Father 
 
 ®Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers, New York. 
 
90 Whai Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 and growing into his likeness. Moreover, if 
 to so large a part of those who are with Christ 
 life is necessarily educational, opportunities of 
 usefulness and help must open in inexhaustible 
 abundance to those who are further advanced 
 in holy experience, and the heavenly life must 
 be intensely active and interesting.’ The im- 
 portance of this suggestion relating to the oc- 
 cupations of the saints in heaven can hardly be 
 overestimated. 
 
 In addition to the elements of rest and wor- 
 ship and service that enter largely into the 
 heavenly life, there are strong intimations in 
 certain words of Jesus. that the saints will 
 exercise a kind of authority, including judicial 
 functions, in the eternal world. In a previous 
 chapter something was said of the dignities of 
 the redeemed in glory, and this passage, among 
 others, was quoted: “‘I appoint unto you a 
 kingdom, ...and ye shall sit on thrones judging 
 the twelve tribes of Israel’’ (Luke xxii. 29, 30). 
 This was said by the Master to the apostles on 
 the occasion of the Last Passover; but that the 
 promise was intended to apply to all the saints 
 is intimated in various other passages of the 
 New Testament. For example, in Romans 
 v. 17, the Apostle Paul says that “‘they that 
 receive the abundance of grace and of the gift 
 of righteousness shall reign in life through the - 
 
 4 Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers, New York. 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Occupation 91 
 
 one, even Jesus Christ.’’ The same Apostle in 
 his second Letter to Timothy, speaking of 
 Christ, declares: “If we died with him, we 
 shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall 
 also reign with him” (2 Tim. ii. 11). And the 
 Risen Christ is represented as saying to the 
 angel of the Church in Laodicea: “‘He that 
 overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with 
 me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat 
 down with my Father in his throne’’ (Rev. iii. 
 21). Here is implied, not honor merely, but 
 also authority. One is reminded of the Parables 
 of the Talents and of the Pounds, where in each 
 case the master of faithful servants is said to 
 have rewarded their fidelity by increasing their 
 authority, making them rulers over many 
 things. When we recall the fact that these 
 masters were intended to represent the Divine 
 Master in his dealings with his servants, the 
 inference is plain and powerful, that the saints 
 in heaven will in some way, of which the details 
 are now to us unknown, share the functions of 
 the Ruler and Judge of angels and of men. 
 Such is the light which the Son of God has shed 
 upon the question of the occupations of his 
 saints in the future life; and with what he has 
 been pleased to reveal we can well afford to 
 wait until we see him “face to face.”’ 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN: 
 PREPARATION 
 
 HEN Jesus told his disciples that he was 
 about to go away and prepare a place 
 for them, and that he would return and receive 
 them unto himself, there was no promise implied 
 that heaven should be the final dwelling place of 
 all men without respect to their fitness for it. 
 The assurance was given to the disciples present 
 at the time, and was meant to extend to all those 
 who might become his true and faithful fol- 
 lowers in the future. That is to say, it is no less 
 essential that men should be prepared for 
 heaven than that heaven should be made ready 
 for men. 
 
 This is clearly the teaching of the Master in 
 the Parable of the Marriage Feast, where one of 
 the king’s invited guests is represented as taking 
 his place at the table without the customary 
 wedding garment. When the host came in and 
 saw this intruder, he asked him: ‘‘Friend, how 
 camest thou in hither not having a wedding 
 garment?’ The man was speechless, for he 
 might have been properly clothed if he would, 
 inasmuch as it was customary for the host to 
 furnish his guests with festive apparel on such 
 
 (92) 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Preparation 93 
 
 occasions. He had been criminally careless, and 
 thus invited the fate that overtook him; for 
 the king said to his servants: ‘“‘ Bind him hand 
 and foot, and cast him out into the outer dark- 
 ness’’ (Matt. xxii. 11-13). In this parable the 
 banquet hall represents heaven, the king is the 
 Lord himself, and the speechless man is a 
 type of all who present themselves as candidates 
 for heavenly joys without the preparation which 
 God demands, and which he enables all to ac- 
 quire who earnestly wish it and who trust in 
 divine help for its acquisition. It should be 
 carefully noted that this demand for preparation 
 is not arbitrary on the part of the Divine Host, 
 but is based upon the fact that the benefits of 
 heaven are restricted in the very nature of the 
 case to those whose characters and tastes have 
 been attuned to the conditions that prevail in 
 the future abode of the saints. If it were pos- 
 sible for one out of harmony in his thoughts, 
 feelings, aims, and spirit with the spiritual 
 society and atmosphere of heaven to penetrate 
 into the very midst of it, his very disharmony 
 with his surroundings would be so intolerable 
 to him that he would rush forth in speechless 
 confusion, to assume his true place with those 
 companions whose tastes and characters were 
 akin to his own. 
 
 A vital question is, What is the nature of the 
 preparation which must be made by every 
 
94 Whai Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 rational, responsible soul in order to be num- 
 bered with the saints in glory everlasting? 
 This inquiry finds its most authoritative answer 
 in the teachings of Jesus himself. A part of this 
 preparation is implied in the assurance of the 
 Saviour on the cross to the dying robber at his 
 side: ‘‘Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt 
 thou be with me in Paradise’’ (Luke xxiii. 43). 
 There can be no doubt that this man was going 
 from the cross to the companionship of Christ 
 in the better world. He must have been fit 
 for that world before he entered it. But he was 
 evidently a rough man, probably a common 
 criminal, very far from being spiritually minded 
 and of exemplary character. His fitness con- 
 sisted in the humble, penitent trust in divine 
 mercy which he expressed in the appeal to Jesus: 
 ‘“Remember me when thou comest in thy king- 
 dom.’’ Such a spirit denoted fitness for begin- 
 ning the heavenly life, and he had all the future 
 before him in which to develop in knowledge 
 and holiness. 
 
 Further light on this subject is to be found 
 in the saying of Jesus: ‘“‘Blessed are the pure 
 in heart; for they shall see God’’ (Matt. v. 8). 
 No doubt, the vision of God includes the present 
 life as a spiritual experience of those whose 
 hearts are pure; but it is certainly true that it 
 applies to the future life even more completely. 
 To ‘‘see God”’ is a pregnant phrase implying 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Preparation 95 
 
 holy fellowship with him, which is the very 
 essence of heavenly bliss. In the nature of the 
 case only the clean heart can perceive and enjoy 
 the holy God and the pure society and atmos- 
 phere of heaven. There is an echo of this beati- 
 tude in the First Epistle of John (iii. 2, 3): 
 “Beloved, now are we children of God, and 
 it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. 
 We know that, if he shall be manifested, we 
 shall be like him; for we shall see him even as 
 he is. And every one that hath this hope set 
 on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” 
 Even in the comparative twilight of the Old 
 Testament revelation there are gleams of this 
 needed fitness for association with the holy 
 God, as in Psalm xxiv. 3, 4; ‘‘Who shall ascend 
 into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in 
 his holy place? He that hath clean hands and 
 a pure heart.’”’ In harmony with these Scrip- 
 tures is the solemn admonition which the author 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews lays upon his 
 brethren: ‘‘ Follow after peace with all men, and 
 the sanctification without which no man shall 
 see the Lord”’ (Heb. xii. 14). 
 
 The need of preparation for heaven and 
 something of the nature of it appear to be 
 alluded to in certain utterances of Jesus with 
 regard to laying up treasure in heaven. In 
 the Sermon on the Mount he charged his hearers 
 in words like these: ‘‘Lay not up for yourselves 
 
96 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust 
 consume, and where thieves break through and 
 steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in 
 heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth con- 
 sume, and where thieves do not break through 
 nor steal; for where thy treasure is, there will 
 thy heart be also’? (Matt. vi. 19-21). In 
 another connection he speaks of ‘‘a treasure in 
 the heavens that faileth not, where no thief 
 draweth near, neither moth destroyeth’’ (Luke 
 xii. 33). To the Rich Young Ruler, who pro- 
 fessed to have kept the moral law and yet was 
 conscious of a lack of soul satisfaction, Jesus 
 said: ‘‘One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatso- 
 ever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
 shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, 
 follow me’’ (Mark x. 21). This last saying 
 is carefully reported by all three Synoptists, 
 Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which would seem 
 to indicate that it made a profound impression 
 upon the disciples who heard it. 
 
 We may not be able to know in our present 
 limitations just what are the elements that 
 enter into this process of laying up treasure in 
 heaven; but we are safe in the conclusion that 
 it embraces a life of self-denying service in 
 behalf of others, coupled with generosity in 
 giving to the needy from the stores with which ~ 
 Providence has furnished us. This is evidently 
 the teaching of Jesus in what he says of final 
 
The Saints in Heaven: Preparation 97 
 
 rewards in the great Judgment scene (Matt. 
 xxv). To the righteous on his right hand the 
 King says: ‘‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
 inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and 
 ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me 
 drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; 
 naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye 
 visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto 
 me.’ When the invited ones protested in their 
 bewilderment that they knew not when they 
 had thus ministered to the King, he replied: 
 “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it 
 unto one of these my brethren, even these least, 
 ye did it unto me.” 
 
 Of those who were commended by the King 
 and invited to inherit the kingdom prepared for 
 them, it is said in the closing words: ‘‘The 
 righteous (shall go away) into life eternal.” 
 In plain terms this means that those who have 
 in this world ministered to Christ by doing 
 good in his name to his brethren have thus 
 become fit to enter into life eternal and abide 
 with saints and angels in heaven. It is a part, 
 and a chief part, of their preparation for the 
 life of perfect service above. This, however, 
 is not an affirmation that the key to heaven is 
 found in good works alone. Far fromit. Asa 
 wise writer says: ‘“‘It does not conflict with the 
 doctrine that no man can enter the kingdom of 
 
 7 
 
98 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 God unless he is born again; but it recognizes 
 love to man as the best outward evidence of 
 the new birth. It does not conflict with the 
 doctrine that all men are saved by Christ; but 
 it recognizes the truth that they may be saved 
 by a Redeemer whose redemption they did not 
 understand. But observe, that it is not the 
 works, as such, which are commended, but the 
 love which prompted them; that love which was 
 their faith, which felt its way though in dark- 
 ness to Him who is Love; and that when Christ 
 is fully disclosed to them in the day of his glory, 
 they will recognize him as their Lord’’ (Abbott, 
 Com. on Matt.).! 
 
 Preparation for heaven, then, according to the 
 recorded teachings of Jesus, consists in humble, 
 penitent trust in divine mercy, purity of the 
 inner life, and that grateful love that leads to 
 deeds of helpful ministration to our fellow 
 creatures in imitation of the example of the 
 Man of Galilee. Much more might possibly be 
 said concerning fitness for the eternal home of 
 the saints; but, after all, what has been here 
 presented is enough to show the truth as taught 
 by the Master himself. He is “the Way,” as 
 well as the Truth and the Life, and his words 
 are final. 
 
 1A.S. Barnes & Company, publishers, New York. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 IF YE KNOW THESE THINGS 
 
 N our quest of the truth concerning Heaven 
 we have gone to the source of knowledge and 
 examined all of our Lord’s recorded utterances 
 upon the subject, besides interpretative pas- 
 sages in the writings of his apostles and others. 
 We have thus had opportunity to ‘‘ know these 
 things’’ in that degree in which it is possible for 
 them to be known amid our earthly limitations. 
 What are some things we have come to know? 
 First of all, it is clear that, according to the 
 teachings of Jesus, the present life is not all, 
 but beyond it there is a Heaven for his servants 
 —a blessed state of being which is probably a 
 place as well asastate. Further, it is clear that 
 Heaven is the abode of God the Father, that it 
 is the true and permanent abode of the Saviour, 
 and that the unfallen angels have their residence 
 in the home which their Creator and King 
 glorifies with his peculiar presence. Our study 
 of the words of Jesus assures us also that Heaven 
 is the appointed home of God’s saints, the true 
 disciples of his Son; that the promise of the 
 Master is a guarantee of its certainty and of its 
 abundant rewards; that high dignities and 
 honors are in store for those who share the 
 (99) 
 
100 Whai Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 privations and labors of their Lord here 
 below; that delightful fellowship with the 
 Saviour, the unfallen angels, and the redeemed 
 and glorified saints, will be the portion of all 
 faithful disciples. We have seen that the ex- 
 periences of the saints in heaven will include 
 rest from toil and care, freedom from temptation 
 and sin, deliverance from the fear of death, and 
 every comfort and joy that Paradise can afford. 
 Something of the occupations of the heavenly 
 company we have learned also, all activities 
 there being embraced in the joyous doing of the 
 Father’s will. Finally, the words of Jesus make 
 it plain that all who aspire to the mansions of 
 the blessed in the future life must make suitable 
 preparation in this world by living in the spirit 
 of Heaven. 
 
 ‘“‘Tf ye know these things, happy are ye if ye 
 do them,” said Jesus to his disciples, after 
 washing their feet and explaining that he had 
 done it to set them an example of humility 
 and service. We may well give the saying a 
 wider application, and realize that knowledge 
 of things beyond the veil demands a course of 
 conduct in harmony with the enlightenment we 
 have received. Many practical suggestions 
 might be made as this discussion comes to a 
 close. Let a few observations suffice. 
 
 It should increase our sense of responsibility 
 to reflect that we are in possession of vital 
 
If Ye Know These Things 101 
 
 knowledge beyond all the stores of wisdom 
 which the ancients enjoyed. Not Plato among 
 the philosophers, nor Moses the lawgiver, nor 
 David the psalmist, nor Isaiah the prophet, 
 ever possessed the knowledge of the future life 
 that is open to us who have the words of the 
 Son of God before our eyes. With this great 
 accession of light there surely comes a great 
 increase of responsibility. | 
 
 While no responsibility is to be shunned and 
 no duty neglected in our earthly relationships, 
 we should never lose sight of the fact that “our 
 citizenship is in heaven.” It is fitting that we 
 should rejoice along the path of our earthly 
 pilgrimage, as we remember that Jesus bade his 
 disciples rejoice because their ‘‘names were 
 written in heaven.’ Surely, those who are 
 registered in ‘the Lamb’s Book of Life’? may 
 sing with Isaac Watts: 
 
 “Then let out songs abound, 
 And every tear be dry; 
 We're marching through Immanuel’s ground, 
 To fairer worlds on high.” 
 
 If Heaven lies just beyond the brief experi- 
 ence that men call death, why is it fitting that a 
 child of God should think of death as an enemy 
 to be feared, rather than as a friend to be wel- 
 comed? That which, viewed from this side, is 
 the Gate of Death, is, when viewed from the 
 
102 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 other side, the Gate of Life. ‘‘Though I walk 
 through the valley of the shadow of death, I 
 will fear no evil; for thou art with me,” said 
 David, who knew but little of what lay beyond. 
 How much more confidently can a follower of 
 Christ declare his fearless trust, when he knows 
 that his Master has ‘‘abolished death, and 
 brought life and immortality to light through 
 the gospel.”’ 
 
 Let no child of God be disconsolate in time of 
 bereavement. If it were true that ‘‘death ends 
 all,’ then indeed might thick darkness envelop 
 the bereaved. But if it is true that the summons 
 of death is but ‘‘the voice that Jesus sends to 
 call them to his arms,’’ why should a disciple 
 of Jesus join the company of mourners who sor- 
 row as those who have no hope? Especially 
 let no child of God charge his Father with in- 
 justice or lack of sympathy when loved ones are 
 taken away. If the one who has departed 
 gave evidence of fitness for a better world, the 
 bereaved may well find comfort in looking 
 forward to a glad reunion ‘“‘some sweet day by 
 and by.”’ And if, in the case of one about whose 
 destiny there may be room for painful doubt, 
 the heartache persists, let the departed soul be 
 committed to the care of Him whose essential 
 nature is love, and who is pledged to do the 
 very best he can for every one whom he has 
 made. The secret of peace at the open grave 
 
If Ye Know These Things 103 
 
 is found in trusting our absent friends to Infinite 
 Love. 
 
 It is not amiss to recall before we close a 
 solemn truth that has been spoken of already. 
 If anyone aspires to the life of blessedness in 
 companionship with God and his saints and 
 angels, he must acquire fitness for it in this 
 present life. He who would enter the Heaven of 
 the future must first enter upon a life of heaven- 
 ly-mindedness here below. If one is to shine 
 forth as the sun in the kingdom of his Father, 
 according to the saying of Jesus, it is necessary 
 for him here on earth to let his light shine before 
 men, that they may see his good works and 
 glorify his Father in Heaven. Salvation is, 
 indeed, a matter of grace; but grace is the 
 instrument divinely ordained for producing 
 holy character, ‘‘without which no man shall 
 see the Lord.’”’ The fate of the man without a 
 wedding garment must never be forgotten by 
 those who aspire to welcome at the banquet of 
 the King. 
 
 “Tf ye know these things, happy are ye if ye 
 do them.”’ Thrice happy will they be who use 
 their heaven-sent knowledge in the cultivation 
 of faith, hope, love, generosity, unselfish devo- 
 tion to the will of God and the service of man- 
 kind. All such will surely find a wealth of 
 happiness even amid the trials and disappoint- 
 ments of this mortal life. And when the final 
 
104 What Jesus Said about Heaven 
 
 morning shall dawn and the shadows flee away, 
 all who have cultivated heavenly-mindedness 
 here below will find the transition easy and 
 natural to Heaven above— 
 
 ““Where the saints of all ages in harmony meet, 
 Their Saviour and brethren transported to greet; 
 While the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll, 
 And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul.” 
 

 

 
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