Heaven is a World of Beauty: Part 3

The sec­ond great event in sal­va­tion his­tory that trans­forms the con­sti­tu­tion of heaven is the ulti­mate escha­to­log­i­cal con­sum­ma­tion of all things, after the gen­eral res­ur­rec­tion, the gen­eral judg­ment, and the grand entry of Christ and all the res­ur­rected saints into the upper world.¹ Such an event Edwards main­tains ush­ers Christ into a higher state of blessed­ness. “’Tis prob­a­ble that Christ him­self will enter upon a state of higher and more glo­ri­ous blessed­ness after the end of the world than he enjoys before.”² With his labors in the past, he now can enjoy the full fruits of his labors, the mys­ti­cal body of Christ, the church “in every mem­ber of it.” That eter­nal wed­ding day with his bride, which Christ has eagerly awaited through­out all his labors, that joy that was ever set before him, has now been real­ized in the con­sum­ma­tion of all things.

As Christ par­takes of a new glory in this event, so too does the rest of heaven; “all heaven should put on new glory at the same time that Christ puts on new glory.” Edwards likens this to the new beauty that adorns cre­ation in the spring.

Thus as the face of the earth as it were rejoices at the return of the sun in the spring, and there is a great alter­ation in it – it puts on new, beau­ti­ful gar­ments of joy and glad­ness, and wel­comes the sun … so it will be in heaven, when Christ returns thither in his high­est glory after the day of judg­ment: all heaven will as it were rejoice, and put on new life, new beauty and glory, to wel­come him thither.³

This trans­for­ma­tion is all-​​encompassing, whereby the new glory of Christ adorns and trans­forms even the mate­r­ial order in heaven. Edwards’s reflec­tions on the “physics” of heaven and the nature of the saints’ glo­ri­fied bod­ies there remain some of the most fas­ci­nat­ing (if not the most spec­u­la­tive) reflec­tions in the entirety of his writ­ings. Heaven, he con­tends, will be a place where light and sound shall be con­veyed with much more accu­racy, and the saints’ senses shall be so fine-​​tuned that “aught we know they may dis­tinctly see the beauty of one another’s coun­te­nances and smiles, and hold a delight­ful and most inti­mate con­ver­sa­tion, at a thou­sand miles’ dis­tance.”⁴ New har­monies and pro­por­tions may exist there in the medium of cre­ation which shall affect exceed­ingly great joys in the elect. “There shall be no string out of tune to cause any jar in the har­mony of that world.”⁵ In con­trast to the cur­rent state of earth where decay and cor­rup­tion pre­vail, “by length of time things become more and more youth­ful [in heaven], that is more vig­or­ous, active, ten­der and beau­ti­ful.”⁶ Because the light there shall be pro­vided by the Lord’s glo­ri­fied body, it shall prove to be “a per­fectly dif­fer­ent sort of light” from what we are used to, “excit­ing a sen­sa­tion or idea in the behold­ers per­fectly dif­fer­ent – of which we can no more con­ceive than we can con­ceive of a color we never saw, or than a blind man can con­ceive of light and col­ors – a sort of light immensely more pleas­ant and glo­ri­ous, in com­par­i­son of which the sun is a shade, and his light but dark­ness.”⁷ The saints’ glo­ri­fied bod­ies shall be attuned to every phys­i­cal plea­sure, in a way that shall not inhibit but only add to their spir­i­tual plea­sures.⁸ “Every per­cep­tive fac­ulty shall be an inlet of delight.” They shall shine with the glory of the Lord’s light.⁹ They even may be able to dis­cern the excel­len­cies of each other’s minds by an imme­di­ate intel­lec­tual view of each other’s souls.¹⁰ It is here where heaven has finally “arrived:” the saints com­pletely enjoy the pneu­ma­to­log­i­cal full­ness of God, pri­mar­ily as he is poured out on them as the mutual love between the Father and the Son, and the church as the bride of Christ unites with her bride­groom in an ever­last­ing wed­ding day.

Sum­mary

For Edwards, heaven’s beauty is most fun­da­men­tally about the exter­nal rep­e­ti­tion of God’s inter­nal excel­len­cies, mir­rored in the soci­ety, the his­tory and the phys­i­cal beauty of heaven. That beauty finds its most bril­liant dis­play in the mar­riage of Christ and his bride, the church. “[Christ] from whom and in whom all angels and saints are adorned and made per­fect in beauty, him­self receives the church as his glo­ri­ous and beau­ti­ful orna­ment, as the vir­tu­ous wife is a crown to her hus­band.”¹¹

[Part 1] [Part 2]