For Ever with the Lord

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first … and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 1 THESSALONIANS 4:16–17

Spurgeon lived much of his life in pain, and it shows in how he wrote about heaven. He did not think of it as a vague reward or a pleasant idea at the end of a sermon. He thought of it as home, and he longed for it the way a traveller on a long, hard road longs for his own front door. The longing grew stronger as the years went on, the gout grew worse and the controversy grew more bitter. Yet it never made him idle or gloomy. His hope of heaven was one of the springs of his energy on earth.

Bread of grace, wine of glory

In the Cheque Book he comments on a verse from the Psalms: The Lord will give grace and glory. Grace is what we need now, he says, and it is freely given day by day. And then he stops on the little word between them. What an and is that! We do not need glory yet, and we are not yet fit for it, but it will come in its due order. “After we have eaten the bread of grace, we shall drink the wine of glory.”

For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. PSALM 84:11

That sentence holds his whole view of the Christian life. The present is a meal of grace, sufficient for each day. The future is a feast. The one leads to the other as surely as the first course leads to the second. The believer does not have to choose between enjoying God now and hoping in Him later. He enjoys Him now, and the enjoyment is itself a foretaste.

An inheritance, not a wage

Spurgeon was careful to say that heaven, like everything else in salvation, is all of grace. In a passage gathered in Gleanings Among the Sheaves he reflects on the phrase the inheritance of the saints. An inheritance, he points out, “is not a thing which is bought with money, earned by labor, or won by conquest.” It comes by birth. So it is with heaven. It belongs to those who have been born again into God’s family, not as servants who have earned wages but as sons and daughters who are heirs.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. 1 PETER 1:3–4

This guards heaven from becoming another source of anxiety. The believer does not wonder whether he has done enough to deserve it. Nobody deserves it. It is given, and because it is given, it is sure.

Like unto His glorious body

The passages in which Spurgeon writes about the resurrection of the body are among the most personal he wrote, because he wrote them from a body that often failed him. In the Cheque Book, on the promise that Christ will change our vile body to be fashioned like His glorious body, he speaks of being so racked with pain that he could neither think nor worship. And then he looks forward: in a little while we shall be as Jesus now is. “No more aching brows, no more swollen limbs, no more dim eyes, no more fainting hearts.”

Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. PHILIPPIANS 3:21

Anyone who has suffered long illness will feel the weight of that. It is not escapism. Spurgeon worked through his pain for decades. It is the hope that makes the pain bearable, because it is not the last word.

He could also speak gently of death itself. In Gleanings he describes it, for the believer, as a sleep: the tired body resting at last, the worker laying down his tools, the hand still, the feet no longer sore — until the Lord wakes His people to give them their full reward.

He is coming

Spurgeon believed that Christ would return in person, visibly and gloriously, to raise the dead, judge the world and make all things new. The title of his communion addresses, Till He Come, expresses the hope that framed every Lord’s Supper he shared. He held views about the order of the last things that not every Christian shares, and readers need not follow him in the details. What is worth noticing is that, unlike many in his day, he was not given to prophetic speculation or date-setting. The fact of the return mattered more to him than the timetable.

Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him. REVELATION 1:7

The practical effect of this hope, for him, was twofold. It made him watchful: a servant who expects his master does not sleep on the job. And it made him glad: the Bridegroom is coming for His bride.

Christ is the heaven of heaven

In a reading in Morning by Morning Spurgeon borrows a saying of the Scottish Puritan Samuel Rutherford: that heaven and Christ are the same thing. That is the key to all he believed about the life to come. Heaven was not chiefly golden streets or reunions with loved ones, though he spoke of both. It was being with Christ, without the veil of sin or the weight of the body. The One he had looked to as a boy in Colchester he would at last see face to face.

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory. JOHN 17:24

Spurgeon died at Menton at the end of January 1892. His hope did not fail him, and it has not failed those who have followed him. The look of faith that began in a snowstorm becomes, at last, the sight of glory.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask how often you think about heaven, and whether your picture of it centres on Christ or on something else.

2. If you are suffering in your body, read Philippians 3:20–21 each day this week, and let Spurgeon’s words about aching brows and swollen limbs be your own hope.

3. Thank God today for a specific grace He has given you, and then for the glory that will follow it.

4. Live one day this week as a servant who expects his master home that evening. What would you do differently?

5. If you fear death, read 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 slowly, and speak honestly to God about your fear.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You are coming again, and I confess that I often live as though You were not.

Thank You for the bread of grace You give me every day. Teach me to long for the wine of glory.

When my body aches and my heart grows faint, remind me that You will change this vile body to be like Your glorious body.

Keep me watching and working until You come, and then bring me home, to be for ever with the Lord. Amen.