Heaven is a World of Love

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:8

In 1738 Edwards preached a series through 1 Corinthians 13, published long afterwards as Charity and Its Fruits. The final sermon is called Heaven is a World of Love, and anyone who believes Edwards was a gloomy man should be required to read it before saying so again. It is the most tender thing he wrote, and it is the natural conclusion of everything else in this book.

The fountain and the stream

His governing image is a river. God, he said, is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light. In heaven that love is not rationed or interrupted; it pours out from God, fills every inhabitant, and flows back to Him in adoration and outward to one another in delight. The whole society is one circulation of love, and nothing obstructs it anywhere.

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 1 JOHN 4:16

Edwards observed that on earth love is real but always impeded. We love, and we are misunderstood. We love, and we are jealous. We love, and the person dies. We love, and our own coldness returns. Every affection here is mixed with something that spoils it. In heaven every obstruction is gone. Love has perfect objects, perfect capacity to receive, perfect freedom of expression, perfect security, and endless duration. Nothing is withheld and nothing is lost.

And 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. REVELATION 21:4

Differences without envy

Edwards addressed a question that troubles many people, and his answer is one of the loveliest passages in his work. Scripture indicates that there will be differences in heaven — degrees of glory, varying capacities, some given more than others. Does that not introduce comparison, and with it the possibility of envy?

His answer is that envy is impossible there, because envy requires a self at the centre. Where love is perfect, each person’s joy in another’s greater glory is itself a source of happiness. The one with the smaller vessel is not diminished by the larger; he delights in it. And the one with the greater capacity does not look down but pours out. Every vessel is full. That is the point. A smaller cup filled to the brim is not less full than a larger one, and in a society without self-regard, the size of one’s neighbour’s cup is a matter of pure gladness.

What this does for now

Edwards did not treat heaven as a consolation to be produced at funerals. He treated it as a description of the direction in which the Christian life is already moving. If heaven is a world of love, then love is not an optional refinement of Christian character; it is the substance of the thing we are being prepared for. A person being fitted for that world is being made loving now, and a person growing harder is moving the wrong way whatever else is true of him. This is why the sermon sits where it does, at the end of a series on 1 Corinthians 13. Paul’s argument is that gifts pass away and love remains — which means that love is the only part of our present Christian experience that carries over unchanged.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:13

Faith will become sight. Hope will become possession. Love simply continues, and grows.

There is a striking implication for how we think about our own deaths, and Edwards drew it out. For the believer, dying is not principally leaving. It is arriving in the society for which he has been in training, among people he will love perfectly and be loved by perfectly, in the presence of the Fountain.

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

That is the last prayer of Christ for His people, and it is the whole of heaven in a sentence.

Heaven begun below

Edwards did not regard heaven as merely future. He held that the same love which fills that world is already at work in this one, in the church, in smaller measure and under difficulty — and that Christian fellowship is the outpost of the world to come.

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 1 JOHN 4:12

That is a remarkable claim, and Edwards took it at full weight. The invisible God becomes visible in the mutual love of His people. A congregation in which believers genuinely love one another is not merely a pleasant social arrangement; it is a demonstration of God to a world that cannot see Him directly.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. JOHN 13:35

This gives the ordinary business of church life a dignity it is rarely accorded. Bearing with a difficult brother, forgiving an old injury, refusing to repeat a piece of gossip, welcoming someone who brings nothing useful — these are not minor housekeeping matters. They are rehearsals, and they are evidence. Edwards drew a sober conclusion from this, and it should be stated plainly. A person who has no appetite for the company of God’s people, who finds their society tedious and their concerns trivial, has reason to examine what he imagines heaven will be. Heaven is not a private arrangement between the individual and God. It is a society, and its whole life is love.

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. 1 JOHN 3:14

He was equally clear about the direction of the traffic. Our love for one another is not something we generate in order to qualify; it is the overflow of a love received.

We love him, because he first loved us. 1 JOHN 4:19

Which means the remedy for a cold heart towards other Christians is not chiefly to try harder with them. It is to go back to the fountain. A person who has been freshly warmed by the love of God will generally find his patience with his brethren has improved without his having worked directly on it at all.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Test whether your idea of heaven is chiefly relief from trouble or union with God. The difference reveals what you actually want.

2. Where you are envious of another believer’s gifting, treat it as practice for a world where such envy will be impossible. Begin rejoicing now. 3. Ask whether you are becoming a more loving person year by year. If not, you are not being prepared for the place you say you are going. 4. Name one relationship where love is currently obstructed by something you control. Remove the obstruction. 5. Read 1 Corinthians 13 as a description of heaven rather than a wedding reading, and notice how it changes.

A PRAYER

Father, You are the fountain of love, and every love I have known here has been a stream running through broken ground.

Thank You that there is a world where nothing obstructs it — no jealousy, no misunderstanding, no coldness, no parting.

Prepare me for it. Make me a person who could be happy there: glad at another’s greater glory, free of the self that spoils everything.

And when my turn comes to go, let it not feel like leaving, but like arriving. Amen.