When you think about heaven, what do you most look forward to? Having your body redeemed and being free from pain and suffering? Being reunited with friends and family? Or perhaps finding out what it’s like to “ride a drop of rain” (as one country song muses)?
Scripture has much to say about the joys that await those who love God. Contemporary books on eternity, like Randy Alcorn’s Heaven, often emphasize the physical nature of God’s future kingdom and seek to expand our imaginations about all that everlasting joy might include. This is good. Such treatments can be a welcome correction to an overly spiritualized, disembodied, and boring view of heaven.
But if we’re not careful, we can allow such longings to swallow up the most important one—the one that makes our hope distinctly Christian. After all, if you only long to be free from pain or hang out with friends, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do the same? Without denying the kingdom’s multifaceted glories, Samuel G. Parkison—associate professor of theological studies at Gulf Theological Seminary—wants to draw our attention back to the glory of all glories, the “one thing” David longed for above all else (Ps. 27:4). It’s found in the title of his new book: To Gaze upon God: The Beatific Vision in Doctrine, Tradition, and Practice. Seeing the face of God is “what makes heaven heaven” (1).
For anyone who loves God, the thought of seeing his face ought to stir excitement. For anyone who has read the Bible, it also ought to raise questions. Parkison’s book seeks to channel the excitement by exploring the questions raised by Scripture in light of the historical doctrine of the beatific vision.
Whom Shall We See, and How?
One of the central (and most interesting) theological questions Parkison wrestles with is how we’ll see God. Will our vision of him consist of a “spiritual sight of the divine essence” or “an ocular sight of Christ’s human nature” (155)?
For anyone who loves God, the thought of seeing his face ought to stir excitement.
This question arises from the seeming conflict between passages promising we’ll see God (Matt. 5:8; Rev. 22:4) and passages declaring no one has ever seen God—or even can see him (1 Tim. 6:16; John 1:18; Ex. 33:20). As Parkison rightly notes, any biblical solution to this dilemma must center on Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15; see John 1:18). Of him, John could honestly say, “We [saw him] with our eyes,” for Jesus was (and is) God made flesh (1 John 1:1; John 1:14). Without a doubt, God’s people will one day see God the Son in our flesh and with our eyes (1 John 3:2; see Job 19:26).
But does that mean we won’t see the Father or Spirit? Is the beatific vision a vision of Christ only (and only of his human nature at that)? The classical Trinitarian doctrine of inseparable operations reminds us that while the persons of the Trinity can be differentiated, they can’t be divided. Although it terminates on Christ alone, the incarnation—like all divine works—is an act of all three persons and reveals all three persons. As Michael Allen put it, “[In Christ] we see God and not simply an instrument of or attachment to God” (156). Or as Christ himself put it, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The beatific vision may not be of Christ alone, but it is through Christ alone and by the Holy Spirit.
So when asked whether our vision of God consists of a “spiritual sight of the divine essence” or of an “ocular sight of Christ’s human nature,” Parkison’s answer is both. In his words, “The beatific vision…is made possible by the inseparable operations of the Trinity, and is a truly trinitarian vision. We shall behold the glory of God in his essence, and we shall behold this glory in the face of Jesus Christ by the unveiling and illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit” (156).
When My Faith Shall Be Sight
Parkison also highlights the relationship between faith and sight: “The beatific vision entails a paradox of somehow ‘seeing’ the invisible” (55). The author of Hebrews uses similar words to refer to faith (Heb. 11:27). So both faith and the beatific vision are described as kinds of seeing.
Moreover, both types of seeing have the same object: “the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” or “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4, 6). We “see” him by faith now, by sight later.
Finally, both types of seeing have the same transforming effect, though on a vastly different scale. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul describes the effect of beholding Christ by faith now: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” In 1 John 3:2, John describes the effect of beholding Christ by sight later: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” As Parkison notes, “There are galaxies contained in that little word . . . because” (39).
The beatific vision may not be of Christ alone, but it is through Christ alone and by the Holy Spirit.
So while some degree of transformation is a prerequisite for seeing God (Matt. 5:8), complete transformation only happens as the result of seeing God. And this complete transformation includes the glorification of our bodies (including our eyes!) to be like Jesus’s glorious body. Indeed, as Parkison highlights with a Jonathan Edwards quote, the sight of Jesus in his glory “will be the most glorious sight that the saints will ever see with their bodily eyes. . . . Yea the eyes of the resurrection body will be given chiefly to behold this sight” (134–35).
If you want to practice seeing God now, meditate on the glories of Jesus Christ by faith. And if you want some encouragement in doing that, read Parkison’s book. At points, his engagement with historical theologians (like Aquinas, Anselm, and Owen) wades into deep theological waters that go over my head. But sometimes it’s good for pastors to read over their heads as they ponder the mysteries of God.