The next glance that we get of this glorious company is within an open heaven, seated, clad in priestly robes, with royal crowns upon their head: (Rev. 4:4;5:8-10), far above and beyond the rising storm that sweeps the guilty earth, and calls forth the righteous ire of heaven. Here it is that Christ's Beema or judgment-seat will be set, and here He will bestow His rewards for faithful service during earthly days, and appoint to His servants their places of honor in His coming kingdom. Later still (Rev. 19:4-9), the marriage of the Lamb is celebrated in the heavens, and then He is seen returning with His saints in glory to the earth (see Rev. 19:11-14; Zech. 14:4, 5).
It is not our present purpose to dwell on these events, blessed and glorious as they are, nor to trace along the line of Scripture the various stages that usher in the glorious reign of Christ over a restored and peaceful earth. Stretching far beyond the thousand years of millennial blessedness, there lies the eternal glory; the everlasting rest of God and His redeemed; the new heavens and the new earth in their eternal beauty, fresh from the hand of their Creator; the paradise of God, into which no lurking serpent shall ever steal; the peaceful abode of the last Adam and His Bride; that sinless, tearless, unending Sabbath, where "God shall be all in all." Thrice blessed as will be the thousand years of millennial rest and peace, they will not be the final rest of God with His people. Sin, although suppressed, will still lurk there. Death, the last enemy, will not have been destroyed: Satan will not have met his doom. The thousand years of Immanuel's reign, and of the beams of His glory on the earth, will not alter the heart of unregenerate men, and so we find the millennium will be followed by an outburst of man's wickedness and hatred to God, more terrible and daring than any that had preceded it—an open attack on the glorified Christ upon His throne. But, unlike that hour of His sorrow when He hung on Golgotha, in which His enemies gathered like ravening and roaring lions around Him and were allowed to vent their wrath upon Him unavenged, is this the day of His power. Swift judgment falls upon the assailants. So it is written—"fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." Rev. 20:9. This is followed by the final doom of Satan and his hosts, the judgment of the great white throne, and the passing away of the present heavens and earth. Then there shines out in bright and blessed splendor the new heavens and the new earth "wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13), the fair eternal home and rest of God and His redeemed, into which the new Jerusalem is seen descending "as a bride adorned for her husband." (Rev. 21:2). And, beloved fellow-saints, surely we should accustom our souls to think and meditate often on this ever-blessed vision, this divine description of our eternal home. When we are absent from our earthly dwelling-place, where our friends and loved ones are, we often find our thoughts and affections turning thither. We cannot restrain them if we would. Unwittingly, shall I say, we find ourselves humming "there's no place like home." And if it be so with our earthly tent and those we love below, how much more ought it to be our habit to turn, with longing eye and heart, to that home and mansion which "eternally shall stand." As the late beloved Robert Chapman sang—
May not an exile, Lord, desire
His own sweet land to see?
May not a captive seek release,
A prisoner, to be free?
A child when far away may long
For home and kindred dear;
And she that waits her absent Lord
May sigh till He appear.
Yet alas! how seldom do we hear its "glories confessed" with an ardor worthy of the theme. Saints of earlier and less-enlightened days, who knew less of the world than we do, had more to say about it. It may be they were behind us in their general knowledge, but it often occurs to me, as I read their utterances and listen there, as it were, to the breathings of their hearts, that they were miles ahead of us in their aspirations after heavenly things, and in their enjoyment of them. They were less at home on earth, and better acquainted with the city to which they were going. It was of this city that the aged Bernard so sweetly sang—
"Jerusalem the glorious! the home of the elect!
O dear and future country! our eager hearts expect,
E'en now by faith I see thee, e'en here thy walls discern:
To thee my thoughts are kindled, and strive, and pant, and yearn."
To view this fair city, the exiled John was led by an angel "to a great and high mountain." Surely we may gather from this, that in order to have this glorious scene revealed to our hearts now, we need to be on the mount of God, in communion with Him in spirit, far from that world in which everything is so utterly opposed to Him. He sees the holy Jerusalem "descending out of heaven from God" toward the earth. The first eight verses of Rev. 21 give a view of the city in its relation to the eternal state, the new heaven and the new earth: the following verses give a retrospective view of the city in its relation to millennial times, as we judge. The contrast between the restored heavens and earth of millennial times, and the freshly created heavens and earth of the eternal state, is plainly marked. In the millennial earth sin remains in the flesh of those inhabiting it, although not as now in manifested form: in the eternal state every trace of the fall, all "the former things" will have passed away. The leaves of the tree of life will be used for the "healing of the nations" during the millennium, whereas, in the eternal state their shall be "neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain."