When the Lord Jesus was on earth He directed the thoughts of His disciples to heaven, saying, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt. 6:19–21). Again, when the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord even the devils are subject unto us through Thy Name,” the Lord said to them, “In this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:17–20). To have treasure in heaven, and to have their names written in heaven, was something entirely new, and indicated to the disciples that their thoughts and affections were to be engaged with heaven, the place from whence their Lord had come, and whither He was bound.
While the Lord was upon earth He bound the affections of His disciples around Himself, and carried their affections with Him into heaven when He ascended there. He washed their feet, as recorded in John 13, that they might have part with Him in the scene into which He was about to enter, and in the feet washing He indicated to them the ministry He would carry on for them while on high. This is part of the advocacy of which the Apostle John wrote in his first epistle, a ministry to keep the saints in communion with Him and the Father while they sojourn in this world.
Every office that Christ fills at the present time, and every ministry that engages Him on our account, directs our thoughts to Him in heaven, whether it be His Lordship, His Headship, His Priesthood or any other work for His own. God would have us engaged with His own Son in the place into which he has gone, even as we are exhorted by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3, where he writes, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-2).
There is to be diligence on our part to seek after the things that belong to Christ in His place of exaltation and glory, for all God’s activities, purposes and counsels, centre in His Son at His right hand. The natural man only seeks the things of the earth; he has neither the desire nor the capacity to take in the things of Christ in heaven. Having the divine nature, and the indwelling Spirit of God, the Christian can enter into the things that centre in Christ above; but we also have the nature derived from Adam, which can engage us with the things of the earth, so that it is necessary for us to have this exhortation to have the mind turned toward heaven as the habit of the soul, and not to be unnecessarily engaged with things down here, the passing things of time.
The Father’s House
Just before leaving His disciples to go to the cross, and then to the presence of the Father, the Lord said to His own, “In my Father’s House are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). Jesus was directing His disciples to heaven; they were to have a place there, a specially prepared place in His Father’s house. He did not promise them a great place on earth, not riches, position or fame, but a place in heaven, and that with Himself, for He added, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
All this must have sounded strange in the ears of the disciples, who looked for a place of glory on earth with Israel’s Messiah. They expected to share the glory of His earthly kingdom, but their Master was speaking of something entirely different, not of a kingdom on earth, but of a home in heaven. When they received the Holy Spirit the light of these wonderful heavenly things would dawn upon them, and the Spirit would direct their thoughts to heaven, as He did when Stephen was giving his testimony to the Son of Man at the right hand of God.
In the prepared place in the Father’s house they would be with the Son, but they would also be like Him, sharing His place with the Father before the earth was (17:24). What was promised to the early disciples belongs to us also, and how blessed it is for us to pass through this world, looking up to heaven, knowing that Jesus is there, and that He is soon coming to take us to dwell with Him there, and to behold His glory in the Father’s house.
Our Heavenly House
Writing of the resurrection, Paul said, “Now this I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50), then he goes on to speak of the new condition of the saints who are changed from the corruptible state to the incorruptible. Of this, the Apostle writes in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (v. 1). We are to be clothed with “our house which is from heaven” when the Lord comes. The dead shall be raised, and the living saints changed, and shall enter God’s presence in heaven in the house which is from heaven, and which is eternal in the heavens.
We do not see this glorified body in this world, for it does not belong to earth, it belongs to heaven, and it is for living in heaven. So that it is to heaven we look for our bodies of glory; it is heavenly in character, glorious in appearance, incorruptible in condition, and like Christ’s body of glory. If our thoughts are engaged with what we are going to be, they must turn to heaven, for it is from heaven the glorified body comes, and there it shall ever dwell. The groan of ardent desire for our heavenly house, and the groan of the burden that connects us with the groaning creation, turn out thoughts to heaven to look for the Saviour.
Every Spiritual Blessing
Israel’s blessings were in the land of promise, and were material and temporal, the Christians’ blessings are of a different nature, for God has “blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). Because of this we do not look for our portion in this world, but to heaven, where all that God has given to us is in Christ. We have been chosen in Christ, and this long before the world began, so that we might be before God “holy and without blame before Him in love.” To see ourselves in this way we must look to Christ in heaven, for it is in Him that we are thus blessed.
The Jew contemplated God’s promises to Abraham to know what his blessings were, but the Christian looks to Christ to find how God has blessed him, for God marked us out for the nearest and dearest relationship to Himself, even sonship “by Jesus Christ,” that He might have pleasure in having us so near to Him, and that we might be able in this near place to enjoy His love and enter into the thoughts of His heart. All the counsels of God centre in Christ, the Man of His counsels, and God desires that we might be in communion with Him regarding His will, which He has revealed to us in relation to Christ, His Beloved, in whom we are accepted.
Our Citizenship is in Heaven
Many who profess to be follows of Christ are, in reality, “the enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18), and Paul had to say of them, “Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” In that day those of whom the Apostle wrote may have been Jews, who took advantage of the profession of Christianity for temporal profit. The same things could be said today for many in high places in the Christian profession. Temporal advantage is what they seek: the gratification of their natural desires, and a high place in the religious world, in which they deny the foundation doctrines of the Christian faith. They glory in the denial of truths they have subscribed to with their signature.
Such cannot rise to the contemplation and knowledge of heavenly things, for they have not the divine nature or the Holy Spirit of God; their minds are on earthly things. The true Christian is not so engaged, for his commonwealth is in heaven; we are citizens of Jerusalem above, which is our mother; and our manner of life is controlled with this that “we look for the Saviour,” who is about to come out of heaven to change us into His image that we might be His companions in His glory and in His Father’s house.
Christ is then the object of the Christian where He is in heaven, we wait for Him to come, and while we wait, we are to be in constant dependence upon Him, looking to Him at all times, and in all circumstances, for, says the Apostle, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (4:19). For ourselves and for others in whom we are interested to look to Christ, who has resources in glory to meet every need, whether spiritual or temporal.
Our Life Hid with Christ in God
The reason given in Colossians 3 for the Christian to seek and to set his mind on things above is, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (verse 3). Once, when without Christ, we were dead in our sins (2:13) as regards God and His things, for there was not a movement towards God, we were dead spiritually; but God in His mercy communicated to us His own life and forgave us our sins. In this new life, God views us, and we are to view ourselves as “dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world” (2:20), not being controlled as hitherto by the principles of a world that knows not God or His Christ.
Our life was once in things down here, things of the earth and things of the world, but now our life is in entirely different things, and in quite another place, for it consists of the things that belong to Christ, and that centre in Him where He lives in the presence of God. It is a hidden life, hidden from all the natural senses, so that the natural man is incapable of entering into it or of understanding anything about it. The natural man knows nothing of heaven, and desires to know nothing of it, even denying that there is anything outside of his own knowledge and range of intelligence.
The Christian instinctively turns to heaven, for His life is there. He has to pass through this world, but the normal bent of the Christian’s thoughts is towards the Son of God where He is above and to all that is connected with Him there. Food for the Christian comes from Christ, so it is to Christ in heaven he looks for that which will sustain his life. For wisdom, direction and need, we turn to Him in whom are all God’s resources for us; and if the soul is to find its joy and pleasure, it can only be in communion with Christ who is at the right hand of God. Soon Christ will appear publicly before the world, and we shall be with Him then, and the world will see that our life is with Him, but till then it is “hid in God,” a divine life of which they know nothing.
Our Inheritance in Heaven
God has not promised us blessings on earth; even Abraham though promised an earthly inheritance did not possess it himself, it was promised to his seed, and he was a stranger in the land that he was afterwards, in his descendants, to possess. Israel ultimately came into the promised land, only to corrupt and defile it, and it faded away, for they lost it, bit by bit, on account of their sins, until they were taken captive out of it.
We have been born of God to possess an “inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven” for us (1 Peter 1:3-4). Although the inheritance is still in prospect, awaiting our going to be with Christ in heaven at His coming, our eyes are turned to heaven where our portion is, where our treasure is, and where everything that God has given to us in association with His own Son is. Our future portion is there, but our present portion is there, for Christ is there, and all that we have is in Christ, and has been given to us through what He has done.
Every Good and Perfect Gift
Even what the Christian enjoys in the way of divine mercies comes from above. The man of the world may take everything he enjoys in this life from second causes, but the believer takes all from “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). The great lights of heaven may change, the sun, in relation to the earth constantly changing its position, and the moon may have its shadow in turning, but the creator of sun and moon remains the Same; and His gifts to all men in light, food and rain, are good and perfect in relation to the need of man. Christians take all from the hand of God, looking to heaven for the supply of every need, knowing that God ever gives what is good and perfect.
The Heavenly Calling
The children of Israel were instructed to put a riband of blue in the skirts of their garments, so as to remember the commandments of the Lord to do them (Num. 15:37–40). Christians are ever to remember that they are a heavenly people, and that every step of their wilderness journey is to be lived in the light of this. For the Hebrews, who had been promised earthly blessings on obedience to the commandments of the Lord, it was a difficult thing to understand that God, through the Gospel, had called them to things in heaven, and not to earthly blessings. The Epistle to the Hebrews was evidently written to direct the minds of Jewish believers to heaven, where all their blessings were in Christ and connected with Him, so they are instructed as we also are, that God has made us “partakers of the heavenly calling” (Heb. 3:1).
Instead of a worldly sanctuary, we have the holiest in heaven where we have boldness to enter by the blood of Jesus (10:19); we have the throne of grace, where we can find mercy and grace (4:16); and we have Christ as our forerunner, who has gone into heaven itself to represent us before the face of God (6:19-20; 9:24). We have a heavenly city, and belong to a heavenly country, and belong to the church of the firstborn ones, whose names are written in heaven (11:16; 12: 22-23).
All these things, and much more, are brought before us by the Holy Spirit to engage us with Christ in heaven, so that we might be constantly living in the light of the heavenly calling and of the purposes of God which centre in Christ, enjoying even now what belongs to the new creation while waiting for the fulness of the divine blessing at Christ’s coming again.
R. 16.11.67