The Old Testament saints were blessed with material and earthly blessings, and although they had the bright prospect of resurrection, theirs was neither a heavenly calling, nor was heaven held out to them as the end of their sojourn in this world, for it was not yet God’s time to reveal His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus our Lord. Abraham and his fellow pilgrims are used by the Holy Spirit to illustrate the heavenly calling, for they will have their place in heaven for eternity, but Abraham was called from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan, where God blessed him, and where his seed were to be blessed, and will yet be blessed when Christ makes Jerusalem the centre of His earthly kingdom in a coming day. For the Christian, his calling, his blessings and his prospects are all heavenly, nothing of material or earthly blessing being offered to him, but rather the privilege of sharing the rejection of Christ until He returns to take His church to heaven.
The Lord’s Words of Heaven
In Matthew 5 the Lord spoke to His disciples of the features of those who were in His kingdom, and the blessings that belong to them. The words, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth”, clearly show that the Lord in this is speaking of the blessing that will come to His people when He takes up His earthly kingdom. When the Lord spoke to His disciples of their portion He said, “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake…for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt. 5:11-12). Christ’s disciples then, as now, are called to suffer for His sake, but their reward will be in heaven with Him.
When the seventy, whom the Lord sent forth to preach, returned rejoicing on account of the divine power they were able to exercise, 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). Men of this world strive to have their names written in records of fame and glory, but these records will one day be destroyed. Those whose names are written in heaven, in the Lamb’s book of life, will have their part with Him for eternity in the Father’s House.
The rich young ruler of Luke 18:18-22 said to the Lord, “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (verse 18). By human standards he was a good man, but his riches held his heart. After speaking to him about the commandments, the Lord said to him, “Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me” (verse 22). He was not prepared to part with his riches, preferring treasure on earth to treasure in heaven, nor was he prepared to follow a poor and rejected Christ. What an opportunity he missed! Treasure on earth must be left when death comes, and even when we possess them “moth and rust” can corrupt them, and thieves rob us of them but treasure in heaven is safe and incorruptible, a present joy for the heart, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt. 6:19–21).
What Paul Said of Heaven
Writing to the saints at Corinth the Apostle said, “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…our house which is from heaven” (2 Cor. 5:1-2). If the Lord turned the eyes of His disciples to heaven, He directed Paul to direct believers of this day to the same blessed place. The time will surely come when our earthly bodies will be dissolved, and if by death they will be changed to make us meet for heaven, for flesh and blood cannot enter there. If the Lord should come before death claims our bodies, they will be changed, mortality being “swallowed up of life.” Our new bodies are heavenly in origin and character, and heaven will be their eternal dwelling place.
We do not need to wait until we reach heaven with our bodies of glory, our heavenly house, before being blessed of God, for even now believers are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). God has already blessed us, not with material blessings, but with spiritual blessings; not on earth, but in heavenly places; not with temporal blessings, but with eternal blessings; and every blessing is in Christ who is glorified in heaven, His place being ours, for we share all that is His in association with Him.
While waiting to share all with Christ that we now have “in Christ,” God has given us to know that “our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour” (Phil. 3:20). Our manner of life is to be controlled from heaven where all our treasure, our blessings and our interests are. Our thoughts, our affections are to be engaged with Christ who is coming from heaven to take us back there with Him. The heavenly life that He manifested is to be manifested in us, for we belong to heaven as He does. When He comes, He will change our bodies of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory, bodies suited to heaven and the presence of the Father in whose house we shall dwell.
The hope of the meek is to inherit the earth, as the Lord told His disciples in Matthew 5:5, and the godly will indeed have this portion in the coming day, but the Gospel that has come to us has not promised us earthly blessing, our “hope is laid up for (us) in heaven,” whereof we have heard “in the word of the truth of the Gospel” (Col. 1:5). Because of this the saints at Colosse were exhorted, “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-2). The interests of the saints of God were transferred from earth to heaven with the ascension of the Son of God, and although on earth to serve the Lord Jesus, and to wait for His coming, He is the object for their hearts and minds where He sits at the Father’s right hand in heaven.
Paul had served the Lord and His saints faithfully, and was about to leave the scene where he had suffered so much for Christ’s sake, and wrote to his son Timothy, “And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (2 Tim. 4:18). The meek who are to inherit the earth will have part with the Lord in His earthly kingdom, but Paul, and every other saint of God of the Christian period, will have part in Christ’s heavenly kingdom. Everything in heaven and upon earth will come under Christ’s sway in the millennial day, and He will have His servants both in heaven and upon earth, those who will be blessed in the sovereign goodness of God through the work of the Lord Jesus upon the cross.
Heavenly Things in Hebrews
Hebrew believers in the Lord Jesus had been accustomed to the ritual of Judaism, the material symbols of which were but shadows of what was heavenly, and the Epistle to the Hebrews was written to show them the substance of the shadows of the earthly religion for man after the flesh that God had given to His ancient people. God commanded Moses to tell Israel to “make them fringes in the borders of their garments…and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue” (Num. 15:38). When they looked upon the blue ribband fringe the people were to remember God’s commandments, “and be holy unto” their God. Here is the shadow of the substance of Hebrews 3:1, “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus.”
Blue is the heavenly colour, and we are to remember that we are a heavenly people as called of God. Such was the new path to which the Jewish Christians had been called. Their eyes were now to be turned to heaven, “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (Heb. 6:20). Christ had gone within the veil of heaven, and He is there as the forerunner of His people, whether Jews or Gentiles, for He is soon coming to take all His own to be with Him within the veil of heaven.
Abraham and his fellow pilgrims were found in Canaan, not having yet received all that God had promised them, for the promises could not be fulfilled until Christ came and secured all that God had promised through His death and resurrection. What they desired will be found in “a better country, that is an heavenly” (Heb. 11:16). As strangers and pilgrims they showed that they had not yet received what God has promised, and here we have interpreted for us by the Spirit of God what their pilgrim character meant. They probably could not have told us that they were seeking a heavenly country, but their way of life showed that what God had called them to was something beyond what they then possessed. For ourselves, we have been called to a heavenly country, a new creation scene where all is of God.
In addition to the heavenly country that God had prepared for His pilgrims and strangers, “He has prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:16), and this city is “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22). This is the city from which God the Judge of all shall administer the world to come, “Jerusalem which is above…the mother of us all” (Gal. 4:26), for we have not only been called with a heavenly calling, but we are heavenly in origin. Something of the glory and beauty of this city that God has designed for the display of His glory is given to us in Revelation 21, 22, where it is seen by the Seer as “the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.”
Our Inheritance in Heaven
When Paul wrote his letter to the saints at Colosse he had a special word for the slaves. He told them to obey their masters in all things, but “in singleness of heart, fearing God…knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:22–24). What dignity this puts upon the most menial task! Here the slaves possessed little, and their service was probably poorly rewarded by their earthly masters, but it would not be poorly rewarded by their heavenly Lord, He would give them the inheritance that was infinitely more precious than any inheritance on earth.
Paul wrote of the inheritance that we are to share with Christ when He shall possess all things in the coming day (Eph. 1:11–14, 18), of which the Holy Spirit is the earnest. Peter gives us another aspect of the inheritance, where he writes of our having been begotten of God “unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4).
Everything on earth is subject to corruption, man’s sin defiles everything he touches, and the things of time fade away with age and decay. Such was Israel’s earthly inheritance that they lost through their idolatry and sin. How very different is the inheritance that belongs to those born of God. The corrupting influences of this world cannot touch it, the sin of man cannot defile it, and it is beyond the reach of time. It is reserved in heaven, and while waiting for it, God’s children are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5).
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