The Incomprehensible Delights of Heaven

“But, as it is written,

‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the human heart conceived,

what God has prepared for those who love him’.”

~1 Corinthians 2:9 (NRSV).

As far as comprehension for life is concerned we’re further behind than we often think we are. Even as I write I’m conscious of the many assumptions I must make to bring a message — to obey what I, only I, discern that God might be saying. There’s a lot of trust in that. I try not to make sweeping generalisations for this reason. I know I’ll often be wrong.

We can also never know life from another’s perspective; not truly.

So, how would we extend that concept ten-thousandfold and more to the true knowledge of the Spirit? This is impossible. But the purpose of this article is not simply to tell us what we don’t know and can never know (during this life).

The Trueness in the Wonder of God

These are awesome thoughts, truly they are...

We think of God as wondrous beyond our contemplation and we don’t even come close to recognising just how big the idea of God is.

Faithfully paraphrased from Isaiah 64:4, the Apostle Paul is highlighting something that utterly confounds even his weighty understanding of God. We can imagine Paul, in a sense, dumbstruck in awe as he attempts to frame it for the Corinthians.

This very ‘place’ is the holy wisdom of God; a philosophy above all philosophies. Indeed, this is a philosophy above and completely beyond philosophy itself. God owns the merest thought, let alone something that could only be grasped as a system.

Glimpses of God and of Heaven Barely Visible

A reality is soon becoming known that is beyond us now.

Indeed it is already known — and has eternally been known — but we cannot as yet discern it, though we have our slices of heaven — the wisdom of God — as we wander flightily along life’s path.

And if we who believe can barely discern these marvellous mysteries of God, how are those still vanquished to true Spiritual sight to see? No wonder they cannot see.

The wisdom of God, the beginning of which is to see the risen Christ as Lord and Saviour, is the mind of the Lord (1 Corinthians 2:16).

We have but a glimpse — a dim reflection as in a fogged mirror — of that reality.

We get there for a moment and then it vanishes. But once the glimpse is known, the reality of salvation can never, foreseeably, be let go. The Spirit’s power to convict is as commanding as it is alluring.

What the Lord Has Prepared – Incomprehensible Delight

Words will be a vast travesty in attempting to describe the New Heavens and New Earth that are coming. Apart from these, the true wisdom of God is still too high for us, understanding of which we will actually have then.

This is perhaps God’s most magnificent promise. Although we’re given to all manner of emotional and spiritual ills for enduring this groaning existence we know now, what will come later we cannot even for a moment conceive in its delightful brilliance.

Words as they are now simply betray.

Best of all — from the position, now, of limited knowledge, to the one coming — we will finally understand all of life in context. Wisdom will be made fully known.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.