What Will Meeting Jesus Face to Face Be Like?

WE HAVE SUCH focus in this life, on the things of this world, that Christian or not we rarely think of what life might be like in eternity.

Although we live in a blip of time, it means so much to us – our families, our work, our friends, our hobbies and pastimes. We rarely think of what lies over the hill; a place just over yonder; just far enough, yet so far we have no sight to see that at all.

Now, there is a transition – whether it be death or the Parousia (the coming of Christ) – that stands before us as a concept, and in reality this transition will be an instant, maybe less.

We will flash from one reality to the next; from one realm to the next.

What is about to come – maybe the next minute away – our meeting face-to-face with Jesus – means a great deal to the Christian. We will come face-to-face with our Saviour. We will come face-to-face with our Judge; as we see our lives as they were truly lived, in truth. Yet, no matter how we are seen – if we call Christ, “Saviour, Lord, King; God” – we are heaven bound, and we will worship.

I have often wondered what God might look like – what the Father and the Son in unity with the Holy Spirit might look like. Will God be visible? Or will the face-to-face experience transcend what we call “vision” in this life. Perhaps coming face-to-face with God in heaven is more about an intrinsic experience of God’s Presence, such that we are so secure within his sanctuary that lasts all eternity – yes, 10,000 years is but a start.

Yet, a thing of quantification, like time, and the concept of eternity are poles apart.

The closest thing we have to the infiniteness of the space between these two concepts – time and eternity – is the universe, as we even know it, for we know so little about it. Still, it blows our minds.

Worshipping Jesus in heaven must be something like the peace of sleep combined with the joy of all joy put together. And if we add to that the concept of infinity, we are still barely scratching the surface.

We have so much to look forward to, but our lives aren’t over yet. God has willed us on, and we somehow do not want to meet him yet, anyway. There is still too much to do and experience here – if that’s his will.

Then there is the situation of a loved one who meets Jesus before we do, coming face-to-face, leaving us here. How do we get our minds around that?

There is so much to contemplate, yet we get lost in the busyness of this life, and in the pettiness of details that are clearly unimportant in an eternal scheme of things.

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We will all meet Jesus face-to-face. For many of us, the truest sense of life will begin, then. Being in God’s Presence, eternally – perfectly fulfilled, perfectly built, and perfectly durable – will make this life pale into vast insignificance.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.