In our Ask FGBC Anything video series, listeners submit questions that we then answer in a video format.
Outline
The nature of eternity in heaven, with emphasis on God’s infinite glory:
- Pastor Jim and Dr. Barcellos discuss the nature of eternity in heaven, with Dr. Barcellos arguing that it will be a timeless experience with successive stages of spiritual development.
- Dr. Barcellos emphasizes the infinite nature of God, highlighting that He is beyond human comprehension and that our finite experiences cannot fully capture His glory.
- Pastor Butler agrees, sharing an anecdote about a child’s reaction to God’s glory, illustrating the awe-inspiring nature of the divine.
God’s nature, eternity, and worship in the eternal state:
- Dr. Renihan emphasizes the importance of maintaining the Creator-creature distinction in eternity, as God is beyond human comprehension.
- Dr. Renihan rejects the Mormon doctrine of becoming gods, emphasizing that we will never fully understand God’s glory.
- Dr. Barcellos and Pastor Butler discuss the limits of biblical revelation and the possibility of God revealing more to believers in the eternal state.
- They agree that God is infinite and cannot be exhaustively known, and that there will always be new wonders to discover in heaven.
- Dr. James Renihan and Pastor Jim Butler discuss the eternal state and corporate worship in heaven, with a focus on the Trinity and Christ’s leadership in worship.
- They also consider the implications of Hebrews chapter 2 and Revelation chapter 1 for our understanding of worship in the eternal state.
Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
god, eternal, glory, eternity, infinite, experience, lord, finite, midst, successive stages, worship, comprehend, temporal, exhaust, grace, sermon, presence, natures, revelation, chapter
SPEAKERS
Dr James Renihan, Pastor Jim Butler, Dr Richard Barcellos
Pastor Jim Butler 00:08
All right, and then Rich, I mentioned this one to you when I emailed you, because I think there’s one. This is a brief sort of version of the question. It gets later developed or expands a bit later on. So I hope you did take a peek ahead of the on the list, but one of the persons writes, “I struggle with the idea of eternity in heaven, that there is nothing we graduate from or to. What will our quote, unquote, days in heaven look like, aside from singing the praises of our God?”
Dr Richard Barcellos 00:45
Eye has not seen, neither has ear heard, all that the Lord has in store for those who love Him. You know Jude, that’s first Corinthians. Jude, 24 and 25, in his blameless in his presence with exceeding joy. So you want me to define what exceeding joy is like based on my experience? What I’m getting at is, you’re not sure. I’m not sure, but I do know this. Ephesians 2:7 says this, that in the ages to come, ages plural, just this. Okay, so there’s, is there time in the in the what we call the eternal state doesn’t sound if we say yes, it doesn’t sound eternal, because it’s timeless. But eternal is used in more than one way. You know, God’s eternity is one thing. Eternal life for us is the same as it’s a temporal experience with successive stages of development in this life, and I’m going to argue, successive stages of spiritual, mental, soulish development in the life to come as well, partly from here that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ, Jesus. Now, from this side of things in the in the already. We haven’t tasted the “not yet”. Well, we haven’t seed form. You know, principle grace is glory in the bud. Okay? So we do have the down payment, the guarantee, the spirit, but it’s just a snippet of glory. We don’t have full fledged experience of Beatific Vision, whatever that is, you know, so it’s hard for us to make the intellectual step from my experience now, because it’s hard to go to church. Now, we know sometimes you don’t even want to go to church. And the questioner is going, Yeah, and I don’t know how is that going to translate into 24/7 bathing. Well, here’s the thing can you is, is God infinite? Does God have bounds? Is God limited? Is he circumscribed? No, does can the finite? Are we going to be infinite or finite in the eternal state? Finite. Can we ever comprehend the infinite? No, we’ll never exhaust. It’s weird for us to think about this, because you can pretty much become an expert in certain intellectual endeavors, except the more I try to become an expert in Christian theology, the farther the goal seems to be, the more you know, and the more you realize, I don’t, oh, I didn’t know about that article of that book, and it takes you into a whole world of thought. So I think we need to be careful not to undersell the glory of God. He’s way bigger than we realize, and we’re never going to exhaust it’s not a bucket that has a bottom, it’s a bottomless God is infinite. He’s infinitely blessed, happy, and he’s, why did He create? I think, to share that. Yes, so we’re going to participate in God. And all I can say is, it’s way better than the best sermon you’ve ever heard. It’s way better than all the great hymns you’ve ever sung or the most spiritual you’ve ever felt.
Pastor Jim Butler 04:03
Yeah, one of the things that I have thought through you had told me many years ago, I just asked you about Rick Anderson pastor in Oxnard. I remember he said, it’s a breathtaking thing. So if you take your child to some place that they love, Disneyland, come around. I don’t like to use Disneyland anymore, but that’s what he used. I remember the argument. You come around the corner and their breath is taken away. So when the finite comes into the presence of God, Most High, it’s a perpetual just you’re you’re blown away with who God is. Yeah, the glory of God.
Dr James Renihan 04:39
Can I enter into the conversation? I think that one truth that has to be brought to mind is that we have to be really we cannot compare God with ourselves. We want to and we read language like we’re made in the image of God. He made us to be like him, but we can’t reverse that direction, that’s right, and make God into a greater image of us. We may have his image, but he does not have our image. He is God, and there is none like him. So when we begin to think about concepts that relate to who God is, and can I talk, can I use the phrase the experience of being God, okay, we can’t enter into that what eternity is is beyond our capability to understand, because we have a beginning. We have an end that will come for all three of us. That day will be when our loved ones will put us into the grave, and that will be the end of our lives on this earth. But that can never be said about God, so we can’t understand eternity in the way that God is able to understand eternity. I think you’re exactly right, Rich, that that for us, eternity will be temporal, though, for God, it is not temporal.
Dr Richard Barcellos 05:55
Yeah, so, so you’re basically saying, maintain the Creator creature distinction, even in the eternal state.
Dr James Renihan 06:01
Absolutely, right, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. You know, I was just, I was in Utah a couple of weeks ago. And of course, there, the Mormon doctrine is that we all become gods. The men become gods. And the goal of each man is to have his own planet that he saves, that he rules over. Wait a minute, what? Yeah,
Pastor Jim Butler 06:19
children, yes.
Dr James Renihan 06:21
What a bunch of nonsense that is. We will never, ever be like God. We will always be caught up with his glory. And so long as we, from a temporal position, know eternity, we will never, ever comprehend God as he comprehends himself. There may be a further revelation of His glories that we we are able to comprehend and that we rejoice in, but we must maintain that distinction, able to apprehend, able to apprehend, okay, yeah.
Dr Richard Barcellos 06:52
Well, even with that, can we, you know, the Ephesians 2:7 I preached it recently. I was going to I was thinking about preaching it here. I couldn’t find the sermon. The older I get, I lose what file did I put it in? But could it be, could it be that, in the eternal state, things God has not revealed about God get revealed to us? Or are we just going to be Bible students the whole time? Does does the Bible exhaustively reveal to creatures everything God’s ever going to reveal to creatures? And I would say, I don’t, I don’t think so. Is God free to show more God to us? Are we going to be reading Bibles in the eternal state? Well, we need Scripture?
Pastor Jim Butler 07:45
Those are good questions, but difficult. I think that you know some of the statements in the in the Bible, and then hymnody, I think it helps to underscore the infinite finite. When Paul says it’s better to depart. It’s much better for me to go on than be here with you Philippians, but it does mean fruit if I am here. So so there’s this expectation on the apart on the part of the apostle, and you know, “Eye hasn’t seen”, he has, by God’s grace, been given some revelation that we didn’t. But there’s an anticipation on the part of the apostle second, Timothy, chapter four, he knows he’s going to die, and he’s not, you know, nervously biting his fingernails, he says, I’m going to receive the crown. And so are all those who have been faithful to the Lord. It’s not just him in that category. And then, of course, Newton, when we’ve been there 10,000 years, but shining as the sun. It’s poetic flourish, but I think it does underscore we can’t exhaust God. If we could exhaust God, we’d move on to the next puzzle, and that’s never going to happen.
Dr Richard Barcellos 08:52
God is way better than we’ll never know.
Dr James Renihan 08:53
And there’ll be no tedium, right, to our learning about God. That’s right, right. Now, all of us get tired of reading books and we have to rest. That won’t happen. We’ll be so pleased with what we see and what we know, we’ll continually seek after more. That’s right.
Dr Richard Barcellos 09:12
Yeah, there’s, there’s something else I think that goes on in the eternal state that maybe gets depreciated sometimes, because the two greatest commandments are love, God, with all your heart, soul, mind, your strength, and neighbor as yourself. We’re going to be able to do both of them. Yeah, it’s going to be a corporate the City of God, the church triumphant. Yes, and I don’t know what that’s going to be.
Pastor Jim Butler 09:35
I don’t either. I don’t have that way better. It’s now,
Dr Richard Barcellos 09:36
you know the Lord’s day 24/7, you know it’s like, and
Pastor Jim Butler 09:41
I, you know, you had mentioned just when we started off, you know, coming to church at times. I mean, we don’t always have the Psalm 122, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Right so that, but, but there will be something, I think, much different in heaven. You’re not looking for your kids’ shoes. You’re not having to marshal them to the car, everybody’s there. Everybody’s there. That’s right, everybody’s there in the presence of the Most High.
Dr James Renihan 10:08
I’m reminded of Hebrews 2, and the citations that we have here from several Old Testament texts where it’s Christ who comes and leads his people into worship. Yes, I will declare your name for my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to You. And again, I will put my trust in Him. And again, here am I in the children whom God has given me, so even our Savior, the God man, one person, two natures. True human nature comes and joins us in the worship of God,
Pastor Jim Butler 10:42
yes, or in the midst of the lampstands in Revelations 1, just says where the son
Dr Richard Barcellos 10:51
first chair worship leader, right?
Dr James Renihan 10:53
Uh, no, I’m not calling him that. I’m saying that this Hebrews 2 tells us that he comes into our midst and we worship the Triune God as he leads us.
Pastor Jim Butler 11:05
Yeah, I just referred to that little book. I think it was on Sunday that Jonathan Landry Cruse, “What happens when we worship“? I thought that was very good, excellent. Yeah, I enjoyed it very much. So, yeah, lots to think about, but certainly some creaturely limitations in terms of what exactly it would be so.
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