When weary-ness with the world collides with spectacular natural beauty, our soul aches for heaven. Often this soul ache will become acute when you pause from your routine and see the glories of God on earth. It is in that paused moment that we can meditate on the glories of God in heaven.
Natural Beauty and Heaven’s Glory
Passing over the Rocky Mountains, the landscape is so vast that it cannot be comprehended, even as the sky-scraping beauty of the peaks stretches our ability to appreciate them.
Heaven is greater than the Rockies.
The problem is the same only worse. To see God in heaven is to be stunned with infinite brilliance which the creaturely capacities cannot encircle. Our souls will have new capacities which heaven will require, but they will still be limited as mere creatures. But imagine that in the resurrection, we might taste colour or see smells all while hearing textures. Heaven will be a blessed sensory overload for eternity.
When the Novelty Wears Off
Our capacity to know incomprehensible beauty on earth has another problem. No matter how stunning the initial sight of the peaks or the waves or the rivers and canyons, after a short time, the brilliance of the beauty fades. Our sin-marred finiteness thinks everything is a little bland after a while. People who live in the mountains may like the peaks, but they don’t gaze at them like the first-time visitor. Ocean-scapes arrest the attention of someone who has never been to the beach. But after a week, the novelty wears off.
Heaven doesn’t wear off.
Heaven will be stimulating and enlivening with such electricity that only God’s act of protecting his redeemed could permit a person to stand it. Without God’s work of glorifying the saint, we would not be able to cherish Christ forever. We would get bored if our sin came with us to heaven. Sin would make us get tired of seeing the face of Jesus. We would think angel armies would be just more of the same, instead of being repeatedly astounded by the purity of the seraphim surrounding the court of God.
“The quintessence of all delights”
The Puritan Thomas Watson spoke of the glories of heaven:
Is there a kingdom of glory coming? then see how happy are God’s saints at their death! They go to a kingdom—they see God’s face, which shines ten thousand times brighter than the sun in its meridian glory; they have in the kingdom of heaven the quintessence of all delights; they have the water of life, clear as crystal; they feed not on the dew of Hermon, but on the manna of angels. In that kingdom the saints are crowned with perfection; the desires of the glorified souls are infinitely satisfied; there is nothing absent they could wish might be enjoyed; there is nothing present that they could wish might be removed.
Puritan Gems, 74.
When we look at natural beauty in a mountain lake or a baby’s face, we need to remember that as our appreciation fades, we are being reminded that the world is not our home (Heb 13:14)
The highest heaven is where we belong.
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