A few more quotes on Heaven

I posted earlier today a quote from J.C. Ryle on Heaven. I’ve been looking to compile a few quotes from our fathers in the faith from earlier generations, and hit a gold mine at Nick Roark’s blog Telle Lege. I have to confess that everything I’ve quoted below is merely swiped from him under his Heaven tag. If you enjoy what I post here, chances are, you’ll really enjoy what Nick posts at his blog, so check it out. Without further ado, more quotes on Heaven.

Christ is the very heaven of heaven

“Heaven is not heaven without Christ. It is better to be any place with Christ than to be in heaven itself without Him. All delicacies without Christ are but as a funeral banquet.

Where the master of the feast is away, there is nothing but solemnness. What is all without Christ? I say the joys of heaven are not the joys of heaven without Christ. He is the very heaven of heaven…

To be with Christ is to be at the spring-head of all happiness.”

~Richard Sibbes, “Christ is Best,’ in The Works of Richard Sibbes, Vol. 1 (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1634/1973), 339.
HT. 

Joy is the serious business of Heaven

It is only in our ‘hours-off,’ only in our moments of permitted festivity, that we find an analogy. Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were place here to live.

But in this world everything is upside down. That which , if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”

(HT: Full quote here)

~C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 93.

Heaven Will Work Backwards

“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”

~C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: HarpersCollins, 1946), 69.

HT.

Heaven an Ocean of Love

There, in heaven, this infinite fountain of love — this eternal Three in One — is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it, as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested, and shines forth, in full glory, in beams of love.

And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!

Jonathan Edwards, ”Heaven, a World of Love” in Charity and Its Fruits (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1852/2000), 327-8.

HT

Help each other up the hill towards Heaven

Labor to be much acquainted with heaven. If you are not acquainted with it, you will not be likely to spend your life as a journey thither. You will not be sensible of its worth, nor will you long for it…

Let Christians help one another in going this journey. There are many ways whereby Christians might greatly forward one another in their way to heaven, as by religious conference, etc. Therefore let them be exhorted to go this journey as it were in company: conversing together, and assisting one another. Company is very desirable in a journey, but in none so much as this. Let them go united and not fall out by the way, which would be to hinder one another, but use all means they can to help each other up the hill. This would ensure a more successful traveling and a more joyful meeting at their Father’s house in glory.”

~Jonathan Edwards, “The Christian Pilgrim, Or, The True Christian’s Life a Journey Toward Heaven,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Edward Hickman, 2 vols. (1834; reprint, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), vol. 2: p. 245-6.

HT