Heaven is a World of Love: I Corinthians 13: 8-10

By Natalie, Editress of Visonary Womanhood

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.(I Corinthians 13:8-10)

Paul is talking about the church eternal here. The perfect church after she has been made complete in eternity. What a thing to contemplate – that the church will one day live in perfect love. No jealousies. No doubts. No competition. No striving. No jockeying for position. No vanity. No selfishness. No hearts aching with emptiness.

Jonathan Edwards writes a rich and encouraging chapter called “Heaven is a World of Love” in his book, Charity and Its Fruits. I thought I could capture the outline of this chapter for you, but it is too multifaceted. Instead, let me leave you with a couple of my favorite passages from this chapter.

Love to God

I love the following quote because it encourages me that one day I will be able to fully FEEL and KNOW and EXPRESS love toward my Creator. We are so often weighted down with a deadness inside of ourselves. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matt. 26:41) Edwards captures the freedom we will one day experience. Freedom to express our love:

They shall have nothing within themselves to clog them in the exercises and expressions of love. In this world they find much to hinder them. They have a great deal of dullness and heaviness. They carry about with them a heavy moulded body, a lump of flesh and blood which is not fitted to be an organ for a soul inflamed with high exercises of divine love, but is found a great clog to the soul, so that they cannot express their love to God as they would. they cannot be so active and lively in it as they desire. Fain would they fly, but they are held down, as with a dead weight at their feet. Fain would they be active as a flame of fire, but they find themselves, as it were, hampered or chained down, that they cannot do as their love inclines them. Love disposed them to praise, but their tongues are not obedient; they want words to express the ardor of their souls, and cannot order their speech by reason of darkness (Job 37:19). And oftentimes for want of expressions they are forced to content themselves with groans that cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26). But in heaven they shall have no such hindrance. They will have no dullness of unwieldiness, no corruption of heart to fight against divine love and hinder suitable expressions, no clog of a heavy lump of clay, or an unfit organ for an inward heavenly flame. They shall have no difficulty in expressing all their love. Their souls, which are like a flame of fire with love, shall not be like a fire pent up but shall be perfectly at liberty. The soul which is winged with love shall have no weight tied to the feet to hinder its flight. There shall be no want of strength or activity, nor any want of words to praise the object of their love. They shall find nothing to hinder them in praising or seeing God, just as their love inclines. Love naturally desires to express itself; and in heaven the love of the saints shall be at liberty to express itself as it desires, either toward God or one another.

Love to Others

And then what about loving others? Here, it can be so hard to love! People are mean. Self-centered. Rude. Broken. Needy. They suck the life out of you. And you suck the life out of them. But think about this:

The joy of heavenly love shall never be damped or interrupted by jealousy. They shall have no fear that their professions and testimonies of love are hypocritical; they shall be perfectly satisfied of the sincerity and strength of each other’s love, as much as if there were a window in all their breasts, that they could see each other’s hearts.

All things in that world shall conspire to promote their love, and give advantage for mutual enjoyment. They shall be none there to tempt them to hatred, no busy adversary to make misrepresentations or create misunderstandings. Everyone and everything there shall conspire to promote love, and promote the enjoyment of each other’s love.

The Journey Will Be Worth It

At the very end of this chapter, Edwards encourages the reader to keep moving forward. Life is wearisome, and the journey seems to take forever. But it’s ultimately worth it:

Be content to pass through all difficulties on the way to heaven. Though the path is before you, and you may walk in it if you really choose it, yet it is a way which is strait, and there are many difficulties in the way; the whole way is ascending. That glorious city of light and love is, as it were, on the top of an high hill, an elevation which is exalted above the hill, and there is no arriving there without traveling uphill. Though this be wearisome, yet it is worth your while to come and dwell in such a glorious city at last. Be willing therefore to comply with this labor. What is it in comparison of the sweet rest which is at the end of your journey? Be willing to cross the natural inclination of flesh and blood, which is downward. Continue crossing this tendency; it will grow easier and easier, and you will be paid by more and more of the pleasant prospect which you will have the higher you rise, and a nearer view of the glorious city on the top of the hill, besides the glorious reward which you will have when you arrive there.

I want to close with a link to Russell Moore’s article about heaven: Why the Afterlife Bores Us. I linked there last week, but this is an appropriate place to link again in case anyone missed it.

May we continue to climb the hill together, loving God and loving one another imperfectly – but looking forward to the day we will enter into the fullness of perfect love.