Seeing The Face Of Jesus

Seeing the Face of Jesus

Excerpted from “The Heaven of Heaven”

Sermon #824

Delivered on Lord’s Day morning, August 9, 1868, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

The most astonishing sight we can anticipate in Heaven is not streets of gold or pearly gates or loved ones who have died before us. It will be coming face-to-face with our Savior.

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Revelation 22:4

Spurgeon • The text says they shall “see his face,” by which I understand two things. First, that they shall literally and physically, with their risen bodies, actually look into the face of Jesus. Second, that spiritually their mental faculties shall be enlarged so that they shall be enabled to look into the very heart and soul and character of Christ, so as to understand him, his work, his love, his all in all, as they never understood him before.

They shall literally, I say, see his face, for Christ is no phantom. In Heaven, though divine, he is still a man, and therefore material like ourselves. The very flesh and blood that suffered upon Calvary is in Heaven. The hand that was pierced with the nail now at this moment grasps the scepter of all worlds. That very head which was bowed down with anguish is now crowned with a royal crown. And the face that was so marred is the very face which beams brilliantly amid the thrones of Heaven. Into that selfsame face we shall be permitted to gaze. Oh, what a sight!

We shall see and know even as we are known, and among the great things that we shall know will be this greatest of all, that we shall know Christ. We shall know the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the love of Christ that exceeds knowledge.

In the blessed vision the saints see Jesus, and they see him clearly. We may also remark that they see him always, for when the text says they shall “see his face,” it implies that they never at any time are without the sight. Never for a moment do they unlock their arm from the arm of their Beloved. They are not as we are—sometimes near the throne, sometimes far away; sometimes hot with love, sometimes cold with indifference, sometimes bright as angels, sometimes dull as clods. Rather, forever and ever they are in closest association with the Master, for they shall “see his face.”

They surely see his face the more clearly because all the clouds of care are gone from them. Some of you while sitting here today have been trying to lift up your minds to heavenly contemplation, but you cannot. The business has gone so wrong this week; the children have annoyed you so much; sickness has been in the house so severely. You feel in your body quite out of order for devotion—these enemies break your peace.

God’s people are bothered by none of these things in Heaven, and therefore they can see their Master’s face. They are not burdened with Martha’s cares; they still occupy Mary’s place at his feet (Luke 10:38-42). When you and I have laid aside the farm and the merchandise and the marrying and the burying, which come so fast upon each other’s heels, and when we will be forever with the Lord, then

Far from a world of grief and sin, With God eternally shut in.^a

Furthermore, the glorified see God’s face more clearly because there are no idols to stand between him and them. Our idolatrous love of worldly things is a chief cause of our knowing so little of spiritual things. One cannot fill his life cup from the pools of Earth and yet have room in it for the crystal streams of Heaven. But they have no idols there in Heaven—nothing to occupy the heart, no rival for the Lord Jesus. He reigns supreme within their spirits, and therefore they see his face.

The sight of Christ’s face will be, to the ungodly, eternal destruction, separation from the presence of the Lord. But if there are some men who shall see his face, who shall sit down and delight themselves in gazing upon the face of the great Judge upon the throne, then those persons are certainly saved.

Here it is our joy of joys to have the Lord smiling upon us, for if he be with us, who can be against us? In Heaven, then, they have this to be their choice privilege. They are attendants who stand always in the monarch’s palace, secure in the monarch’s smile. They are children who live unbrokenly in their Father’s love. They know it and rejoice to know it evermore.

All the saints shall see their Master’s face. The thief dying on the cross was with Christ in Paradise. Whether dying young or old, whether departing after long service of Christ or dying immediately after conversion as with the thief, of all the saints shall it be said in the words of the text, they shall “see his face.” What more can apostles and martyrs enjoy?

Do you regret that your friends have departed? Do you lament that your wife or husband and child and father and grandparent have all entered into their rest? Don’t be so unkind to yourself, so cruel to them. Rather, soldier of the Cross, be thankful that another has won the crown before you. May you press forward to win it too.

Life is but a moment: how short it will appear in eternity. And though impatience considers it a long wait, yet faith corrects her and reminds her that one hour with God will make the longest life to seem but a point of time.

Alcorn • In the Old Testament we’re told that Moses saw God but not God’s face: “You cannot see my face,” God said, “for no one may see me and live. . . . You will see my back; but my face must not be seen” (Exodus 33:20, 23, NIV).

The New Testament says that God “lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:16, NIV). To see God’s face has been utterly unthinkable.

That’s why, when we’re told in Revelation 22:4 that we’ll see God’s face, it should astound us. For this to happen, it will require that we undergo radical change between now and then. “Without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14, NIV). It’s only because we’ll be fully righteous in Christ, deemed completely sinless, that we’ll be able to see God and live.

This is the wonder of our redemption, which Spurgeon celebrated and we should also—to be welcomed into the very presence of our Lord and to see him face-to-face! What will we see in his eyes? Though we cannot experience redemption’s fullness yet, we can gain a foretaste now: “We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19, NIV). “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16).

These verses tell us something wonderful beyond comprehension: the blood of Jesus has bought us full access to God’s throne room and his Most Holy Place. Even now, he welcomes us to come there in prayer. In eternity, when we’re resurrected beings, not only will he permit us to enter his presence in prayer, but he will welcome us to live in his presence as resurrected beings.

David says, “One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple” (Psalm 27:4, NIV). David was preoccupied with God’s person, and also with God’s place. He longed to be where God was and to gaze on his beauty. God, who is transcendent, became immanent—manifested among us—in Jesus Christ, who is Immanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23, NIV). So whenever we see Jesus in Heaven, we will see God. Because Jesus Christ is God, and a permanent manifestation of God, he could say to Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9, NIV). Along with Spurgeon, we can anticipate literally looking into Christ’s face and exclaiming, “Oh, what a sight!”

Shut your eyes and imagine seeing Jesus. What a wondrous thought! More than that, what a wondrous promise!

^a From the hymn “Ye Waiting Souls, Arise,” by Charles Wesley, 1749.