Things Missing From Heaven

And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him….And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 22:3 and 21:4

We think of Heaven as a place of completeness. Yet, in order for that to be so, there must be some things that are conspicuous by their absence. The Apostle John, at this point, a very old man, teetering on the brink of eternity, received a revelation of Christ, that gladdened his ancient heart. Christ is the Hope of His saints in eternity. Because He is, He sees to it that there are certain things which are absent from the eternal state. Our combined texts for today, delineate those things. Overall, Revelation 22:3 declares that there shall be ‘no more curse.’ For this, we praise God.  Christ removes every vestige of every evil effect of the sin of our first parents. From early days, the whole of the creation has groaned and travailed under the effects of that curse. We who are made in the image of God have suffered, collectively and individually under the consequences of that curse. Christ removes it for all eternity. Because there are other effects which occur as the result of the curse, they also disappear in the eternal state. Revelation 21:4 lists the salient things:  ‘God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’   Imagine, the tears we weep, He wipes away. The death which separates us has become the victim of death. The sorrow that tears at us, He banishes forever. There is no more crying; there is no more pain. By the Almighty Power of His totally Redeeming Grace, Christ removes, from His Presence, and from ours, all the wretched effects of a sin-cursed existence. That is a lovely prospect. The mere contemplation of it brings joy and hope. You, saint of God, laboring under the burden of these things today, look up to Christ. Look ahead to a day when all these ‘former things will have passed away.’

Our Glorious, Coming Christ, we look forward to that day,
“When the faith shall be sight; The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
When the trump shall resound and You Yourself shall descend.”
From this day until that day, ‘it is well with our souls.’

Where the Bush is Burning
Tomm Tice