When We See Jesus :: By Sean Gooding
Numbers 12: 2-3, Job 42: 1-6
“‘Does the LORD speak only through Moses?’ they said. ‘Does He not also speak through us?’ And the LORD heard this. 3 Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:2-3).
“Then Job answered the Lord and said: 2 ‘I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. 3 You asked, “Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?” Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ 5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. 6 Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes'” (Job 42:1-6).
Over the past few weeks, if you have been reading along as I wrote, there has been a lot of death in and around me. My mom died recently, the former senior pastor of the church I pastor died last week, and just yesterday, one of my dear clients from the car dealership died. Those of us who know Jesus as Savior have a security in Him and what He did for us that gives us peace. It makes me wonder what the first few moments in Heaven are like. It may seem that we can’t know on this side, but I suspect that we can have a very good idea.
There is a popular meme that one sees on Facebook, and it depicts the first few moments in Heaven; there is a lady with her arms wrapped around Jesus and just this sheer look of joy on her face. I am not sure that is how it will be. Too many of us read the New Testament, and we see the Man Jesus as humble, poor, meek, and lowly. In the pages we read, we see Him taking the form of a servant, as we are reminded in Philippians 2:1-5. But the Jesus we will see in Heaven, although still in a human body, will be glorified, bright, and shining, the One who is on the Right Hand of God to judge the whole earth, and we will see Him in His glorified state when we get there. We will see the One who commands the angels and before whom all Heaven bows.
When we read the passages in the texts above, we see Moses’ and Job’s response. When we take the time to read Isaiah 6:1-9 and see the fear of the Holy God that humbles these men and brings them to their faces to the ground, when we see their sheer sinfulness exposed and brought to light in the presence of Jesus’ perfection, we can get maybe an idea of what our reaction will be like.
Job saw his sin, and he hated himself; he humbled himself in ‘sackcloth and ashes.’ Isaiah was ‘undone,’ and only God could help him. In Luke 5:1-8, once Peter reluctantly obeyed God and let down a net, once he saw the great miracle and understood that Jesus is God, he saw his own sinfulness with great clarity. Over and over again, we see that those who come to see and understand the majesty of Jesus are humbled and broken in His presence. They come to understand, maybe for the first time, how sinful they are versus how holy Jesus is, and it scares and humbles them to the act of abject humility before Him.
Moses spent a lot of time with God in ‘face-to-face’ conversations, and it totally humbled him. Job had a ‘conversation’ with God, and that caused him to abhor himself. I don’t think we will be running up to Jesus and hugging Him like the picture depicts. We will understand what it really took to redeem us for the first time ever as we see His scars and imagine what the pain must have been like. We will be humbled by His majesty and totally broken in spirit by His grace. A sense of true gratitude will envelop us like it never has before, and we will be quiet.
While many think there are no tears in Heaven, we are told that He will wipe away our tears. We are 7 chapters into Revelation before the tears are wiped away. Revelation 7:17, “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
Even as I am writing here, I cannot truly fathom what those first few moments will be like. Whether by death or rapture, the first sight of my Risen Lord will be breathtaking. I am but a sinful dog, a broken man at best, and yet, by His loving kindness and grace, by His loving gift of Himself, I can get to see him and live with Him forever. I could never get close to God, so Jesus came and made the way. Have you put your faith in Him and His shed blood to wash away your sins, and have you believed that He was raised from the dead? Only Jesus, no other way.
God bless you,
Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church
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