Fix Your Eyes On Eternity: A 12-Day Devotional On Heaven And The New EarthSample

The thought of seeing God is shocking and almost blasphemous to anyone who understands the Old Testament teaching on the transcendence and inapproachability of God (Exodus 33:18-23). To see God’s face, as the sinners we are, is unthinkable.

Yet, Revelation 22:4 says of God’s resurrected people on the New Earth, “They will see his face.” This means that something radical must have happened to us by then. It is only because we will be fully righteous in Christ, standing in our resurrected bodies, untainted by sin, that we will be able to see God and live. To see God will be our greatest joy. Not only will we see His face and live—we will likely wonder if we ever lived before we saw His face!

Ancient theologians spoke of the “beatific vision,” which meant “a happy-making sight.” The sight they spoke of was God Himself. 

The God who lives in unapproachable light became approachable in the person of Jesus (John 1:14). People could look at Jesus and see God. But Revelation 22:4 appears to speak of our actually seeing the face of God the Father. 

To look into God’s eyes will be to see what we’ve always longed to see: the person who made us and for whom we were made. And we will see Him in the place He made for us, and for which we were made. Seeing God will be like seeing everything else for the first time. We will discover that seeing God is our greatest joy, and life itself. Every other joy of Heaven will be derivative, flowing from the fountain of our relationship with God. 

Beholding and knowing God, we will see ourselves, and all other people and events, through God’s eyes. We will spend eternity worshipping, exploring, and serving our great God. We will see His breathtaking beauty in everything and everyone around us.