We'll See His Face

They will see his face . . . (Revelation 22:4).

What will the new heavens and the new earth be like? Well we’ve got a sneak peek from the last couple of chapters of the book of Revelation. It will be a place of no more sadness, pain, and tears; the enemy of death has forever been defeated; we will never sin again; there will be no more unrighteousness and injustice; nothing but beauty will be all around us; the tree that gives life will be restored to our existence. We could keep on going with all the bliss eternity will hold for us as described in Revelation, and even then we would’ve only measured a drop in the ocean of all that God has in store for us!

But there is one thing that if eternity withheld from me would make my experiences there miserable. If I could not experience this one thing I might as well experience none of it. And that one thing is to see my Lord face-to-face. I could have everything else but not have Jesus and to me I would have nothing.

The puritan author, Samuel Rutherford, felt the same way, but wrote with much stronger language: “O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without you — haven would be a hell; and if I could be in hell, but have you with me — hell would be heaven for me.” This bliss of all blisses, the face of Christ, is indispensable according to the hymn by William Walker:

Not all the harps above

Could make a heavenly place,

If God His residence remove,

Or but conceal his face.

I want to see Jesus’ face. I want to gaze upon the one who gave his life for me, who left me not in my sin, who stepped into heaven’s courtroom and pled my case by his own righteousness though I had only rags of sin, who introduced me to the Father, who loves me with an everlasting love. I want to see his face on that day, and forevermore!

Do you long to see his face? Would eternity be miserable for you if Jesus were not there? If your affections aren’t stirred with a resounding yes, continue to seek and knock on the door of God’s heart that he might create within you a hunger in your heart to see the face of his Son. For eternity will be empty without beholding Jesus.