What makes heaven, heaven? What makes the new creation really new? Is it that there is no pain? Or that it is a place where we will be reunited with those we love who have died in the faith, such that all will be well in ‘the sweet by and by’? Whilst not denying any of those things, surely what makes heaven, heaven, and the new creation new, is that God is there and we have unlimited access to him. At the present time we walk by faith, loving Jesus whom we can’t see (1 Peter 1:8-9), but there we shall always have him before us, he will never be hidden from our sight: ‘No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.’ (22: v3b-4).
