8 On Earth As It Is in Heaven
On Earth As It Is in Heaven
Three doctrinal statements bind the Lord’s Prayer together. The first two come in the invocation. God is the Father of Christian people, and he is in heaven. The third rounds off the first trio of petitions: in heaven God’s will is done. The first proclaims God’s goodness in redeeming us through the cross and taking us into his family. The second and third declare his greatness and power to achieve his purpose. Together, these three truths point up the Christian hope. As our Father, God stands pledged to love us and do us good for all eternity.
Heaven
As Lord of creation, ruling in heaven, i.e., in freedom from the limitations of space-time creaturehood here on earth, God can be relied on to fulfill his intention perfectly. You and I are capable of failing in anything we undertake, however simple, but it is God’s glory to succeed in all that he has set himself to do, however hard. So
The work which his mercy began
The arm of his strength will complete;
His promise is yea and amen,
And never was forfeited yet.
Things future, nor things that are now,
Not all things below or above,
Can make him his purpose forego,
Nor serve my soul from his love.
But when Jesus says that in heaven God’s will is done, he is not thinking so much of our Father’s transcendence as of a community of created beings, intelligent like ourselves, living nearer to God (in the sense that they enjoy more of him than we can in this world), and serving him with an ecstatic wholeheartedness that in this life we never attain. This is “heaven” in the most usual sense of the word, the “heaven” to which Christians “go” when they die, the state of life for which our time here is all preparation and training.
Heaven in this sense is infinitely more important than the present life, not only because it is endless while this life is temporary, but also because no relationships are perfectly enjoyed here in the way that they will be hereafter. From the fact that the Holy Trinity is the ultimate reality, no less than from the insights of present-day psychologists, we learn that relationships are what life—real life, as distinct from mere consciousness—is really all about, and relationships, with Father, Son, and saints, are certainly what heaven is all about. It is no accident that the New Testament presents heaven as a city (Revelation 21), a banquet (Matthew 8:11; Luke 22:29ff.; Revelation 19:9), and a worshipping congregation (Hebrews 12:22-24; cf. Revelation 7:9-17); these pictures are telling us that heaven will be an experience of togetherness, closer and more joyous than any we have known so far, whether with our God or with our fellow-believers.
In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis imagines hell as a country where people are always scattering to get as far from each other as they can! (And Sartre in No Exit pictured hell as other people from whom one can never get away, however hellishly they behave.) But in heaven the saints will be close to each other, as well as to the Father and the Son—and glad to be; and the closeness will add to the joy.
With robust emphasis, Scripture is “other-worldly,” insisting that the life of heaven is better and more glorious than life on earth at every point. But when we ask just how, Scripture says to us in effect, “Wait and see (cf. Romans 8:24); and realize that it is so far beyond your present experience that you really can’t conceive it.” Heaven, being an order of reality not bounded by space and time as we know them, is not located in, nor can be defined by, this present world in which our physical nature anchors us. All we are sure of is that, as we said, for heaven’s inhabitants (the “ministering spirits” who are angels, with “the spirits of just men made perfect”) it is a state of perfect communion with God, and with others in God, and complete contentment in his presence. That is the further truth the Bible pictures of the golden city and the great feast are meant to convey.
But for perfect communion not only must God give without limit or restraint; his servants, angelic and human, must also respond without reserve—which means that in and through them God’s will is fully done. The doing of God’s will is thus part of the definition of heaven, and it is part of heaven’s glory that God gives those who are there full ability to do it.
Praise
Why did Jesus follow “thy will be done on earth” with “as it is in heaven”? Surely for two reasons.
First, he wants at this point to arouse hope. The chaos of earth mocks the petition; by reminding us, however, that God has already established his will perfectly in heaven, Jesus stirs us to hope that on earth we may yet see great things. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14).
Nor is this all. Jesus’ second aim is to awaken praise. While petition exhausts, praise invigorates, and for Jesus to interpose between two spells of arduous petition a moment to pause and praise—“in heaven, Father, your will is done! hallelujah!”—is the spiritual equivalent of refreshment at half-time, whereby strength for the battle of intercession is renewed. Here Jesus teaches the precious lesson that praising energizes and renews praying. Hear him!
Further Bible Study
Earth and Heaven:
Hebrews 12
Questions for Thought and Discussion
What is the significance of God’s not being limited by space and time?
What are the necessary elements of perfect communion with God?
What is meant by the phrase “while petition exhausts, praise invigorates”?