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Down through the centuries the hope of heaven has rightly been the stay of believing Christians. The Apostle Paul speaks of the bleakness of any faith in Christ confined to this life.

And the Apostle John gives us a vision of what heaven will be like. Obviously, no words can adequately describe it. The new heaven and new earth will be perfect. Sorrow, death, crying, sickness, death, mourning, pain—all these will be gone, and the joy of the Lord will be in every heart.

God—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—will be there, and because of his presence there will be no need of the sun. Nor will there be any night. There will be nothing unclean or false, for we will be in the presence of the holiness of God himself.

This is no plea that Christians sink back into a meaningless life of mere anticipation. Our knowledge of such a glorious future should be reflected in the lives we live right now.

Jesus came into the world to make this glorious future possible, and he is coming again to make it a reality. "The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command [reminiscent of, 'Lazarus, come forth'], with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thess. 4:16-18).

Surely we should give this hope the emphasis due it. This does not blind us to the necessity of caring for the material needs of the unfortunate; rather, it gives meaning to all acts of Christian compassion, for it looks beyond the temporal to the eternal implications of the Christian faith.

Christians should be in the vanguard of those who are working to alleviate suffering and sorrow; but theirs is a double ministry—to the body and to the soul. They should make it clear that their service is done in the name of Christ and for his glory.

All honor is due those who are personally engaged in human relief. It is the duty of every Christian to recognize such work as both legitimate and essential in the total witness of the Church. But let us be sure that it is recognized as a means to an end and not as the end in itself. The ultimate goal of the Christian lies beyond the horizon of human experience.

I have known some who had everything this world has to offer but who still were utterly miserable. They had no joy in the present, no hope for the future. I have also known many, here and abroad, who had only the barest necessities of life but who nevertheless had joy in the present and complete confidence for the future.

The Church must emphasize this future joy as man's ultimate destiny, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This article first appeared in the May 24, 1968, issue of Christianity Today. At the time, L. Nelson Bell wrote the column, "A Layman and his Faith" for CT. He was a cofounder of the magazine and also founder of the Southern Presbyterian Journal (later renamed The Presbyterian Journal). He was also a medical missionary and influential leader in the Southern Presbyterian Church. He died in 1973.

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June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47