According to David, the greatest thing we can ask of God is to gaze upon His beauty: “One thing I have asked from Yahweh, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Yahweh and to inquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4, LSB).
The new heavens and earth will provide the eternal answer to David’s prayer. There will be no temple there, because we will always have direct access to God. To see God will be to know Him, and then to see ourselves, and all other people and events, through His eyes.
As I share in this video, we will spend all of eternity learning more about our magnificent God:
Jesus said to His disciples, “Learn from me” (Matthew 11:29). On the New Earth, we’ll have the privilege of sitting at Jesus’ feet as Mary did, walking with Him over the countryside as His disciples did, always learning from Him. In Heaven we’ll continually learn new things about God, going ever deeper in our understanding.
Consider the Greek words ginosko and epiginosko, translated “know” in 1 Corinthians 13:12, used of our present knowledge on Earth and our future knowledge in Heaven: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Ginosko often means “to come to know,” and therefore “to learn” (Matthew 10:26; John 12:9; Acts 17:19; Philippians 2:19). Epiginosko also means “to learn” (Luke 7:37; 23:7; Acts 9:30; 22:29). That we will one day “know fully” could well be understood as “we will always keep on learning.”
Consider Ephesians 2:6-7: “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace.” The word show means “to reveal.” The phrase in the coming ages clearly indicates this will be a progressive, ongoing revelation, in which we learn more and more about God’s grace.
We will spend eternity worshipping, exploring and serving our great God, seeing His breathtaking beauty in everything and everyone around us!
