Chapter 35—The School of the Hereafter
“They shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.”
Heaven is a school; its field of study, the universe; its teacher, the
Infinite One. A branch of this school was established in Eden; and, the
plan of redemption accomplished, education will again be taken up in
the Eden school.
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
Him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9
. Only through His word can a knowledge of
these things be gained; and even this affords but a partial revelation.
The prophet of Patmos thus describes the location of the school of
the hereafter:
“I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away.... And I John saw the Holy City, New
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband.”
Revelation 21:1, 2
.
“The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine
in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof.”
Revelation 21:23
.
Between the school established in Eden at the beginning and the
school of the hereafter there lies the whole compass of this world’s
history—the history of human transgression and suffering, of divine
sacrifice, and of victory over death and sin. Not all the conditions
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of that first school of Eden will be found in the school of the future
life. No tree of knowledge of good and evil will afford opportunity for
temptation. No tempter is there, no possibility of wrong. Every char-
acter has withstood the testing of evil, and none are longer susceptible
to its power.
“To him that overcometh,” Christ says, “will I give to eat of the
tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”
Revelation
2:7
. The giving of the tree of life in Eden was conditional, and it was
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