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The Great Controversy
and offering praise to His name. We shall ever feel the freshness of
the morning and shall ever be far from its close. “And they need no
candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.”
Revelation 22:5
. The light of the sun will be superseded by a radiance
which is not painfully dazzling, yet which immeasurably surpasses
the brightness of our noontide. The glory of God and the Lamb floods
the Holy City with unfading light. The redeemed walk in the sunless
glory of perpetual day.
“I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the
Lamb are the temple of it.”
Revelation 21:22
. The people of God are
privileged to hold open communion with the Father and the Son. “Now
we see through a glass, darkly.”
1 Corinthians 13:12
. We behold the
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image of God reflected, as in a mirror, in the works of nature and in
His dealings with men; but then we shall see Him face to face, without
a dimming veil between. We shall stand in His presence and behold
the glory of His countenance.
There the redeemed shall know, even as also they are known. The
loves and sympathies which God Himself has planted in the soul shall
there find truest and sweetest exercise. The pure communion with holy
beings, the harmonious social life with the blessed angels and with the
faithful ones of all ages who have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb, the sacred ties that bind together “the
whole family in heaven and earth” (
Ephesians 3:15
)—these help to
constitute the happiness of the redeemed.
There, immortal minds will contemplate with never-failing delight
the wonders of creative power, the mysteries of redeeming love. There
will be no cruel, deceiving foe to tempt to forgetfulness of God. Every
faculty will be developed, every capacity increased. The acquirement
of knowledge will not weary the mind or exhaust the energies. There
the grandest enterprises may be carried forward, the loftiest aspira-
tions reached, the highest ambitions realized; and still there will arise
new heights to surmount, new wonders to admire, new truths to com-
prehend, fresh objects to call forth the powers of mind and soul and
body.
All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God’s
redeemed. Unfettered by mortality, they wing their tireless flight to
worlds afar—worlds that thrilled with sorrow at the spectacle of human
woe and rang with songs of gladness at the tidings of a ransomed soul.