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School of the Hereafter
197
will arise new heights to surmount, new wonders to admire, new
truths to comprehend, fresh objects to call forth the powers of body
and mind and soul.
[191]
All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of
God’s children. With unutterable delight we shall enter into the
joy and wisdom of unfallen beings. We shall share the treasures
gained through ages upon ages spent in contemplation of God’s
handiwork. And the years of eternity, as they roll, will continue to
bring more glorious revelations. “Exceedingly abundantly above all
that we ask or think” (
Ephesians 3:20
) will be, forever and forever,
the impartation of the gifts of God.
“His servants shall serve Him.”
Revelation 22:3
. The life on
earth is the beginning of the life in heaven. Education on earth is
an initiation into the principles of heaven. The lifework here is a
training for the lifework there. What we now are, in character and
holy service, is the sure foreshadowing of what we shall be.
“The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve.”
Matthew 20:28
. Christ’s work below is His work above, and our
reward for working with Him in this world will be the greater power
and wider privilege of working with Him in the world to come.
“‘You are My witnesses,’ says the Lord, ‘that I am God.’”
Isaiah
43:12
. This also we shall be in eternity.
Why was the great controversy permitted to continue throughout
the ages? Why was Satan’s existence not cut short at the outset
of his rebellion? It was that the universe might be convinced of
God’s justice in His dealing with evil, that sin might receive eternal
condemnation. In the plan of redemption there are heights and
depths that eternity itself can never exhaust, marvels into which the
angels desire to look. The redeemed only, of all created beings,
have in their own experience known actual conflict with sin. They
have identified with Christ, and, as even the angels could not do,
have entered into the fellowship of His sufferings. Will they have no
testimony as to the science of redemption—nothing that will be of
worth to unfallen beings?
Even now, “to the principalities and powers in the heavenly
places” is “made known through the church the manifold wisdom of
God.” And He “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might