Will There Be Degrees of Happiness in Heaven?

QUESTION: Does the Bible teach that there will be degrees of happiness in heaven?

ANSWER: Every one will have as much happiness as he can hold, but a thimble full is not quite equal to a hogshead full. The penitent thief may be the thimble and St. John may be the hogshead.

— Steele's Answers pp. 193, 194.

Will We Know People in Heaven? (Part 2)

QUESTION: In your recent answer to the question relating to knowing one another in the future world, you said there are texts from which an affirmative answer could be inferred, quoting Paul's words in Col. 1:28, "that we may present every man perfect in Christ." Are there any other texts of this kind?

ANSWER: Yes, II Cor. 4:14, "knowing that he that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also with Jesus, and shall present us with you." Here the apostle expects to recognize his converts, as also in chap. 11:2, "that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ." In Luke 16:9, Christ exhorts us to make, by a benevolent use of our money, friends, who, dying before we do, "may receive us into everlasting habitations." Here the beneficiaries are represented as on the lookout for their benefactors whom they recognize and welcome to heavenly mansions.

— Steele's Answers p. 170.

Will We Know People in Heaven?

QUESTION: Have we any Bible proof that we shall know father and mother as such in heaven?

ANSWER: No. It has not pleased the Holy Spirit in the Revelation of spiritual truth to give us any light on this subject. But we have good ground for the inference that we shall recognize our earthly friends. Our heavenly Father, we are quite sure, will not deny us any lawful felicity. We cannot think that death will destroy our natural sensibilities, our capacity to enjoy sweet Christian fellowship. In Col. 1:28, Paul's ambition to present every hearer "perfect in Christ" implies his expectation that he will know them in the world to come. We do not believe in the heathen idea borrowed by Milton from Greek mythology:

"Lethe, the river of oblivion rolls
Her wat'ry labyrinth, which whoso drinks
Forgets both joy and grief."

— Steele's Answers pp. 161, 162.

Fit for Heaven?

QUESTION: If inbred sin is merely a hereditary tendency to sin, is the soul that is regenerated but without the experience of entire sanctification fit for heaven?

ANSWER; The new birth entitles to the adoption of sons and to life everlasting. "If children, then heirs of God," etc. Heirship gives the title, but does not give the complete fitness. This must be sought by the believer. If while seeking completed holiness he sud­denly dies, he is saved by virtue of the new covenant in which God promises to save all who perseveringly trust in him. The truth is, everyone who loves God in the first degree desires what John calls perfect love initiated by entire sanctification, and that this state of grace is the heritage of every infant cut off in infancy and of every soul born of God and called to Christ. This is an inference from all the promises made by a covenant-keeping God, and not a special revelation found in the Holy Scriptures which would almost certainly have been abused.

— Steele's Answers pp. 136,137.

Did Elijah Ascend to Heaven?

QUESTION: Reconcile the translation of Elijah [in] II Kings 2:11 (1) with John 3:13 "And no one has ascended into heaven," and (2) I  Cor. 15:20,  "Flesh and blood. cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven."

ANSWER: It is evidently an elliptical quotation from Deut. 30:12, "Who shall go for us to heaven, and bring it (God's command) unto us," etc.; also Prov. 30:3, 4, "Neither have I the knowledge of the Holy One, who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended?" Christ omitted the last clause of these texts, the return from heaven with a message for men. The  context very clearly proves that this is the correct explanation. He is asserting his own sole competence to reveal heavenly truth, because he, the Son of man, is the only human teacher who has been in heaven and has brought down truths absolute and eternal. (2) Elijah's personality resides in his spirit. This certainly is in heaven. But on the mount of transfiguration he appeared in a visible form. We are taught in I Cor. 15:51, that when the dead are raised the living believers "will be changed in a moment." It is not unreasonable to suppose that Enoch and Elijah were the first fruits of this change of the living "in the twinkling of an eye."

— Steele's Answers pp. 113, 114.

On Hebrews 11:39, 40

QUESTION: Explain Heb. 11:39, 40, "And, these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise. God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect."

ANSWER: The difficulty lies in the meaning of two words, "promise" and "perfect." Promise is here used for the thing promised, the resurrection of the body and the glorification of the soul and body in the likeness of the glorified God-man. This is the perfection for which the heroes of faith recorded in this chapter, "the Westminster Abbey of the Old Testament," are waiting till the Second Advent of Christ and the general resurrection. The souls of the blessed dead are neither unconscious, nor hidden away in some doleful place, but they are in heaven, according to the constant testimony of the New Testament Scriptures, enjoying all that is possible for disembodied spirits. They are in the heaven of glory, "with Christ, which is very far better" than perfect love to him on the earth, while they were subject to the limiting an instantaneous increase and perfection, "when soul and body will his glorious image bear." The history of the saints upon the earth must be finished before the completion of heaven comes on. So it may be very properly said that the patriarchs, prophets and ancient saints are waiting for the completion of our dispensation before their glory will be made perfect by the dawning of the day in which their bodies will live again. Blessed in their present condition, they are blessed also in their anticipation of a supreme and eternal perfection. Thus, the "promise" is the "perfection."

— Steele's Answers pp. 108-110.

Directly to Heaven?

QUESTION: Does the soul of the Christian go direct to heaven?

ANSWER: To the penitent and believing thief, Jesus said: "Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise." Paul says: "Having a desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better." To be with Christ is my heaven. Again Paul says: "Willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord." "If any man," says Christ, "serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be." This is a very comforting doctrine.

— Steele's Answers, p. 69.

Is Perfect Love a Requirement for Entering Heaven?

QUESTION: Should the experience of perfect love be taught as a requirement for entering heaven, or as a high privilege of the regenerate and as an especial equipment for a more devoted service for the Master?

ANSWER: We admire Wesley's advice to preach this great blessing by drawing, not by driving. It will do much harm to threaten true believers with hell fire, if they do not consciously receive their full heritage in Christ in this life. There are no such threatenings in the Word of God against the children of God. "If children, then we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." Perfect love is the preparation for the heaven to which the first degree of love gives the title. Every genuine Christian is a candidate for perfect love, if he perseveringly seeks it. No one can love God a little without desiring Him to love him with all his heart, and no one can love with all his might without desiring a larger capacity for loving. Says Faber:

"And they who love God cannot love him by measure, 

For their love is but thirst to love him still better."

The perfect love described by St. John is characterized by its fearlessness, which can arise only from its moral purity. This is the quality of the perfect love which Wesley preached. This is sooner or later the heritage of every persevering believer. From this point onward he is no longer dissatisfied, but he is forever afterwards in time and in eternity unsatisfied, crying with good Ambrose of old, "Ampliora Domine, ampliora" — More, Lord, more.

"Insatiate to this spring I fly;

I drink and yet am ever dry;

Ah! Who against thy charms is proof?

Ah! Who that loves, can love enough?"

— Steele's Answers pp. 64, 65.

A Hypothetical Case

QUESTION: A. and B. are children of God having the witness of the Spirit to their adoption. both aspire after perfect love as the heritage of the believer. A. is suddenly killed in a railroad disaster. According to the Wesleyan theory he is instantaneously sanctified and taken to heaven. Why does God not do the same blessed work in B. who sat by his side and escaped unharmed? (2) Where in the Bible are we taught that he does not?

ANSWER: As there was an element of sovereignty in taking the one and leaving the other, so there may well be an element of sovereignty in the different conditions of their sanctification. B. will be sanctified wholly when, through his persevering faith, Christ is revealed to him by the Holy Ghost as altogether lovely, while A. was in the twinkling of an eye entirely purified when Christ was revealed to his disembodied spirit in the moment of his death. Both had title to heaven and both desired a fitness for their inheritance. The only arbitrariness in this case is the manner in which the transforming vision of the Son of God should take place. (2) This question resolves itself into another, namely, Where in the Scriptures are we taught that all regenerated persons are not wholly sanctified? We answer, All Scriptures which exhort the regenerate to cleanse themselves, and all in which prayer for entire purity of heart is offered in behalf of those who are already justified.

— Steele's Answers pp. 59, 60.

How Could Christ Have Been in Heaven While on Earth?

QUESTION: How could Christ be in heaven while on earth, as taught in John 1:18 and 3:13?

"No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." (John 1:18 KJV)

"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." (John 3:13 KJV)

ANSWER: The first text, "in the bosom of the Father," we understand as an oriental figure to express endearment, beautifully translated by the Twentieth Century New Testament, "God the only Son, who is ever close to the Father's heart." The other text, "even the Son of man which is in heaven," in several critical texts, and oldest manuscripts ends with the word "man," omitting "which is in heaven." See the margin of the Revision. By this explanation we rid Johns's Gospel of of the unthinkable idea that only a part of the personality of the Son of God was incarnated.

— Steele's Answers pp. 57, 58.

What Did Wesley Teach About Paradise?

QUESTION: Does Wesley say in one of his sermons that Paradise is a place where believers are purified before they are admitted to heaven?

ANSWER: We have not time to read again all of Wesley's sermons, more than a hundred, but we believe that no such doctrine can be found in them for the following reasons: (1) We have been reading Wesley's writings more than sixty years, and have never found it. (2) He was very insistent on entire sanctification in this life and could not consistently teach any doctrine which would weaken the motive to seek perfect purity here and now. (3) He could not have been so unwise as to define Paradise in exactly the same way as the Papists define Purgatory. (4) He would not in his sermons have given a different description of Paradise from that found in his Notes on the New Testament, "The place where the souls of the righteous remain from deaths till the resurrection" (Luke 23:43); "The seat of happy spirits in their separate state, between death and the resurrection" (1 Cor. 12:4); "A garden of pleasure" (Rev. 2:7). These are his descriptions of Paradise.

— from Steele's Answers pp. 54, 55.