Revelation 11:12 And they heard a great voice from heaven saying to them, Come up here. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud… No argument is needed to show that the word "up" is used in a figurative and not in a literal sense, What heaven is we do not know. The truth is that between physical and moral relations there is often a close analogy. The physical world in which we live is the type of the world to which we are going; the conditions of being, the relations of matter in which we are practised here — motion, rest, distance, nearness, weight, buoyancy, power, resistance, birth, life, growth, death — all these are physical ideas; yet we cannot talk about spiritual or heavenly things without employing these terms; and they were meant to be used by us in this way. Of course the essential excellence of heaven consists in the moral purity and perfection of which it is the home. And between moral purity and perfection and physical elevation there seems to be a constant and, perhaps, a necessary relation. Perhaps the human mind is so constituted that it will associate these ideas. The fact is worth noting, because we are not always aware that when we seem to be speaking in the soberest prose we are often using words poetically. We talk of the higher life, meaning, of course, the purer and better life; we describe one whom we know as possessing a lofty spirit, as governed by an elevated purpose, as having a high standard of conduct. The analogy between physical height and moral excellence is most clear and vivid. We go down into cellars and dungeons, into caverns and morasses, into sloughs and pitfalls, into floods and depths of ocean. A great part of our physical discomforts and dangers are encountered in going down. We go up to solid footing, to pure air, to wide prospects; many of our more pleasurable sensations are the result of ascending. The voice from heaven which says, "Come up hither," means to us a great deal. It means, Come up out of the fens and quagmires, out of the cellars and the dungeons, out of the miasma and the darkness — up to the heights where the sun always shines, where the air is always pure and sweet, where the eye sweeps a wide horizon that girdles fertile plains and shining lakes and winding rivers and glorious summits. "It is only a figure, then," somebody may say. That is as if one should stoop to pick up a pebble and should exclaim, as he held it in his hand, "Only a diamond!" How much more rich and precious is the figure than any mere literalism could be! We conceive of heaven rightly both as a state of being and as a place of residence. Holding, then, both these conceptions of heaven in our thought, let us listen to the great voice out of heaven saying unto us, "Come up hither!" Heaven as a state is not beyond the reach of those who dwell upon the earth. Heaven came down to earth when Christ came. It had always been coming, indeed; but there was more of it here when He came than ever before. The announcement of the Saviour's coming by the Forerunner — what was it? "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." There is a life that springs from the earth and that clings to the earth; a life whose central motive is appetite or passion, or some form of selfishness a little more refined; a life that is ruled by material ideas and forces; a life whose maxims and methods are all earthly and sordid. There is another life that has its inspiration in heaven, and that lifts us up toward heaven; a life whose central motive is love; whose source is the indwelling of God's spirit in the soul; a life that enthrones the nobler faculties and makes the grosset nature serve the higher; that holds the appetites in check, and subordinates material things to spiritual; a life whose joy is found in giving rather than in getting. These two realms of experience — the upper and the lower — lie close together, and both of them invite us by motives of their own. There is that in us which responds to the solicitations of the realm of sense, and there is that in us which answers to the call from the spiritual realm. Unhappily many of us, I fear, spend most of our days down below. Our affections are set on things on the earth, rather than on the things above. Now and then we make an excursion into the heavenly realm, but we do not stay there long. (W. Gladden, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. |
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