Baxter on Heaven’s Freedom

What will heaven be like? One word to describe heaven is freedom. Freedom from all sorts of ailments, evils, and features of the present age that will pass away with the great coming of our Lord. Richard Baxter (17th century English theologian and pastor) wrote extensively on Heaven in his masterful work “The Saints’ Everlasting Rest” describing heaven as freedom:

A Heavenly Rest of Perfect Freedom

There is in heavenly rest a perfect freedom from all evils: from all the evils that accompanied us through our course, and which necessarily follow our absence from the chief good, besides our freedom from those eternal flames and restless miseries which the neglecters of Christ and grace must for ever endure; a woful inheritance, which, both by birth and actual merit, was due to us as well as to them! In heaven there is nothing that defileth or is unclean. All that remains without. And doubtless there is not such a thing as grief and sorrow known there; nor is there such a thing as a pale face, a languid body, feeble joints, helpless infancy, decrepid age, peccant humors, painful or pining sickness, griping fears, consuming cares, nor whatsoever deserves the name of evil. We wept and lamented when the world rejoiced but our sorrow is turned to joy, and our joy shall no man take from us. [1]

Look Forward in Hope

It is no evil thing to long for, look forward to, and live with a hope fixed on the eternal, neverending restful freedom that is secured for us in heaven through Christ. Regardless of our present circumstances, if our faith is in Christ, then that heavenly freedom is coming closer with each day.

[1] Baxter, Richard., Fawcett, Benjamin. The Saint’s Everlasting Rest: Or, A Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in Their Enjoyment of God in Heaven. United Kingdom: Jonathan Howe, 1822.

(Click here to read more of Baxter in The Saints’ Everlasting Rest)