Eternal Life, Part 2

What Christians will experience when they see Christ as he is transcends all human experience. It will be "what no eye has seen, no ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him " (1 Corinthians 2:9; 1 John 3:2). St. Paul saw a vision of heaven when he was caught up to paradise: there "He heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter...to keep him from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given him in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass him" (2 Corinthians 12:4,7).

Living in God's presence, Christians will have a blissful knowledge of him. Scripture does not reveal the scope and depth of that knowledge, other than to draw this comparison: "Now I know in part; then I shall know him fully, even as I have been fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12). In eternal life, when Christians see Jesus face-to-face, the divine image lost in the fall will be fully and completely restored (1 John 3:2). Christians will be completely "renewed in knowledge after the image of their creator" (Colossians 3:10). They will possess a knowledge of him that is unclouded by sin (Ephesians 4:24), one that will reflect the perfect knowledge of him who created, redeemed, and sanctified them.

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