In eternity, will some saints in heaven be more happy than others? That's the question from Ken, who writes in to ask this. Pastor John, do you believe, as Jonathan Edwards did, that Christians will enter eternity at differing degrees of happiness based on the depth and measure of our spiritual development during our earthly life?

Or do you believe, as many Christians do, that all Christians enter heaven as equals at the foot of the cross, with the same degree of holiness and happiness for all of eternity? That is, do you believe in a hierarchy of happiness in heaven? Well, the short answer is I agree with Edwards, but some of the alternatives that Ken set up might not be exactly right.

So let me try to dig in a little bit to try to explain what I and Edwards would mean. Let me put it in a larger context. The New Testament describes the relationship between our obedience and our condition, our happiness in the age to come, in three ways. Number one, and this is most basic, the most basic description of the relationship between our obedience now is that it is not the ground of our acceptance with God now or in the age to come.

It's not the ground or basis or foundation of our justified standing in his presence. So Paul says negatively, "By the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight." And positively, he says, "We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." That's Romans 3:20 and 3:28.

So none of our works, none of our obedience is the ground of our justification. It could never be. It's never good enough. It's always contaminated. It's never full enough. We have to have Christ. So we stand before God in eternity, accepted, loved, forgiven, justified on the basis of Christ alone, Romans 5:19.

"By the obedience of one man, the many will be appointed righteous." So that's the first and most basic thing to say about the relationship between obedience now and happiness in the age to come. Number two, the New Testament also teaches that our obedience now confirms that we are chosen by God, called by God, born again, have saving faith.

So while obedience isn't the foundation of God's being for us, it is the confirmation that God is 100% for us. For example, 2 Peter 1:10, "Be diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these things, you'll never fall." Or Hebrews 12:14, "Strive for the holiness without which you won't see the Lord." Or Romans 8:13, "If by the Spirit we put to death the sinful deeds of the body, we will live." So obedience is necessary for eternal life, but not as foundation, but as confirmation.

Now here's the third one, and this is the one that's most important for the question. The New Testament teaches that our obedience results in rewards in the age to come that differ from each other according to the measure of our obedience. So the question that was asked was, "Will there be differing degrees of holiness and happiness, or will we all enter heaven as equals in holiness and happiness for all eternity?

Do you believe there will be hierarchy in heaven?" And my view is this, and I think it's the same as Edward's. He helped me a lot on this. We will be rewarded differently in the age to come, but everyone will be fully happy. There will be no gap between anyone's capacity for happiness on the one hand and anyone's fullness of happiness on the other hand.

There'll be no frustration over any of these differences. And the rewards in their essence—and we'd have to talk a lot more about this maybe—but the rewards in their essence are differing capacities for happiness in God. Like, it's not a Cadillac and a Chevrolet. That's very irrelevant. If you get down to the essence of what would be a good reward in heaven, it's knowing and tasting and having a capacity for greater delights in God and awareness of God and enjoyment of God.

And I think that's what Edwards means when he says there are differing degrees of holiness and glory, since the essence of holiness and the essence of glory is the heart's treasuring and esteeming of God above all things. Our God-treasuring happiness is our holiness and our glory. That's why Edwards talks about different degrees of holiness, different degrees of glory.

Not that there are unholy people in heaven or inglorious people in heaven or unhappy people in heaven, but that everybody's capacities will be full, but the capacities are different. And with those differences, there will be no envy in those with smaller capacities. There'll be no boasting in those with greater capacities.

Benevolence from the ones that are greater and humility will be perfect in both so that it will involve no sin whatsoever, no resentment, no jealousy, no envy, no arrogance, no demeaning of anybody. And in that sense, we're all equal. We're all sinless. We all stand on common ground at the foot of the cross, totally dependent on grace to provide every measure of happiness and every measure of holiness.

Here's another clarification. All Christian obedience now and forever is done by God's grace. 1 Corinthians 15 10, "By the grace of God I am what I am. I worked harder, but it was not I but the grace of God." So what God rewards is the fruit of his own grace in our lives.

So there's no thought that rewards are earned in the sense of giving God something that he then has to recompense because he didn't have it already. If you wonder, "Where does all that come from in the Bible?" Okay, here's just a few texts, and there are more. Here's 2 Corinthians 5 10, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil." That's amazing.

So there are negative and positive consequences for the believer in heaven. Now what in the world does he mean by negative consequences like good or evil? And the closest text I think that sheds light on that is 1 Corinthians 3 14 and 15, and it goes like this, "If the work that anyone has built on the foundation of Christ survives, he will receive a reward.

If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire." So there's some loss of what might have been because we built with wood, hay, and stubble instead of silver and gold and precious stones. Ephesians 6 8, Paul stresses the correlation between good deeds and divine rewards.

He says, "Slaves serve the Lord knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord." Whatever good. That's amazing. Every single little whiff of goodness that God enables us to do is going to have its appropriate recompense in heaven. That means that good deeds are noted, rewarded, and I think—a little controversy around this, I suppose—I think that statement would be meaningless if everyone received the same level of reward.

So just one last word on this issue of hierarchy. It sounded like Ken's question saw that as a negative, like, "Whoa, hierarchy in heaven would be a bad thing," and what I would just encourage Ken and everybody who's listening to do is read Edwards on this. Let me give just a taste of what he says.

This is Edwards. "Though all"—he's talking about us in the age to come in heaven—"though all are perfectly free from pride, yet as some will have greater degrees of divine knowledge than others and will have larger capacities to see more of the divine perfections, so they will see more of their own comparative littleness and nothingness and therefore will be the lowest abased in humility." So when you read a sentence like that, you say, "Well, that's going to be a kind of hierarchy that has never existed before." Oh my, what a counterintuitive hierarchy.

Thank you, Pastor John. Good encouragement to press on in love and good deeds. And not long ago we did a series of episodes on heaven with guest Randy Alcorn. Some of you may remember that series. It was a fascinating week, and I asked him, "In eternity, will there be sports in heaven, travel in heaven, even sex in heaven?

And how old will we appear in eternity?" You can find those episodes in the archive. You can search for the word "heaven" on the Ask Pastor John landing page, and you will find them there. To get to the landing page, go to DesiringGod.org. At the top of the page, click on the tab that says "More," and then click on "Ask Pastor John." Well, as Christians, preaching and singing is part of our weekly routine.

But if you look around, it's a really odd routine. So why do we preach, and why do we sing? Pastor John will explain tomorrow. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening to the podcast. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪