WHAT WILL GOD BE LIKE IN HEAVEN?
God is perfect and the Perfecter.
God’s works are perfect and his ways are just and upright. God is faithful and does no wrong (Deuteronomy 32:1). The heavens declare that God’s instruction is perfect (Psalm 19:1, 7). God’s peace is perfect (Isaiah 26:3) and God’s will is perfect (Romans 12:2). God the Father in Heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). Jesus Christ is the “perfect leader” (Hebrews 2:10 NLT) and he alone is the perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-12). It is only because God is perfect that God can perfect others: “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:14 NIV). Christians can be assured that God, as the Perfecter, will spiritually perfect Christians because “God said to him (Jesus): ‘The Lord (God) has sworn and will not change his mind:
You (Jesus) are a priest forever.’ Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant. … Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:21-22, 25). Billy Graham, The Heaven Answer Book (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 38-39.
God is now approachable.
In the Old Testament, people were terrified of seeing God because God is holy, pure, transcendent, and unapproachable, while people are sinful and spiritually impure (Exodus 33:18-23). Even in the New Testament, God is unapproachable if you are not a Christian that has a relationship with God, because it is God “who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:16 NIV). But God who lives in unapproachable light became approachable in the person of Jesus (John 1:14). People could look at Jesus and see God. God’s resurrected people (that previously repented of their sins, believed and trusted in Jesus, and followed Jesus) on the new earth will see the face of God the Father (Revelation 22:4). In other words, it is only because God’s people will be fully glorified, renewed, transformed, and righteous in Christ, standing in their resurrected bodies, and untainted by sin, will they be able to see God and live. To see God and have a relationship with God will be their greatest joy (Psalm 16:11; Isaiah 51:11, 61:7; Romans 14:17). Jesus said that he would give Christians his joy (John 15:11) and that it would be complete and never be taken away (John 16:22). As Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8 ESV). Every other joy in heaven will originate and flow from your relationship with God. Randy Alcorn, Heaven: Biblical Answers to Common Questions booklet (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), 19; Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), 177-185, Graham, The Heaven Answer Book, 41-42.