Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“Above it stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.”
Isaiah 6:2
We are not told much about heaven in the Bible. The Lord is obviously more concerned about getting us there than in giving us detailed descriptions of the place and its inhabitants. I suppose that there is no reason to tell us much about it, really, if we don’t know how to live so that we can, someday, see it.
What little we know about the heaven where God’s throne is suggests that it is an amazing place, filled with unimaginable creatures and majestic, spectacular sights of vivid color and beauty. I suspect that there are more different kinds of creatures in heaven than there are on earth, but we are told of only a few of them. Isaiah tells us of the seraphim with six wings. Ezekiel tells us of four-faced and two-faced cherubim with various combinations of wings and faces, and their mysterious attendant “wheels” which themselves were living and were full of eyes. (Satan, by the way, is one of these creatures, a cherub. He was never an angel.) In Revelation, John tells us of four incredible “living things” covered with eyes and, like Isaiah’s seraphim, having six wings. Besides this, there are angels in heaven beyond number of various degrees of authority and power, and of differing abilities. (It is a Christian myth that Gabriel is the angel who will blow the final trumpet in Revelation. That particular angel’s name is not revealed. Gabriel is an angel, however, mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments by name.) Besides this breed of ordinary angels, and apparently above them, are the archangels. One of heaven’s archangels is mentioned by name in the Bible: Michael (Jude 9). In the book of Daniel, the archangel Michael is called “one of the chief princes” (10:13) and “the great prince” (12:1) among angels, who apparently had special oversight of God’s Old Testament people, the Jews (10:21; 12:1). An archangel’s responsibilities and relationships with other heavenly creatures is not revealed, but from the biblical evidence, we can say that it appears that the function of both angels and archangels is consonant with what the word “angel” means : “messenger”. John also tells us of seven flames of fire that continually blaze before God’s throne, but he lets us know that they are not merely flames of fire; rather, they are yet another species of heavenly creatures; they are living flames of fire.
That is just about the extent of biblical information concerning the denizens of heaven. But just that much information is astounding, and it stirs in our hearts a desire to see for ourselves those servants of our Father in heaven.