“God will be seen without end” by Francis Turretin

“The third part of happiness will be joy flowing from the vision and love of God and the fruition by love, not light and momentary, not false and impure (such as the earthly, which is at once changed into sadness and grief), but true, pure, unspeakable and eternal, which no one shall take away from us (Jn. 16:22; 1 Pet. 1:6).

This is expressed by fulness of joy, pleasures for evermore and the wiping away of all tears (Ps. 16:11; Is. 25:8; Rev. 21:4). It will arise from the possession of God himself, which, as he is the supreme good, embraces the universality and perpetuity of all blessings.

Whatever is desired will be present there, nor will anything be desired which is not becoming. God will be seen without end, loved without cloying, praised without weariness.

And he will be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28) inasmuch as he will pour immediately upon the saints his light, love, holiness, joy, glory, life and a fulness of all blessings and will dwell in them for ever (Rev. 21:3).

Here God in grace communicates himself to his people mediately by the word and sacraments and imparts his gifts not fully, but in part. But then he will communicate himself immediately to the saints, nor only in part but fully and wholly (holōs).

He will be “all things” as to the universality of good things which can be required for absolute happiness and “in all” as to the universality of the subjects because he will bestow all these blessings undividedly upon all the blessed.

Here belongs what is said in Rev. 21:22, 23:

“I saw no temple in the city: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”

–Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, (20.8.16). Ed. James Dennison (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1692/1996), 3: 612.

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Published on November 20, 2025 03:00
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