Paul the Apostle was now dead. But he didn't mind at all. As he had written in his letter to the church in Phillippia, 'to live is Christ, and to die is gain'. He would have sounded absolutely ludicrous to the world; who thinks of death as gain? If any, death is something to be feared, to be dreaded, to be avoided at all costs! Which was actually true for most people in the world – all those who died as sinners, all who were not spiritually cleansed of their moral transgressions & iniquities by the precious, holy blood of Jesus Christ would spend the rest of eternity in Hell – the place of darkness, of never-ending, unquenchable Fire, the place where the Most High God poured out His unimaginably terrible, unquantifiably destructive & damning, & absolutely just omnipotent wrath & anger on the morally depraved. But that wasn't the case for Paul.
All of his sins had been paid for on the cross at Calvary, when Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, bore the full wrath of God for all of the sins Paul ever committed – both before and after Paul received Jesus as Lord & Savior. Because of the crucifixion, the infinitely damning, unfathomably agonizing & excruciating that Jesus endured on the cross, not just for Paul's sins, but for every single human person in the history of the world who had been chosen by God the Father & God the Son even before they created the known universe, Paul and all the other saints now stood holy & blameless before God. And also, after enduring many fiery trials & excruciating afflictions in the world that tested & refined their faith, purging and destroying all remaining corruption and indwelling sin, they would all be welcomed into Heaven, the exclusive kingdom that God & His Angels had dwelt in.
The promise of reward in Heaven had been a key motivator that kept Paul going, even when he was brutally whipped, tortured, starved & persecuted endlessly for the sake of spreading the Gospel to the nations. By the very grace of God only had Paul found all the strength, power, wisdom & joy not only to hold on to his faith, but to also treat all people he met – enemies or friends – with sincere, heartfelt love & kindness with the intention of project forth the loving kindness of God. And now, his earthly trials were finally over. After he breathed his last, the first thing he knew after regaining consciousness was how bright his surroundings were. Immeasurably radiant light, that was primarily white, but contained the essence of all colors, stretched out in an endlessly infinite expanse all around him. The light would've instantly blinded any mortal human, but somehow, Paul was able to behold the light. He noticed, as he looked a bit longer, how inconceivably beautiful & sophisticated it was. And somehow the light looked, and felt absolutely pure. Absolutely perfect & divine.
"Paul, my son." A voice like the sound of rushing waters spoke. It was a voice that sounded like an infinitely vast crowd of people speaking at once, yet all the voices all harmoniously combined into a single voice. It was like the combination of the best voices humans had – from the masculine baritone of men, to the sweet, melodious voices of women, to the adorable voices of babies and children all mashed up into one, then amplified by an infinite number of infinitely vast sets, with no imperfections and flaws at all.
Paul turned towards the source of the voice, his heart (not his physical heart, his spiritual heart) pounding wildly with excitement and anticipation. Was it really Him? His eyes fell upon a tall man with long, flowing white hair and whose entire head was almost just as white. His eyes shone and blazed like fire, but somehow he didn't look hostile at all to Paul. How it was possible for Paul to make out his features with all that white and all that bright light in the background, I don't know. But he did. And he knew that it was his Lord Jesus Christ.
"My Lord & my God!" Paul fell to his knees, weeping tears of joy. Finally, he got to see the risen Christ face to face. Jesus was everything he had imagined, and infinitely more. He was the most beautiful Person he had ever laid eyes on – and no, he was not having homosexual feelings. The Lord Jesus Christ was so unimaginably, infinitely, indescribably beautiful & majestic in appearance. His beauty & awesome radiance was infinite beyond compare – and it was a perfectly accurate reflection of His intrinsic holiness, His absolute & interminable moral perfection. His clothes were a stark white as well, with a majestic crown of his head that looked like gold, except a billion, trillion times purer and more precious. The radiance around Him was like an endlessly complex rainbow of many colors, and immeasurably holy absolute light, and an infinitely colossal inferno of raging divine fire. Despite this, Jesus was looking down at Paul with absolute, fathomless love, tenderness & kindness, and Paul felt completely at peace; he knew he had nothing to fear from the King of Glory.
"My dear Paul," Jesus said lovingly, as if He were talking to a dear friend, or as if He were a Father talking to his son who had returned home after many years. He walked towards Paul with a spring in His step and embraced the man. Joy & peace unimaginable soothed Paul's hurting heart & soul as he gratefully returned Jesus's embrace. After all he had been through... he had finally been rewarded. And also...
"My Lord... I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry for all my misdeeds, how I treated you like an enemy, how I hated & despised you and sought to undermine everything you worked for initially, how I persecuted and slaughtered your children, my brothers & sisters. But instead of justly condemning me to Hell, Lord, you revealed yourself to me that day in Damascus, and replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh that saw that you were indeed God Himself, the Way, the Truth & the Life. And now, even after I was converted, you still never stopped guarding my fickle heart & mind, forgiving every sinful, angry, hateful, greedy & lustful thought & deed I ever had, even though I don't deserve it at all. Lord, I'm sorry for everything!" Paul wept, burying his face in his hands.
Jesus stood there, with His boundless, heartfelt patience & kindness, before He lightly clasped the hands of Paul. His palms, Paul could feel, still bore the holes where the nails have pierced Him during His crucifixion. "Paul, my dear son... grieve no more. I have paid for them all already... all is forgiven, and I have forgotten all your sins. They have all been absolutely & infinitely purged & obliterated; never again will sin harass you or trouble you."
And then, after Jesus had lifted Paul to his feet, He went on to detail all the works that He had wrought in Paul's life. Images began to play above Paul, like a Ultra 4K HD TV, detailing all of Paul's good deeds and works of love, compassion, self-denial, mercy & praise to God. The entire assembly of Angels who were there, who numbered in the billions, all clapped and cheered loudly , all beaming and smiling radiantly at Paul. Paul was stunned; all his life he had tried his utmost, and prayed to God relentlessly, to shun the praises of men, to take their insults & persecution in stride. Now, when the Angels gave him a standing ovation thousands of times louder & warmer than any the earth would ever have, he was just as shocked as he was overjoyed.
Jesus then gently touched Paul's temple, and a series of images were infused into Paul's mental consciousness instantly. Since this was Heaven, there was no time, so what would've taken decades to watch on Earth was like an instant to Paul, though he registered everything with perfect clarity. He was dumbfounded at the revelation; how God would use his letters to form majority of the New Testament, the fruits that Paul's ministry had wrought on Earth and how the passion & joy & faith in Jesus Christ spread like wildfire on Earth, and how all of Paul's prayers individually affected the heavenly realms. Paul stared agape at himself praying on his knees, and as he did so, the invisible camera zoomed in on a vast host of Angels, clad in gleaming layers of armor that shone like the sun in its full, unimpeded brilliance, and armed to the teeth with swords & spears, flew down from Heaven and bore down on Satan & his Demons, creatures that looked so horrific & monstrous that Paul suddenly understood like never before how God viewed sin & sinners – how disgusting, hateful, despicable & hideous Satan's forces were!
More prayers zoomed in on the depths of Paul's soul, and Paul saw, with even more surprise & joy, his Lord God, his Almighty Omnipotent God, the Holy Spirit in the likeness of the incarnate Jesus Christ, battling valiantly against swirling, seemingly endless masses of unspeakably horrific, inconceivably diabolical and heinous Monsters – the spiritual incarnation of his indwelling sin & corruption. Paul watched with starstruck awe as God the Holy Spirit unleashed a myriad of attacks on the Monsters, first blocking with a huge Shield, then ruthlessly stabbing with a massively powerful Lance, then slashing with a mighty Sword, then transforming into a ferocious lion and savagely attacking the Monsters with his fangs and claws. The Monsters were overwhelmed by the attacks, shrieking and snarling as they took immense damage from the attacks, but they healed just as quickly, and always returned almost instantly to attack and overcome the Holy Deity battling them. There were occasional significant victories – during a particular intense prayer Paul prayed, the Spirit of God conjured a massive lightning bolt in His hand, and hurled it at the army of Monsters, vaporizing a huge portion of them like a colossal electric hydrogen bomb. Even though the Monsters grew back and replenished their numbers, somehow it wasn't as large as before, and Paul knew that had been a major victory in his sanctification.
There were other images; when Paul was weeping and feeling utterly miserable, broken, and contrite over his plight, his persecutions and spiritual failures, Jesus Christ was there, an invisible Person, that put His arms tenderly around Paul and gazed upon him with incomparable love & tenderness. Paul continued gaping, whilst shedding tears of joy & relief at the images, when Jesus brought His bosom right next to Paul's head and stroked it gently, murmuring words of kindness in the windows of Paul's heart. Paul remembered, somehow, impossibly, that that was when he had started to be filled with peace and joy that surpassed all understanding, divine peace that only God could give, that surpassed all understanding. When the images of Paul dying were shown, as he breathed his last, the Spirit suddenly unleashed an (takes deep breath) infinitely unquantifiably unimaginably immeasurably & unfathomably explosion of never-ending Absolute Sovereign Light & Sovereign Omnipotent Fire that instantly and absolutely plunged all of Paul's remaining indwelling sin & corruption into absolute, immeasurable, everlasting nonexistence.
The images ended, and Paul fell to his knees again. "Praise you, Jesus, praise you! Truly you are the Alpha & the Omega, the infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, infinitely holy God. I thank you and praise you, O God, for all the work you have done in me, for all the unending riches of divine love & grace you have given me, a wretched, lowly sinner!"
Jesus Christ smiled, and His smile was so beautiful, so comforting, so magnificent that it could've have calmed and alleviated all suffering in the universe and replaced it with nothing but His endless glory & joy. "I have loved you and chosen you before even the universe was created, Paul, and I will never stop loving you and showering you with goodness and pleasures. Look at your soul, my son. See how all your afflictions on earth has prepared for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison!"
Paul realized he didn't know how his soul looked; he had been too overcome with joy & wonder at seeing the beauty of His Lord & Treasure. Now he looked down, and he was amazed. His soul had been completely transfigured, and it was made entirely of Divine Fire that shone with all-encompassing, infinitely holy & radiant Divine Light. There were no impurities, no stain or blemish there whatsoever – just a soul made entirely of immeasurable Divine Light & passionately blazing, unimaginably ardent Divine Fire. It was infused with fathomless depths of divine glory & beauty that came from the massively colossal abundance of love, joy, peace, kindness, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness and self-control brought about by the Holy Spirit in Paul's journey of holiness. C.S. Lewis once said about the glorified body of the saints, "The dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship." Well, if people on Earth saw Paul now in the state he was, they would certainly have fallen to their knees and worshipped him as a god.
But Paul didn't get caught up with his own beauty. No, he knew with all his heart & mind, that all these were gracious gifts of God; he didn't earn any of these. And there was no reason to complain either. With his new holy character, such gifts only increased his joy & adoration for God rather than made him commit the sin of idolatry. It even made the unmatched, incomparable excellency and majesty of Jesus Christ all the more apparent to Paul; the glory & beauty of the King of Kings seemed to increase infinitely in proportion to Paul's own beauty from his perspective. The One whose attributes would never ever be surpassed, nor even come close to surpassing. The God whose love, kindness, mercy, justice, bravery, beauty, magnificence, power, wisdom, knowledge & competence each stood as never-ending, infinitely vast, endlessly sophisticated and enthralling universes for Paul and the rest of the saints to behold, experience and delight in for all of eternity.
Hand in hand, and with multitudes of singing Angels in tow, Paul followed His King as He led him into the Kingdom of immeasurable, everlasting glory & delight & peace that God had been preparing since the dawn of time.