Following Judah's Lion

Eternal Life with Jesus

Why do people diet? Why do people take vitamins? Why do people exercise? Why do people take medicine? Why do people go to the doctor’s? People basically do all those things to live, to enhance their lives, and ultimately to extend their lives. People are searching for the proverbial “fountain of youth” as it were. What wealthy man would not give away all his wealth to add another twenty years to his life, to say nothing of living forever?

Jn.11:25-26 - Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

With all the “ways” to seek eternal life there is still just one way to gain it. It is very difficult to believe that a Jew named Jesus is the only way to eternal life, but that is the very point. Only the Spirit of God can reveal that to a sinner, and only by the power of the Spirit can a person’s heart be opened to that truth. Jesus made no exceptions and He was not ambiguous about who He was and what he came for. This is the mystery of the ages, and this is the eternal paradox.

God came as a man and died in our place and rose again from the dead. And anyone who truly believes upon that truth will be saved and given the gift of eternal life. That seems so simple and so child like, but in reality it is that simplicity which is most profound. In fact, the foolishness of God is wiser than man. Just the thought of eternal life has been intriguing to mankind throughout history. But the uncertainty of life after death has led man to exert his energies to elongate and enhance life in this world.

But, sadly, the church has also reduced her focus on eternal life and in recent days made a dramatic turn toward the temporal. The revelation of who God is now centers upon the material and God’s ability to enhance our earthly existence. The “abundant” life is now the abundance of things and not the all consuming knowledge of Christ and the unspeakable contentment found only in Him. But why has eternal life been relegated to a church doctrine and not the centerpiece of all God’s gifts?

And what will be the crowning jewel of our piece of inheritance we call eternal life? It will be the fact that we will live forever in the very presence of the Risen Christ! That can hardly be imagined. To see the One to Whom we owe everything; to see Him in all His transcendent glory; to be allowed, yea beckoned, to fall before His throne and offer up the sacrifice of worship is beyond imagery and far beyond what could ever be considered earned. And that is what abundant life is made of - a foretaste of His presence and a daily experience of eternity.

How dare we make God’s promise of abundant life into finances and houses and cars and occupational promotions. How dare we reduce His majesty into things that provide earthly enjoyment for us. We have taken the Christian life and systematically removed the mystery and the eternal and we have reshaped it into things of this earth and moral battles. And now we have an unbiblical model where professing believers live and work and act like their unbelieving counterparts and once or twice a week go to and fro from a large building.

Years ago I did an experiment. The church at which I taught a Sunday School class averaged over 3000 attendees every Sunday. I would arrive very early to pray, but I found that when others arrived the conversations were mostly about earthly and secular issues. So I determined to listen to conversations and see how many were about Jesus or even about eternity. I realize this is difficult to believe, but in three months of listening to many hundreds of conversations I heard none about Christ or eternal life. None.

Now if there were no conversations about Christ and His gift of eternal life in church, how many would you surmise took place during the week? You see, we either believe it or we do not. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So what generally we speak about is what lives and thrives within our hearts. If eternal things fill our hearts than we will speak of those things; if temporal things fill our hearts we will speak of those things as well.

Our theology speaks of eternity with certainty. We say we believe that all who are born again believers in the Lord Jesus will live forever - FOREVER - with Christ in a sinless paradise permeated by the glory of His majestic presence. This is quite a statement of faith, so much so that it should bring forth some observable, and even remarkable, behavior patterns in those who truly believe it. If a poor person who lives in squalor claims emphatically that he has millions in a bank account, but he never accesses such an account, then most would doubt that he has such an account.

We who claim to be on a journey to eternal life with all the incredible accoutrements, but pay so much attention and even fondness to the things of this present world, can rightly be dismissed by onlookers as either frauds or self deceived. What we claim to believe is so colossal, so monumental, and so staggering that it demands a corresponding lifestyle that indicates we believe on some level that which we say. The sad reality is that the church has fed its members a steady diet of temporal pottage that cannot satisfy and is completely at odds with the reality of eternity. We are prisoners of this world and only give a doctrinal nod to eternity.

But allow me to present to you a humble glimpse into what lies ahead to the believer, even though my poor words will be pitiful looking glasses into what words cannot adequately portray. I do not believe that heaven’s gates will be made of oyster spittle and that the streets will be made of literal gold. I believe that those metaphors as well as others only stand temporarily until we behold the unspeakable reality that goes far beyond word pictures. In fact, all descriptions of the place called “heaven” are temporal schoolmasters that will one day fall away as the substance is revealed and the vast and boundless expanse of heaven becomes our dwelling place forever. Again, words help but words cannot envelope.

The place is without sin or tarnish. The atmosphere is full of glory and divine ecstasy, and the tangible presence of the Triune God captures every living creature. It is impossible to be distracted for a moment while in the spiritual clutch of the August Lamb of God. Even though the general atmosphere is glorious, and even though all the accoutrements are ethereal and without comparison, the center of everything is Christ. Read the Book of the Revelation and you will find precious little about the revelation of the Spirit and the Father in heaven, although they are there. God the Father seems to have voluntarily taken a back seat in order to lift up and glorify God the Son in the midst of all creation.

God’s plan will have been completed, and redemption has produced the prophesied Redeemer in all His glory. Angels of all kinds bow in worship, and the throngs of blood washed sinners cannot stand under the weight of His immeasurable glory. The word gratitude seems so shallow when we are allowed to fully comprehend what was done for us and what we have inherited. What we called worship on earth will now seem a perfunctory religious observance when compared to the worship that will be given before the Risen and Glorified Christ.

Do not fret, my brethren, we have eternal life…with Him.