The Life Everlasting
Adult study
As We Believe, So We Behave
Living the Apostles' Creed
Object:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-- John 3:16 (KJV)
"I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen!"
Life everlasting -- the vast majority of folks do believe, some four out of five. Several years ago, the CBS magazine show 48 Hours, devoted an entire program to life after death. It reported not only that more than 80% of Americans believe in an afterlife but also that two-thirds of all atheists believe as well. A US News & World Report cover story (3/31/97) asked, "Is there life after death?" The article stated, "As sophisticated medical technology has permitted more and more people to journey back from the brink of death, such seemingly mystical reports have become almost commonplace ... vivid images of tunnels of light, peaceful meadows, and angelic figures clad in white ... No matter what the nature of the experience, it alters some lives ... Hardened criminals opt for a life of helping others, atheists embrace the existence of a deity...."
Hmm. "I believe in the life everlasting." Of course, there is vast divergence on what that life will be like. Popular books and movies offer opinions. ABC did a movie some years back called To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday,1 the sad story of a fellow whose wife had been killed in a boating accident two years before and who, to the detriment of everything else in his life, is maintaining a relationship with her ghost ... or is it just a hallucination? The movie did not seem quite sure.
The Robin Williams film a few years ago, What Dreams May Come,2 is sure. It started off with Robin meeting the woman of his dreams Hollywood-style when their boats gently collide on a picturesque lake. One look and both knew they had found their soul mate, and before the credits had finished they were blissfully married with a pair of perfect children. Joyous as they were at the outset, that is how miserable they become when, out of nowhere, in more ways than one, repeated tragedies hit them, culminating in Robin's death when his physician character tries to be a good Samaritan at an accident scene.
Great guy that he is, Robin goes directly to heaven, leaving his wife to grow progressively miserable back on earth, so miserable, it turns out, that she commits suicide. Unfortunately, our filmmakers must have grown up with a medieval theology because that act of desperation plops her smack in the middle of hell. Her loving husband cannot abide that result so he works his way through a kind of Dante's "Inferno" of poor, tormented souls on an eternal rescue mission. To make a long story short, all comes out well in the end with a joyous family reunion that includes the family dalmatian and finally culminates in a good Buddhist reincarnation where we presume this will all be repeated over and over until they get it right.
With the closing credits we are left with a question Robin asks of his spirit-guide, "Where is God in all this?" The response: "Oh, up there. Somewhere. Shouting down that he loves us. Wondering why we can't hear him."
The producers of the film said their effort was to be understood as "spiritual" rather than "religious," and if they meant by that wanting to offer a conglomeration of traditions without any emphasis on just one, they succeeded. The movie was a theological mish-mash, but it was one more reminder of our natural fascination with what lies beyond this life. Of all creatures, we human beings are uniquely capable of contemplating our own mortality -- that is why we are so interested in what we will find on the other side of death, and that is why so many can say from one tradition or another, or even no tradition at all, "I believe in the life everlasting."
Life everlasting -- we are brought back to that wonderful text printed at the beginning of this chapter: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." That offers a wonderful answer to Robin Williams' question, "Where is God in all this?" Right in the midst of it, Robin, and from beginning to end.
The text tells us that the initiative lies with God. Good. That clears up a misconception. Christianity is sometimes presented like so: gruff old Father God in heaven, furious with humanity and ready to destroy every last specimen; but then loving Jesus came along who went so far in seeking our pardon that he offered his own life as a sacrifice on the cross. Humanity was saved. Whew! This wonderful verse says that it was with God that it all started. Instead of being this gruff and grumpy old ogre, we read, "God so loved the world that...." God's initiative. As we noted in our last chapter, the Christian understanding of immortality ... life everlasting ... is that it is not a trait inherent to the human soul (Plato said that, not the Bible) -- rather, it is a gift that is offered by a loving God.
Speaking of love, our verse says that is what motivates God. It is easy to think of God as looking at us in our heedlessness, our disobedience, our rebellion, and saying: "I will break them, I will discipline them, I will punish them until they straighten up." It is easy to think of God as seeking our allegiance in order to satisfy some divine desire for uncontested power. But not according to John 3:16 -- God offers eternity out of simple love.
To whom? The whole world. Not one special nation, not just the good people -- the world. The unlovable and the unlovely, the lonely who have no one else to love them, the one who loves God and the one who never thinks of God, the one who rests in the love of God and the one who spurns it -- all are included in this vast inclusive love of God. As Augustine had it: "God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love." The world.
How do we take advantage of this divine initiative? Simple faith. "Whosoever believeth...." No great act of devotion, no special sacrifice, no merit on our own at all, in fact: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9) -- whosoever.
The final outcome? "... shall not perish but have everlasting life." A life without the tyranny of time. As one commentator has it:
Here below, time withers flowers and human beauty, it encourages good intentions to evaporate, it deprives us of our loved ones. Within the universe ruled by time, the happiest marriage ends in death, the loveliest woman becomes a skeleton. Fading and aging, losing and failing, being deprived and being frustrated -- these are the negative aspects of life in time. Life in eternity will liberate us from all loss, all deprivation.3
Yes! "I believe in the life everlasting." Tell me more. Details, details. What will it be like? The Bible is rather closed-mouth on the subject until we come to the book of Revelation, and that, my friend, as we have said before, is better understood as poetic, not photographic. We find the throne of God fronted by a sea of crystal and framed by a rainbow, thunder and lightning everywhere, attended by 24 elders dressed in white and praised eternally by four strange-looking winged beasts; "Day and night without ceasing they sing, 'Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the almighty, who was and is and is to come' " (4:2-8 NRSV). A little scary at first blush. But then there are promises -- God's final victory over oppressive systems, the end of evil and sin, and finally, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more ..." (21:4 NRSV). Glory!
"I believe in the life everlasting." No, the Bible does not say a great deal about the life to come. As we noted in our preceding chapter, perhaps the reason is that we would not understand if it did -- we have not reached the level of maturity that would allow us to comprehend. Nothing in our experience would help us to form the appropriate picture. As Paul says, "no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9 NRSV).
Another reason may be equally important. God does not want us to have our eyes so firmly fixed on heaven that we are no earthly good. We have work to do right here. Over and over again in the scriptures, attention is turned away from speculations on future possibilities to imperatives concerning the present. By faith we say this is what I am called to do now; what comes after rests with God, the same God who is said to have "so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Yes, we continue to insist that as we believe, so we behave. When we know that this life is only the prelude to another, and that the other is infinitely superior to this one, it has a positive effect on everything we think or do. Our priorities change. Money, power, fame, the values of this world lose their luster in the light of the next. Instead, we learn to live now with a better and more satisfying perspective.
"I believe in the life everlasting." Something wonderful is on the way. David Redding, in his book, God is Up to Something, says, "Anyone who feels sorry for a dead Christian, as though the poor chap were missing something, is himself missing the transfiguring promotion involved. This is what we mean by the good news."4
There is a wonderful old story of a woman who had been diagnosed with cancer and had been given three months to live. Her doctor told her to start making preparations to die (something we all should be doing all of the time). So she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what she wanted to be wearing. The woman also told her pastor that she wanted to be buried with her favorite Bible.
Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her. "There is one more thing," she said excitedly.
"What's that?" came the pastor's reply.
"This is very important. I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand." The pastor stood looking at the woman not knowing quite what to say. "That shocks you, doesn't it?" the woman asked.
"Well, to be honest, I am puzzled by the request," said the pastor.
The woman explained. "In all my years of attending church socials and functions where food was involved (and honestly, food is an important part of any church event; spiritual or otherwise) my favorite part was when, whoever was clearing away the dishes of the main course would lean over and say, 'You can keep your fork.' It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming. When they told me to keep my fork I knew that something great was about to be given to me. It wasn't Jell-O™ or pudding. It was cake or pie -- something with substance. So I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder, 'What's with the fork?' Then I want you to tell them, 'Something better is coming, so keep your fork, too.' "
The pastor's eyes welled up with tears as he hugged the woman good-bye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. He also knew that that woman had a wonderful grasp of heaven and life everlasting. She knew that something better was coming.
At the funeral, people were walking by the woman's casket and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favorite Bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over the pastor heard the question, "What's with the fork?" And over and over he smiled.
During his message the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her. He told them how he could not stop thinking about the fork and said that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either. He was right. So the next time you reach down for your fork, let it remind you, oh so gently, that there is something better coming.
Yes, "I believe in the life everlasting." And, if you don't mind, I will keep my fork.
____________
1. To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, directed by Michael Pressman, written by David E. Kelley, based on the play by Michael Brady, produced by Marykay Powell and David E. Kelley, released by Triumph, 1996.
2. What Dreams May Come, directed by Vincent Ward, written by Ron Bass, based on a book by Richard Matheson, produced by Barnet Bain, released by Polygram Filmed Entertainment, 1998.
3. Harry Blamires, "The Eternal Weight of Glory," Christianity Today, 5/27/91, p. 30.
4. David A. Redding, God is Up to Something (Waco, Texas: Word, Inc., 1972), p. 107.
Questions For Reflection
1. For many, "life everlasting" has been presented as one long church service, but lots of folks would equate that with hell rather than heaven. What do you think?
2. How do you hope to spend your time in eternity?
3. What opportunities for personal growth would you hope that God has in store for us?
4. Billy Graham was once asked if there would be golf in heaven, and he responded, "If that's what it takes to make you happy, then there will be golf in heaven." What do you think?
5. What about our beloved pets? Scripture says nothing about them. What do you think?
-- John 3:16 (KJV)
"I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen!"
Life everlasting -- the vast majority of folks do believe, some four out of five. Several years ago, the CBS magazine show 48 Hours, devoted an entire program to life after death. It reported not only that more than 80% of Americans believe in an afterlife but also that two-thirds of all atheists believe as well. A US News & World Report cover story (3/31/97) asked, "Is there life after death?" The article stated, "As sophisticated medical technology has permitted more and more people to journey back from the brink of death, such seemingly mystical reports have become almost commonplace ... vivid images of tunnels of light, peaceful meadows, and angelic figures clad in white ... No matter what the nature of the experience, it alters some lives ... Hardened criminals opt for a life of helping others, atheists embrace the existence of a deity...."
Hmm. "I believe in the life everlasting." Of course, there is vast divergence on what that life will be like. Popular books and movies offer opinions. ABC did a movie some years back called To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday,1 the sad story of a fellow whose wife had been killed in a boating accident two years before and who, to the detriment of everything else in his life, is maintaining a relationship with her ghost ... or is it just a hallucination? The movie did not seem quite sure.
The Robin Williams film a few years ago, What Dreams May Come,2 is sure. It started off with Robin meeting the woman of his dreams Hollywood-style when their boats gently collide on a picturesque lake. One look and both knew they had found their soul mate, and before the credits had finished they were blissfully married with a pair of perfect children. Joyous as they were at the outset, that is how miserable they become when, out of nowhere, in more ways than one, repeated tragedies hit them, culminating in Robin's death when his physician character tries to be a good Samaritan at an accident scene.
Great guy that he is, Robin goes directly to heaven, leaving his wife to grow progressively miserable back on earth, so miserable, it turns out, that she commits suicide. Unfortunately, our filmmakers must have grown up with a medieval theology because that act of desperation plops her smack in the middle of hell. Her loving husband cannot abide that result so he works his way through a kind of Dante's "Inferno" of poor, tormented souls on an eternal rescue mission. To make a long story short, all comes out well in the end with a joyous family reunion that includes the family dalmatian and finally culminates in a good Buddhist reincarnation where we presume this will all be repeated over and over until they get it right.
With the closing credits we are left with a question Robin asks of his spirit-guide, "Where is God in all this?" The response: "Oh, up there. Somewhere. Shouting down that he loves us. Wondering why we can't hear him."
The producers of the film said their effort was to be understood as "spiritual" rather than "religious," and if they meant by that wanting to offer a conglomeration of traditions without any emphasis on just one, they succeeded. The movie was a theological mish-mash, but it was one more reminder of our natural fascination with what lies beyond this life. Of all creatures, we human beings are uniquely capable of contemplating our own mortality -- that is why we are so interested in what we will find on the other side of death, and that is why so many can say from one tradition or another, or even no tradition at all, "I believe in the life everlasting."
Life everlasting -- we are brought back to that wonderful text printed at the beginning of this chapter: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." That offers a wonderful answer to Robin Williams' question, "Where is God in all this?" Right in the midst of it, Robin, and from beginning to end.
The text tells us that the initiative lies with God. Good. That clears up a misconception. Christianity is sometimes presented like so: gruff old Father God in heaven, furious with humanity and ready to destroy every last specimen; but then loving Jesus came along who went so far in seeking our pardon that he offered his own life as a sacrifice on the cross. Humanity was saved. Whew! This wonderful verse says that it was with God that it all started. Instead of being this gruff and grumpy old ogre, we read, "God so loved the world that...." God's initiative. As we noted in our last chapter, the Christian understanding of immortality ... life everlasting ... is that it is not a trait inherent to the human soul (Plato said that, not the Bible) -- rather, it is a gift that is offered by a loving God.
Speaking of love, our verse says that is what motivates God. It is easy to think of God as looking at us in our heedlessness, our disobedience, our rebellion, and saying: "I will break them, I will discipline them, I will punish them until they straighten up." It is easy to think of God as seeking our allegiance in order to satisfy some divine desire for uncontested power. But not according to John 3:16 -- God offers eternity out of simple love.
To whom? The whole world. Not one special nation, not just the good people -- the world. The unlovable and the unlovely, the lonely who have no one else to love them, the one who loves God and the one who never thinks of God, the one who rests in the love of God and the one who spurns it -- all are included in this vast inclusive love of God. As Augustine had it: "God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love." The world.
How do we take advantage of this divine initiative? Simple faith. "Whosoever believeth...." No great act of devotion, no special sacrifice, no merit on our own at all, in fact: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9) -- whosoever.
The final outcome? "... shall not perish but have everlasting life." A life without the tyranny of time. As one commentator has it:
Here below, time withers flowers and human beauty, it encourages good intentions to evaporate, it deprives us of our loved ones. Within the universe ruled by time, the happiest marriage ends in death, the loveliest woman becomes a skeleton. Fading and aging, losing and failing, being deprived and being frustrated -- these are the negative aspects of life in time. Life in eternity will liberate us from all loss, all deprivation.3
Yes! "I believe in the life everlasting." Tell me more. Details, details. What will it be like? The Bible is rather closed-mouth on the subject until we come to the book of Revelation, and that, my friend, as we have said before, is better understood as poetic, not photographic. We find the throne of God fronted by a sea of crystal and framed by a rainbow, thunder and lightning everywhere, attended by 24 elders dressed in white and praised eternally by four strange-looking winged beasts; "Day and night without ceasing they sing, 'Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the almighty, who was and is and is to come' " (4:2-8 NRSV). A little scary at first blush. But then there are promises -- God's final victory over oppressive systems, the end of evil and sin, and finally, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more ..." (21:4 NRSV). Glory!
"I believe in the life everlasting." No, the Bible does not say a great deal about the life to come. As we noted in our preceding chapter, perhaps the reason is that we would not understand if it did -- we have not reached the level of maturity that would allow us to comprehend. Nothing in our experience would help us to form the appropriate picture. As Paul says, "no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9 NRSV).
Another reason may be equally important. God does not want us to have our eyes so firmly fixed on heaven that we are no earthly good. We have work to do right here. Over and over again in the scriptures, attention is turned away from speculations on future possibilities to imperatives concerning the present. By faith we say this is what I am called to do now; what comes after rests with God, the same God who is said to have "so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Yes, we continue to insist that as we believe, so we behave. When we know that this life is only the prelude to another, and that the other is infinitely superior to this one, it has a positive effect on everything we think or do. Our priorities change. Money, power, fame, the values of this world lose their luster in the light of the next. Instead, we learn to live now with a better and more satisfying perspective.
"I believe in the life everlasting." Something wonderful is on the way. David Redding, in his book, God is Up to Something, says, "Anyone who feels sorry for a dead Christian, as though the poor chap were missing something, is himself missing the transfiguring promotion involved. This is what we mean by the good news."4
There is a wonderful old story of a woman who had been diagnosed with cancer and had been given three months to live. Her doctor told her to start making preparations to die (something we all should be doing all of the time). So she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what she wanted to be wearing. The woman also told her pastor that she wanted to be buried with her favorite Bible.
Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her. "There is one more thing," she said excitedly.
"What's that?" came the pastor's reply.
"This is very important. I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand." The pastor stood looking at the woman not knowing quite what to say. "That shocks you, doesn't it?" the woman asked.
"Well, to be honest, I am puzzled by the request," said the pastor.
The woman explained. "In all my years of attending church socials and functions where food was involved (and honestly, food is an important part of any church event; spiritual or otherwise) my favorite part was when, whoever was clearing away the dishes of the main course would lean over and say, 'You can keep your fork.' It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming. When they told me to keep my fork I knew that something great was about to be given to me. It wasn't Jell-O™ or pudding. It was cake or pie -- something with substance. So I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder, 'What's with the fork?' Then I want you to tell them, 'Something better is coming, so keep your fork, too.' "
The pastor's eyes welled up with tears as he hugged the woman good-bye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. He also knew that that woman had a wonderful grasp of heaven and life everlasting. She knew that something better was coming.
At the funeral, people were walking by the woman's casket and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favorite Bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over the pastor heard the question, "What's with the fork?" And over and over he smiled.
During his message the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her. He told them how he could not stop thinking about the fork and said that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either. He was right. So the next time you reach down for your fork, let it remind you, oh so gently, that there is something better coming.
Yes, "I believe in the life everlasting." And, if you don't mind, I will keep my fork.
____________
1. To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, directed by Michael Pressman, written by David E. Kelley, based on the play by Michael Brady, produced by Marykay Powell and David E. Kelley, released by Triumph, 1996.
2. What Dreams May Come, directed by Vincent Ward, written by Ron Bass, based on a book by Richard Matheson, produced by Barnet Bain, released by Polygram Filmed Entertainment, 1998.
3. Harry Blamires, "The Eternal Weight of Glory," Christianity Today, 5/27/91, p. 30.
4. David A. Redding, God is Up to Something (Waco, Texas: Word, Inc., 1972), p. 107.
Questions For Reflection
1. For many, "life everlasting" has been presented as one long church service, but lots of folks would equate that with hell rather than heaven. What do you think?
2. How do you hope to spend your time in eternity?
3. What opportunities for personal growth would you hope that God has in store for us?
4. Billy Graham was once asked if there would be golf in heaven, and he responded, "If that's what it takes to make you happy, then there will be golf in heaven." What do you think?
5. What about our beloved pets? Scripture says nothing about them. What do you think?
