FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

We have arrived at the last section of this writing, at least for now.  But before we begin, I’m afraid I have another confession to make — the title of this project is incorrect.  Life is not really a blink, it is forever.  Once you are born, you will never cease to exist.  This “life” we have on earth is our focus for a long time, and seems to have a beginning and an end.   

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The Bible tells us another story.  One of the first verses we ever hear and learn tells the true story.  John 3:16 tells us that if we put our belief and faith in God’s Son, we will spend eternity with Him.  Paul writes to the church in Corinth: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard and no one’s heart has imagined all the things that God has prepared for those who love him.”  Sounds wonderful to me. 

Speaking for myself, and perhaps you can relate, I am so absorbed in the present that I don’t often think about the afterlife.  It seems like I have been on this earth for a long, long time.  But actually a year is not so very long, in fact.  We look at a child and say “wow, they’ve grown up so fast!”  Actually they grew up at the same pace as every child — it just “seems” to be fast.   

When life dishes out good things, then we want life to slow down—who doesn’t want more of a good thing, right?  But when life surprises us with the bad stuff, we want time to speed up.  We want this “thing,” whatever it is, to be over.  But I have promised God that I would trust His Word, so when it makes a promise to me, I need to believe it.  II Cor. 4:17-18 tells me that the troubles we face now are preparing us for an eternity that is far greater than these troubles.  So we are encouraged to “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.”   

Now, do we know exactly what eternity will look like?  What specifically are the details surrounding death in this life, then the transition to heaven or hell?  What will we do in heaven, or in hell?   Will we have a body, or simply be a spirit?  Will we know each other or not?  The opinions on this subject are plentiful and wildly different from each other.  Does that mean that God’s Word is confusing, or unreliable?   No, I don’t think so.  I simply don’t think God has revealed all the details yet.  You can cherry-pick various verses in scripture, pull them out of context, and create your own version of what the afterlife will be, if you like.  Lots of people have already done that.

In fact, one of my favorite memories from my seminary days was my time in the classroom with Dr. Frank Stagg.  He was a master New Testament scholar, and all of us in his class absorbed his every word.  I specifically remember his lectures on the book of Revelation.  This final book in the Bible contains apocalyptic writing, like Daniel and others, forecasting the ultimate destiny of the world.  Dr. Stagg spent a great deal of time discussing all the many different schools of thought about how to interpret the “hidden” contents of this book of the Bible. 

In our final class, Dr. Stagg ended his comments by closing his giant lecture notebook.  He leaned on his lectern, looked at all of us, and said “ladies and gentlemen, there are many different opinions about how the end times will happen, but this one thing I do know for sure—it will happen, and you need to be ready.”  And he walked out the door.   Mic drop. 

Maybe hell is fire and brimstone, or something else.  Perhaps heaven is playing a harp while sitting around on a cloud, or maybe it is offering eternal praise and worship to the Lord.  This second option seems more likely than the harp/cloud idea.  I have no actual clue.  If you have a solid opinion about it, that’s perfectly fine.  I’m ok with just making sure I’m headed to heaven and not the other choice.

I simply think Dr. Stagg is right — it will happen, and we need to be ready.