Tag: eternal life

How Do You Thank God for Eternal Life?

Thanksgiving in the United States, established by Lincoln, is a time for family gatherings and feasting, but often lacks true reflection. The author emphasizes gratefulness for life’s blessings and the importance of recognizing their impermanence due to sin. True thankfulness arises from understanding eternal life through Jesus, which motivates a life aligned with God’s commandments.

Next week in the United States we are celebrating Thanksgiving. For many people it is time to get together with family, eat too much, maybe go to a parade and then watch football. There isn’t much thankful reflection. But the national holiday was established by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 for thankful reflection.

Because God has reached me, I have a connection to Jesus. I know that I am saved by His life and death. I currently have eternal life. That is significantly different from eternal existence that every human has. I have a place with God. I haven’t experienced Heaven, being rid of my limited and sinful body, having a heavenly body, or a resurrected earthly body yet. But I will. My lack of experience does dampen my thankfulness, however.

Can I get past my lack of experience? Here is where reflection comes in. I want to be thankful for all the good things currently in my life. There are plenty of them. I also want to acknowledge that these things are temporary and not perfect. Everything and everyone is impacted by sin and the curse. My life would be utterly meaningless without something good coming after my death. Just read the book of Ecclesiastes and see how depressed Solomon, who is a very accomplished, wealthy and wise person, feels about his life without a knowledge of eternal life through Jesus. I have knowledge of eternal life through Jesus. I am aging, but my “glory days” are all ahead of me, and they are really a big deal. Reflect on that for a bit.

You can say or sing thanks. You can go to church. We at least have a worship service on Thanksgiving. But if you would ask Jesus, “How can I thank you, Lord?” He would tell you:

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

John 14:15 (ESV)

There are many motivations to do what God teaches us is good and right. Love of God and thankfulness rise to the top. Don’t limit this to Thanksgiving Day. It deserves better. Thank God with your life.

Do keep in mind, that keeping God’s commandments can no longer save you. You had to do it perfectly, and ship sailed for you long ago. Now you have a different motivation. Jesus did the heavy lifting that you could not do. You can respond thankfully.

We really don’t appreciate the scope of what has been done for us. We don’t grasp the difficulty of what Jesus did. We don’t understand the depth of horror that awaits those who go to Judgment Day without the forgiveness of their sins. We don’t understand how great eternal life without sinful nature, without the curse, in the vast creativeness and beauty of what God has prepared for us. And we don’t fully appreciate how enthralling it will be to see God face-to-face. Yet, for the little we can imagine, we have plenty of reason to be happy and thankful.

If you don’t know much about what comes next for those who belong to Christ, then explore the articles of this blog. Use the search bar and look for Heaven, the New Earth, and then look at other things in the topic column.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

Declining to Our Physical Departure

Aging can bring physical decline and loss, leading to a struggle with self-identity and health. Yet, faith in God provides hope. Through Jesus Christ, believers can embrace eternal life beyond death. This perspective encourages acceptance of life’s purposes, focusing on the glory promised in Heaven, making the aging process less daunting.

Nobody likes aging. It doesn’t hit you that this is your problem until usually your 30’s (a little) and with every decade that passes it gets worse. When our physical decline results in actual loss, we struggle to cope. It seems that suddenly we cannot eat like we used to without consequence. We used to be so attractive and now we are attractive “for our age”, which is often the same as not attractive. Eventually we cannot run without pain. We forget stuff. We can’t sleep or we sleep all the time. We are no longer competent to drive. We are no longer safe to live independently. It is a dark decline.

I would like to give you a little perspective that I hope helps. We are created to be eternal creatures. Our bodies age, decline and die; but that is because of “sin”. I’m not saying that we would necessarily live longer or healthier if we behaved better. I am saying that we are all genetically altered from the way God originally created human beings. The result is that our current bodies must die. This would create a hopeless situation for us if not for the fact that God wants us to have eternal life with Him, and has done something about it.

Jesus Christ is God’s Son who became human for a very specific purpose. He kept God’s Law perfectly, which is what God requires for people who would be with Him eternally. He also absorbed the worst consequence of sin on the cross. He was forsaken by His father, which would be our fate. Now we can be “connected” to Jesus through God creating faith in us and Jesus “baptizing us into His death”. That phrase means that God creates some sort of “supernatural” connection to us where Jesus’ life and Jesus’ death are ours. When we are “in Christ” the only thing left for us to do is to go through physical death. The rest of the way to a glorious, happy, eternal existence has been given as a gift from Jesus.

With that as a backdrop, declining toward death shouldn’t have to be so bad. Yes, it still hurts. Yes, you feel loss. But you are heading toward something great. This impacts certain decisions and attitudes.

First, if you are facing any challenge, especially a medical challenge, you can tell yourself that it is only temporary and if it ends in death, you will actually gain from it.

You don’t have to insist that the medical community do everything possible to keep you alive. Your goal is to naturally die. Their efforts would probably only give you an extended painful, useless, modest extension on this life. You don’t even want that.

Rather than be always looking back at the “good old days”, you can be forward thinking toward the glory of what God has prepared for you in Heaven and ultimately also a New Earth.

You can understand your purpose in life as something that is dynamic but always God-given. When you retire, you move from one purpose to another that is God-given. As you lose independence, you may lose one purpose but acquire another. Life is for accomplishing whatever God has prepared for you and then you get to experience real life.

This is hard to embrace, but when you study what God has promised us you develop a genuine excitement for it. That is what this blog is all about. My life matters, my aging and decline matters, and my passing away matters. I am heading toward an increasing glory.

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 4:16-5:1 (ESV)

Accepting the Reality of Eternal Existence

For some there is no doubt. At least verbally. We will go on beyond our death. These people tend to error on the side of thinking everybody has something good waiting for them. For others, there is a great deal of doubt. We usually don’t get a preview. People who have a Near Death Experience are almost all in on eternal life. The rest of us just see the impact of death on our flesh, and it is sobering.

Certainty that we die and then disappear, is equally hard to maintain. Many are very bold about it until death looms near. Then they are not quite as enthusiastic about the prospect and begin to hope for more.

Certainty is not the same thing as faith. Faith is several things. It is first a Holy Spirit bypass of whatever keeps us from being receptive to God because of our sinful condition. Then it is a God-produced connection between us and Christ. Then that connection produces a growing trust in all of God’s promises, His capabilities, and His character. It also generates certainty in the reality of eternal life and what will happen to you in your eternal existence.

The power of God’s Word is a driving force in having certainty in eternal life.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

John 14:1-2 (ESV)

Who has reliable information on this topic? Even Near Death Experiences could be an illusion of a dying brain or a delusion created by Satan. Jesus raised people from the dead, was raised from the dead himself, and demonstrated that He was God through clear and observable miracles. Furthermore, His character was on display for all around him. For us, it is the power of the Word with the in-person accounts that give us the ability to “believe” in both Father and Son in this regard.

God could have created us to live and to die and be gone. He has nothing to gain by lying to us about this fact of our nature. Jesus says in the above passage that He would have told us if eternal life in Heaven was not on the table. It is on the table. That is why Jesus became one of us in the first place.

Our certainty comes with understanding the Gospel and God developing in us a deeper faith through the Word. First, it is our nature to be eternal because we are more than a body. We are a body and soul. I think that you can experience this much. Minimizing our will, memory, all conscious thought to chemical reactions in the brain, does not make sense. If our thoughts were just the product of brain chemistry and electrical activity then we would have no will. We clearly have a will. We are not “meat robots”. That is wrong.

It does take revelation from outside of ourselves to know about things that are beyond our sensory capabilities, beyond death, and probably beyond our space-time. Does the account of Jesus and the revelation that comes with Jesus have any credibility? Seek out the arguments. They are hard to dismiss unless you have a bias and want to dismiss them. God tells us what comes next. This whole blog covers it. There is eternal life (eternal existence with God) and eternal death (not non-existence but exile from God as in Hell). Eternal life is God’s gift predicated on what Jesus has already accomplished . God has proven to be trustworthy.

The only qualification to the certainty that we can have is that people can fall away. I must respect the theoretical possibility that I will abandon God’s gift. God gives plenty resources enough to never fall away, but people still manage it. I don’t doubt because I know that God is enough. When actually facing my final hour, there is no need to look at myself and ask if I have done enough. Jesus is enough. I don’t do anything. Therefore I am certain.

The Praise We Owe Jesus

Who is the most positively influential person in the history of mankind? There is no contest–Jesus. What makes Jesus so important isn’t how he influenced views on politics, the sexes, or the poor; it is what He finished during the week we are celebrating this week, Holy Week.

It is easy to be impressed with Jesus’ teaching. It is influential to this day and it should be. It is easy to be impressed with His miracles, but His purpose wasn’t to end disease, feed people, or temporarily raise the dead. His purpose was much, much bigger.

God’s Law created a big problem for humankind. You could state His foundational Law like this: Anything that is a part or product of rebellion against me cannot be in my direct presence or a part of my re-created universes. We definitely fail this test. Sinful human nature, a genetic condition is inherited by all. The best of us fail to remain sinless in thought, word, and deed. We lack faith. We lack love. We lack positive actions. The judgment is this: We will all physically die and then be forsaken by God (in Hell). That’s the bad news. Very bad news.

The good news is that God also considered this His problem. He is not a being to just suspend or exempt from the Law. It still stands. The Good News is that He had a plan and that plan was Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God made human (incarnate). He is born irregularly via virgin birth. The outcome of that is no genetic sinful nature. He lives 35 years (I think 2 B.C. to 33 A.D.) God has a thing about the number 3 1/2. He never sins despite serious external temptation. It is sufficiently accomplished during Holy Week.

Then comes the harder part. Jesus needs to physically die and be forsaken. The second part being the critical part for us. This is not easy and Jesus didn’t relish the thought:

27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.

John 12:27 (ESV)

38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Matthew 26:38-39 (ESV)

Jesus is rightfully scared because being forsaken is the removal of all good things and we cannot even comprehend what that meant for the Trinitarian aspect of God. Still, Jesus does it because that is what the Father wants to do. The Father continues on because He loves people. He loves you.

Jesus experiences forsakeness. It is so emptying that He doesn’t seem to remember why it is happening:

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Matthew 27:46 (ESV)

How long does this last? It doesn’t say. But a good guess would be during the supernatural darkness. It says this starts about the third hour. Again, going with 3 1/2 being significant, I would guess 3 1/2 hours. That is compared with eternally if we have to bear it ourselves.

The final aspect of God’s plan is that in order to have the obedience of Jesus apply to us we have to be joined to Him. This isn’t just a matter of God’s bookkeeping, though there is a Book of Life. This is a unity that God creates between Jesus and us that is somehow similar to the unity of the persons of the Trinity.

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

John 17:20-23 (ESV)

This is the part that fails to include all people. God wants all to be saved, but there is something about the majority of people that God won’t get past to create a bond with them. I don’t think it is merely informational or intellectual though in manifests in that way. I don’t know what it is. But I owe Jesus my all because it does include me.

I pray it includes you.

Whoever Believes Has Eternal Life

The author reflects on a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where they encountered a priest who mistakenly defined eternal life. The piece clarifies the distinction between “eternal existence” and “eternal life,” emphasizing that the latter is connected to belief in Jesus and a mystical union with Him, experienced both now and in Heaven.

I went to Israel about 10 years ago. In the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (shown above), which houses the traditional place of Jesus’ crucifixion and His burial tomb, I overheard a priest say to his tour group, “I don’t know what eternal life is, but I would like to think that it has something to do with being remembered.” This admission and glaring error shocked me. I want you to know very clearly what is meant by “eternal life”.

First, we must make a distinction between “eternal existence” and “eternal life”. God made a few creatures to have eternal existence. To my knowledge from the Bible these include: Seraphim/Cherubim (same thing different names), Angels/Demons (same thing but the latter is in rebellion against God), and human beings. You won’t cease to exist. Your body will die but you will find yourself in another body in another place (not Earth). This has been true of you since conception, and there is no way to opt out.

Because of our rebellion against God and the sin that is enshrined in our DNA, our eternal existence would naturally be first in Sheol (use the search box above to look for articles on Sheol), and then after Judgment Day in Gehenna, which we commonly refer to as Hell. Nobody should call such an existence “life”, and the Bible doesn’t.

Jesus’ life, forsakeness, death and resurrection are for the purpose of taking us from such a fate and giving to us instead “eternal life”. If the first temptation is thinking that life equals existence, the second is to think that eternal life begins at our physical death. Look at the following Bible passages:

47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

John 6:47 (ESV)

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

John 3:36 (ESV)

And to the question of “what is eternal life?”, we have this:

3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

John 17:3 (ESV)

It certainly sounds like eternal life is something that we have already, if we have belief. Belief is not simply believing that Jesus is real. Like a person could believe in ghosts. It is believing the story of Jesus to be historical and factual and it is trusting in the promise connected to Jesus of forgiveness of sins. These are what I call “first-level” proofs that you are connected to Jesus and have eternal life. They are not exactly the cause of eternal life. The cause of our receiving eternal life is all that Jesus did and the existence of a bond that Jesus forms between us and Himself. This “bond” or “connection” is not cognitive like belief is, it is not emotional, for lack of better words it is mystical. Theologians call it the “mystical union”. Read more about this here:https://givingchrist.com/2024/10/01/understanding-jesus-prayer-for-unity-in-john-17/

Once that connection is made and as long as that connection is viable, we have eternal life. Having this connection is “knowing” the only true God. Being united with Christ has evidence but you don’t feel it like you might feel a part of your body. The existence of eternal life in you will be much more obvious when your physical body dies. Heaven is the place you would go first if you have eternal life. The experience we will have there will be glorious. If you want to know more about Heaven, use the search bar in my blog above. I have written numerous articles on that.

You can’t quite say eternal life is life in Heaven. That is part of eternal life. It is life now connected with Jesus, life in Heaven, and life in the New Earth post Judgment Day. It is a package. A great package that we did not deserve, but is offered freely to us.

How sad it is to not know eternal life. I hope the priest in my opening story found out. I hope you do as well.

When Did Heaven Enter the Plan?

The use of the word “Heaven”, the absence of Heaven as a human destination in the Old Testament, and similarities between Heaven and the New Earth leads to confusion about the topic. The article presents a view about how all of this fits together.

I recently watched a show of the documentary series Frontline about President Biden. It shared how, as a first term Senator, Joe Biden’s world was rocked by the tragic death of his wife and daughter in a car accident. The show interviewed the Catholic priest who ministered to the family at the time. He said something that stunned my wife and me. He started a sentence by saying, “If there is a Heaven…”. If? I’m not sure if the “if” was a reflection of a lack of faith or a confusion about God’s plan or both. If it was the former, I would say to him and any of you, expect this world to be difficult and unfair. We are sinful beings under God’s curse and cohabitants on this planet with Satan and his kingdom. There will be rough spots, even cruel ones. If the “if” is the latter, then this article is meant to address that. First of all, from where does the confusion about Heaven arise?

There are a couple of confusing aspects about Heaven in the Bible. The first is the word itself. “Heaven” both in Hebrew and in Greek is a word that describes several layers. The first heaven is the atmosphere of our planet. The second is the universe. The third is Heaven proper, the abode of God. This clearly shows the structure of creation as revealed to or understood by people in the biblical times. This doesn’t mean it is how it is actually structured. The model worked as far as God was concerned.

Next there is the fact that both Old and New Testament revealed the plan for a new heaven and new Earth. Certain similarities exist between the descriptions of Heaven and of the New Earth. So, are they the same? Do we go to Heaven and Revelation 21 and 22 describe it? Or do we wait the New Earth and references to Heaven describe it? Or are they two separate things?

Finally, why is there no reference in the Old Testament to people being taken to Heaven upon their deaths? Even the righteous expected to go to Sheol until the Resurrection?

The Bible reveals that God’s plans were established even before the problem of sin and rebellion existed. How He rolls out those plans and reveals them to mankind is the thing. Very early on God revealed the end of the plan. Job knew about the resurrection. Daniel speaks of it as well. Isaiah 65 reveals a description of the New Earth that doesn’t seem to agree with Revelation or the idea of eternal life. I suspect that Isaiah is only given a description that he and his contemporaries can process. To read more about this passage look here: https://wordpress.com/post/afterdeathsite.com/1982

Information is given out by God on a “need to know” basis. Nothing about Heaven as a human destination is mentioned in the Old Testament, but we do find Satan in Heaven. This I believe is key. If we know about God’s plan, then Satan will certainly know about it. This is the reason why more specific details are not given about the Messiah. What is given is specific enough that they could be interpreted any old way, like a fortune cookie; but there is not enough information for Satan to defeat the plan–which he definitely tried to do. A big part of this is that with Jesus’ successful fulfillment of the Law, Satan and his cronies would be expelled from Heaven.

Satan’s expulsion is spoken of in Revelation 12:

7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the Earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Revelation 12:7-9 (ESV)

I believe this to be the ultimate “Good New – Bad News” message. The good news is that now those redeemed by Jesus don’t have to dwell in the bland comfort of Sheol. With Satan expelled, Heaven is in play, and it is our immediate destination at our death. Resurrection, Judgment Day, and the New Heaven and Earth are future and time does matter. (See this article about time: https://wordpress.com/post/afterdeathsite.com/2356

The bad news is that Satan is exiled to here. This I don’t understand or like. Human beings are enough of a mess with our sinful nature. The world is also complicated by the curse. How much additional suffering does the presence of Satan and his angels create?

Heaven is indicated as our destination in several New Testament passages. This is not a development of theology as much as it is more information after a critical execution of the plan. 2 Corinthians 5 states that we have “an eternal house in Heaven” (speaking about our heavenly body). The fact that it is “eternal” does not make Heaven and the New Earth the same thing. Read about one possible scenario here: https://wordpress.com/post/afterdeathsite.com/2356

There are many surprises that God still has in store for us. That makes it exciting. The most critical knowledge is already ours. We can only enter into eternal life with God as a gift through God connecting us to Jesus. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of God’s Law for us. We would never be able to do it ourselves.

The Tree of Life and Abnormally Long Life in the Old Testament

Many people expect to live around 80-90 years, but the current maximum lifespan is 120 years. In the past, people lived longer, with biblical figures reaching nearly 1,000 years. Some seek to extend life through science or technology, but the true promise of eternal life lies in faith and connection with God.

How long do you expect to live in this life? Most would say 80 or 90 years. The average in the United States is 78. That seems young-ish to me. I have no aspirations to live to be 100. Perhaps that is because I visit many people who have significantly cognitively declined by then and I don’t wish to join that group.

The actual current maximum lifespan is 120 years, which sounds like a real burden to me. Life expectancy varies by gender, location and time. People in the not-so-distant past were lucky to make it to 50. Jesus is crucified at age 35 (I believe), a young man to us, but not so much for when He lived.

When you dig back into the Old Testament people were living enormously long lives: Enosh 905, Kenan 910, and the record holder Methuselah at 969. They were cranking out kids in their 100’s. It is clear that they were not elderly until much later. Is this a myth? I don’t think so. These people all lived before Noah’s flood, so some attribute the difference to the environment in some way, but I think it is a genetic change that God brought about.

 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

Genesis 6:3 (ESV)

So we have been capped at 120 for a while. It is interesting that this limit seemed to phase in. The mechanisms that age us and result in our physical death didn’t come into full effect for a couple generations.

There is a branch of science today that seeks to undo the genetic cap on our lives. Others, clearly fearing death, seek immortality through capturing our consciousness as a computer code. The former might produce some lengthening of life for those who seek it. I am pretty skeptical about the later.

God limited human life, but when God created it, we were not built to die at all. Adam and Eve were immortals, physically and spiritually. God warned them to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil lest they die. Satan said they wouldn’t die. Immediately. Adam lived for 930 years and then he kicked the bucket, just as God said.

Adam and Eve also had the benefit of the Tree of Life. What wear and tear life produced in the body, eating from the tree could fix. I don’t think there was anything miraculous about it. It was designed to work that way. Similarly, I don’t think the impact of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was miraculous. It was a genetic modifier created, likely by Satan, to poison mankind and the world.

The Tree of Life was forbidden Adam and Eve by God after their encounter with evil. God did not want to leave them physically eternal and evil. Hence, our need to die. Sin is a part of the body not the spirit. Our soul, the interaction of body and spirit, is likewise corrupt.

The Tree of Life makes another appearance by name in the Bible– at the end. In Revelation 22 it says:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Revelation 22:1-2 (ESV)

As I have discussed in previous blogs, we will have a Heavenly body for Heaven, but we will also have a resurrected physical body for a New Earth. It will be a modified, superior version of what we have now. The Trees of Life described in the verse above have some role in the eternal preservation of that body. What exactly, I do not know.

I do not aspire to unnaturally prolong physical life as I am experiencing now, even though I am very blessed compared to many. I have confidence in the one who is my original Creator. I have confidence in His ability to deliver far superior and eternal life to me. All of it is because of things God has already done. Jesus has already successfully fulfilled God’s Law and paid the price for my evil. Already I am connected to Jesus and benefit from His work through being baptized in His name. It is a great, loving offer that is there for the taking. May God help you to receive it.

Here’s to truly long life.

When Does Eternal Life Begin?

Does this title seem like a stupid question? I hope to show you that it is more complicated than you first think. It depends on the definition of “eternal life”, so let’s start with that.

God has made human beings to be eternal creatures. Once we have begun our existence there is an innate quality that preserves our existence forever. It is part of being created in the “image of God”

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them

Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)

When do we begin? The answer is probably conception. Our body and our unique genetic code begin then, and these are definitely a part of our being. The body is not just a rental. Does our spirit/soul begin then? We have no information. I think there is reason to say that the soul does not pre-exist our body, but it is possible that there might be a lapse between conception and having a soul.

The Bible does not care to refer to our existence as sinful human beings as “life”. I’ll call it “existence” instead. A definite change in our existence happens with baptism in the name of the Triune God. Baptism doesn’t look or feel like much, but God’s promise is forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). When you dig down into how we receive the forgiveness of sins, you find that these things needed to happen: Jesus, as a human, had to fulfill God’s Law perfectly, He then had to pay the Laws demands for a sinner on the cross (namely be forsaken by God), then an individual needs to be spiritually united with Jesus for Jesus’ actions to apply to him or her. God normally accomplishes the last one through baptism. I want to emphasize that this is the function of baptism, not a “sinner’s prayer”, nor coming to intellectual faith. So you could say that eternal life begins at baptism even though you still carry around an earthly body that is doomed to die.

The next choice, and most popular choice, is your physical death. At death, if you are in Christ (still connected by what God does at baptism), you temporarily leave your earthly, sinful body and your soul now joins with a heavenly body restricted to Heaven. 

 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 5:1 (ESV)

Being in Heaven does not feel like a restriction. It feels like life that is truly life and we can call it “life”. It is not complete, however. Part of you is missing still. You are your spirit/soul, your heavenly body, and your earthly body. Like I said, your earthly body is not a rental.

Eternal life made complete happens with Judgment Day and the resurrection of the body. All portions that make up what we are will be redeemed at that point. https://afterdeathsite.com/2020/02/04/we-will-be-made-multi-dimensional/

So, when does eternal life begin? You may pick the answer. Realize the process God has put in place for us. An uglier but parallel process exists for those who reject Jesus. Also understand what you are and what produces the complete you.

What Is Eternal Life?

I want to tell you of an encounter I had on Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified. I am not speaking metaphorically here. I was in Jerusalem a couple of years ago. We were visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is a church in the old city of Jerusalem, where the traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion and of Jesus’ burial lie within one building. Many people, including me, don’t appreciate that Golgotha and the rich man’s tomb were so close together; but John’s gospel records that the place of crucifixion was in a garden. It was an ugly act placed in a beautiful place near the gate of the city. I expect it was to show Roman dominance.

When you enter at the ground level through the main door, the top of Golgotha (the place of the skull) is just up about the equivalent of two normal floors of a building to your right. The tomb is around a corner to your left. Our group went up to the Chapel on top of Golgotha first. The chapel is a somewhat sad story of in-fighting among the groups that control the church. There are three altars. The far right altar is Roman Catholic, the middle Orthodox, the left Arminian. We were in the middle and a group (presumably Catholic) was in the right portion of the chapel. I couldn’t help but overhear the presentation being made by the priest, who sounded American. To my shock he said, “I don’t know what eternal life is, but I think it has something to do with this Earth; we live on in the memories of people.”

I almost had a stroke. Here we are on the likely place where Jesus died and a member of the clergy suggests that eternal life is being remembered. In reflection on the statement made by the priest, I guess I assumed that everyone is clear about the nature of eternal life; and, clearly, I assumed too much. When we let worldly doubts, fears, and academic criticism get into our heads, we can believe that real existence beyond our deaths is impossible. The Jews also had a group, the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the body. When this becomes your worldview, references to eternal life are nothing more than wishful thinking or, as the priest said, memories.

My question is, “What would Jesus’ dying on a cross 2000 years ago have anything to do with whether people remember me or not?” The answer is, “It doesn’t.” On that rock on which we stood Jesus literally suffered being forsaken by His Father. That selfless act enabled a promise of God to work. God extends to humans the opportunity to be connected to Jesus. When connected through baptism in the name of Jesus (not some other ridiculous formula), the forsakeness of Jesus becomes the fulfillment of what God’s law requires of us. Because we have not kept God’s Law, we are required to be damned (forsaken). Jesus takes that sentence for us. Having been made right with God, we can live with God in the joy and glory of Heaven (a real place and thus capitalized) and also in the New Earth (also real and as a proper noun capitalized). If you can’t tell, the failure of many books and bible translations to capitalize both Heaven and Earth when referring to the place is a pet peeve of mine.

It is also important to note here that eternal life does not just mean existence. After your death you will exist regardless of your standing with God. That is how you are made. You will actually exist, not just in memory. It is just that if you exist as a being forsaken by God, the experience will be so hopeless and horrifying that calling such an existence “life” is a gross disservice to the word. The Bible is not even thrilled with called our current existence “life”. Existence in Heaven and the New Earth is real life. Once there you will not care if people remember you. You will be having too much fun. Life after death is not some version of the Disney movie, “Coco”. Maybe that is where the priest learned his theology.

So take heart. Jesus has opened the door to life. This is not some vague concept. It is more concrete that you are now.

Won’t Eternity Be Boring?

When you hear the phrase “eternal life” does it excite you or concern you? I could understand at least one concern. Right now, with quarantine still somewhat in effect, life is a little boring. We just had a three-day weekend, and while I enjoyed sitting on my porch watching nature, it was a bit of a yawner. What will life be if it is eternal? Won’t Heaven and the New Earth become redundant at some point?

Let’s start with the experience of boredom itself. When we are bored the environment around us is failing to stimulate our minds sufficiently. We experience a loss of concentration, hormones that make us feel tired and perhaps a degree of anxiety. The biology that creates boredom is not the biology with which humans were created. We are a creation altered by sin and the curse. I definitely expect that boredom is part of the curse and once you leave your body in the grave, you will leave boredom in the grave as well.

Our new biology of a Heavenly body (1 Cor. 15:40) and then an earthly, resurrected body (1 Cor. 15:42-44) will have many differences, and with them many different emotional, spiritual and physical experiences. Can we say there will not nothing negative? Not quite. At least not until the re-creation of all things.

The one sort of negative picture we see is of Heaven in Revelation 6. The martyrs express a degree of impatience with the slow arrival of Judgment Day:

O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the Earth?

Revelation 6:10

Feelings like impatience and the desire for vengeance show that biology change alone will not remove negative feelings. They don’t say, “Hey we are bored waiting here.” That is significant because they are asked to wait, which is typically and ingredient in boredom now.

With the environment of Heaven and eventually the new Heaven and Earth be that much more stimulating? I expect so.

To experience the glory of God in a direct fashion is an experience none of us have had yet. Even those who have had a vision of it were enthralled. It was life changing.

Near Death Experiences tell of the experience of color and of music that is so heightened. If you enjoy these things now, just wait.

Social interactions are another thing that will be changed. The experience of people currently is a mixed bag of joy, frustration, anger, love and boredom. But we won’t be this blend of sin and the image of God. People will be a joy to be around:

Be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.

Isaiah 65:18

Then there is exploration. We like to travel, and there is much of the world that we have not experienced. Of the 48 contiguous states, however, we have hit a lot of sights. Our bucket list for the continental United States is growing short. So, over an eternity, won’t the New Earth become a “been there, seen that” experience?

A couple of things, I would not assume to be the same. First, our interaction with nature will be greatly altered:

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the dust shall be the food for the serpent. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain

Isaiah 65:25

Won’t it be a joy to experience the wide array of God’s creatures in a friendly rather than adversarial fashion. Imagine doing it with a body that is not as limited as the one you have.

In fact, I wouldn’t assume we will be constrained to the New Earth. With a whole new universe and a whole new Heaven (the former dwelling place of God), why is the earth our only abode? Angels move freely from Heaven to Earth even now. Does the following verse suggest the same for us:

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens.

2 Corinthians 5:1

A biology that won’t create the experience of boredom, an experience of God that defies comparison, a body or bodies that will have expanded limits, a new relationship with nature, and a whole new universe or two full of God’s creativity all lead to confidence that we will never be bored. That is the gift of God through Jesus Christ.