God and his companions
Romans 6:23 says we earn death by sinning but that "eternal life" is a free gift from God.
Eternal life isn’t simply "endless" life! It is a quality of life that is part of the "new creation" that has come about in Jesus Christ. It isn’t just endless existence; it is life that takes it nature from the kind of life epitomised by Jesus Christ. Those that come to share eternal life—for which they now look forward and will one day fully experience individually—will enjoy it in the redeemed creation (see Romans 8:18-25). But it will be "life" and not some vapoury excuse for "life"! The Christian hope is not summed up in some ghostly existence but embodied life, lived out in holiness and joy.
It is a great blunder to reduce eternal "life" to "forgiveness of sins". A rich relationship between two humans will involve mutual forgiveness but to boil the relationship down to that robs it of much that is vibrant, challenging and precious. I don’t suggest that Christians consciously reduce life with God to "sins forgiven" but so much literature and speech comes to focus on talk about sin that, simply by default, it sometimes appears that that’s what it’s all about.
There is of course much talk about "let’s all be honest and pure and kind and tolerant" and such like. But more often than not—so I presently judge—this is "the right response" to God for his having forgiven us. It is "gratitude," don’t you see. And how can we not agree with that? Well...it’s not that simple; it’s richer than that.
To enter into "life with God" is to throw our weight into his purposes. To enter life with God is (sort of) to ask him, "Now, how does this work, this friendship of yours and ours?" God has a dream and vision and he is working toward that and to enter into a living relationship with him is to share his dream, pursue his goals, act with him to bring to completion his overarching purpose. It isn't grovelling and endlessly talking about our sins and how nice it was of him to forgive us! It’s gratitude! How could we not be grateful to him for giving us life (and all that that means)? But it’s more than gratitude, it’s astonished commitment, it’s looking in fathomless wonder at what we’ve been called to share and plunging into it, way out of our depth!
There’s something wild about the universe, William James said (saying more than he knew or believed), and we are needed to bring it into line. Eternal life is not about a post-mortem happiness, it’s about sharing God’s heart and purposes for his creation, it’s about living in his image.
I’m a great sinner and God knows I need forgiveness but I’m bound to say that there’s too much of this self-examination. This constant taking of our spiritual temperatures and checking our religious pulses wastes too much time and energy and more importantly it takes our eyes off God and his creation. This isn’t just about us and how spiritually fine-tuned we are! Some years ago when existentialism was enjoying one of its popular phases a USA senator felt compelled to say that he was weary of people that were always experiencing angst over just about everything. He complained that he didn’t have the luxury of having an inner debate about every blessed decision. He said they were agonising over whether to go to the toilet while he was forced to make decisions quickly that affected hosts of people. He was complaining about people that took themselves much too seriously and can’t take their eyes off themselves. That’s the kind of thing I’m trying to get at here.
Constantly having ourselves on our minds is too great a burden. We're not up to carrying it. No wonder we often get weary and sometimes sour. Anyway, it's the wrong burden (compare Matthew 11:28-30).
We mustn’t think that God lives with us as if we were a mass of isolated humans. He doesn’t! We mustn’t think the centre of his thinking is about sin. It isn’t! It’s about life! And it’s about more than you and me!
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.