The Promise of Eternal Life
by Greg Prout | 23 April 2024 |
A salient feature of human existence is its impermanence. Time is transitory, reminding us that we are, too. We are constantly changing, though we don’t always realize it. We live in a moment—a kind of conscious unconsciousness—and unless we pause and observe all the changes occurring around us, we are oblivious to the ephemeral world until confronted by our demise.
When asked “What is life?” Blackfoot Indians replied, “It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time.” To all of us, life happens at lightning speed. Writes James (4:14),
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes’ (NIV).
Literally, “here today, gone tomorrow.” Poof, it’s over.
Tracking the passage
We live in a cycle of days that follow nights, hours that follow one another, weeks that chase weeks, seasons that perpetually cycle, years that alter our appearance and remold our thoughts. Ideas morph, body shapes fluctuate, hairlines recede, birthday celebrations are followed by funerals: life is a rushing river. This is time in motion: we dwell between the bookends of beginning and end, between hellos and good-byes.
Bob Dylan had it right, “The Times, They Are a-Changin’.” Always. One would think all this turbulence and change would make us dizzy, and sometimes it does. But somehow we pass through these transformations oblivious to how quickly everything is changing.
Memories are how we track the changes—the markers of our evolution, between what was and no longer is. They remind us of how fast life has passed, and how brief is our existence. Memories—our feeble attempts to check the march of time—leave us pensive and nostalgic. We remember a time in youth that seemed endless and now in our sunset years is coming to an end.
Because time is evanescent, we are counseled to focus on the now, to live in the moment. But even that is too greasy to grasp: “now” quickly slips into the past.
Yet how we manage the present shapes our lasting impact on the world. In other words, meaning can be found in the decisions we make. Will my life matter? The answer is determined by how we navigate our evaporating existence, the choices we make in the opportunity of the moment.
Still, the tyranny of time is unchecked. Old age makes it real: wrinkles, aches, and stoops remind us that there’s an expiration date, when we will exist only in a photo album. How we use the moment is critical to whether we leave a footprint to remind our descendants we were here.
Remembering is vital to appreciating how our life was lived and who we shared it with. But unless you achieve some kind of fame, even the memory of our presence on earth will be lost to history in three or four generations, as if we never existed. “Vanity of vanities!” declared the preacher of Ecclesiastes. “All is vanity” (1: 2).
Life with no death
In the midst of my confirmed transience and the angst it engenders, it’s important to consider life with no death: endless being, or to use the Bible’s words, eternal life. Eternal life, if you believe in it deeply and sincerely, offers hope of something exceedingly more permanent than our excursion on this planet.
The Bible says that time will eventually cease to be. Eternal life is life unleashed from day and year constraints. Our despotic timepieces will become obsolete.
Belief in a God who promises everlasting life counters the pointlessness of our short existence—the idea of immortality demonstrated in the life of Jesus and His resurrection from the tomb. God’s Son reached out to us in our temporality, and introduced us to eternity.
His resurrection was the inauguration. The resurrection proved that death does not have the last word about when our heart ceases to beat. The grave succumbs to unblemished life. Our earthly journey never promises a tomorrow, but Jesus does.
Ageless life, though a strange and surreal consideration for some, counters the absurdity of existence and provides hopefulness. We can only imagine what forever might look like.
The resurrection of Jesus extends the horizon to what lies past its distant edges. Unknown surprises and adventures beyond our wildest imaginations await us in the beyond of perennial being. Let your mind fantasize unfettered about what everlasting life might look like.
For some this idea is a delusion, something conjured up to deal with the fear of our life’s end. For me, though, it is a truth grasped by faith in a Savior who rose from the dead. It satisfies my yearning for something more. Eternal life in Christ is the lynchpin of the Christian faith.
If one disparages such a faith, then of course there is no palliative solution to mortality. There is no life beyond the cemetery, no optimism in which to live.
A better life
But contemplating life absent the keen sorrow of death, crippling disease, and gnawing pain provides optimism. This will be a world far better than the one in which we currently find ourselves. It is too wonderful to dismiss.
This is particularly appealing to me in these final chapters of my life. Considering there is something wonderful beyond my funeral is comforting and energizing. It is not make-believe or a fanciful chimera. I have walked with the Savior. I have come to know the incarnated God intimately. I know I am adored and cared for by my Creator-Redeemer. He forgives me and accepts me as I am. I can go to Him with anything and everything, anytime and all the time, and receive open-arm reception. I have learned from Him, been strengthened by Him, been encouraged by Him and inspired by Him. He has never failed me, and such experiences are a reality I am convinced is eternal.
Eternal Life is Jesus Himself:
…the Word of Life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us (1 John 1:1,2).
He who has the Son has life…These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know you have eternal life (1 John 5:12,13).
Of course, it takes faith to benefit from this incredible truth. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard believed faith was required to establish meaning in life. Faith unleashes the promise that all will be well even in the face of doom. Faith is having confidence in what we hope for and assurance in what we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1).
This is not a lifeless doctrine. It is trust in the person of Jesus, an authentic kinship with the Son of God. He is life without end.
More than just life
Eternal life isn’t only about living a pain-free, deathless existence. It’s about meeting face-to-face with the most interesting, thoughtful, and kind Divine Being that you can imagine. It’s seeing the God who surrendered His God-ness to become flesh and blood like me, so He could experientially understand what being human is like from the inside out. He stooped so He could look me in the eye. Being face-to-face with His creation is how He prefers it. I live in that context, and will forever.
As a teenager, I felt “eternal.” That feeling fades with old age. Yet the promise of eternal life brings some of that teen optimism back to me. In everlasting life I will experience the actuality of being eternal, not like the fleeting perception I enjoyed as an adolescent.
Ancient philosophers, poets, balladeers, and troubadours championed true love’s eternal nature. Perhaps this is more than poetic license. Could it be that the life-changing power of love is a metaphor for immortality? I like to think so—that eternity is described not just in Scripture, but is rooted in the creative spirit of human culture.
In turbulent times, when Christian values are under attack, and evil and corruption appear to be ascendant, when unrest and world turmoil are at the boiling point, when society is roiling in hate and anger, and polarization is shredding the bonds of our communities, pondering sin-free life in the hereafter is comforting and soothing, like a cool breeze in August, or the quiet calm of night’s repose. When time appears threatening, the assurance of endless Being comes to the rescue.
Eternal life is living in the presence of this glorious self-sacrificing Divine Person, my best Friend, fearlessly enveloped in the absolute joy of God’s boundless love. This is Jesus, He is Eternal life (‘He who has the Son has life,’ 1 John 5:12), and time won’t matter because there will be no such thing.
Greg Prout is a retired realtor who lives in Sierra Madre, California. He and Mary Ventresca have been married for 40 years.
