Book 2 of Musings Acquiring Eternal Life

To follow the Spirit of God is to acquire eternal life and every other good and perfect thing.

To follow the desires and appetites of the sinful nature is suicidal and results in all that is corrupt and agonizing

You know, the common understanding of the Christian salvation is that if we accept Christ we will go to Heaven and live there forever; or if we live a good life we will go to Heaven and live there forever.

Heaven is the goal. After living in the present valley of the shadow of death, who wouldn't want to go to a better place! I currently am recovering from an operation and I am weak and tired. I wish I wasn't weak and tired. I wish I didn't have to send in an income-tax form. I wish I had no problems.

Do you feel this way?

It is not difficult to understand why salvation and going to Heaven have become synonymous. And I know it indeed is true that if we do God's will we one day will be in inconceivably better circumstances. One day in the future we will walk on a higher path.

But if we are to be on firm ground we must stick with the Bible. The Bible, in particular the New Testament, stresses eternal life as our goal, not residence in a better place.

Eternal life, which is life in God's Person and will, was lost in the Garden of Eden. Immortality, perpetual existence in the physical body, also was lost in the Garden.

Our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, came from Heaven to restore to us these two aspects of our state of being: life in the Person and will of God, and immortality in the body.

Once our state of being, our personality, has been redeemed, then we will find ourselves once again in Paradise.

The Apostle Paul stated as His goal that He might know Christ, and that he might attain to the resurrection from the dead. These are the two aspects of our state of being that are our goal: to know Christ, and to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Now, why is it important that we change our direction from going to Heaven to seeking to know Christ and to attain to the resurrection from the dead? It is important because the change in direction will affect how we approach our daily life in Christ.

If our goal is to go to another place when we die; and if our way of getting there consists only of making a right profession concerning Jesus Christ; then the multitude of New Testament exhortations that have to do with the way we behave are not truly relevant. We are on our way to Heaven, and grace is our ticket that will admit us after we die. Why should we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow the Lord Jesus each day? What difference does it really make whether or not we obey Christ and His Apostles?

Perhaps this is the reason why much Christian teaching has to do with how our religion affects our welfare in the present world. If we have faith we will be rich. If we forgive someone we will be healed from arthritis. If we give money, more will be given back to us. If we pray together as a family we will have a better home.

We don't hear too much about the effect how we are behaving today will have on what will happen to us in the Day of Resurrection. Yet, our condition in the Day of Resurrection should be our primary concern.

I suppose one might say we need a profound revolution in the way we understand the Christian salvation, a revolution based on placing our emphases on what the New Testament emphasizes. The New Testament assuredly does not emphasize making our eternal home in Heaven by grace.

Well, what does the New Testament emphasize? What is the Christian salvation all about?

The Christian salvation has to do with eternal life. God gave His Son that we might have eternal life.

I might point out that eternal life is not the same as going to Heaven. Eternal life is a kind of life, and we can have it on earth and in Heaven also.

In addition, the opposite of eternal life is eternal death, not Hell. In the beginning God said, "In the day you eat thereof you shall surely die." He did not say, "In the day you eat thereof you shall surely go to Hell."

The soul that sins shall die; not the soul that sins shall go to Hell.

Heaven and Hell are actual places to which one can go. Eternal life and eternal death are states of being. Hell is a place of torment. Sometimes people who have Christ, who have eternal life, are in torment for a season. But if they persevere they will be brought out into the light in God's time.

By the same token, people who have Christ, who have eternal life, but who are behaving in a manner more suited to Hell than to Heaven, may be given a space of time in which to repent. If they do not, they will be thrown into Hell. The wicked always end up in Hell, or in the Lake of Fire. This is where the wicked belong.

We can be spared from wrath in the Day of Wrath by believing in Christ and being baptized in water. But after that God expects us to cooperate with our Redeemer as He seeks to save us from our sins. If we will not repent, not change the way we behave, we will end up finally in the Lake of Fire.

God did not send Christ to save us from Hell, except in a secondary sense. God sent Christ to save us from sin so we will not end up in Hell.

Perhaps the greatest mistake in Christian thinking is that Christ came to save the wicked from Hell. No, Christ came to save the wicked from sin. Sinners always are of Hell and belong in Hell until Christ changes their behavior.

God will not have sin in His Kingdom, not by grace, mercy, love, or any other factor.

Our confusion is based on the prevailing notion that salvation brings us to Heaven to live forever. If we would place the emphasis on coming to know Christ, and attaining to the resurrection from the dead, our thinking would become clear. In other words, if we would obey the Apostle Paul, our thinking would become clear.

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. (Phil 3:15)

Look at the difference this makes in the way we pursue the Christian discipleship! If we picture ourselves as going to Heaven some day by grace, we are going to play around the edges of the commandments found in the New Testament. This is why so many believers in the United States are involved in making money, entertainment, and having fun.

If, however, we obey the Apostle Paul, and strive to know Christ, to live by the power of His resurrection, to share His sufferings, that we might attain to immortality, then every day becomes a serious challenge. We have to fight constantly to know Christ in each new situation; to live by His resurrection Life; to bear patiently with His sufferings as we participate in them.

The traditional Christian life is one of waiting to die and go to Heaven, in the meanwhile fending off our troubles as unnecessary irritations coming from other people or Satan.

The true Christian life is one of pressing forward each moment into God's rest, that is, into the place of change into the moral image of Christ, and into untroubled rest in God's Person and will.

What an altogether different way of living! It is like two different religions!

Jesus told us that the gate is small and the way is difficult that lead to eternal life. I suppose we have thought that once we make a profession of faith in Christ we have gone through the gate and traveled the way, and now we will go to Heaven when we die.

Jesus indeed is the Gate. He also is the Way. Jesus authorizes us to go through the Gate and travel on the Way, the way that leads to the knowledge of Christ and immortality in the body.

But so few people find it! Lately a member of a denomination pointed out to his superiors that they were remiss and unscriptural in some of their practices. This individual was discovering the way that leads to life.

The response of the heads of the denomination was to criticize this man and refuse to listen to him. The leaders may suppose they are safely on their way to Heaven because of their doctrinal correctness. But they are not. They have not found the way to eternal life. They know the beliefs of their sect, but they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no eternal life whatever in the beliefs of any Christian denomination. There is eternal life only in the Person of the living Lord Jesus Christ. Those who are interacting with Him continually are pressing toward eternal life. Those who are trusting in their religious beliefs to save them are not actually being saved, that is, they are not being changed into the moral image of the Lord Jesus and brought into untroubled rest in God's Person and will.

Such is the blindness and misplaced emphases of our day. Will God bring clarity to us in the future? I think He will. But it may be in a time of great trouble in the United States.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)