Book 4 of Musings Living Forever

What is involved in living forever?

Why would anyone want to live forever? Would we grow, and if so, in what manner? It would not be desirable to have a world in which people lived forever but were not growing in righteousness!.

Have you ever though about what it would be like to live forever and ever?

Kind of a staggering thought, isn't it?

I imagine there are people alive today who would like to live forever if they could maintain their youth, and others who would just as soon die and take their chances on the next life.

Think of what gifted people in the arts or sciences could accomplish if they were to live forever!

In the beginning there was the Tree of Life, which I believe was and is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." (Genesis 3:22)

To eat of the tree of live is to live forever. From my point of view, I think living forever had to do with the physical body. To live forever was immortality in the body.

The reason I think so is that most of us believe people live forever in the spirit realm after they die whether or not they eat from the Tree of Life. So God meant Adam would live forever in his body on the earth if he ate from the Tree of Life.

"Dust you are, and to the dust you shall return." It is remarkable that in so saying, God ignored the spiritual nature of man.

I think when Jesus spoke about God giving His Son so whoever believes in Him would not perish, He was speaking of immortality in the body and referring to those who would be raised to immortality in the Day of Resurrection.

I just am not certain about what is left over when the body dies. We say the soul and spirit go to Heaven, if the individual is saved. I suppose is true, but I don't have a lot of scriptural support for it.

I truly believe conscious life continues in the spirit realm after we die, whether we are in Paradise or in torment. I think also that when the Lord speaks of eternal life He is referring to something more than just conscious life, because it seems to me that conscious life continues forever in any case.

We speak of growth in Christ. Exactly what does that mean?

I think God meant for the adamic creation to be temporary. Perhaps this is why He drove Adam from the garden-so he wouldn't live forever as an adamic person, particularly after he sinned.

Growth in Christ must mean we grow in the image of Christ. We grow in the image of Christ because Christ has been conceived in us and now is growing in us. Also, we are learning about the Lord. The eternal moral law of God is being written in our heart and in our mind. We are learning the difference between what is good and what is evil, and we are being strengthened in the ability to reject the evil and embrace what is good.

If we actually are growing in Christ, in righteous behavior, then eternal life is being given to us. Eternal life always follows righteousness.

I can picture a person who is growing in Christ in this world, after death, and in the resurrection world, living forever. He is growing into the image of God continually. He is becoming like God in every way, and is in union with God through Christ.

I can picture this individual living forever and ever, always growing, always learning.

But let us take a purely adamic individual. He knows nothing of Christ. Christ has not been conceived in him.

Let us say he has much good in his personality: he is faithful, truthful, and honest.

Let us say he also has a sinful nature: he is short-tempered, covetous, and tends to be cruel and sadistic.

I have noticed that many people do not change. They are critical when they are twenty years of age, and critical when they are seventy years of age. In fact, they sometimes become worse as times goes by.

This is true of many Christians as well as of the unsaved.

What would he be like if such a person lived forever? From what I have seen of people, he would be totally miserable.

My conclusion is, living forever is not uniformly desirable or productive.

There is coming a new heaven and a new earth, governed by the Lord Jesus Christ and His saints. This new world will last forever.

What if there was a person living on the new earth who was short-tempered. He became angry quickly when he was young, and as he grew older his outbursts of rage became so violent his wife and children feared for their lives.

What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong is, we do not expect people in the new world of righteousness to be filled with rage and violence.

Would God let such a person live forever? This is the question I am raising in this article.

Would this individual really be happy? Would he even want to exist forever? If so, why? So he could become ever more angry and upset?

What if the person were a liar, and as he grew older the lying became more frequent? Would he want to live forever in this condition if people realized he was a liar and began to shun him?

My point is, living forever is not a good thing in and of itself. If all our bad features became increasingly manifest, would we want this to continue into eternity? More importantly, would God and Christ want us to continue like this for eternity/

It is evident, then, that living forever is desirable only as long as we have Christ in us and are growing in Christ.

The Lord does not want us to perish but have eternal life. We notice in the Book of Revelation that it is the overcomer, the victorious saint, who is permitted to eat from the Tree of Life.

If the Tree of Life is indeed the Lord Jesus Christ (and I don't know any other source of eternal life, do you?); and if we have to gain victory over our sinful nature in order to be allowed to eat of it; and if eating from this tree gives us immortality in the body; then God is saying we will not be permitted to live as immortals on the earth until we gain victory over our sinful nature.

This is sensible, isn't it?

Those who, through the Lord Jesus Christ, are growing in Christ, will be permitted to eat of the tree of immortality so they can grow endlessly in the Presence of God. All of the creation is theirs to enjoy for eternity. As it says in revelation, "He who overcomes will inherit all things, and God shall be his God.'

So when we tell people that if they "accept Christ" they will be given eternal life, we need to be aware of what we are promising. The New Testament states that if we believe in Jesus Christ we will not perish but have everlasting life. This does not mean primarily that we will exist somewhere in a conscious state, it means rather that we will through Christ be able to learn to live by the Spirit of God so we can regain our body, live on the earth, and continue to grow in the image of God for eternity.

The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:17)