************ Sermon on Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 58 ************
Doctrine: The Apostles' Creed, "the life everlasting"
By: Rev. Adrian Dieleman
This sermon was preached on February 18, 2001
Q & 58
Isaiah 65:17-25
"The Life Everlasting"
Introduction
"I believe ... the life everlasting." As we look at this I want you to notice that we are talking of comfort again. HOW DOES THE ARTICLE CONCERNING "LIFE EVERLASTING" COMFORT YOU? That's what Q & A 58 asks. As you all should know, this comfort is NOT for everyone. It is only for those with true faith. This comfort is only for those who know and fear God, repent of and confess their sin, and turn to Jesus Christ alone for their salvation.
I Eternal Life
A "I believe ... the life everlasting." The Bible's best known verse, John 3:16, speaks to us of life everlasting:
(Jn 3:16) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Further on in that same chapter of Scripture we can read more about this:
(Jn 3:36) Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
God's promise to you and to me and to all who believe in Jesus Christ is "eternal life."
"Eternal life." In this context it means life without end. Like the Energizer Rabbit, it is life that keeps going and going.
B In the Bible, however, "eternal life" is much, much more than prolonged, never-ending human life. When the Bible says we inherit or receive "eternal life," or "everlasting life," it means we, by grace, participate in the life of God. We should not merely think of this kind of life as "life that never ends." Our emphasis, when it comes to eternal and everlasting life, should NOT be on its length but on its quality. When we confess, "I believe ... the life everlasting," our focus should lie on the fact that we get to participate in the life of God Himself.
When it comes right down to it, "life everlasting," or "life eternal," is life with and in and for and from God. In His High Priestly prayer Jesus can say,
(Jn 17:3) Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Eternal life is life lived in the glorious, wondrous, and awesome presence of God. It is life where we know, taste, see, and experience that God is good. It is a life of communion and unbroken fellowship with Christ. It is Kingdom life in all its fullness where God is all-in-all in our life.
It is comforting to know that there awaits those who believe life with God in all His glory, wonder, goodness, and fullness.
II Our Foretaste of Eternal Joy
A With the church of all ages we say, "I believe ... the life everlasting." This is not just a future hope; it is also a present reality. According to Scripture, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life" (Jn 3:36). This does not say that the believer "will have" eternal life, nor that he or she "might get" eternal life, but that he or she has eternal life. Along this same line, the Catechism can say,
... I already now
experience in my heart
the beginning of eternal joy ...
Topic: Eternal Life
Subtopic:
Index: 2157
Date: 2/2001.101
Title: Part of God Within Us
In the Hebrides (pronounced heb re dez) Islands off the West coast of Scotland there is a lovely legend about a god who lived beneath the sea. The great desire of this god who lived beneath the sea was to have a little baby boy – a human baby boy. So he was always trying to take little babies from boats that were going from island to island. When in their boats the people always clung tightly to their babies.
On one occasion, he almost got a boat. He was surging behind it, this sea-god, when the boat reached the shore. The little boy inside was rushed ashore and hurried away just as the sea-god approached in a great wave. Except the sea-god did manage to send just one little wavelet into the heart of that little child. As the sea-god, momentarily frustrated, settled back down to his palace beneath the waves, he was heard to say, "He will return to me for I have put a part of myself into his heart."
Years later, the people of the village were astonished one day to see that baby – who was now a strong, young man – go down to the beach and get in a rowboat and begin to row out into the sea. But he did not row toward another island. They called out to him, "There is no island that way." But on he rowed. And as they watched, when he had gotten a good distance, he stood up and dived into the sea to the god who had put a part of himself into that boy's heart.
When we were made, or remade in the image of God in Christ, God put a bit of Himself, a bit of eternity, a bit of the Kingdom of Heaven right inside of us and it cries out for Him.
So right now, today, if we only believe in God and His Christ, then ours already is eternal life. This is nothing new. In the Reformed faith we have always maintained that eternal life begins the moment you are born again, the moment you believe.
B By the Bible's standards, only those who have this kind of life are really living, and those who do not yet have this life are actually dead. They who believe in Christ live, even when they die. But those who refuse to accept Jesus Christ are dead, even if they claim to be living. The Apostle John says,
(1 Jn 5:11-12) And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (12) He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Topic: Death
Subtopic: Being Dead in Sin
Index: 2164
Date: 1/1994.10
Title:
When a flippant youth heard an evangelist preach, he interrupted him by saying, "You tell me about the burden of sin. I feel none. How heavy is it? Eighty pounds? Ten pounds?"
The preacher answered, "Tell me, if you laid four hundred pounds weight on a corpse, would it feel the load?"
"No, because it is dead," replied the youth.
The preacher said, "You don't feel the weight of sin because – like the corpse – you are dead."
If you know your sin and your Savior you are alive, even when you die. If you don't know your sin and your Savior you are dead, even if you think you are alive.
C "I believe ... the life everlasting." This means that mine is the privilege of experiencing "the beginning of eternal joy." Ours are so many joys already: the joy of knowing we are never alone; the joy of Christian fellowship; the joy of being secure in a world that often seems without hope; the joy of knowing God. We experience this joy at the Lord's Supper, in a worship service, at work, during a Bible Study, and on vacation. We experience this joy when we are steadfast against temptation, when a child is baptized, when covenant youth publicly profess their faith, when a loved one is healed, when a sinner repents and turns to God for his or her salvation, when a believing man and a woman are united to each other in marriage, when Christians reach out in love towards each other and their fellow man. All of these joyful experiences foreshadow the final victory, the final shalom, of God's people. They are all foretastes of the perfect joy that lies ahead for God's people.
Sometimes people are prone to belittle or deride our present existence. Yet, the Bible tells us that the present is the beginning of eternity. Already we can experience the "beginning of eternal joy."
This reminds me of what happened to the Apostle Paul. Do you remember the experience he wrote of in his second letter to Corinth? He says,
(2 Cor 12:2-4) I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows. (3) And I know that this man--whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows-- (4) was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.
Though few of us will ever have a similar experience, yet we can't deny that already we have the "beginning of eternal joy."
D We experience the beginning of eternal joy on this earth, but sin and evil destroys that joy; an impenitent spirit thwarts that joy; grief blocks that joy; strife stifles that joy; and hurt, injury, and heartache tempers that joy.
So it needs to be stressed that what we experience now is only a "beginning" of eternal joy. It is only a beginning because on this earth we are still in conflict with temptation and subject to sin.
Yet, because of the redemption that Christ brings the roots of eternal life are already present within us. Picture, if you will, eternal life as a flower bulb planted in the ground. Even though we cannot see the full flower, all the parts of the flower are already present in principle. So it is with eternal life. It will only be fully ours to enjoy and experience when Christ comes again, when all sin and evil are fully vanquished, when Satan and his forces have been thrown into the eternal fire. But the roots are in us already.
How comforting it is to know this.
III Our Perfect Blessedness
A With the church of all ages we say, "I believe ... the life everlasting." To confess this is to speak a word of comfort not only of our present joys but also and especially of our future joys.
The Catechism speaks of this future life, borrowing from the language of the Apostle Paul:
... after this life I will have
perfect blessedness such as
no eye has seen,
no ear had heard,
no man has ever imagined ...
This is based upon Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 2:9 where he tells us, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." Paul's point is that the mysteries of salvation in the fullness of time and at the end of time are not discoverable by human investigation or human philosophy. The blessedness prepared for us by our heavenly Father is far more than we presently have and far more than we can possibly imagine.
Topic: Heaven
Subtopic: Glory of
Index:
Date: 2/2001.101
Title: Travel Section of Newspaper
Every once in a while I will read the Travel Section of the newspaper. The columnist is able to describe in great detail what Tibet or Sri Lanka or some other exotic location is like. He is able to do this because he has gone there. Many authors have tried to give us a picture of heaven and life everlasting. But they can never succeed. They can't succeed because they have never been there.
B Yet, we are given a partial description of life everlasting in Isaiah 65 and Revelation 21. Mostly, this description is in negative terms: the absence of pain, weakness, death, illness; an inheritance that cannot perish, spoil or fade; no darkness, no injustice, and no tears. In positive terms, we will be like Jesus, we will live with God, we will rejoice and be glad, and there will be perfect harmony among men and in creation.
I have discovered over the years that many people see life everlasting as a boring eternity wrapped in white sheets, encircled in halos, and spent in the clouds either singing or playing harps. To a non-musician like me that sounds yucky. Not only that, but too many Christians take literally what the Bible means for us to understand figuratively: jeweled foundations, pearly gates, streets of gold, and crystal streams all of which represent the radiant splendor of the future life. Thank God that this stereotype of heaven is not the Biblical picture.
This much we do know: heaven is a wonderful place, full of truth and grace, a place of glory, a place far better than anything we can see or hear or imagine. How comforting it is to know that the blessedness of "life everlasting" awaits those who believe in the Lord.
IV To Praise God Eternally
A The life everlasting is not the end of God's work of salvation. God's goal is not and never will be the bliss of believing man. Rather, God's final goal is His own glory, His own honor, and His own praise.
The Catechism reminds us of this goal. The Catechism reminds us that the goal of eternal life is the praise of God. The perfect blessedness of life everlasting which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no man has ever imagined is a "blessedness in which to praise God eternally."
We need to understand this properly. This does not mean we will be playing harps all day or singing in choirs for millions upon tens of millions of years. It does mean that all that we say and do in the life everlasting – all of our work and play – is directed towards the honor, glory, and praise of God.
B Of course, all of life, not just eternal life, ought to have this one goal: the honor, glory, and praise of God. And, if ours truly is the "beginning of eternal joy," if we already do experience some of the joys of life everlasting, if we really do have the true life from God, then our goal in life today – not tomorrow, not in the hereafter, but today – is the honor, glory, and praise of God.
Do you know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives the most money to the church or kingdom; it is not he who is the most self-controlled when it comes to fighting off sin and temptation; it is not he who does the most good works; it is not he who knows the Bible the best. The greatest saint in the world is he who is always thanking and praising God. It say that because that person is doing what God created us to do.
Conclusion
With the church of all ages, what does truth faith confess? It says, "I believe ... the life everlasting."