THEOLOGY
Life Everlasting
By Dr. J. Rodman Williams
Theologian
Ten
Teachings
Chapters: 1 -
2 - 3 - 4
- 5 -
6 - 7 -
8 - 9 -
10
10: Life Everlasting
In closing this series of studies, we come to a consideration of the
concept of life everlasting. The final sentence of the Apostles Creed,
well-known to many, is, "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy
catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." Let us center
our thinking on the last of these phrases, "the life everlasting,"
and do so in question-and-answer format.
Let us assume the presence of a non-Christian, who, having heard us
say this Creed, now raises certain questions. We shall try to demonstrate
the significance of our affirmation by answering the various questions
he asks.
Question: I heard you say you believe in "the life
everlasting." Just what do you mean by that? Do you believe that
life goes on forever? Your life and my life?
Answer: Yes, we Christians do believe that life goes on forever,
that physical death is not the end. We believe that those who assume
that this life is all there isthe materialists, the humanists, the
atheists, and so ondo not have a proper understanding of the nature
of life. We believe that the yearningpresent everywhere at all timeswhich
people have for immortality has an answer beyond the grave. Indeed,
we Christians do believe that life goes on forever in spite of the seeming
end at physical death.
Question: But wait a moment. How can that be? The person disintegrates
at death. The body dies, surely. The bones of people of many thousands
of years are scattered over the earth. What kind of life everlasting
are you talking about?
Answer: You fail to recognize that there is not only body, but
there is also spirit, which is an immortal and indestructible part of
man. Indeed it is his very deepest nature. I have a body but also I
am a spirit: a spirit that expresses itself through my body with its
various mental and emotional aspects. The body is the vehicle for the
spirit and at death there is a separation of the mortal from the immortal.
Hence just because the body is fragile and fades (indeed it dies daily;
every hour you are one hour nearer to the end) has nothing to do with
the spirit. God created man different from the rest of the animal world:
He created him in His own image and likeness. This means many things,
but for one thing it means that God has given to man something immortal.
God made man that way.
Question: You mean then that you as a Christian believe
life goes on forever, but only as a spirit? I am not sure I am very
interested in that kind of life beyond the grave, because this would
just be a part of me, although you say it is the essential part. Im
not sure this kind of life beyond the grave is very appealing. The body
decays, so I dont expect it to go on, but Im not sure I want to continue
forever just as a disembodied spirit.
Answer: Wait one moment. I did agree with you that the
body decays and then dies. Then I tried to show you that there is something
else immortal and indestructible in manthe spirit. But this does not
mean that the body is done away with for good. Did you not also hear
us say in the creed that we believe in "the resurrection of the
body"?
Question: Yes, I did hear you say that, but Im not at all clear
just what you mean, since you agree with me that the body is frail;
it fades away and dies. It is therefore quite unlike the spirit. So
what is this resurrection all about?
Answer: It means simply that though our present bodies are mortal
and die, the mortal will be raised immortal. The corruptible will put
on incorruption; thus the resurrection body will, like the spirit, live
forever. Now in this world where all things material fade away through
growth and maturity and old age, the body does likewise. But there will
be a resurrection in which the natural body, which we now have, shall
become a spiritual one.
Question: I think I see what you are getting at. But I confess
that the idea of a "spiritual body" confuses me. Spirit and
body seem to be quite different from one another. What do you mean when
you speak of a spiritual body?
Answer: It means basically that the limitations of the present
world as we now know them with our physical bodiesthe limitations of
space and timewill no longer apply to a spiritual body. It will be
a body, yes, but no longer spatially or temporally confined. In the
New Testament we read about Jesus, who was buried and then rose from
the dead. After His resurrection we have some glimpse of what His spiritual
body was like, as a kind of prefiguring of what we may look forward
to. Though He was recognizable by the eyes of faith to His disciples,
His body was different in that it was no longer confined. He was able
to appear through closed doors. He could be present in different places
almost immediately. Neither space nor time had the same significance
to Him as before. We Christians believe that this is a kind of pre-vision
of the spiritual body which shall be the lot of us all.
Question: But that brings up another point. You say Jesus rose
from the deadthat His body didnt stay in the grave and that He
thereafter had a spiritual body. It was resurrected. But, remember,
that doesnt seem to be happening to other people. They are placed in
the grave when they die, and their bodies stay put. When then does this
resurrection of the body occur?
Answer: There is a difference, unquestionably, between Jesus
Christ and those who are followers of His. The Christian faith does
not hold to an immediate resurrection from the dead for other men. Rather
do we believe in a final day when all will be resurrected togethera
day when the present, natural world of time and space will become
a spiritual world. "A new heaven and a new earth," we call
it. Therefore being a spiritual world, the spiritual body will be adapted
thereto. Jesus was the first fruits in His resurrection with His spiritual
body a sign of the future. As He became, so we believe we shall be.
Question: Doesnt that mean in your view that you cease to be
as an individual, and a new person someday takes your place? Isnt that
like reincarnation, wherein you are supposedly born one person in this
world and a different person with the same spirit in the next world?
Answer: No, we do not believe in reincarnation. The picture
is more like that of a seed buried in the earth. The seed looks as if
it is dead and gone forever. But later onsome time laterthe plant
springs up from the seed. The plant looks different, yes, very different
perhaps from the seed, but really it isnt. It was there all along,
but until the seed was buried, even died, the new form which was already
there in the seed could not come to life. So it is that our natural,
physical body is raised a spiritual body. This is not a new person.
It is the life that was there all along, fitted and adapted for the
new heavens and earth in which we shall dwell.
Question: But some peoples bodies, at death, arent put in
a grave. Some are mutilated and scattered. Some are never found. Some
become a part of something else. How then is the body ever able to spring
up like a seed into this spiritual body of which you speak?
Answer: Wait, good friend. The resurrection is Gods work, and
He is not handicapped by what happens to the parts or elements of the
physical body. God, who numbers every hair of our head, and knows every
grain of sand by the sea, surely is able to take of our mortal remains,
wherever or whatever they may be, and reshape them into the immortal.
Question: But if the resurrection of the body does not take
place until the end of this physical world, as you say, then you must
mean that the person does continue for a long time after death only
as a spirit. If so, what is the spirit doing? Is it resting, or sleeping,
or something else like that?
Answer: If it is the spirit of one who belongs to God, he goes
immediately into the presence of God, that is into heaven. Jesus Christ
on the day He died said to a penitent and believing thief, "Today
you will be with me in Paradise." This must then be true of believers
of all ages who have passed on. Their spirits are even now rejoicing
in the presence of God, and, like all of us, look forward to the resurrection
of the body. The resurrection will be an event which all of us will
share together. God in His marvelous plan does not give an advantage
to those earlier born, or a disadvantage to those later; all will know
the resurrection together. Abraham and Moses, Peter and Paul, all others
who are people of faith, will share with us the resurrection and the
new heavens and the new earth. That is a great occasion to which all
of us may look forward.
Question: So then you are saying that there is a kind
of intermediate state after physical deaththe state of a disembodied
spirit? Then later comes the resurrection when there is a spiritual
body. Is that correct?
Answer: Yes, from the point of view of us here in time, not
in eternity, there is an intermediate state. So we may properly
say that Abraham, Moses, Peter, and Pauland all others of faithare
now in this intermediate state, and look forward like us to a resurrection
yet to come. But on the other hand, from the point of view of eternity,
which overarches time, the resurrection may be just as much a present
as a future reality. Thus in another sense, from the aspect of eternity,
there may be no intermediate state or stage. It is possible that the
person in eternity already knows the resurrection and so exists not
partially as a spirit but as a complete person. But maybe this is getting
a little too complex. What is the next question you have to ask?
Question: Does everybody live forever? Good and bad alike? Do
all spirits continue? Does everyone after death share in the resurrection?
Answer: Yes. For remember the earlier point, that God made the
spirit immortal; therefore death cannot destroy it. The spirit, like
God, is everlasting. The same holds true of the body, for whether the
person is good or bad the body is still, as it were, sown in the ground,
and later is resurrected.
I would add, however, that there is one category of people who will
not experience the resurrection, namely those who are believers in Christ
and alive at His final coming. They will be "caught up" instead.
Question: What do you mean by their being "caught up"
at Christs final coming? Knowing little about such a "coming,"
I confess I dont understand what you are getting at.
Answer : We Christians believe that not only did Christ come
in the incarnation, but He will also return at the end of time. You
will recall how we said in the creed, "He shall come to judge the
quick and the dead." At His return the dead who belong to Christ
will rise first, then all living believers will be caught up with them
to meet Christ. However, this also means a transformation, for even
as the dead will be raised with incorruptible bodies, so the living
will find their natural bodies immediately changed into spiritual ones.
So we shall ever be with Him in heaven.
Question: I want to ask something now that is bothering
me a great deal. You speak of heaven, and that believers go there. Does
this mean that, though all people live forever, some go to another place?
Answer: Place may not be quite the right word. For in eternity
there is not the same spatial existence, the same geography, if you
will, that we have nowit being not a material but a spiritual world.
So I will try to answer you, but it is not easy from our finite, temporal,
limited perspective. Heaven means the presence of Godthe realm
where God is known and worshiped and loved. And it is true that not
all people know that reality. Some go on into eternity not belonging
to God, and therefore they live in eternal separation from Him. This
is what we call, in Christian faith, hell.
Question: Now you disturb me with what you are saying. Could
you tell me about the difference between heaven and hell?
Answer: Again I say we are dealing with things beyond our full
comprehension, but a few words may be suggested by way of explanation.
Heaven means the realm or sphere in which God is present not
just by faith or momentarily, but by sight and completely. Here in the
world we know God only in part. But heaven is the reality in which God
is continuously known, in which the vision of God is present, in which
we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and we love our neighbor
as ourselves. Heaven is climactically the praise and adoration of God
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit throughout eternity.
Heaven also represents other things. It surely means rest from toil,
from drudgery, from pain and sorrow; no more crying, no more tears.
But also it means servicethe opportunity for service in a fuller way
than we have ever known here on earth. Many a person on this earth has
been frustrated and unfulfilled. But he will find in heaven, we believe,
opportunity for unlimited service. Time here is too short; failures
are too many; opportunities often are not what they might be; but heaven
is opportunity unlimited, unbound. Yet, even after having said that,
"What no eye has seen nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceivedGod
has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthian 2:9).
If heaven is what we have said, then hell must be just the opposite
of all this. It is a sphere of isolation from God, where even faith
is no longer able to lay hold on Him as faith may in this world. It
is also a sphere of isolation from other people. If in heaven we know
people completely (only partly here on earth), then in hell one does
not know other people at all. It is isolation, a separation both from
God and from ones neighbor in such a way that the condition is one
of darkness, of torment, of pain. It is eternal death in distinction
from eternal life. That is what hell really is.
Question: But how do people end up in such a condition as hell?
Does God want this to happen? Does He send them there?
Answer: No, it is not Gods desire at all. God sends no one
to heaven, and surely He sends no one to hell. People go there by their
own choice.
Question: Who in this world would chooses hellwith all its
pain and misery as you describe itwhen he could choose heaven with
its joy and blessedness?
Answer: As strange as it may seem, people do it all the
timenot just for the future, but even in this life. They choose not
to live for God but to live for themselves. And they are miserable inside.
But somehow they would rather be miserable doing their own will than
happy doing Gods. They are tormented within, but they wont surrender
to God. They so much want to run their own lives, seek their own satisfaction,
work for their own ends, that misery, pain, illnessnothing will make
them change. And when they die, they merely become what they already
arecitizens in a city of destruction, dwellers in eternal separation
from God.
But, may I say again, they would rather be in hell than in heaven.
Even as is true in this life, they are miserable away from God, but
more miserable having Him around, since their self-centeredness makes
Gods reality unbearable. Like some animal of the night they can not
bear the light. Even so, such persons who cannot bear Gods presence
do not want Him. So in a sense we might say that God, out of His love
and mercy, permits hell. God let Adam and Eve go out of the Garden of
Eden because they were miserable in His presence. Yes, they deserved
to be excluded from the presence of God because of their sin. But beyond
that, Gods mercy was manifest in their exclusion, because had they
stayed in the Garden of Eden their lives would have been utterly into
intolerablealways fleeing from the presence of Godalways in fear and
shame. Therefore God let them goand their "hell" on earth
(with drudgery and pain) was more bearable than the Paradise of God.
Question: You say then that a loving God permits hell? But to
me it still seems impossible. Why doesnt God just annihilate everybody
at death who is not going to heaven? Wouldnt that be far more loving?
If I saw my child was going to be in torment forever, I would rather
see him die than be in such a condition as that.
Answer: But did you not earlier hear it said that God has created
us with immortal spiritsthat we cannot die? God will not annihilate
His own act of creation. Therefore the question is not whether we shall
live on or not; the only question is the sphere in which we shall continue
to exist. And when you speak of the torment into which God seems to
let people go, may I remind you again that hell, with all its pain,
is less torment than for a self-centered person to have to live eternally
in the presence of God and of other people that are always praising
Him and are loving and kind to one another.
Question: Why did God ever create man in the first place if
such a possibility as hell lay open to him?
Answer: God wanted creatures who freely choose Him. Without
freedom of choice they would have been puppets and not people. This
freedom of choice meant that they might also choose themselves,
and in choosing themselves they would choose hell.
Question: But was creation worth it if hell was even a bare
possibility? Did not God know what would happen to much of His creation?
Did He not foresee what was going to occur? Why then should God have
created the world?
Answer: Yes, God created the world foreseeing what was to take
place. The only reason God was willing to go through with it was because
He was ready to pay the price Himself. He could create because He was
willing to suffer even more than any of His creatures that He might
win them back. One day on a cross almost two thousand years ago, God
in human flesh suffered and died. You also heard us say in our creed
that "he descended into hell," and we mean it, because this
was the great act of the love of God whereby He entered into all the
misery and the pain and the torment, even to the very depths, in order
that He might win man from his isolation and separation. God, who permitted
hell, has plumbed its horrible abyss that man might freelythrough penitence
and faithcome back to Him. You may be sure that God has suffered far
more because of hell than have any of His creatures.
Question: I have but one final question to ask then, I suppose,
and that is: What did God do in dying in human form on a cross? What
did He do that could win man out of his self-centeredness and isolationhis
hell on earth and hell to come? What did He do to bring man back to
Himself, without forcing him and without making him uncomfortable in
His presence? What did God do on the cross?
Answer: The answer to this is the most important thing of all.
God in Christ on the cross did, and does, that which makes all the difference
in this world and the world to come. For one thing God makes us aware
of His tremendous lovehow far He goes for us in suffering our pain,
our agony, by even descending into hell. And He also makes us aware
of how evil we really are, that all the sin we commit is a sin against
Hima crucifying of His very Son. So at the cross we may become aware
of what our evil does to the very love of God. Butand here is the final
answerat the cross, in spite of all our evil, we hear the word of forgiveness
pronounced, "Forgive them." It is this word of forgiveness
that can cleanse away the sin and bring new life so that one may thereafter
live joyously in the eternal presence of God. This, my good friend,
is what God in Christ has done countless times in bringing people from
death to lifefrom self-centeredness to God-centerednessfrom hell to
heaven. The cross is therefore the power of God for salvation, but for
those who will not receive it, God can do no more. They choose against
all Gods love, and they carve out their own destiny here and in the
world to come.
Are your questions done? If so, then let me say as vigorously as I
can that to believe in the life everlasting (as we Christians have said
we do) without believing also in Jesus Christ would be a dark and fearful
belief. For without Him, life everlasting would be for all of us not
eternal life but eternal deatheternal separation from the presence
of God and one another. But when we truly believe in Jesus Christ, when
we commit ourselves to Him, when we seek the divine forgiveness at the
cross, then we do not go on perishing as we have been perishing since
the days of Adam and Eve. Rather do we find eternal lifelife in the
presence of God both now and forever.
So, finally, may I ask you who have raised these questions, whom we
have tried our best to answer, just one thing: will you not also believe
in Him? Will you not also receive Him whom God sent to die on a cross?
Are you now willing to accept Him as your Savior also from sin and from
hell? God has done all He can. All the resources of the Almighty have
been poured out and emptied on the cross. It is up to you to believe
in Him and so to receive His forgiveness and the life everlasting which
is eternal life both now and always. To God be the praise and the glory!
Chapters: 1 -
2 - 3 - 4
- 5 -
6 - 7 -
8 - 9 -
10
Content Copyright 2003 by J. Rodman Williams,
Ph.D.
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