Sermon on Lord’s Day 22 Q&A 58⤒🔗

58. Q. What comfort do you receive from the article about the life everlasting?
A. Since I now already feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, [1] I shall after this life possess perfect blessedness, such as no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived-- a blessedness in which to praise God forever.[2]
[1] John 17:3; Rom. 14:17; II Cor. 5:2, 3. [2] John 17:24; I Cor. 2:9.

Scripture Reading: John 3:31-36; Isaiah 65:17-25

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 98:3,4
Psalm 30:2,3
Psalm 84:5,6
Hymn 53:1,2
Hymn 55:1,2,3,4,5

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Our age of prosperity makes life today pretty comfortable. In the midst of the comforts of this prosperity we confess Sunday by Sunday that we believe "the life everlasting". We hear that phrase, and our thoughts go to the distant future, to the time after death or the time after Christ’s return. In the comforts of today’s prosperity we reach forward to the distant future, confess its bliss – and somehow that confession feels remote, detached from our daily lives. Only when there’s trouble –sickness, war, persecution, strife- does the article about the life everlasting touch us, for it promises relieve from the tribulations of the day. But other than that, this article doesn’t seem to touch the here and now.

Are we so right, beloved, in projecting the article about the life everlasting into the distant future? As it turns out, the future, the New Jerusalem, is but a small part of the life everlasting. The Bible is emphatic: life everlasting is something God gives His children now already. More, this gift God gives His children is today more desirable than winning lotto! The Christian does not live simply for tomorrow and the comforts of the future; the Christian treasures today the riches the Lord has prepared for him!

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

Christ has obtained everlasting life for his people

1. The nature of everlasting life,
2. The feel of everlasting life,
3. The fulfillment of everlasting life.

The nature of everlasting life←⤒🔗

As I mentioned a moment ago, the phrase ‘everlasting life’ prompts us to think of the future, of heaven, the New Jerusalem, living with God. Everlasting life: we think of no pain, no tears, no frustrations – Paradise Restored. It’s the material of Rev 21. So: it’s something for the future. Today it’s promised to us, we look forward to receiving it, are sure we’ll get it, but it doesn’t help us in the nuts and bolts of today. A bit, if you will, like a certified cheque from some rich uncle that’s dated for 2014. You can dream about what you’ll do with the money, but it doesn’t help you a dot today; it’s nothing more than a wonderful promise for the future.

Notice, then, brothers and sisters, the word of our God in John 3:36: "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life." That passage does not say that the believer ‘will have’ eternal life; no, it says that the believer ‘has’ everlasting life. That is: the Holy Spirit describes this gift as a present reality, not a promise-for-the-future.

How are we to understand, congregation, that we have eternal life today already? The answer lies in what one means with the word ‘life’. What is ‘life’? And no, we do not need now a biological answer to that question; in the Bible ‘life’ is much more than that the heart ticks. According to the Bible one has ‘life’ when there is a wholesome and healthy relation with the Lord God. ‘Life’ captures the notion of communion with God.

I refer to the opening chapters of Scripture. God told Adam directly after He made him that he was not to eat from that one tree in the garden. God added: "in the day you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen 2:17). Not so long afterwards Adam and Eve did eat from the forbidden tree. Did they die that very day? No, physically they did not; Adam lived another nine centuries after the fall into sin (Gen 5:5). Did God, then, not keep His promise?? We know: that cannot be either! Rather, congregation, when Adam fell into sin, he died immediately – according to the Word of the Lord. But ‘death’ is not first of all that the heart stops; ‘death’ in Scripture is first of all that communion with God is broken. That’s what’s described in Gen 3:8. When Adam and Eve after their fall heard the sound of God coming to them in the cool of the day, they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God." Why they did that? They did that because they were afraid of God (vs 10). The communion they had with God was broken, the relation of peace and favor was gone, and in its place was fear, anxiety. With the fall into sin they had died, for the life they initially had was at bottom communion with God. They lost that communion with God, they were dead, and that’s why the Lord drove Adam and Eve out of His presence, out of the Garden and into that world of thorns and thistles; they were now dead, spiritually dead, and that’s to say that they did not have communion with God anymore. They, and the whole human race with them, had deserted God in favor of joining Satan. That is death, that is the absence of life.

Then it may well be true, brothers and sisters, that on the world today some six billion hearts are thumping away, and doctors may call that life, and that’s fine. But the Christian realizes that life is much more, is much deeper than something biological. So many millions of earth’s present inhabitants are dead even while they live, are the walking dead, the living dead. Think of the words the father of the prodigal son used when his son returned. "This my son," he said, "was dead and is alive again" (Luke 15:24). Was the son really dead? No, not at all; biologically he was very much alive all along, and by worldly standards the lad had quite a life at that – he lived from party to party! But his father understood what ‘life’ really was, that life is ‘communion with God’, and that is why he dares to say that his prodigal son was dead.

And we, congregation, need to dare to say the same. Life without God is no life! We’re told to ‘get a life’, and the phrase is understood to mean that you need to enjoy yourself, you need to get in there and do the fun things life has to offer. But that’s all a delusion, it’s what Solomon calls vanity and striving after wind; a life without God, despite all the partying you could ever do, is at bottom a living death. Or, in the words of the Form for Holy Baptism, it’s a "constant death" (pg 586).

There you have also, beloved, the reason why our Savior came into the world. The Lord God desired to restore communion between Himself and sinners, and for that reason He sent His Son. The Savior died on the cross, paid for sin, reconciled sinners to God –it’s the message of the Lord’s Supper celebration of today- and so ‘got a life’ for us. His work makes us live. John 3:16: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." And vs 36: "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." What is this ‘life’ that Jesus obtained for God’s own? Simply that the heart ticks? No, no! It is that we have communion with God again! John 17:3: "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." That, brothers and sisters, is the nature of the life that Christ has obtained for us: life is to know God, is to have communion with this God, is to have the favor of God instead of to be burdened with fear of God.

That is why ‘life’ is not something for the distant future alone. ‘Life’ is something that the believer has now already. I remind you again that Jesus uses the present tense when He says that who believes in Him "has eternal life" (John 3:16,36).

That is equally why this life is ‘everlasting’. Christ has reconciled sinners to God so that we have communion with God, and who or what can put an end to that? Is that communion with God, that life-in-its-deepest-sense something short term? It’s Paul’s emphatic argument in Rom 8: "if God is for us, who can be against us?" (vs 31). And: "who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (vs 35). Paul is convinced: nothing, nothing in all the world can separate God’s own from God, nothing can stop God from loving His own, can tear God’s people from God’s hand – even death cannot do that! God holds on to His own, those redeemed by Jesus’ blood, and that is why this communion with God, this life in the deepest sense of the word, knows no end; it’s unending, it’s eternal, it’s everlasting. The child of God has this life today, and he will have this life to all eternity – for God doesn’t change!

It’s what the Form for Holy Baptism says. God the Father establishes His covenant of grace with us, promises to be our Father – and how long will that last? Says the Form: God establishes an eternal covenant with us. The God of the living gives me life today-and-forever; life everlasting is His promise in the covenant. God the Son promises to unite us with Him in His death and in His resurrection – and the point is that we have life, are righteous before God, have communion with Him today and forever. God the Holy Spirit assures us that He will dwell in us and make us living members of Christ – and the point is again that we have communion with holy God. And how long shall that all last? That begins today, in this life, and continues to all eternity.

The same message comes to us through the Form for the Celebration of the Holy Supper. We state it emphatically in the Form (pg 596): "we acknowledged that we are dead in ourselves." But the Lord God sent His Son specifically for dead people, sinners as we, and this Son suffered on the cross and died –to do what?- to restore us to God, reconcile us to God, establish again communion between us and God. He is the bread of life (John 6:35), through Him we are made alive again, and the result is that we may sit at table with God once more – and today’s celebration, today’s communion with God at His table, foreshadows the Great Supper of the Lord on the day of Christ’s return, when He and we shall drink the wine together in the kingdom of His Father. Communion with God, true life in the Biblical sense of the word: it’s something we have today already, and something we’ll keep –by God’s grace- into all eternity.

That is why, congregation, when the Catechism speaks about the comfort of the life everlasting, that Catechism does not ask you to forget this life with its trials and to peer into the distant future for the day when all tears shall be gone. No, when the Catechism speaks about ‘life everlasting’, the Catechism directs us first to the here and now¸ to what we have today in Jesus Christ. A 58: "I now already feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy." It’s a present reality! We who have seen this morning the sacrament of Holy Baptism and sat today at the Table of the Lord may know something of how real this life is today. Now already we have life with God, communion with Him (we could even sit with Him at table!) - and this life will never end!

I come to our second point:

The feel of everlasting life←⤒🔗

So we have everlasting life already. Tell me now, congregation, what does this gift feel like? I’m not asking you to tell me what it should feel like. The Catechism gives the answer to that: it’s "the beginning of eternal joy," and so we should be feeling happy, joyful. The Lord’s Supper Form uses similar words: it speaks of the need to "rejoice" and give Him the glory. So that’s how it should be. My question, though, is this: so you confess that you have everlasting life, and you have it today already. How does that feel to you?

I’m thinking now of the question that invariably gets put to the person who wins Lotto in a big way. Channel 7 will be on top of him straightaway with this question: how do you feel? In other words: what’s it like to win a million dollars? Well, congregation, how would you answer that question? I asked that very question of a Catechism student the other night, and his answer was "Great!" And somewhere, congregation, we can all relate to that answer. For money is something of everyday value, and somehow we’ve always dreamed of getting that Statesman, and a bigger house, and going out for a good holiday on a yacht. A million dollars tax-free: that sparkles, feels great!

Over against that, everlasting life sounds right down dull, doesn’t really touch us in the grind of daily life…. And now you ask how it feels to have eternal live? Somehow it doesn’t give near the buzz that winning a million bucks would give….

Why is that? The first reason, brothers and sisters, is undoubtedly that our broken sinful selves are inclined to this earth, to the things we can see, taste, feel. We know: money gives us power, money gives us opportunity, money even buys us fun. Our sinful hearts treasure those things. So the thought of receiving a million dollars gives us a buzz.

But there’s a second reason why getting a million gives us a bigger buzz than getting life, and it’s this: we don’t appreciate the taste of eternal life. And why don’t we appreciate its taste? That’s because we haven’t really tasted it! Everlasting life: that’s communion with God, communion without end. Life: that’s to possess the favor of God, it’s to be on the receiving end of the forgiveness of all your sins, it’s the fact that God sees you as completely righteous for Jesus’ sake, without sin. Life: that’s to have God smiling at you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Life: it’s what the priests of the Old Testament impressed upon the people when they laid the blessing on them. The people had come to the tabernacle, offered their sacrifice for their sins and so acknowledged their sin and misery as well as their conviction that the Son of God would one day die to atone for their sins, reconcile them to God. As they left the priest would stretch out his hands over the people and on behalf of God Himself would voice these words over the people: "The Lord blesses you and keeps you; The Lord makes His face shine upon you, And is gracious to you; The Lord lifts up His countenance upon you, And gives you peace" (Num 6:22ff). Makes His face to shine upon you: what is that? Draw me a picture, beloved, of a face that shines – and guaranteed you’ll draw me a big smile. That’s the point: holy God smiles upon His people! His favor is upon them, His pleasure – and therefore His blessing.

What now, congregation, would you rather have: a million dollar cheque or God’s smile? Let me put that a bit sharper. You either have the cheque or you do not; you have something or nothing. But that’s not the way it is with God’s smile, God’s favor; this time it’s not a matter of something or nothing. On the topic of God’s smile, you either have God’s smile or God’s frown. And we realize that having God’s frown is as terrible as having God’s smile is pleasurable. So now the question again: would you rather have a million dollar cheque or God’s smile? That is: would you rather have the million dollar cheque with God’s frown, God’s displeasure upon you, or simply His smile alone?

Do not, now, pretend that God is not there, that He’s but a figment of the imagination. Take God seriously, as seriously as Adam and Eve after the fall, when they heard His footsteps in the garden. What do you want: His smile or His frown? His blessing or His curse? His words of forgiveness or His words of damnation? For anyone who takes God seriously, that is not a choice; His frown is so terrible, and His smile so desirable. Well now, you have not won Lotto, but by God’s grace in Jesus Christ you have freely received His smile – life, communion with God. Tell me again: how does that feel? Anybody who takes God seriously cannot but be ecstatic at that gift! This is better, much better, than Lotto! And that’s what the Catechism is getting at when it says in our Lord’s Day that "now already I feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy." That’s the reason why the Psalmist could sing his songs of jubilation, and that’s equally why the apostle Paul could exalt at the wonders of God’s mercy (Rom 11:33ff). To live under the smile of God: that’s life!

Is that joy yours, my brothers and sisters? Despite the sinfulness that remains in your heart, what gives you the bigger buzz: the thought of winning lotto or the gospel of the Lord’s Supper table? To have life in a worldly fashion (as did the prodigal son) or to life in that deep Scriptural sense of communion with God? Our feelings are sinful and so are much inclined to the earthly – as if that’s real life. But we shall need to train our feelings, discipline our feelings, so that we put to death feelings of excitement at thoughts of winning lotto and making alive feelings of excitement at thoughts of having communion with God, of having God’s smile, God’s favor. And yes, that takes work, takes effort. And it begins with having right priorities deep inside the recesses of the heart – where only you can know what you’re really all about and only God can see what makes you tick.

I come to our third point:

The fulfillment of everlasting life←⤒🔗

We have life already, communion with God, His peace, His favor. That life, that peace, that favor, that divine smile was something that filled David and Isaiah and Paul and so many saints of old with joy profound. The child of God today shares that joy, and that’s why we say in our Lord’s Day that today already we feel in our hearts the beginning of the joy that does not end.

But that beginning, congregation, is only a beginning! Today our antennae, our receptors are so dulled by sin that we pick up so very much interference, so much static from the glitter of the world around us. But the day is coming that we shall experience the full riches of life-with-God with all our senses. Listen to the prophet Isaiah: "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, And her people a joy" (65:17f). The passage continues to relate the marvels of God’s renewing work, but the long and short is caught in the fact that joy will be perfect. It’s the answer to Jesus’ prayer before He went to the cross: "Father," He said, "I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me" (John 17:24). Glory: that’s life with God, His smile forever! In the midst of the tears and brokenness of this life, this is what Paul longed for: "I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better" (Phil 1:23). God commanded Old Testament Israel to come three times in a year to the tabernacle, to God’s presence, and each time they came was to be a time of feasting, of rejoicing. "You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are among you" (Dt 16:11; cf vs 14). That rejoicing was to express the feeling that lived in the hearts of God’s people at being in the presence of the Lord, and at the same time it foreshadowed the great rejoicing that will characterize all God’s people on the Day of days. Rev 21: "And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people" (vs 3). That’s life, beloved! Then "God Himself will be with them and be their God." And what will characterize that perfect life-with-God? Says the voice from heaven to John: "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away" (vs 4). Can you imagine: never a tear again? Never a dot of pain again – neither physically so, say from arthritis or cramp or migraine or even just bumping your leg? Never a dot of pain again – neither psychologically either, say from people saying something unpleasant about you and throwing a verbal dart at you? No pain, no crying, for the former things have passed away; every effect of the fall into sin gone!

Instead of the pain and tears of this life there shall be only the smile of God, His favor and His peace and His blessing. And our antennae shall be so sharp that we pick up this smile perfectly and enjoy it perfectly too. No wonder the church longs for that day! "Come, Lord Jesus!"

But do not forget this, beloved: in principle we have that joy today. Today we already live with God, have communion with Him, enjoy His smile. For Christ’s sake we’re rich, so very rich. And it’s going to get better still! Amen.