Apostles' Creed: Life Everlasting Series

APOSTLES’ CREED: Life Everlasting

Our study of the Apostles’ Creed concludes with, “I believe in THE LIFE EVERLASTING.

Do you want to live forever? I guess it beats the alternative, but for many people, living forever sounds boring. After a few thousand years, wouldn’t we get tired of doing the same things over and over? It might be like kids at the end of summer vacation: “I’m bored.”

***I heard a true story of a 6-year-old telling a 3-year-old: “Don’t ride in the street.” The 3-year-old replied, “If I get hit by a car, I’ll just go to heaven and be with Jesus, like they say in Sunday School.” The worldly-wise 6-year-old replied, “You won’t be able to ride your Big Wheel there, and Jesus will just read your Sunday School paper to you all the time.”**

If we think heaven might be boring, we fail to understand God’s infinite creativity, as well as the transformation God has planned for us.

***C.S. Lewis, at the end of the final book of the Chronicles of Narnia, “The Last Battle,” describes everlasting life as continually developing: “the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them is was only the beginning of the real story…Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever in which every chapter is better than the one before.**

A better translation of what God has for us is ETERNAL LIFE. The emphasis is not on how long life will last, but on the quality of life. Eternal life will be forever, because it is not a life of continual decay, like life on earth, but a life that is continually being renewed.

WHAT WILL ETERNAL LIFE WITH GOD BE LIKE?

Many people wonder what heaven will be like. Will the streets be paved with gold? Will the houses have dishwashers? Some of that gets a little silly, but we wonder.

Heaven is beyond our comprehension. 1 Corinthians 2:9 describes the glory to come as, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love him.” Our minds cannot comprehend the reality of heaven, because it is beyond our experience and beyond our capacity to understand. All we really know is that it will be glorious!

When the Bible gives us a vision for eternal life, it is not as much about the place as it is about the QUALITY OF LIFE. Of course, the Bible can only speak to us in relation to our limited experience. Especially in the Old Testament, the vision of eternal life is in earthly terms.

Isaiah 65 gives us one of those descriptions. (Read Isaiah 65:17-25.)

Read Isaiah 65:17. There are new heavens and a new earth—a new kind of universe or environment, like the present universe, but different.

Will there be mountains and streams? beaches and waterfalls? trees and animals? dogs and other pets? Nicholas Berdyaev said, “All beauty in the world is either a memory of paradise [the Garden of Eden] or a prophecy of the transfigured world.” We don’t know whether there will be roses or dogs in heaven, but we can know that heaven will not be lacking in things to appreciate.

Read Isaiah 65:18-19a. Jerusalem is not a place on earth, of course; it represents the dwelling place of the people of God. In Jerusalem, God’s people will be “glad and rejoice forever.”

***Barbara Walters, in her special on heaven, said, “Heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.” Actually, they don’t. In many Eastern religions, the goal is to lose the desire for happiness, and ultimately lose personal identity.**

There will be joy in heaven. God says, “I will rejoice…and take delight in my people.” The smile of God is the greatest joy for a Christian! And…if God will delight in his people, imagine our delight in the people who will be there with us! Our loved ones will be there, along with many others whom we will love and enjoy just as much!

Read Isaiah 65:19b-20. There will be no more sickness, suffering, or death. No more pain, no more getting old and frail, no losing our memory and abilities. Revelation 21:4 promises, “God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Read Isaiah 65:21-23. Life will be fair! (It isn’t always fair in this world.) It will be more than fair; God will bless his people beyond what they deserve.