Category Archives: Heaven

Augustine, City of God, Heaven, Knowledge of God, Knowledge of ourselves, Original sin, The Fall, The resurrection, Unity with Christ

Death is the most certain possibility

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If there is one topic that no one wants to talk about or think about it is death. Many people would rather think about anything else than their own mortality. We prefer escapism to realism, counting our “Likes” to numbering our days, numbing our pain to meditating on our end.

Into this world Augustine is a counter-cultural cold shower. Book 13 is seared through with the facts of death, encased in cold hard biblical logic. At the heart of his essay is the question of the nature of the fall of man and how this can be overcome by the granting of the life-giving Spirit.

Augustine investigates many important themes including the relationship between the soul and the body, the interplay between death and punishment. The quote of Book 13 for me was this:

There is no one who is not nearer to death this year than he was last year, nearer tomorrow than today, today than yesterday, who will not by and by be nearer than he is at the moment or is not nearer at the present time than he was a little while ago. Any space of time that we live through leaves us with so much less time to live, and the remainder decreases with every passing day; so that the whole of our lifetime is nothing but a race towards death.

XIII.10

Wow! Stop and re-read that several times. This knuckle-grating realism quickens our senses and alerts us to the coming last stop. Rather than breed fatalism there are two urgent applications that this truth sharpens in our focus and we would do well to heed.

Through a detailed analysis of what it means to pass from like to death Augustine proves there is only life or death, and speaking about someone dying is illogical. He looks at three situations: “before death”, “in death” and “after death” and concludes there is only life which immediately becomes death, with no in between phase. Yes, yes, I say to myself, this is clear, why are you stressing this so much? Then his reason slams home as he describes the second death (the abandoning of our soul by God).

For that death, which means not the separation of soul from body but the union of both for eternal punishment, is the more gracious death; it is the worst of all evils. There men will not be in the situations of “before death “ and “after death”, but always “in death”, and for this reason they will never be living, never dead, but dying for all eternity.

XIII.11

This is an horrendous sadness. There are no words to soften the blow of this reality. The only hope is to avoid this situation before it is too late, before the final sand grain falls

By contrast, the second major application is a ray of hope for all those awaiting a new body, without the failings and foibles of our current version. Augustine meditates on the difference between the body Adam had in Eden and the bodies we shall be given in the new Paradise:

For the body which will be incapable of death is that which will be spiritual and immortal in virtue of the presence of a life-giving spirit. In this it will be like the soul which was created immortal… The immortality with which they are clothed will be like that of the angels, an immortality which cannot be taken away by sin; and though the natural substance of flesh will continue, no slightest trace of carnal corruptibility or lethargy will remain.

XIII.24

Given the certainty of death and the exhortation of our Creator to consider these two destinies, who wouldn’t chose life? The psalmist said “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (90.12). May we be wise to reflect on the brevity of life, choose wisdom, choose life and choose Jesus.

Bible study, Heaven, Revelation, The Second Coming

The City of God – Revelation 21

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The battle is over, the victory is here, welcome to the celebration party! As we draw near the final scenes in John’s vision the images of battle are replaced by an epic display of the splendour and majesty of the new created order.

  1. How does the scene described in this chapter contrast with the preceding chapters? What encouragements are there here for someone who is suffering persecution for their faith?
  2. If this vision is a true, but symbolic, representation of a future created order, what is it teaching us about God, his people, the world, sin and eternity? 
  3. What do the city’s dimensions and choices of building material signify (v10-23)? How do they compare with the dimensions and choice of building material for the tabernacle in Exodus 26 & 27 and the temple in Ezekiel 40.5 – 41.26? 
  4. How does this chapter echo and amplify chapter 1.6, 22 & 23 in its description of Jesus? What have we learnt about him in the intervening chapters? 
  5. How would ancient Jewish believers have responded to this vision of a glorious Jerusalem, particularly as the temple lay in ruins when they received this letter? What building would be your symbolic restoration vision e.g. a ruined castle, an old church building or something else? 
  6. To whom does the city of God belong and what are the criteria for entrance and exclusion (v7-8, 27)? How does God provide for sinful believers to enter this pure city (2 Corinthians 5.21)?
  7. How would this glorious vision inspire the seven churches of chapters 2-3, to preserve in hard times? How would it challenge them to take the warnings in the letters seriously?

What John saw was the beginning of a new story, described thus by CS Lewis in The Last Battle:

“The term is over, the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning….for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world…had only been the cover and the title page, 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.”

Book III, Calvin's Institutes, Heaven, Institutes of Religion, John Calvin, The resurrection

Away beyond the blue

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Book 3 Chapter 25 Section 1-12

In the final chapter in Book 3 Calvin brings us back to the heart of the gospel and the subject of the last resurrection. After the complex sections on election and predestination, this is a welcome return to the centre of Christianity and a great way to finish off what has been a fruitful journey through the life of the Christian. I have broken this chapter down into three sections:

1. The difficulty of faith – Calvin introduces his topic by stating that unless we understand the nature of hope we will find the path too hard and soon become discouraged with the many difficulties we face. Our hope and faith are in things unseen, and yet our many trials are all too readily before our eyes – how important it is then to have a sure foundation for our hope lest “worn out with fatigue we either turn backwards or abandon our post.” Indeed, we can now understand why faith is so rare in the world for “nothing being more difficult for our sluggishness than to surmount innumerable obstacles in striving for the prize of our high calling.” So how does this tie in with the resurrection? Well, Calvin reminds us that “he alone has made solid progress in the gospel who has acquired the habit of meditating continually on a blessed resurrection.”

2. The importance of the resurrection – as we have seen above, the promise of the resurrection is important in sustaining our hope. However, Calvin recognises how rare a belief in the resurrection is among the mankind, particularly the philosophers. Indeed, while many assert the immortality of the soul, few believe in the resurrection of the body. Calvin admits that a belief in a bodily resurrection is above natural human apprehension, but “to enable faith to surmount this great difficulty” scripture has provided two auxiliary proofs: firstly, “the one the likeness (example) of Christ’s resurrection, and the other the omnipotence of God.” Calvin exhorts us to remember our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Knowing that this union must be completed one day by our resurrection to join him where he is. All our hope rests on Christ’s resurrection, for if Christ be not raised from the dead then our faith is in vain (1 Cor 15.13-17). Secondly, if God is omnipotent, then nothing is impossible for him – Calvin reminds us of Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones and Paul’s reference to the grain of wheat that even in the midst of its corruption is able to bring forth new life (1 Cor 15.36).

3. The nature of the resurrection – Calvin considers it futile to speculate where the place of abode is until they are raised for “the dimension of the soul is not same as that of the body”. The faithful depart to “the bosom of Abraham”, meaning the presence of the Lord. Calvin also considers the nature of the resurrection body and has little time for those who expect to “obtain a new and different body”. He explains that we shall posses the same body in regard to substance but it will different in quality. The mode of the resurrection will depend on whether we are alive at the time of the last day or whether we died long ago. For the former “it will not be necessary that a period should elapse between death and the beginning of the new life.” Finally we are reminded that “there will be one resurrection to judgement and another to life”, for all will be raised to receive the just reward for their life on earth.

Calvin issues a stark contrast between the destinations for the faithful and the rebellious. For the former he exhorts us to “always remember that the end of the resurrection is eternal happiness, of whose excellence scarcely the minutest part can be described by all that human tongues can say.” However, for the latter, “as language cannot describe the severity of the divine vengeance on the reprobate their pains and torments are figured to us by corporeal things such as darkness, wailing and gnashing of teeth, unextinguishable fire and the ever-gnawing worm.”

Response

“Away beyond the blue,
One star belongs to you.
And every breath I take
I’m closer to that place.
Yeah baby,
I’m gonna meet you there,
On the outskirts of the sky.
Yeah baby,
I’m gonna meet you there.
And we will fly”

These are the lyrics of Beyond the Blue, a beautiful, soulful song by Beth Neilson Chapman, a song that reminds us of our mortality and the longing for reunion beyond the grave. But in contrast to the ethereal hope described in this song, the resurrection of the believer is something much more down-to-earth. In fact our hope is to come up-from-the-earth, that rather than being a vague spirit wondering the universe, we will once again fill our fleshly bodies. Bodies that will be undeniably and individually “us”, but at the same time have a depth of quality that we have never experienced. Ours is to be a fully human resurrection. This is our hope, and our expectation.

But let us not forget the fate awaiting those without Christ on that day. When they will see the glory revealed in the children of God, the majesty of their creator, the beauty of Jesus, and yet be eternally banished from his presence. They will be given their bodies back, but not for eternal blessedness and communion with God, rather for eternal separation from God. While our minds struggle to grasp the depth of this judgement may we live in such a way as to rescue many “brands from the fire”. Brands that on the final day we will meet again and who will thank us for extending the love of Jesus to them.

“Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.” Daniel 12.3