“For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10)
I re-read the following quote recently in an excellent book titled “Amusing ourselves to death” by Neil Postman, 1985: “…with the invention of clocks, Eternity ceased to serve as the measure and focus of human events.” So, so true. We live for time and the things of this world, largely ignoring Eternity which literally lies under our feet. Time and the world absorb us far more than the reality of Eternity and all it holds. Postman’s book dealt with television and how that medium altered our ways of receiving, analyzing knowledge and information, compared to how those processes worked through books and reading. With Internet and social media, much has changed further, deeply and profoundly. The digital generation has largely replaced the literary and literate generation. Information is received through mental and perception processes that are different from the past. And many people forget, ignore or deny the reality of Eternity. Television and all similar communication media exist principally for time and the world.
These thoughts generated by Postman have also been moved by the many recent deaths of well-known Saint Lucians: Nicole David the popular Soca singer, Lennie Stone, beautiful-voiced interpreter of the songs of Charles Cadet, Denys Springer the television commentator, Joseph Eudovic, our leading master sculptor, Ras Des, Dunstan DeMille of Massy Stores who did much to promote local agricultural products. Daily TV obituaries surprise us with news of passings we had not known. These transitions, the reality of death and dying, remind us again and again of the brief temporality of time and forces us, if we will, to ponder on the reality of Eternity and what lies beyond. Every death of acquaintances sounds our own.
According to the inspired Bible record, time began when God created day and night: “God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:5). The first 24 hours of Time. God made man, put him in a garden, with a warning: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16, 17). The story is well known of that sequel. Man and woman disobey God, eat of the forbidden fruit and inherited death. And the end of their time. “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19). The New Testament book of Hebrews will look beyond death: “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgement” (Hebrews 9:27).
The Bible is the Holy Book for many, detailing the reality of God the Creator, man’s creation and fall, God’s interventions of mercy in man’s life, supremely in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ, the facts of time, death, judgement, eternity and existence beyond earth’s time. For others it is just another book of religious philosophy, a meta-narrative of mythological speculation, mere fiction of a marvelous realism genre than a book of truth and revelation from God. But to read it carefully, whether from faith or literary curiosity, is to find an ancient text in which time and eternity are realities to be taken seriously.
The Bible sets out history, wisdom literature, psalms (hymns of praise to God), prophecy, theology, religious instruction. It is the Book about God the Creator and His relationship with Man His creature. Man is portrayed as a rebellious, sinful person loved by God. John 3:16, the best-known Bible verse, captures the heart of the movement and message of all the literature of the Bible: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Sinful Man is lost in time and this world with all the suffering he has brought upon himself. Life is brief and very uncertain: “…you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” (James 4:14).
If the Old Testament is full of angels, fiery chariots, famous heroes and manifestations of God, in the New Testament, Jesus Christ, Incarnate God, gives homely glimpses of eternity and a life free of time, suffering and death: “In My Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:2,3).
But entrance into Eternity includes Judgement. The Apostle Paul, teaching in Athens the philosophy capital of the world then, is very clear: God “commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a Day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30, 31). The Gospel of Christ as Saviour is here with news of His resurrection even as He is also presented as Judge. To prepare for entrance into Eternity with hope is to acknowledge Christ Jesus alone as Saviour and Lord, the Son of God. Faith in Christ reconciles us to God and prepares us for blessed entrance into Eternity when our time-span is over. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them…we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:19, 20). Man needs reconciliation with his Creator.
The Gospel is good news that the ultimate hopelessness of a life without faith in God who offers an Eternity of peace and happiness in a real Heaven does not have to be our status. We can have now a “hope of eternal life which God who cannot lie, promised before time began” (Titus 1:2). The Bible Gospel proclaims “the grace of God that brings salvation to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (Titus 2:11-13).
The Biblical Christian gospel proclaims and offers deliverance from time and death through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified for the sins of His people and rose again from the grave. He is presented as “the Way” into an Eternity of perfection, sinlessness, joy, eternal peace and unimagined fulfilment of our human potential. The Gospel is very good news to those who believe and receive its message. Eternity, not time in this world with all its pain, disappointments, sufferings, hopelessness, should be our ultimate measure and focus. To believers, the call is to build “yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” (Jude 20,21). Eternal life, not brief time and its inheritance of death.