Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “All Things New”. This is a lesson that can promote much thought. For some Christians, Heaven is primarily a spiritual place. A place where there may be music (but you have no ears to hear); where there may be praising (but you have no mouth to sing); and where God’s face is revealed (but you have no eyes to see). Which makes no sense (nonsense). Our God evidently loves matter. So even as He originally created us with very real bodies, there is every reason to believe that we will have real bodies in the new heaven and the new earth. Let us not “spiritual away” everything.
And yet, the book of Revelation is chock-full of spiritual symbolism. Meaning, the so many physical things portrayed in that book are not physical or actual, but spiritually symbolical (horns, beasts, a woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet, etc.). So, when Revelation speaks of a “sea of glass”, is it really that? Or does that imagery mean something else, something more? And what of the Heavenly Sanctuary? Is there a Heavenly Sanctuary? As the Quarterly for Monday states, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. But does that mean there is no longer a house of the Lord where His creatures can come and have special fellowship with Him”? And the answer may be “yes” and “no” … or rather “both”. We can value any Heavenly Sanctuary only as we have allowed Him to make us His “Sanctuary” here on earth. There is no Heavenly Sanctuary for you and me, if there is no heart Sanctuary for you and me. We must welcome His presence in our hearts/minds here on earth, else we will not welcome His presence in Heaven. His name must be enshrined in our foreheads here, for His name to be in our foreheads there. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7).
On Thursday’s lesson, the Quarterly says, “At the center of the plan of salvation is the promise of eternal life”. Yet this is not really the promise. Eternal life is a by-product of another promise, another condition. That other condition is … “righteousness” (the true definition of Biblical “righteousness” is “a right relationship with God”). Therefore, we “look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). Not looking for eternal life for its own sake. But looking for, striving for, aiming your life towards… a “right relationship with God” now. And if that “right relationship with God” is cherished and loved here on earth, is our heart’s desire here on earth, then nothing will keep God and us apart… ever. This “right relationship with God” will be ours forever. But if we avoid God now, relegate Him to the sidelines now, if we fear Him now, then there is no “right relationship with God” now. And no “right relationship with God” then, either.
“And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God… And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal” (1 John 5: 11-13, 20).
Knowing God-the-Father, as revealed by God-the-Son, is eternal life. “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Isn’t this the most wonderful thing!! Eternal life is not just endless life. Heaven is not just a place. Eternal life and Heaven are found only in a “right relationship” with a Person. A loving, truthful, right relationship with our loving and truthful Father, Brother, Husband and Friend. Wow!
May the new year bring us closer and ever closer to God… the love of our lives.
With brotherly love,
Jim