If you died today, would you go to heaven? This is a popular question that many of us evangelicals like to ask of those we are concerned for. But where does this lead the mind that has been inquired? This projects thoughts of the future, the life to come. But our salvation is now; our reality of citizenship in the kingdom, although not yet consummated here on earth, is a truth we live in now. It is our present concern. Sure, this question implies one’s condition for the present moment in that it refers to today. Ultimately, however, the question concerns one’s status as a child of God, and the focus of this status is one’s security in the afterlife. In other words, this question reveals the inquisitor’s view of the purpose of salvation and the end goal of faith, which is going to heaven, and this assumption is almost blasphemous. Christ’s purpose for dying on our behalf is not to give us the gift of heaven, as if heaven is nothing more than a peaceful retirement community for the dead.
Christ did not come just so that we might live forever. He came to transform us into His image, to redeem our brokenness, not only in the future, but here and now, to bring us back to His original purpose of being in relationship with Him, to make us holy. This is the end goal of our faith. Heaven is the place where God and His holy people dwell until the restoration of all things when we shall once again live on Earth as citizens of the fully restored New Jerusalem. It is not a prize for simply claiming to be a Christian. I am not accusing everyone who asks this question of denying this reality; I have asked the question myself, and I have done so out of genuine concern for people I love. However, what I am suggesting is that this question can lead to false conclusions that have little to do with the redeeming cross.
Maybe the better question is this: Are you who God has called you to be today? Are you living a life of happiness in relation to God at this very moment? Does His Spirit witness with your Spirit today? In its best possible sense, the question of heaven is asking whether or not we will be in the presence of the Holy God in the future, in the life to come. However, the question should really be: are you living in His presence now? There is no future hope without present salvation. Present salvation is by no means a mere promise for a future life. Present salvation is given to us so that we might grow in holy love now. This is not a call for us to forget our hope for the future. Yet, our hope for the future should not be a cause for us ignoring our present reality before the Living God today.
In life or death our purpose is to, by His grace alone, be truly holy.
I agree with this post. I think a lot of times people forget that our concept of life and death is really just life from a spiritual point of view. When my body is dead, I'll still be alive in Christ. So if you're going to receive the life that Christ has given...you receive it for now and later...forever.
ReplyDelete-Constance
Good post tab.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is an inclination to overlook the presence of the Kingdom of God in the here and now. Jesus told us that Eternal life was knowing the one true God. That's the ramification of God's kingdom here and now - THe fall was, in some sense, a confusion of relationships, we elevated ourselves above God's authority- Fracturing the imago dei.
Now, God is at work, the kingdom is here and at hand and the knowledge of the true God is here. in Jesus, God perfectly "imaged" himself, thus letting God dwell with his people in this age (the evil age).
Thanks Constance and Justin.
ReplyDeleteIt is always an honor to have my peers enjoy my writing, one a fellow English literature student and the other a fellow seminarian. It is humbling.
You both are dead on. We need a Christ-centered understanding of our life and our death Be holy in life and death through the grace of God and never apart from Him!