After the Earth, Eternity

[HKHaugan]

After the Earth, Eternity

        “I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Eccl.3:10-11).” (Italics and underline mine)

       When a nearby town’s pastor confronted an atheist wanting the Ten Commandments plaque removed from the town courthouse wall, he said, “Eternity is a long time to be wrong.”  Eternity has no beginning and no end.  Actually, it is the opposite of time which is the measure of everything temporary that exists from one moment to the next.  Time (Gk.chronos) as we know it is how humanity measures what happens between the beginning and end of anything.  Eternity (Gk.aionion) is outside of but embraces world time.  It is God’s time (Kairos).

       Due to the extreme limitations of imperfect human minds (“no one can fathom”), eternity is indescribable as is the idea of timelessness.  A gentle stab at it would be to say that eternity is the experience of perfection.  Imperfection is what puts perfection as a goal, yet we will never be able to see or experience perfection because imperfect minds, hearts and spirits can’t conceive its reality, the nature of our creative God.

       The very idea of perfection is a spiritual concept.  That is the reason God sent His Son Jesus to reveal what a perfect physical, spiritual and emotional human being looks like.  Physical perfection is Creation.  Emotional and spiritual perfection are impossible to detect without them being revealed as such.  It’s what Holiness is all about, God’s being perfect.  Holiness is the perfection of God personalized in its source.  He is perfect life, perfect spiritual life, thought life, heart life, the source of everything seen and unseen. 

       Imperfection is the spiritual condition resulting from sin.  Sin is imperfection.  Imperfect minds will always feel frustration evidenced in guilt, revenge, arrogance, deceit, hate, hypocrisy, disbelief, doubt, uncertainty, low self-worth and a host of other imperfect reactions.  Note the difference between being perfect which stands alone as opposed to the fragmented multiples in imperfection, sin and its varieties.  While perfection is the love of God reaching out through us to others, sin is the self-centered fear and distrust that withdraws us into aloneness, negative judgment and isolation.

       “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1stJn.4:18).”

       Eternity wraps everything within it, beginnings and ends from Creation itself to all the human beings within and the organic structure that houses them.  God, whose essence is perfect love, is the single personal and relational perfection holding everything together.  He is the eternal One, the ultimate reality, the only One whose perfection is the measure of everything.

       Lev.19:2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

       Lev.20:7 Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God.

       Lev.20:26 You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”  

       Eternity is a word from the Word (Gk.aionion) describing a timeless spiritual reality which is outside of what we know as time.  Eternity is a spiritually personal and relational experience wherein Father, Son and Holy Spirit reign as One together.  It is populated by God’s angels and a host of believers.  We have only one contact with eternity and that is Jesus the Christ.  He came from eternity, returned to it and sent the Holy Spirit to make it the hope in which we center our lives.  To have a relationship with Him by faith is to be attached to eternity. “So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2Cor.4:18).”

       God releases the understanding of spiritual time in Ecclesiastes when He uses the word season.  There is a season for every activity under Heaven.   He uses words that describe quality when there is a season and quantity when it concerns things.  For instance, “He has made everything (quantity)” “beautiful (quality) in its time (chronos).”  He has also set eternity (Kairos-God’s time) in the hearts of men.  God directs us to see Him as Holy, spiritually perfect, and what He has made physically as perfect.  Then He tells us to be holy like Him, “And you shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine (Lev.20:26).” 

 God’s Holiness is perfection.  The holiness in us is God setting us apart as His to become holy.  That is, He is shaping us to be uniquely holy based on His Holiness.    

       Our imperfection is sin, the result of the abuse of perfection. It separates us from the perfection that is God which is why He sent His Son to give us a glimpse of the experience of perfection that is eternally Heaven.  When Jesus said, “I and the Father are One (Jn.10:30),” He was declaring relational perfection without hesitation.  Even in His limited human body He knew He was the perfect Son of a perfect Father, the Holy Son of His Holy Father together with the Holy Spirit the perfect Spirit, the Holy Trinity.

       Now here is the real thrust in all this.  The perfect experience of His Father in Him was His perfect faith which in John 17 He prays for us.  It was beyond emotion or anything we can fathom.  Jesus’ faith was a Heaven-come-to-earth experience, a Holy Faith.  Jesus’ life was relationally tied to His Father’s Holy Faith in Him filled with the Holy Spirit of faith.  Faith is the Holy gift given to each of us when we believe in Jesus.  It is by faith we reach out to others that allows His love to come through us to them.  Faith is what sets us apart for God’s Holiness to be seen.

       Faith, hope and love, love being the greatest of the three (1Cor.13:13), are the eternal qualities of God, the perfecting qualities that make us children of God.  “Love one another as I have loved you (Jn.13:34).”   Jesus said this to differentiate what the world says love is from what God says it is. Paul follows when he says, “God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1Cor.1:9).”  David declared early on, “And now, Lord, for what do I wait? You are my only hope (Ps.39:8).” “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God (1Jn.4:7).”  Perfect faith, perfect hope and perfect love, the Holy Qualities of God, each seen in Jesus who exemplifies them for us.

       But there are more holy qualities we are called to embrace.  Take these, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law (Gal.5:22-23).”

       “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins (2Pet.1:5-9).”

       Of course there are many attributes that Scripture presents.  But starting with the above, all of them connect us spiritually with the Lord God.   They are a taste of eternity and its perfection.