Meditations

June 3 – LD 22, Day 7: Eternal Life

Read: Revelation 22:1-9

The final article in the Apostolic Confession reads: “I believe in…the life everlasting.” And so the teacher who is showing us what glorious things the Bible says about our future, now teaches us a few things concerning “life everlasting.”

We must learn, first of all that we cannot know very much about what everlasting life is like. To drive this home to us, our teacher quotes I Cor 2:9. That shall have to be enough for us.

We will, however, I am sure, when finally we open our eyes in glory, say the same thing that the Queen of Sheba said when she saw the glory of Solomon’s kingdom: “The one half . . . was not told me” (2 Chr 9:6).

Our teacher tells us one surprising thing: we do have the beginnings of heaven in our hearts already while we are here in this earth, struggling along on our pilgrim’s journey. “I feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy.”

Our happiness is a true happiness, for we know that we belong to Christ, are cared for by him, and will in a very short time see him face to face. There are moments of great joy when in a flash, the greatness of God’s perfections is seen by us, when the blessedness of the forgiveness of sins makes us sing; when our musings on our everlasting destination suddenly bursts upon us in all its spendour.

Our teacher also points us to the fact that we shall inherit perfect salvation. This is a delightful prospect. Here on earth we still sin so much. We confess our sins and find forgiveness with God, but the next day it is the same old story: sin, sin, sin. We weary of sin, of the battle against it, of the times we are overcome by it. But in heaven we will never sin again, but will be perfect in loving our God and our neighbor.

This is the real blessedness of heaven. Not sunny skies, meadows filled with flowers, cooling breezes, beautiful landscapes, singing birds; but think of it: we will never sin again!

We shall be in heaven with all the saints. We shall meet Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Peter, Athanasius, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and all the saints. We shall be with the angels who will be our servants. We shall be with Christ; to live with him and see the adoring look in his eyes for us, his bride.

And we shall praise God forever. Each will have his own story to tell. It will be a story of a foul sinner saved by grace: Rahab, Ruth, the Philippian jailer, you, me. But the story will be about God’s grace in us.

Forever and ever. One minister once described everlasting as being like a bird which takes one tiny bit of stone from a huge cliff, carries it a thousand miles, comes back for another, and does this a billion years. Everlasting life is longer than that.

Our home is everlasting.

Hanko, Herman

Prof. Herman Hanko (Wife: Wilma)

Ordained: October 1955

Pastorates: Hope, Walker, MI - 1955; Doon, IA - 1963; Professor to the Protestant Reformed Seminary - 1965

Emeritus: 2001

Website: www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?speakeronly=true&currsection=sermonsspeaker&keyword=Prof._Herman_Hanko

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