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August 27, 2006
Our Final Destiny
Isaiah 26: 19-21 / John 5: 25-29
August 27th, 2006
This morning I would like to remind us all what Jesus says about our final destiny. Jesus addresses the subject of our final destiny after making clear His unity with the Father. What He taught was the will of the Father and completely His will too. Though it is said of Jesus in John 3: 17 that He did not come to condemn the world, here we see it is His task to judge people whether they have spent their lives in good or in evil. He did not come to condemn, but He will judge. Though Jesus died for our sins we are accountable for them and there is a reward that comes from doing good—resurrection to life.
Often when we think of the resurrection we wonder about the state of those who have died as babies or as old people. What will be their resurrected form? But this presumes they will be judged good rather than evil so that they rise to life rather than to condemnation.
To us it seems strange to speak in these terms because we Reformed Christians gratefully emphasize that we are justified freely by God’s grace. It is not by works that we are saved. So what do we make of this teaching of Jesus, echoed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 2: 5-6--“. . . when God’s righteousness is revealed He will render to every man according to his works.”
At no point do we reflect the nature of God more than in our claiming His prerogative to judge. It is not our right, but we judge. Why? Because imbedded in us is an awareness of the difference between right and wrong. But it is the blight of our humanity that we persistently act as jury and judge without the benefit of knowing the facts. We assume we know even the motives of one another, and our judgment is sometimes harsh when what we see collides with our standard of what ought to be.
Our “justice” is distributed sometimes ruthlessly. We speak of one another in ways that show little mercy. Thus with a word we may destroy the perception of a person’s character. We break friendships—both our own, and as a consequence of what we said the friendships of others. This despite saying we believe we should follow Jesus who taught us not to judge one another—in the way we do, and that we would be judged by the judgment we extend. This despite how we pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” How we should hope and pray God turns a deaf ear to that prayer!
It was in response to this bizarre moral flaw that Jesus told the little story about the man with a log in his eye hot and bothered by someone with a splinter in his eye? We should laugh nervously at this story, we who are irate at the fragments of wood we see in others’ eyes.
We are a society fixated with judgment. The TV programs having to do with courts and crime and prisons suggest there is a great market for this. Indeed, I am puzzled that in a country that may nearly claim “Amazing Grace” as a second national anthem, we are graceless toward those who offend. Our system is pitiless towards the poor. Once accused the poor are with little hope to escape punishments that crush them. There are several hundred thousand more people in our prisons than in China’s prisons, though their land is much larger than ours and we do not think of China as a model of justice. I grieve when I think of stories I know that are part of this sad part of American life.
The justice of God in the Old Testament was severe, but it was accurate. When we read the sanctions of the covenant God made with Israel in the Book of Deuteronomy there are severe curses for offending God’s law and blessings for keeping it. We hear often the stereotype of a harsh God in the Old Testament who contrasts with a mild Jesus in the New testament. But as severe as the Old Testament could often be, its penalties did not reach beyond death. And the economic factor was intentionally kept out of the justice system. A poor person was not more liable to be punished than a rich person. A rich person could not escape justice by having a clever attorney.
Jesus’ judgment, by contrast with the justice of God displayed in the Old Testament affects the soul. Remember that we just read Jesus’ words about resurrection of life for those who do good, but resurrection of judgment for those who have done evil. This is justice meted out after death for everyone, because everyone will be raised after death. Elsewhere Jesus spoke of the condemned going “into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Nor was this only one-time that Jesus spoke of condemnation. Jesus told enough parables of judgment to let us know that judgment was much on His mind. Remember the parable of the farmer (sower) who, on the way to the field had seed drop on various kinds of ground. The various kinds of ground represent the various kinds of people who hear the Gospel. All get the same Gospel seed but only those in whom the Gospel seed finds root is there any benefit. We who have placed such importance on hearing the Gospel and on noticing the immediate response to hearing the Gospel need to remember the warning Jesus gave in this story. Has the Gospel taken root in your life?
How do we know if the Gospel has taken root? Not by all the ideas that we think are important but by the life that proceeds from our belief. As Bonhoeffer told us, echoing the Apostle Paul, “To believe is to obey; to obey is to believe.” But we have commonly separated belief from obedience, so afraid are we of suggesting that we are saved by what we do rather than by grace. We have virtually answered Paul’s question, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” not by saying yes. But we have a meager idea of sin so that we may sin with self-approval.
I hear Jesus’ stunning words so often as I think of these things, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day [the day of the great harvest] many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, I never knew you go away from me, you evildoers.’”
Remember Jesus taught that the world was like a field in which weeds and good grain grew together. At the great harvest Jesus said in a parable, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” In this parable the weeds imagine that because they are in the same field with the wheat that they are wheat, and will be one day nestled with the wheat in barns. Jesus said it is otherwise for them.
This is in the Bible that we profess to believe, that we claim has authority over us. Thus teaches the Jesus in whom we say we trust.
What is it to do the good? Remember that goodness has to do not only with specific deeds that we may call good, but with the intentions of the heart. Jesus said, “Don’t do your good deeds so as to be noticed by others.” Perhaps there are those who would point to “good” that they do that God does not see as good at all, but more like showing off. If you and I are capable of doing great good and we do only a small good, is this goodness?
And what about evil? What you and I may judge as evil may have no regard to the circumstances in which the “evil” was done by someone. In our courts of law there are mitigating factors that are taken into consideration. Years ago I was subpoenaed to come to a trial in St. Petersburg to give testimony of mitigating factors in considering again whether a condemned man, Amos King, should be executed. In fact, he was executed, I regret to say, when he was unfairly tried. Though the courts admitted he didn’t get good representation at the sentencing phase of his trial, they wouldn’t admit that the same lawyer represented him in the trial itself. This lawyer was ill and would shortly die of his illness. Meanwhile he was emotionally involved in another trial so that he had not much interest in representing Mr. King.
We trust that our sense of justice is a fraction of God’s sense of justice. So that God looks for mitigating factors where we do not. “To whom much is given much is required,” the Bible teaches. To whom much less is given less is required.” Jesus said this. Jesus said, “The slave who knew what his master wanted, but . . . did not do what was wanted will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating.” How much do we know? How much ought we to know who have these multiple translations of the Bible before us? Jesus prayed on the cross, “God forgive them for they know not what they do.” Here is an exhibit of God’s fairness in Jesus’ prayer.
How unlike our justice this is. How unlike the justice we administer to one another. We get it in our minds to condemn someone without asking questions of mitigating factors, or even if we understand what the person did. Yet we feel ill-used if we are treated in this way.
So what hope have we? I am comforted by the development in Jesus’ teaching that we start to see in John 6, the chapter after this present one. There Jesus gives this remarkable teaching that many of his followers found offensive, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.” Jesus was not teaching cannibalism, as these words suggest. Instead He said this after making clear that He was the bread of life. He became as explicit as human language can allow in teaching that His body, indeed His flesh, was more life-giving than the manna the Israelites ate in the wilderness years. Without it they would have starved. But that manna meant more than they knew.
That manna, a direct gift of God that fell new each morning, was a foretaste of the gift of God in sending His Son, our Lord Jesus. And we must as surely take Him into us as the Israelites had to eat the manna for it to do them any good. How do we do this since we cannot actually eat Jesus and drink His blood? How bizarre the very idea seems!
Jesus pointed toward the cross when He would sacrifice Himself willingly for the sins of the world. By trusting in Jesus, that is not only believing that He died for our sins, but by entering fully into following Him in whom we say we trust, we are eating His flesh and drinking His blood. When we eat something it comes into us and is transformed into healthy bodies. When Jesus enters into us by faith an analogous transformation takes place in us. As Paul put it, “The old passes away; the new has come.” Actually Paul says this of those who are “in Christ,” which is the mirror image of Jesus being in us.
So we who know we do evil and who merit the wrath of God for doing evil, come to Jesus and discover two things:
First, we discover that He makes us want to do good. He makes us want to follow Him, denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and following Him. That’s hard work. That’s a totally demanding way of life. But since Christianity is not a matter of mere words but of a life, if we have trusted in Jesus this becomes our way of life.
Second, we realize that as hard as we try, we cannot be perfect so as to deserve God’s good gift of eternal life. Even if we start being perfect after trusting in Jesus, there is the residue of the past that we must account for, when we did not do the good we knew to do, but chose to do evil instead. So the free gift of God engulfs our sinful selves, giving us what we cannot earn, eternal life. We discover that it is all of grace, all of God’s generous heart, that we are forgiven and accepted in His beloved embrace. It is gratitude for what we have been forgiven that adds fuel to the flame of our desire to live as though we have one agenda in life, to follow Jesus.
Thus we hear Jesus’ summary of God’s intention for us and it becomes our great desire in life. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.”
Is it evident you love God this way? Is it evident that you love your neighbor as yourself? Do you wish you did, if you do not? Do you wish it so much that you are obviously trying—which is an indicator of those who really believe? If not, listen again to what Jesus said about the two-fold resurrection that awaits all people. For some, those who do good, it will be a resurrection to life and for others, those who do evil, it will be a resurrection to condemnation. What resurrection awaits you?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.
Let us pray: O Heavenly Father, we are grateful that you have created us in your image and likeness, and have equipped us to do your will and to follow Jesus who loved us as you do so that He died for our sins.” Grant to us the desire to trust in Jesus, to follow Him in gratitude, and to come to the end of our days where we may enjoy the resurrection to life that comes to those who do your will as Jesus did. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at August 27, 2006 09:30 AM