The Eternal Kind of Life… Now!

            In the last issue I mentioned the work of Dallas Willard, and his book The Divine Conspiracy that one of our Sunday School classes is studying for the next quarter or so, however long it takes us. One of the main underlying themes that runs throughout the book is the idea that God, out of His love for us, desires us to live what Willard calls “the eternal kind of life,” and that this life is available to us here and now, in this present life, not only in the eternal afterlife. While this may not sound earth-shattering to you at first glance, Willard’s contention is that it is in fact a different approach to the Christian life than many of us have taken.

            How about you? How do you understand what it means to be, or become, a Christian? What are your expectations of your relationship with God? What is your understanding of what it is exactly that God offers each of us in salvation? How have you experienced God? These are questions that I have found, for myself, to be extremely helpful to wrestle with as I reflect on what it means to me to be a disciple of Jesus, a Christian. I have begun to ask myself what difference being a Christian makes in my daily life, because I am convinced that it should actually make a difference.

            The book lays out various perceptions of what salvation means, or of what the core of the gospel is. All of us have been shaped in our thinking by one or another of these perceptions of the core message of the gospel whether we realize it or not. For some, the gospel means that we are able, by faith in Jesus, to be saved from eternal punishment by having the guilt of our sin removed. For others, the gospel means that the world is able to be changed and social evils corrected through the work of the cross, as Jesus overcame the powers of evil and death in his resurrection. While both of these perceptions of the gospel speak to important parts of the gospel, when taken by themselves they sell short the central message of Jesus that we see and hear when we examine his life, his ministry, his teachings, and his death and resurrection.

            The picture of salvation that emerges when we clearly understand the gospel, or good news, of Jesus contains both the personal and social elements I mention above along with other important aspects as well. When we fully experience the impact of the whole gospel we see Jesus present, says Willard, our daily life is affected in deep and life-changing ways, and I’m convinced that he is right! No longer will we only be concerned that we have belief in right ideas, rather, we will be concerned that our lives are being lived in a way that shows what it means to be dramatically changed by the gospel; to be, in the words of the apostle Paul, “transformed by the renewing of our minds.”

            This is the main message of the gospel, Willard argues, that we can indeed live the eternal kind of life now! Salvation makes a difference in this life… in the here and now… in the nitty-gritty, down and dirty realities of our daily existence! Yes, salvation has eternal effect on our lives, but we’re truly missing out on what God, in his love, wants for us if we think the eternity after our earthly life is the main point of salvation!

How does that sound to you as you read those words? Does it sound new? Does it sound misguided, dangerous, or even heretical? Well, I hope not, or I haven’t done a very good job of explaining myself, but it does perhaps sound a bit different from the way in which you are used to talking and thinking about salvation. If it intrigues you, I invite you to join our class on Sunday mornings or, if you’re unable to do that, give me a call and let’s get together and talk. There’s nothing I love more than discussing the deep things of God and pondering with others what it means to live into the salvation that God promises and delivers in Jesus.

May each of us, as we enter into this new season of Spring, experience the new life, the eternal kind of life, that God longs for us to taste. May we desire it, and may we find it, as we seek it together.

Pastor Carl