Conclusions? (03/16/23)

What remains to be said on this topic?  Oh, I’m sure there is plenty.  But for me, the question is what has solidified in my perception of what God has chosen to reveal about the Last Day.  I would say I am more convinced than ever that Jesus meant what He said as regards the timing.  “You won’t know.”  I am still somewhat perplexed as to the sequence of events, for it does seem that some of the key elements shift order depending what you are reading.  But I would say that it appears that we have a lengthy period of significant tribulation which the believer shall have to weather, and then also that Great Tribulation.  There is judgment made as concerns each living being, but there is also the Judgment of the Last Day, which strikes me as being more of the sentencing phase than the trial itself.

It’s as though there are lower case and upper case variants of each aspect of this grand conclusion, or more rightly grand transition.  There is that last day which is ever near, and comes to individuals and nations in their various times.  But then there is the grand and glorious Last Day.  There is the vanquishing of Satan, but then there is the finality of the lake of fire.  There is the now and the not yet, and there is also the perennially imminent.  And we who believe live in the tension of this interim moment, however long the moment lasts for us.  However many days may be given us to dwell here on the earth, it is always to be with the sense that any moment could be the one to bring it to a close, at any moment our Lord may return, and we be taken home.

There is always that concern that this last moment will be a calling to accounts, and there is good cause to live out this tension with an eye to what must be accounted for, certainly.  Yet, the more I look to that Last Day, the more it strikes me as a time when the tests have already been made and the conclusions established.  There are simply too many places that speak of our debt wiped out, the record cleared.  God’s forgiveness effectively forgets.  The books of the court have no longer any recording of our crimes, only notice of our names in the book of life.  That’s how it reads to me when I take it all together, but I must recognize the possibility that I’ve been mistaken.  It’s certainly no excuse to go on living like a heathen and suppose this is acceptable to my Lord.  Far from it!

Those closing points in the Revelation, concerning the sort who are cast into the lake of fire to join their real lord in eternal torment must be disconcerting to us.  And they but echo what Paul has taught elsewhere.  This sort will never inherit eternal life, never have entrance into the holy kingdom of our Lord.  And as we have observed, these lists are too inclusive for us to look at and suppose that we have managed to remain clear of all such charges.  Yet, still, I encounter those believers who suppose they are going to arrive at perfect holiness here in this life.  I don’t see it.  In point of fact, were such a thing possible, it would seem to render the whole work of Christ a meaningless and cruel caprice on the part of God.  If we could do it, why should He die for us?  The need is not there, and the sacrifice unnecessary.  But it is necessary.  It is utterly necessary.  For we cannot.  Even in this renewed state of spirit we cannot.  And this recognition, alongside the ever-imminent nearness of our own last day, leaves us feeling great cause to get about the work of our sanctification with fear and trembling, even knowing that it is God Himself who works in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Php 2:12-13).

I know the weakness that is mine, but I know the strength that is His.  And I know His declaration.  The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this. (Isa 9:7)  In that last battle, it is not some cataclysmic clash between the minions of God and the minions of the devil.  No!  Over and over again I see it declared that the people of God will stand and watch from Zion as that enemy force, fearsome as it is in its shocking numbers, as hopeless as it might seem when the remnant is counted up in comparison, it is not some forlorn hope that lies ahead for them, but rather God Himself who concludes the battle in effect before it has rightly begun.

Will there be terrors ahead for God’s people?  Doubtless so.  There have always been terrors ahead.  Why would it stop now?  A slave is not greater than his master.  “If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.  If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.  All this they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they don’t know the One who sent Me.  If I had not come, and had not spoken, they would not have sin, but now they are without excuse for their sin.  They hate Me and they hate My Father.  And all this in fulfillment of what is written:  ‘They hated Me without cause’” (Jn 15:20-25).  We’ve read it often enough.  In the world you have tribulation, but take courage!  I have overcome the world.  That battle is not yours.  You just persevere in doing what you know is right, living as you have been taught, serving as a true servant of your Lord.  So, don’t fear those who may kill the body, for they cannot touch the soul.  No!  Fear and reverence Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell (Mt 10:28).  Oh yes!  Let your awareness of Him and His power govern you, but let His love guide you.  This is not a call to craven obeisance.  This is a call to adoration.  He is able, but He has extended His scepter toward you.  He has called you, by name.  He has named you, and that has yet the Old Testament power of laying claim to you.  And He does not lose that which is His.  Not a one.

So, where are we?  Pre-millennial, post-millennial, amillennial?   Honestly, I don’t think we have sufficient grounds to even properly understand what that millennial period is all about, let alone how long it shall last.  As Calvin observed, the idea that Jesus’ reign is only for this thousand year period should be all but unthinkable to us, ‘too horrible to contemplate’.  What would be the point of it?  How would this be good news to a people now brought into eternal life?  Who would rightly want an eternity in which our Lord’s reign remained a temporary phenomenon?  But of His reign there shall be no end.  Justice and righteousness shall reign forevermore.  That is the declaration.  The sinful shall find no place there, for sin cannot in any way enter in.  Temptations are no more, and every memory of our own sins, and the grief, the remorse, the regret that must come of such memory, shall have been wiped away.  Our God is with us in this New Jerusalem, and that can only mean that our sin is not.  Truly we have died with Him, and truly, in this day that has dawned with the Last Day, we have come to live with Him.

We have seen that for us, that death which is constituted in the grave is but a rest from our life of trials.  We have seen, I think, that even for those found alive at the Last Day, there will be a death, however instantaneous.  It may be in the twinkling of an eye, as Paul describes it.  Indeed, I think we must conclude that it shall be.  And yet, it shall be found to hold that it is appointed to each man once to die.  Then comes the judgment.  This body of flesh, this sinful, temporal rag, must be done away.  It is incapable of being retrofit for eternity.  The soul shall need new housing, and new housing shall be supplied.  Does it come constituted of the same elements?  I don’t see how it would be, for those elements are likewise temporal and unfit for eternity.  Never mind the physical issue of molecular recycling across the long centuries of existence.  Whose atom would it be?  No, forget that.  We shall somehow be recognizable one to another, I am sure, and identifiable as to who we were in this life.  And yet, I don’t think that recognition will hinge on physical characteristics.  That barely works for the span of earthly life, how would it work in eternity?  But is that conclusion or supposition?  I must accept it is more nearly supposition.

Do I have firm conclusions, then?  Yes.  I conclude that I am His, and His zeal shall see it done.  I conclude that come the Last Day, I shall be found to have my name written in the Lamb’s book of life, and whatever ideas I may have formulated in regard to these events, be they right or be they wrong, I shall assuredly be set straight on that day.  Then, we shall know perfectly, even as we have been known.  Then, we shall see our Lord in His fullness.  Then, we shall have been made perfect, the work of our rehabilitation completed, and not by our own strength of will, but by the careful craftsmanship of our Lord.  I am confident that there shall be trials, difficulties perhaps even yet unimaginable by us.  We look at those apocalyptic visions and either devise our own concepts of what they portend, or scratch our heads in confusion, but they do stir up a certain dread and concern.  And while that is all well and good, it must lead us to take to our knees, lead us to find those places to get away and spend time communing with our Lord and King in prayer.  It leads us to recognize our ever-present need for Him.  I’m not sure I see any greater purpose to all this than to give us ever greater cause to seek Him Who is our Peace.

Does it also give us cause to be about the work of evangelism?  Well, we ought to be about that work anyway, and I have to confess that it bothers me that I don’t feel a stronger urge toward that task.  But that is also cause for prayer rather than anxiousness.  Yes, I would say this should lend a certain urgency to our desire that all men might hear and be saved.  Yet, in pursuit of that end we should still have need to recall that it is our Father’s decision whether they shall indeed hear to any good effect, or whether their hearts shall be hardened against accepting this Gospel.

How, then, shall I wrap up this study, for I sense that I am at an end with it?  In many ways, I end where I began:  Trusting God, come what may.  Where else could I end up?   Where else would I go?  If I take one position or another as to how the Rapture fits into this picture, or as to what terrible portents the present age has, what does any of this actually change in regard to my faith or my duty to Christ?  If it stirs me to greater effort at proclaiming this gospel, that is all to the good, certainly.  But if it does not?  Does this render me a failed experiment in the sight of Christ?  I don’t see that it can be so.  Perhaps my purpose is otherwise.  Perhaps, even with that, I fail of my designed purpose.  And yet, my trust is not in my brilliant performance.  My trust is in my God, my God Who saves, Who redeems my debt to Him, Who has called me and Who is at work in me.

Father, I would that I could lay out some more firm conclusions here than I have done.  There is that in me which wants neat and tidy understanding of even such matters as this whole business of the end.  But it is clearly beyond me, and that’s fine.  It’s Yours to know, not mine.  If You should choose to further clarify, so be it.  And if You choose otherwise, so be it.  I do confess that this disinterest in me, when it comes to pursuing unbelievers with the gospel causes me some concern.  If it is a character defect, Lord, help me to correct it.  Work in me as You will to see it made otherwise.  If I have been resistant to what You have been doing in me, reveal this to me, and strengthen my will to truly repent and change my ways.  I have seen what I could in these various places You have addressed matters of this coming Day.  And I shall, by Your strength supplying me, seek to live in anticipation of it, not with dread, but with all due preparation and care.  I do indeed want to be found ready.  And I want to be found having been going about the work You have given me to do.  If it seems, too often, that I have no clue what that work is, yet I will trust in You to make it known to me as needed.  Fan the flame in me, Father, that I may love You more, serve You more, please You more.  I know not what else to say, so I’ll leave it here.  Praise be to Your name, all glory, all honor, all of me.  Amen.