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Essay 100 (12-10-05)

ON TURNING 87

I will post the 100th essay of this series on the eve of my 87th birthday anniversary. You will notice that I got that right – not my 87th birthday, but my 87th birthday anniversary. We never say "Our 25th wedding," but always "Our 25th wedding anniversary." We play tricks with our English language, don't we? I think of the delightful English teacher who would turn a common error back on her students, and with emphasis: "Irregardless of your test scores, I still love you." And I've about given up on trying to get folk to refer  to the last book of the Bible as Revelation instead of Revelations. And it isn't money that is the root of all evil, but the love of money.

 

  What better way to celebrate one's 87th than to have an English lesson!

 

  Now that I'm well into my 80s I can assure you that the 80s are better than the 70s, just as the 70s were better than the 60s, and the 60s than the 50s. Life keeps getting better – right on into eternity.  Our Lord not only gives us life, but abundant life. The abundance will increase forever. The Mormons notwithstanding, we are not made to be gods, and we will never be gods. But we will learn and grow – becoming more and more like Christ – eternally. There is no reason to conclude that the breathtaking promise of 2 Cor. 3:18 – being transformed into the image of Christ from one level of glory to the next – will end when we die. Except that we don't really die – we are only "absent from the body" as Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5:8. And doesn't Jesus point-blank promise in John 11:26 that if we put our trust in him we will never die?  In making this bold promise, the Lord adds, Do you believe this?  The question pierces the soul. Can we live in a secularistic world like ours – which has no concept of "things not seen" – and believe that we will never die? We only leave planet earth. "Things not seen" – such as an "inheritance" laid up for us in heaven (1 Peter 1:4) – are the basis of our hope.

 

  That is one reason life keeps getting better, at least for believers. In our advanced years we can with less difficulty "look at the things which are not seen" (2 Cor. 4:18). This we can do even when our bodies suffer aches and pains, for our "light affliction which is but for the moment" works for us "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17).

 

  Such hope grows closer to reality in our sunset years. We seem to arrive in the outskirts of the heavenly city promised to God's people as far back as the patriarchs. This may be what Hebrews 12:22  is saying: "you have come to the city of the living God, the New Jerusalem."  We are not yet really in that holy city, but our seasoned hope takes us to the environs. By faith Abraham saw that city – whose architect and builder is God – from afar, and for that reason he was willing to dwell in tents, confessing that he was a stranger in this world (Heb. 11:10,13).

 

  That is one of the lessons the years teach us as believers, that we are indeed strangers and sojourners in this world. This world is not our home. When we leave this world we are not leaving home but going home. There is an exciting promise in Heb. 11:16: "Now they desire a better, that is a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city."

 

  When we confess that we are but sojourners in this world, and desire "a heavenly country" as our home, then God is pleased to be our God – and so he builds that city for us!  The converse of that is that if we are too much of this world God is not pleased to be our God – and he might give us what we want, and let this world be our only hope. When Paul pondered that possibility he exclaimed, "If in this world only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable" (1 Cor. 15:19).

 

  Paul, also advancing in age, saw that city from a prison cell: "Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." He goes on to reveal what will happen when the Lord comes: "who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body" (Philip. 3:19-20).

 

  I take it that this is the "inheritance reserved in heaven for you" that 1 Peter 1:4 refers to – a glorious body after the likeness of Christ's body. Paul calls this "our habitation which is from heaven" in 2 Cor. 5:2, and he goes on to say that this is what God has prepared us for, that we might have "a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (v. 1).

 

   We may conclude, therefore, that this is God's eternal purpose for us, Christlikeness, now and forever. In this world we are to be conformed to his likeness inwardly, and in eternity we will bear his likeness outwardly, in (spiritual) bodily form. The apostle could not have made it plainer than in 1 Cor. 15:49: "As we have borne the image of the man of dust (Adam), we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man."

 

  In 2 Cor. 5:5 he assures us that God has given us a "guarantee" – or an earnest – that such a glorious promise will be realized. The guarantee is the gift of the Holy Spirit. What an inspiring assurance!  The indwelling Spirit serves as an earnest that God will make good on his promise to transform our wornout earthly body into the likeness of Christ's glorious body.

 

  If these are among my thoughts at 87 – the "exceeding great and precious promises" that now seem so close at hand – I also look back to the grace that brought me here. When I look back over the years there are of course things that I regret, things I would change if I could. I can recall Paul's urging – "Forget the things that are behind and press on" – better than I can practice it. My foolish, ignorant, sensual ways of youthful years linger with me. I can accept God's forgiveness when I can't forgive myself. Psalms 73:21-24 says it so well, hauntingly well. Those verses have my name written on them – along with God's grace.

 

My heart was grieved,

And I was vexed in my mind.

I was so foolish and ignorant;

I was like a beast before You.

Nevertheless I am continually with You:

You hold me by my right hand.

You will guide me with your counsel,

And afterward receive me to glory.

 

  That is my word at 87 – Nevertheless – and that is the grace that has brought me here, and the grace that shall take me home.

  

   Note: All these 100 essays are available at www.leroygarrett.org