Meditation on the Future Life

Meditation on the Future Life (March 18, 2007)

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18

Fourth in a series of five sermons on The Christian Life, as taught by the 16th century Reformer John Calvin, and as described by the late Dr. John Leith of Union Seminary (VA) in several books.

We come now to the fourth in our series based on the writings of the 16th century reformer John Calvin on The Christian Life.

We have said that the crucial starting point is the realization “We are Not Our Own” We have been bought with a price, as St. Paul wrote clearly. Anyone who takes the cross of Christ seriously understands a tremendous debt is involved. This debt begins with realizing that the “amazing grace” of Christ requires a response in our lives. We are not our own, we are God’s, said Calvin, let all parts of our life strive toward him as our only lawful goal.

The second flows from this and that is self-denial, the willingness to seek the will of God first, the welfare of others second, and our own needs last. The age old formula for Joy – Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last, speaks to that. Involved with this also is the third element – taking up the cross – bearing willingly what God has laid upon us to follow Christ in discipleship. There is what Bonhoeffer called a cost of discipleship.

As we have said, all of these things dramatically fly in the face of our me-first, self-obsessed, ease-oriented culture which is so evident in the books we buy, the magazines we read, the products we spend good money for, the debts we pile up, and many other things. People often say in heated arguments: “it’s all about me!” Not at all, argues Calvin. First and foremost we have to do with the living God.

Out of these principles John Calvin laid the basis for what came to be known as the Protestant work ethic: hard work, frugality, shunning of ostentation, and zeal to build the kingdom of God on earth. Many believe that when the credit card came in, frugality went out the window. No talk show host will push frugality because that would drive away the advertisers necessary to keep the show on the air. A little more self-denial, we said two weeks ago, might have a profound effect on our environmental disaster and global warming. But you won’t hear that pushed much, either. These are ideas you’re not going to hear much on TV and you’re not going to hear them talked about in the mega-churches, where sometimes you won’t even see a cross.

Å few years ago may were reading David McCullough’s biography of John Adams. McCullough originally set out to do a twin biography of Jefferson and Adams, but the more he got into it the less he admired the Virginian Jefferson, with his infamous prolificacy, his support for slavery, and his passion for the good life and addiction to debt, and the more he admired the New Englander Adams, with his much more modest life style, his abhorrence of slavery, his good practical sense about living within his means and for the greater good. Those traits were a direct consequence of Adams’ Calvinist-inspired New England upbringing.

I have chosen to speak on this theme this Lent because I feel we need to hear it and be reminded of it. All of these things are what we might call a “package deal”. They fit together. You understand one, you understand them all. You “buy” one and you buy them all. Moreover, these ideas permeate the New Testament: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth,” Jesus said, “but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is,” wrote St. Paul. “Therefore,” wrote St. Paul (2 Corinthians 5:6), “we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.”

The fourth point is of a piece with the others. Calvin puts it in characteristically strong language: “Whatever kind of tribulation presses upon us, we must ever look to this end: to accustom ourselves to contempt for the present life and to be aroused thereby to meditate upon the future life. For since God knows best,” Calvin continues, “how much we are inclined by nature to a brutish love of this world, he uses the fittest mean to draw us back and to shake off our sluggishness, lest we cling too tenaciously to that love.” Calvin was never obscure.

The old Spiritual said it best: “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.” The New Testament says “our citizenship is in heaven.” This fourth point -- meditation on the future life – is really another way to talk about faith.
Of course, we know some folks are, as they say, “so heavenly minded they’re no earthly good.” That was not Calvin’s intent. We are absolutely to put our time on earth to good use. And that will be the subject next week. By “contempt” for this world Calvin did not mean that it wasn’t good. God created the world good. “This life, however crammed with infinite miseries it may be, is still rightly to be counted among those blessings of God which are not to be spurned,” he said. And there are infinite blessings and we should give thanks to the Lord because he has brought us into its light, granted us the use of it, and provided all the means to preserve it. But in the end we are “in preparation” he said for the heavenly Kingdom. The world – today we would call it secularism -- has a way of taking over our minds and thoughts, and that’s what we should have contempt for.

Dr. Leith says that while some of Calvin’s attacks on “the world” sound negative, there is also much evidence he viewed heaven as already starting here, as present in this life and continued in a much fuller life hereafter. The kingdom is “already here, but not yet.” “The hour is coming and now is,” says Jesus, in the gospel of John.

One of the great advantages of this fourth point – meditation on the future life – is we are apt to develop the wonderful habit of patience. This is also, according to Calvin, one of the benefits of bearing the cross. And we are likely not to let the little things get to us so readily. St. Augustine spoke of seeing things from the vantage point of eternity. That’s what Calvin had in mind. If in 100 years it won’t make any difference, what about in eternity? And we are not likely to let our lives be taken over by the latest fads.

The New Testament says “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love him.” For Calvin the glory of the future life should guide our lives. Instead of a religious life dominated by rules – and unfortunately that came to be the case in later Calvinism – Calvin himself felt the starting point is ideas. If we have heaven in our hearts we will know much more clearly than any rules what we should do and how we should live.

There is a wonderful documentary on the civil rights struggle in the U.S. called “Eyes on the Prize”. As long as people kept their eyes on what the “prize” was they could put up with the terrible stuff which came their way. For the Christian the “prize” is the future life. Our citizenship is in heaven, Paul said.

The story is told of a woman who was reaching the end of her days. She had been a faithful Christian all her life and loved the Lord. She called the minister and asked him to come to her house. She went over her funeral arrangements, the hymns she wanted sung, her favorite scriptures. Then she said, “One more thing. I’d like a plastic fork put in my coffin.” The minister asked why. “Well,” she said, “at every church pot-luck dinner someone always comes around before the desert is served and tells you to “keep the fork”. That way you know something good is coming next. And I know something good is coming next!”

Rev. Charles Brewster, First Presbyterian Church of Forest Hills

John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life, by John Leith. Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989
The Christian Life: John Calvin. By John Leith. Harper and Row, 1984.
The Book of Confessions, Presbyterian Church (USA)