In the New Testament Book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul informed his Christian brethren that, “Our citizenship is in heaven.”[1] What a glorious thought! For those of us who believe that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), the promise of heaven should always be at the forefront of our thoughts.
However, we live in an increasingly secular, post-Christian culture in which many people either refuse to believe in God – and, by extension, his eternal promises – or they simply do not wish to give spiritual matters any thought.
But we all should be thinking about “the things of the spirit.” As incredible as this may sound, I believe that all people are “made for another world” – and therefore we really need to seriously consider the biblical claim of eternity spent with God. But how do we know that eternity spent with God is even real? In other words, is there any evidence for this incredible claim?
For starters, I contend that all people are “hard-wired” to believe in eternity. In the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon wrote that, “God set eternity in the human heart.” [2] But what exactly was this great king saying? Solomon is telling us that all people innately understand two things: First, God is real, and two, he has placed within us all the belief that these earthly lives are not all there is. In other words, life does not end at the grave. Echoing these words from Solomon, the late Grant Jeffrey penned the following:
Perhaps the strongest evidence supporting the truth of immortality is that virtually every tribe, nation, and culture throughout history has expressed a strong faith in the reality of a life after death. In addition to the almost universal belief in God, the conviction that we will live again after our earthly bodies return to dust is the strongest and most commonly held belief of humanity.[3]
Aristotle, the great sage of ancient Greece, wrote in his magnum opus Metaphysics that, “All men by nature desire to know.” But know what, exactly? I contend that Aristotle was referring to spiritual things, or the so-called “big questions of life.” He was, after all, a philosopher – and exploring the big questions of life is what philosophers do best, of course. I believe that we all experience a desire to know – and understand – God and how we relate to him.
So, my advice is simple: Act on that inborn desire if you are not currently doing so. Failing to do that very thing will often result in what can best be described as “spiritual uneasiness.” Bertrand Russell, perhaps the preeminent atheist in the world during the early-to-middle twentieth century, wrote in a letter to a close friend that, “The center of me is always and eternally a terrible pain – a curious wild pain – a searching for something beyond what the world contains.”[4] However, this is somewhat strange because, for the atheist, there is nothing “beyond this world.” Like Bono and the rest of the boys from U2, Russell simply could not find what he was looking for. Could anyone have helped Russell in his dilemma?
It turns out that a fellow Englishman and a contemporary of his, the great C.S. Lewis had the answer. In perhaps his greatest literary work, Lewis wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”[5] That was Russell’s problem: The solution to his uneasiness was to be found outside of this world. But what exactly was he looking for? For that answer, let us look to some ancient – and not so ancient – writers.
Blaise Pascal was an Enlightenment era mathematician, scientist, inventor, philosopher, and by all accounts a devoutly faithful follower of Jesus Christ. He once wrote, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man, which only God can fill.” That sort of sounds like something King Solomon would have written, right? Before Pascal but long after Solomon, Saint Augustine wrote these uplifting words: “You have made us for yourself, O’ Lord, and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in you.” It seems to me that Solomon, Augustine, and Pascal are saying that we need God for our spiritual comfort. Since these were big-brained scholars whose intelligence was exceeded only by their spiritual strength, we should probably listen to them. We should also listen to Solomon’s father, King David.
Dr. Luke, the writer of the New Testament Book of Acts, wrote that David was “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22). In other words, David was a man who took his relationship to God seriously. (Understatement of the day.) In a state of spiritual illumination, David wrote, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God” (Psalm 42:1). Bottom line: We need God. The ancient thinkers knew it, the not-so-ancient thinkers knew it, and we know it today – even if more than a few people in our current culture try to avoid or even deny it.
Maybe we should look to the example of the repentant criminal who hung on the cross next to Jesus. We find this account described in chapter twenty-three of Luke’s Gospel. Two criminals were crucified next to Jesus. (An old tradition tells us that their names were Dismas and Gestas.) According to Matthew’s Gospel, both criminals originally shouted insults at Jesus.[6] But then one of the criminals – who we now refer to as the “repentant thief” – at some point between first being hung upon the cross and his death hours later, “got it” concerning Jesus’ real identity.
This criminal’s future looked pretty dim – and incredibly short to boot – so he decided to spend his remaining time thinking about what really matters. As a former hospice chaplain and a guy who almost “checked out” six years ago due to a heart arrhythmia, I can attest to the fact that staring death in the face will cause one to think seriously about the whole “God thing.” As a result of his willingness to be open to God and spiritual matters, the Lord opened the repentant thief’s heart and mind to spiritual truth and this man came to understand who the man hanging next to him really was.
The other criminal, as far as we know, never progressed that far spiritually because of either apathy or stubborn disbelief. The repentant criminal said to Jesus, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Then Jesus, knowing that the repentant thief had finally acknowledged and reconciled to his Creator, answered him: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” While hanging upon the cross, this man progressed from skeptic to seeker to believer in rapid fashion. An impending death can do that.
The Apostle John, in the final book of the Bible, recorded these words from the Lord Jesus Christ: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). In other words, Jesus – God who took on flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1-3, 14) – wants a relationship with us. If you are not yet ready for that or still have questions about God, Jesus, the Bible, eternity, etcetera, that’s understandable. I get it. I was a skeptic who took a long time to figure out my relationship to God. (I never hung upon a cross, so I had the benefit of taking my time to explore spiritual matters.) But I encourage you to make today the day you begin the journey to faith if you have not yet done so.
The great Socrates is credited with saying that, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”[7] As a follower of Jesus Christ – who gives us “life, and breath, and everything else” (Acts 17:25) – I believe that life is always worth living, be it examined or unexamined. Instead, I prefer to say that “the unexamined faith is not worth having.” God wants us to dig in and explore spiritual matters and our relationship to him. In other words, lift the hood of your faith and kick the tires. See what it’s all about. I discovered, after decades of skepticism, that only a relationship with Jesus Christ satisfies the spiritual hunger that resides within us all.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Church in Rome, tells us what we must do to be assured of eternal life spent with God: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Salvation is that simple, but it makes all the difference. An eternal difference, in fact. If you have not yet sought salvation, I encourage you to examine the person and mission of the Lord Jesus Christ and make today the day you accept him as your Lord and Savior.
Pastor Randy Hroziencik
First Baptist Church
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[1] Philippians 3:20.
[2] Ecclesiastes 3:11.
[3] Grant Jeffrey, Journey into Eternity: Search for Immortality (Toronto, Ontario: Frontier Research Publications, Incorporated, 2000), 21.
[4] Bertrand Russell writing to Lady Constance Malleson. She sold her letters from Bertrand Russell to McMaster University, where they are currently housed.
[5] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 2001), 136-137. 1952 original publication.
[6] Matthew 27:44.
[7] Plato, The Apology. Socrates’ teachings are transmitted to us through his most famous student, Plato.
