Without the consolation of Christ and His promises, many have cast themselves into despair (just look at rising depression and anxiety rates) or seek comfort in hedonism, pursuing pleasure at all costs. Let us set a different example, a better example. Let us not despair this world, nor let us give ourselves over to worldly pleasures as feeble balms upon our sin-sick souls. Instead, let us confess that this world is doomed to pass away at the coming of our Lord, but He still, for now, gives time for repentance, to turn to His mercy rather than receive His wrath. And so long as we have breath in our bodies, let us be ambassadors for our soon coming King.

Quote of the Week

When they once have raised their heads above this earth, even though they should see the ungodly decked out in wealth and awards, enjoying the utmost tranquility, flaunting every kind of splendor and luxury, and abounding in every kind of pleasure—even if, moreover, they should be wickedly attacked by the ungodly, haughtily insulted by them, exploited by their greed, or harassed by their desires in some other way—even then believers will bear such evils. For they will set their eyes on that day when the Lord will receive His faithful people into the peace of His kingdom, wipe every tear from their eyes, clothe them in garments of glory and gladness, feed them with the indescribable sweetness of His own pleasures, raise them to fellowship in His own lofty heights, and—at last—grant them participation in His own happiness (Isa. 25:8; Rev. 7:17). But He will cast the wicked, who have flourished on earth, into utter disgrace. He will turn their pleasure into suffering, their laughter and delight into tears and hissing. He will disturb their tranquility with pains of conscience. He will punish their self-indulgence with unquenchable fire. And He will subject them to the godly, whose patience they have exhausted. For, as Paul testifies, it’s right for those who are miserable and have been unjustly afflicted to receive rest, and it’s right for the wicked who have tormented the godly to receive affliction, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven (2 Thess. 1:6-7). This, surely, is our great consolation.

106-107

Summary

Another benefit of the cross is that our present suffering helps us to better understand the fleeting nature of our present life and the inadequacy of all its pleasures. Instead, the Christian must set his gaze upon the future life, our everlasting state with Christ. This does not, however, mean that we should hate this life, since even here we see evidence of God’s goodness and love; it only means that we should desire the life to come vastly more. Because of this blessed hope, Christians should not fear death but should rather view it as the end of our earthly exile.

Any discussion at length of the Christian life must address the life to come that Christ has promised to His disciples, for that is the blessed hope that is set before all Christians. This world is filled with afflictions and sorrows, yet we look toward the great Day, when heaven and earth pass away and all things are made new. As Calvin shows, this mediation upon what is still to come has very practical effects upon our present life.

I find it interesting that Calvin begins with a baseline assumption:

We all, throughout our entire lives, want to act as though we were longing for heavenly immortality and striving urgently after it. Indeed, we judge it shameful not to distinguish ourselves in some way from the brute animals, whose condition would be much the same as ours if we didn’t hope for eternity after death.

89

Nearly five hundred years later, that statement is still true of Christians; however, Western society overall has happily embraced Darwinian materialism and a secular framework that denies or labels irrelevant any notion of eternity. Calvin assumed that any reader would have considered it shameful to be undistinguished from animals, while the predominate view today is that humans are nothing more than high-evolved animals. And like other animals, we are told that we should not long for eternity. Yet we know that God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Try as they might, humans cannot be truly secular. We are all haunted by eternity, even if those who pretend otherwise.

Even whenever our society as a whole has openly endeavored to ignore the impulse of the eternal, it is a great tragedy that Christians should too. Yet it is remarkably easy for “our entire soul, entangled in the enticements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on earth” (90). Therefore, the LORD afflicts His people with tribulations that we may see just how “uncertain, passing, vain, and spoiled” this life truly is (91).

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