Tenet #12: We eagerly wait for the day of Christ’s return to restore a new heaven and a new earth.

How would it change your decisions in a situation if you knew how that situation would end? For example, the person in the car behind you is so close to your rear bumper that if the car gets any closer the driver will be in your backseat. Your blood would normally boil with anger, but you happen to know the future and you know he is going to get his just reward when a police officer gives him a ticket just around the bend in the road. How would that change your emotional response to his tailgating?

Or, you are invited on a blind date because your friend really wants to go out with a girl who has a sister that would be left behind. Normally, you are far too shy to go on that date. This time, you happen to know the future, and you know that you are going to meet the woman of your dreams. She will be the one that you marry one day, and with whom you will live happily ever after. Would that vision of the future bolster your courage to go on that date?

When you know the ending, it makes all the difference in how you face the present. The ending, the big ending at the end of life, for the Christian is conveyed in Revelation. Particularly in chapter 21, Revelation gives us a vision of the End, or Heaven. Heaven is eternal communion with God and all of his redeemed people. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’”(Revelation 21:3 ESV) We, and all who have ever placed their trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, will spend the rest of eternity in the visible presence of our Creator.

Heaven will be a place of joy and peace. Every one of our faculties will be satisfied. For example, our minds will be fully enlightened so that we will have answers to all of these questions we have about life now. Our wills will be content. Our bodies will be restored, and they will be freed from their current subjection to the laws of thermodynamics. The things that rob us of joy now will be gone. Sin will no longer exist. We will not experience temptation. The current consequences of a broken and sinful world will no longer burden us. In other words, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4 ESV) As you can see, it ends well for Christians.

This Easter it is appropriate to remember that this ending is secured through the Resurrection. The entire foundation of Christianity crumbles if the Resurrection is not true. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:16-17 ESV)

There are some Christians that believe that Jesus existed and was crucified, but he was not raised from the dead. Their reason for being Christian is based on the inspiration of Jesus’ life; a life they hope to emulate. It is crucial that we follow Jesus’ way of life, but, if setting an inspirational example was all that Jesus accomplished, then he did not achieve the victory attributed to him in Revelation. We would have no reason to hope in anything beyond this world.

To the contrary, the Christian has hope because of the Resurrection. Jesus lived a perfect life and allowed the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities to crucify him. Jesus really died. He didn’t pass out. There was no primitive anesthesia in that gall he drank on the Cross. He died like any human died, and he remained dead until the day after the Sabbath, or Sunday. God raised him bodily from death and gave him a Resurrected life. There were others that were raised from the dead, but they were returned only to die a physical death again. For example, Lazarus died and was raised, but he died eventually a physical death. Jesus was the first one of many God would raise to spiritual life.

In doing so, he changed the laws of Creation. Death no longer is the final word on existence. Sin no longer has the power to sentence every person’s life to spiritual death. Death itself died. As we sing in that great hymn “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”, “When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside; Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.”

Jesus will return to bring an end to this world, and the beginning of the full reign of the Kingdom of Heaven. The dead will be raised. Those who are named in the Book of Life will be raised to eternal life. Those who names are not there will die spiritually, and be separated from God forever. That latter is not what we would wish for anyone, but it is a result of the freedom God gives us. Far from wishing it, we work hard to be used by the Holy Spirit to ensure that as many as possible will join us in this heavenly vision.

You may have heard the old saying, “Begin with the end in mind.” It is a good idea for many pursuits, and that includes the Christian life. Knowing that Creation ends well changes how we live now. To live with the end in mind for us is to live with hope. If God can create a new heaven and new earth, then he also owns this heaven and this earth as well. We already live under the sovereign reign of God. Our security is already present. All of the resources of Heaven and Earth are available for God to allot them to our lives.

What is there to fear, then, in this world? How would you change your decisions on the big issues of life if you did not have fear? When you come to one of those forks in the road where you believe that one way may be safe but the other way may be more faithful to God, would it change your decision if you knew you had nothing to fear in this world? I’m guessing it would. When fear is gone, we don’t to worry about ourselves. We can do great things for God, which invariably brings peace and joy. All that is required is that we place our trust in Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives and as Savior of the World. Trust him now so that you too can know that your story ends well.

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Others have written on the topic of essential tenets. One author you may want to read is Mary Naegeli, who also uses the FOP/ECO Theology Project for her work, though her list has fewer tenets than ours. You can find her work here: http://wordtolife.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/are-you-ready-to-offer-some-hope/. Also FOP/ECO has a study document on the Theology Project, which is here: http://www.fellowship-pres.org/wp-content/uploads/ETL-Front-Matter-L130.pdf.

Essential Tenet #11: Progress in holiness is an expected response of gratitude to the grace of God.

We are close to the end of this series on the list of essential tenets adopted by the Session of First Presbyterian Church of Douglasville. They are adapted from the Theology Project of the Fellowship of Presbyterians. Together, they convey to ourselves and to the world the framework of our theological identity, which is important when so many forces of culture are pressuring us to accommodate to culture rather than remain faithful to our historic Christian orthodoxy.

In this series, we have reflected on the sin of humanity and God’s work of grace to redeem us from sin. We’ve been reminded that we were saved by grace through faith, that we were regenerated from spiritual death that came with the corruption of sin, and that we were secured for life eternal in the Kingdom of Heaven. We’ve seen that the salvation history of God is an amazing act of mercy and love that we do not merit, but are so glad to receive it. One might wonder, “Is there anything more that God has in store for us?” We have no grounds to expect or demand more, but, remarkably, God offers more.

Not only are we saved by grace, but by grace he also offers us the chance to become people formed into the image of Jesus. This comes through the pursuit of holiness. Holiness means, “set apart, unique, and distinct,” and holiness in humans ordinarily refers to their being set apart for service to God. Progress in holiness means the lifelong pursuit of becoming transformed – day-by-day, bit-by-bit – into the image of Jesus Christ, or what C. S. Lewis calls, “little Christs.” Progress in holiness is a clear expectation of Scripture.

• “For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:45 ESV)

• "Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness." (Romans 6:13 ESV)

• "[We are taught in Jesus] to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV)

• "For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you." (1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 ESV)

Out of his goodness, God not only saves us, but he has a beautiful, optimistic, expansive vision of our humble lives. In a helpful article on holiness published by Christianity Today online, called “Do American Christians Need the Message of Grace or a Call to Holiness (December 2012)”, Will Willimon writes, “Grace is more than some benign, sweet syrup poured over us by a God who only says, ‘I love you just as you are; promise me you won't change a thing.’” In the same article, Margaret Feinburg writes, “Holiness reminds us that though God loves us just as we are, right where we are, his love does not end there. God's love wants to transform us and take us to higher places.” Like a great sculptor, God wants to chip away at the residue of our old self until the very image of his own Son, our Redeemer, emerges. The end product is more beautiful and breathtaking than anything Rodin could imagine.

The prescription for progress in holiness is simple: avoid sin, and pursue right living. The question often follows, “How do you define what is sin and what is right living?” The way we don’t define it is too measure our heart’s desire. As John Calvin said, “The heart is a factory of idols.” It will quickly lead us to false definitions of sin and right living. Instead, we allow Scripture to define what is right and what is wrong. Scripture is the authoritative guide for these matters of faith and life. If Scripture calls something sin, we avoid it. Likewise, we pursue what Scripture defines as righteous living.

Don’t think for a minute that this is an easy task. We live in difficult days. Many of the things that the church has always considered to be right are now considered wrong in society, and so many of the things we thought were wrong are now considered right. Issues related to sexuality and marriage definition are two of the very public ways that we see this played out. Cohabitation and single mothers are at an all-time high. Pre-marital sex is almost normalized. There is a massive push to change marriage definition and to normalize homosexual relationships.

Our denomination’s accommodation to culture on these issues is one of the reasons our heart breaks for our denomination. Throughout her long history, the church has understood that the only appropriate context for sexual activity is in the bond of marriage between one man and one woman. Our denomination recently opened the door to ordain practicing homosexuals. Judging from the votes at our last General Assembly, the denomination is very close to changing the definition of marriage from a covenant bond between one man and one woman to a bond between two people.

I often hear the proponents of this accommodation say, “The world is changing, and we have to change with it.” I disagree. The way of holiness has always been unpopular. The Christians of the New Testament seemed as out of step with the prevailing winds of culture then as we seem today for adhering to the teachings of Scripture on these issues.

Lest, we think that this is only about sex, understand that it is not. Sexual permissiveness is the sin de jour. Tomorrow it will be something different. The culture will always challenge us to accept what its collective heart thinks is appropriate, but what the Bible calls sin. That will always be the call of culture. While God has a large, optimistic, and beautiful vision of the people we can become through the work of holiness, the vision of culture is small and pessimistic. The culture has no great hope for us as people of virtue. The one great hope it encourages is the freedom to remain where we are and to be okay with that as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. The problem is that from a spiritual standpoint this pathway may not hurt anyone else, which is very debatable, but it certainly hurts us.

The Word of God defines for us what it means to be a Jesus follower. Our identity and our reason for existence are found within its words. If we normalize any practice that the Bible calls sin, we are unfaithful to our identity and we place an obstacle between God and us that will prevent our growth in Christ. I think we lack integrity if we say, “I want to be a Christian, but I do not intend to strive to follow the way of Scripture.” It makes me wonder why someone would want to be a Christian, but not trust or respect what the Bible says makes up the Christian life. No doubt, we will always fall short of it, but we at least acknowledge we are doing our best to follow Scripture’s description of that life. Do we want to be people who take both the name Christian and follow the way of Christ as best we can so that God can continue the work of holiness in us? I do, and I hope you do, too.