This present world is one “in which good and evil are so mixed together as to be a sure sign that this world is not to continue forever.”1 This was how Jonathan Edwards described the nature of life in a fallen world: a mixture of blessing and misery.
Divine Gifts in the Midst
of Suffering
“The earthly life we live is a gift of God’s kindness”; indeed, “before he shows us openly the inheritance of eternal glory, God wills by lesser proofs to show himself to be our Father.” What did John Calvin mean by these statements? He reminded his readers of “the benefits that are daily conferred on us by him.”2This was the same perspective of the Apostle Paul, when he contemplated the works of God in the generations preceding his own time: “He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). Jesus likewise spoke about the “Father in heaven” who “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).
Daily gifts come to us from the hand of God: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Let us always receive the divine beneficence with grateful hearts. At the same time, we are constantly reminded that we no longer live in Paradise. “This life judged in itself is troubled, turbulent, unhappy in countless ways, and in no respect clearly happy.” We must come to terms, Calvin noted, with these sober realities. “All the things which are judged to be its goods are uncertain, fleeting, vain, and vitiated by many intermingled evils.”3 This was the point made by James about the nature of our lives in a fallen world: “It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). What should we expect about our short season on this earth? Paul would answer: “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
We have moments of happiness in our present lives, but there is an instability in our experience. Edwards used an apt figure of speech: “this world” is “like a tempestuous sea.” It has been the case since the rebellion of Adam and Eve that “selfishness, and envy, and revenge, and jealousy, and kindred passions keep life in a constant tumult.” Is there a way for us to find peace in the turbulence that surrounds us? Edwards provided wise counsel. The “confusion and uproar” of the present is such that “no quiet rest is to be enjoyed except in renouncing this world and looking to another.”4
Looking to the World Above
Paul calls upon us to meditate upon the heavenly life and to recognize that we are sojourning for just a short time in this world: “Seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1–2). Calvin reasoned thus: “If heaven is our homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile?”5 In fact, he maintained, there is a compelling necessity for us to think properly about this world and the world above. “The entire company of believers” would “have been desperately unhappy unless, with mind intent upon heaven, they had surmounted whatever is in this world, and passed beyond the present aspect of affairs.”6
Calvin stood in continuity with the church fathers in his perspective on life in this world and our homeland in heaven. Clement, in his letter to the Corinthians, written near the end of the first century, began his epistle with these words: “The church of God which temporarily resides in Rome, to the church of God which temporarily resides in Corinth.”7 Clement reminded the church in Corinth of the Apostle Paul, who “having come to the limits of the west and having given his testimony before the rulers,” was “set free from the world and was taken up to the holy place.”8 We find the same kind of thinking about heaven in Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John. Bishop Polycarp wrote to the Philippians early in the second century. He assured the congregation that those who had lived “in faith and righteousness” were now “with the Lord.” He likewise expressed his desire that God would give the believers in Philippi the ultimate blessing: “May he give you a share and place with his saints, and to us with you, and to all under heaven who shall believe in our Lord and God Jesus Christ and in his Father.”9
The Place of Supreme Happiness
We need to remember that our ultimate happiness is not to be found in this fallen world. To use the language of Augustine, we must not be like those in unbelief, the earthly city that “longs for earthly joys” and “clings to them, as if they were the only joys.”10 Calvin repeated the same note, pointing out that by nature “the world [tends to] hold us bound by intemperate love of it.” “The whole soul, enmeshed in the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on earth.” Calvin advised, “If we have any concern for eternity, we must strive diligently to strike off these evil fetters.”11 Many refuse this course of action. This indeed was the problem with Demas who seemed to be a servant of the Lord and who labored with Paul for a period of time (Philem. 24). Sad to say, his affections were wrongly placed resulting in spiritual disaster. Paul reflected on what had happened: “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica” (2 Tim. 4:10).
The world above is the place of true happiness. “That blessed world,” proclaimed Edwards, “shall be perfectly bright, without any darkness; perfectly fair, without any spot; perfectly clear, without any cloud.”12 “Every member of that holy and blessed society shall be without any stain of sin, or imperfection, or weakness, or imprudence, or blemish of any kind.”13 “The saints in heaven” are “united together in one society” for “mutual subserviency and happiness.”14Augustine wrote that the life of the believer “is happy in the expectation of the world to come.”15 We know that true happiness and peace are only to be found in the eternal City of God. Thus, “we sigh for her beauty while on our pilgrimage.”16
Our Entrance into Heaven
Calvin would encourage us to have a biblical perspective on death. He stated, “Through death we are recalled from exile to dwell in the fatherland, in the heavenly fatherland.”17 This indeed was the point made by Paul: “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). In fact, “to die is gain,” for “to depart” is to “be with Christ, which is far better” (Phil. 1: 21, 23). This was the promise given by Jesus to the dying thief who appealed to the Lord for mercy: “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
Our greatest longing, however, focuses upon the Second Coming. We are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). We, as Calvin put it, “await the Lord’s coming, not only with longing, but also with groaning and sighs, as the happiest thing of all.” Why is this the case? “He will come to us as Redeemer, and rescuing us, from the boundless abyss of all evils and miseries, he will lead us into that blessed inheritance of his life and glory.”18 We shall hear the Lord’s invitation: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).
The Glory of God’s Country
Peace and happiness await the people of God. As Calvin described it, “The Lord will receive his faithful people into the peace of his Kingdom.” More than that, He “will deign to make them sharers in his happiness.”19 Augustine contemplated what the eternal kingdom will be like: “How great will be that felicity, where there will be no evil.”20 He concluded his City of God with an expression of wonder: “There we shall be still and see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise. Behold what will be, in the end, without end!” He then asked, “For what is our end but to reach that kingdom which has no end?”21
This is precisely what Jesus taught. All who trust in Him will dwell with Him forever and will share in His glory. His comfort is this: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3). There is not only His promise, but there is also His prayer: “Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory” (John 17:24). Consider His remarkable description of our future possession: “And the glory which you gave me I have given them” (John 17:22).
The Lord’s Invitation
Edwards encourages us, unworthy and wretched sinners that we are: “This glorious world may be obtained by us. It is offered to us. Though it be so excellent and blessed a country, yet God stands ready to give us an inheritance there, if it be the country that we desire, and will choose and diligently seek.”22
The divine invitation goes out to the world until the end of the age. Jesus assures us that all will be well if we place our trust in Him alone: “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). May we be comforted by the safety given to us by the Lord, protection for His sheep who hear His voice and follow Him: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28).
1. Jonathan Edwards, Heaven: A World of Love (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 88.
2. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 1, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 715.
3. Calvin, Institutes, vol. 1:713.
4. Edwards, Heaven, 69.
5. Calvin, Institutes, vol. 1:716.
6. Calvin, Institutes, vol. 1:718.
7. Clement, “The First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians,” in The Apostolic Fathers: A New Translation, trans. Rick Brannan (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 11. Emphasis added.
8. Clement, “The First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians,” 15.
9. Polycarp, “Polycarp to the Philippians,” in The Apostolic Fathers: A New Translation, trans. Rick Brannan (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 128–29.
10. Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, trans. Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin Books, 1972), 621.
11. Calvin, Institutes, 1:713.
12. Edwards, Heaven, 21.
13. Edwards, Heaven, 23.
14. Edwards, Heaven, 67.
15. Augustine, The City of God, 857.
16. Augustine, The City of God, 205.
17. Calvin, Institutes, 1:717.
18. Calvin, Institutes, 1:718.
19. Calvin, Institutes, 1:718.
20. Augustine, The City of God, 1087.
21. Augustine, The City of God, 1091.
22. Edwards, Heaven, 98.
Rev. Dr. Mark J. Larson is pastor emeritus and retired professor of Systematic Theology at Heidelberg Theological Seminary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.