Reclaiming the Gospel, Part 4 – Now & Then

I know you have heard talk about heaven and hell. I know you have seen images of a bearded man stopping people at the gates on top of a cloud. I know you have seen images of a red demon with horns and likely a pitchfork or trident. For many people, that is what Christianity is all about. It is getting a “Get out of hell free” card or a ticket on the heavenly express. Were you aware, though, that in Jesus’ preaching about good news, heaven and hell are not much more than an afterthought?

Sure, Jesus did actually talk about eternity, heaven, and hell, but they were not front and center in his teaching. He spent a lot more time healing people and teaching them how to live in accordance with the values of God’s Reign. He spent most of those three years dealing with issues that face people now, on this side of death and eternity. He talked about loving our neighbors. He talked about forgiving one another. He talked about elevating the rule of love over things like Sabbath observance. He demonstrated God’s will for us to include all sorts of people in our circle of humanity. He broke taboos to touch lepers, eat with sinners, converse with Samaritans, and spend his time with those we have too often deemed unworthy of our time, attention, and resources.

Jesus talked a lot about God’s Reign, but that talk was not all directed at some ethereal setting in a far off future and celestial reality. He taught us to pray that God’s Reign come among us here, and that God’s will be done in our earthly midst as in the heavenly realms.

When Jesus called the poor blessed, he framed that in the present tense. When he spoke of the meek receiving an inheritance, it was this earth on which we live. When he spoke of retribution, he was ruling it out in this realm of living. When he spoke of responding to theft, he said we should be generous with our earthly possessions. When he spoke of begging, he responded that we are to have open hands to the needy all around us. When he spoke of loving enemies, he was referring to those who would harm us now, on this side of eternity. Jesus spoke of living our piety directly before God, not as a show for our neighbors and society.

Jesus spoke of storing our treasures in heaven, but doing so by how we live in this very reality. He told us to set aside our worry over the future and trust it to God as we live today according to God’s purposes and values. When Jesus talks of laborers to send into the harvest, he appoints disciples to cast out evil spirits and to heal diseases. They were to tell the people that God’s Reign was at hand. He gave no instructions about preparing people to live in eternity with God. He was more concerned that they gain entry into God’s Reign right here, and right now. When he speaks of John the Baptist, he talks of the Reign of God as a present reality against which many have been acting with violence.

There is a “then” to the gospel. The focus of the gospel, however, is on the “now.” We live out the reality and values of God’s Reign in order that as we transition into whatever that future might look like, we are already prepared to live in it according to how God has already begun to rule in our lives. Rather than selling a ticket to some future and far-off destination, the good news of Jesus is about a new life that begins right here, right now.

While we expect some future and greater embodiment of God’s reign in the hereafter, if we are not already living that reality now, we are missing the gospel with its blessings. We need not await some future reality we cannot see. We can live the immediacy of God’s Reign right now. Upon experiencing death, we simply continue under God’s Reign in some other context.

If we cannot live comfortably according to the values of God’s Reign now, why would we think we would suddenly desire to submit to God’s Reign for eternity? If we do not live in fellowship with God now, why would we think we would suddenly want to be even more directly united with God in a coming future?

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the one who trusts him” (Psalm 34:8). “If one does not love a sibling who can be seen, how can he love God who remains unseen?” (1st John 4:20). If my interests are self-centered now, how would I respond to an eternity in a completely different context where being carried by self-interests goes completely against the flow? Not only would I be unfit for living in direct communion with God, not only would I be unprepared for it, I would not be able to appreciate such an experience. If I don’t love others now, if I don’t trust God now, I’m less than unfit for an eternity under God’s direct reign. It would become a living hell for me, wouldn’t it?


#Gospel #GoodNews #Heaven #Hell #Afterlife #Present #Earth #Eternity

— ©Copyright 2023, Christopher B. Harbin 



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