Looking Forward

People delight in looking to the future and are always thinking about what they will do next weekend or on their holidays. However, the most distant prospect most people will dare to think about is retirement. Death is rarely considered.

Yet those who walk with God can look at death with confidence. They know that Jesus has defeated this most fearsome of enemies. If we have learned to walk with God, the Bible teaches that Jesus will not leave us as we travel through the valley.

When followers of Jesus talk about death, three words are often used: victory, glory and certainty.

Victory

Jesus brought people back from the dead, rose from the dead himself and promised that his followers would rise from the dead. Paul summarises what this means: ‘When this happens – when our perishable earthly bodies have been transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die – then at last the Scriptures will come true: “Death is swallowed up in victory”’ (1 Corinthians 15:54). For followers of Jesus, death does not mark the end of life, but the beginning of real life; the grave is an entrance, not an exit.

Glory

If people think of the afterlife, they generally imagine the dead surviving as disembodied spirits. This is not the message of the Bible where the teaching is plain: those who know Jesus will be raised from the dead, will be given very real and glorious physical bodies, and will live forever in a restored world that is free from sin, sorrow and suffering. While we may not understand all the details (how could we?), the Bible is clear: the future for God’s children is glorious.

Certainty

The New Testament declares that, on a day unknown to us, God will end history and raise the dead. Confidence in this awesome view of the future arises from Jesus’ own resurrection. That event not only shows that he is the master over death but it is an unmistakable and irrefutable proof that, one day, death’s reign will end. In Revelation 1:5 Jesus is described as ‘the first to rise from the dead’. He is the prototype – one day all those who are his brothers and sisters will follow him out of death’s control.

Yet such a hope does not belong to everybody – only to those who have chosen to follow Christ. If it were a universal hope, the very idea of walking the right way would be meaningless – all roads would lead home. Throughout the Bible the message is clear: of all the many ways that human beings can travel, only one leads to eternal life.

The Christian hope of eternal future, of being with God forever and of being permanently free from all those things that trouble us, is the greatest encouragement there is to press on walking with God. One day we will realise that we have come to the end of this life’s road. In the glorious light of God’s presence we will see that he has brought us safely home.