Subject 12 : The Faith of the Apostles Creed
● Faith in the Everlasting Life
This
declaration, which we believe “in the everlasting life,” is the last
confession of faith in the Apostles’ Creed, and at the same it is our
highest and greatest hope.
There
are some people who say that the world is such a miserable place that
they would be better off the sooner they die. But such is merely a
complaint what is quite far from their real mind. Most people do not
want to die, and even though this world is indeed full of troubles, they
would still like to live a long life. Why is this so? Because as
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, God “has put eternity in their hearts.”
Everyone
has the desire to eat. And to satisfy this desire, there are all kinds
of food available to them. People also do not want to live alone, but
they instinctively long for the opposite sex. This is why there are men
and women. Like this, the reason why people have the instinct to seek
after eternity is because there is eternal afterlife.
It
seems as though while people believe in the immortality of their souls,
only a few believes in the immortality of their flesh. But with the
advancements in science, we have come to discover the law of constancy
of mass, that is, while materials may change in their forms, in their
substance they do not change.
Water,
for instance, remain in its liquid form in room temperature, but when
the temperature drops, it solidifies into ice, and if heated, it
vaporizes into gas. But this does not mean that the water itself
disappeared, but only that it had changed in its form.
Like
this, when our bodies of the flesh die, they turn into ashes if
cremated, and they decompose if buried under the ground. But these are
only chemical changes. In other words, after death our bodies do not
disappear completely, but they only change in form, and their composing
elements still remains intact.
In
particular, for the flesh and spirits of Christians, simultaneous to
their passing away, their souls are completely sanctified and ascend to
Heaven, while their bodies remain without senses until the day of the
Lord’s return. When the Lord comes back, the dead are resurrected, the
resurrected are transformed, and they then live forever, with their
souls and bodies reunited, in the Kingdom of the Father. Jesus therefore
said in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who
believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and
believes in Me shall never die.” Like this, the everlasting life of
human beings is never a dream, but it is real and true. Those who have
become sinless by believing in Jesus will indeed live forever.
God
is the God of love and justice. He therefore blesses the good and
punishes the evil. But in this world, the rewarding of the good and the
punishment of the evil are not actualized properly. Why? Because human
beings have not been made to live only in this world and then cease to
exist with death, but they have been made to live forever in the next
world.
This
is why Jeremiah, a servant of God, asked Him, “Yet let me talk with You
about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are
those happy who deal so treacherously?” (Jeremiah 12:1) Jeremiah then
followed his questions by saying, “Pull them out like sheep for the
slaughter, And prepare them for the day of slaughter.” He believed, in
other words, in the afterlife judgment, and answering his own questions.
As
Jesus said in Matthew 25:46, “And these will go away into everlasting
punishment, but the righteous into eternal life,” there is no mistake
that human beings live not only in this world, but also forever in their
afterlife.
What Is It Meant by Souls Receiving Eternal Life?
This means to live with God forever.
Only the sole living God of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
who have been and will be forever, has eternal life. The true meaning of
eternal life is to take part in God’s life.
That’s
right! What makes Heaven a paradise for us is the fact that God, the
root of all blessings, will be with us. It is a place where only those
who have received the remission of sin by believing in the baptism and
blood given by Jesus will be living. Revelation 21:3-4 therefore state,
“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of
God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His
people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will
wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor
sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things
have passed away.’” That’s right! If there is such a thing as eternal
life without God, it can only be the everlasting suffering of hell.
There is no greater blessing than the fact that God is with us forever.
We sing the old hymn, “Jesus, the very thought of Thee; With sweetness
fills my breast; But sweeter far Thy face to see. And in Thy presence
rest.”
It means a life of happiness that lives forever.
Christ now has restored the everlasting life that we had lost because
of the failure of Adam, our forefather, to keep his covenant and his
inability to eat the fruits of the tree of life, and He has given us
eternal life. In Revelation 22:1-2, John testifies, “And he showed me a
pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the
throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on
either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve
fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month.”
“Living
on the shore, I’m living on the shore, I’m living where the healing
waters flow; Living on the shore, I’m living on the shore, I’m living
where the healing waters flow.”
It means eternal life without any sin.
Because of the religious corruption that has led to the persecution of
Christians by idolaters and their oppression by atheists, because of the
political corruption that has led to the tyranny of the powerful and
unbridled slander and backstabbing, and because of the moral corruption
that has led to the endless flow of obscenity, fraud, theft, robbery,
violence, and murder, this world remains constantly volatile.
But
the everlasting life in the next realm of Heaven is lived in a domain
where such evils are all eliminated, and which is filled with only peace
and righteousness. Hence, 2 Peter 3:13 states, “Nevertheless we,
according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which
righteousness dwells.”
Because
God will eliminate not only the evils of this world but also our
remaining corruption, we will all live in the happiness of eternal life
in the Heaven of peace, where sin will no longer trouble us.
Only those who have been born again of water and the Spirit can enjoy such eternal life.
Words cannot describe the sheer beauty and glory of Heaven, and so the
Bible only describes them to us symbolically. Revelation 21:2 describes
Heaven as “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” and verse 11
tells us that it has “the glory of God,” whose “light was like a most
precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.” Verse 18 says
that “the construction of its wall was of jasper; and the city was pure
gold, like clear glass,” and verse 21 states that “the twelve gates were
twelve pearls: each individual gate was of one pearl.” The bride’s
adornment, precious stones, pure gold, and pearls—all these things
describe the best in earthly terms, for there is no other way to
describe Heaven better.
Let’s
say that one of your acquaintances climbed a famous mountain. When you
ask him how the experience was, he might say, “I can’t even begin to
describe how beautiful it was! It was so amazing that no word can ever
describe it!” When words fail us to describe even a mountain, how could
they ever describe the eternal glory of Heaven?
It means eternal life having fellowship with God in perfect intellectual faculty.
As 1 Corinthians 13:12 states, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but
then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I
also am known.” We will know and have perfect fellowship with not only
those whom we had been personally acquainted with while on this earth,
but also with those who had come before us and those who would come
after us, without even being introduced to them. This fact is proven by
the passage in Matthew 17:1-8, where Peter, seeing Moses and Elijah
appearing when Jesus was transfigured, said, “Lord, it is good for us to
be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You,
one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Matthew 17:4). This shows us that
Peter was able to immediately recognize Moses and Elijah, each of whom
had lived over 1,500 years and 800 years before Peter’s own time.
Do
we have parents, husbands, wives, brothers, sons and daughters who had
lived in faith and went to God before us? When this time comes, we will
meet them again in joy, and there will be no more separation. Believers
do not exist only ephemerally and then disappear. Those who have
received eternal life by believing in Jesus will have both their souls
and bodies saved, and they will live with the Lord forever.
It
can only be a great blessing that we are able to confess our faith with
the Apostles’ Creed, the same Creed in which the saints before us had
believed in and confessed. Why? Because those affirm and confess the
Apostles’ Creed as their own faith and follow it with an “Amen” are the
blessed ones who will live forever in the beautiful Kingdom of Heaven.
In
conclusion, Jesus spoke of knowing and believing by integrating them
together. He said some very difficult and mysterious Word: “You must eat
My flesh and drink My blood. Only then can you receive eternal life.”
How important is this Word? It tells us of the relationship between our
souls and the life of Christ, like the flesh needing to eat and drink.
This is the Word that tells us to believe in the fact that Jesus,
through the baptism that He received from John, took all the sins of the
world upon His own body. And it is telling us to believe that He died
on the Cross, and that He rose from the dead again in three days.
The
promise of God is a gift. It is not something that we can receive with
our own works or penance. Therefore, we must believe in the Word of
Christ, obey it and be faithful to it. There is the Word of life that
follows us. Because we know about eternal life, we must embark on the
narrow path. We must keep on following the will of God, no matter how
lonely it would be. We must walk on the narrow way even though we lose
everything for that.
This
is the way of those who receive eternal life. This eternal life can be
attained through our voluntary death, as it is written, “He who loves
his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep
it for eternal life” (John 12:25). And its beginning is none other than
this very moment, right now. The beginning of eternal life is not after
our death, but now. We must realize this. Today, when we live with
Christ, marks the beginning of eternal life. A life that overcomes
death, that triumphs over sin, and that is faithful to Christ—this in
itself is the everlasting life.
We
will live in eternal life. We will live forever. The water of life
taught by the Bible is all found in the gospel of the water and the
Spirit. Those who believe in this gospel of the water and the Spirit
also believe in the everlasting life. Hallelujah! I praise our Lord!
You, too, must believe in the Lord who has come to us of the water and
the blood.
The
Holy Spirit rebukes people of their sins. He makes them realize that
all human beings are under sin as the descendants of Adam and Eve, and
that they are evil beings who cannot avoid but face their death because
of the sins that they commit everyday. But when people believe in the
baptism and blood of Jesus, the Holy Spirit also guarantees that they
are saved.
Moreover,
the Holy Spirit also bears witness to the righteousness of God. He
condemns as sinners, rebukes, and punishes those who do not believe in
the gospel of the remission of the sins of mankind that Jesus has
fulfilled—that is, in the baptism and blood of Jesus as their remission
of sin.
The Works of the Holy Spirit in Those Who Have Been Born Again
He makes the saints to keep their holiness.
He teaches and leads the saints and the servants of God.
He
comforts and helps them. In our lives, sadness and suffering approach
us endlessly. Coming to us who have been hurt, the Holy Spirit heals us
and comforts us. Not only this, but He also helps us in our weaknesses
and strengthens us.
Romans
8:26 states, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we
do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself
makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
Like
this, the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of the saints. For both the
Apostles and us, we all have one Lord, one faith, and one baptism
(Ephesians 4:5). Hallelujah!
I praise the Lord forever for giving us the faith of the Apostles.
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