If there is one question most pressing in the minds of the human race, that would be (or ought to be): “what happens after death?”. While different streams of religious thought and diverse strains of philosophical opinion set out a variety of possibilities, one scenario that the Christian faith paints is that of Life Eternal.
And if the concept of Life Eternal simply conjures up an unending form of life as we experience here on earth, that certainly cannot be appealing to those who suffer privation, oppression. suppression, repression, negative discrimination, persecution, poverty, ill health, unhappiness and so on, in their lifetime here on earth.
On the other hand the rich, the privileged, the entitled, and the generally fortunate people who live a jolly good life here might look for a continuance of the same or better, eternally.
The parable of Lazarus and the rich man spoken by Jesus beautifully sums up the issues involved. We read this in Luke 16:19-31. In this parable, the rich man does nothing while alive to help Lazarus, a poor beggar, and when he dies the rich man goes to Hell whilst Lazarus goes to Heaven. While in Hell the rich man asks Abraham for some relief and he is declined, in the same way that he did nothing to help Lazarus.
This conveys the impression that the poor on earth automatically go to heaven and vice versa. Not true of course. But it does illustrate a cryptic statement made by Jesus elsewhere that it is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven” (Matthew 19:24). It is no coincidence that this comment follows immediately after his interlocution with the rich young man.
It is instructive to recap what exactly transpires between Jesus and the man. Let’s read Matthew 19.
16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honour your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’[d]”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Here we see Jesus making an abrupt transition from a Mosaic approach to something sublime. Suppose the man didn’t proceed to ask the question in verse 20 and had stopped at “All these I have kept”, we should conclude that he had kept the commandments and thus was qualified for eternal life per Jesus’s words in verse 17. Right?
But here was somebody who even after keeping the commandments was not quite sure of his qualification for eternal life, and felt he should probe further. Whether it was intended as a test for Jesus or whether he was truly desirous of refining himself, we don’t know. But Jesus gave him an answer that the man found difficult to swallow.
Yes, the law never satisfies. As it is written in Heb 10:1″ The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves“. Then again “These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” (Col.2:17). And the reality, folks, is sharper than the shadow.
The young man went away sad, but we should not miss the point that Jesus did not say that in order to inherit eternal life “go, sell your possessions and give to the poor”. This was for perfection. The young man didn’t wait to grasp the full import. Paying close attention to the incident as we are in a position to do, can we take it that in the Old Testament dispensation, fulfilment of the Mosaic Law sufficed as a qualification for eternal life? I guess it ought to be so, for there was none better.
Yes, Jesus is raising the bar in talking about perfection. It is not so much about embracing poverty as it is about emptying oneself. The parallel account involving Nicodemus (I must confess I was labouring under the misapprehension that the rich young ruler mentioned in Matthew was in fact Nicodemus before a brief google consultation put me aufait). The Nicodemus story narrated by John in his gospel chapter 3: 1-21 is apparently a different instance of the same theme, and it is elaborate. Did the rich young ruler in Matthew miss out on an explanation as offered here, because Jesus perceived that he didn’t quite have an open mind, though he asked the right questions? Possible.
I should like to think that the Matthew guy somehow got to know of the interaction Nicodemus had with Jesus where a like question was discussed threadbare. Going beyond the statement that “You must be born again’ (John 3:7), Jesus talks about his impending crucifixion: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”(John 3:14-15).
There it is, the need for Christ to be crucified for our salvation. Yes, as Isaiah prophesied, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him” ( Isaiah 53:5). What is required for eternal life is this belief in His vicarious death and acknowledgement that He resurrected. Romans 10:9 states it authoritatively: “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved “. Can anything be clearer?
Fine, the path to Salvation is clear in A.D. What about B.C?During the prevalence of the Mosaic Law, there were a lot of grey areas and the approach to eternal life is not quite as clear cut. The Ten Commandments and their corollaries were difficult to keep, if not impossible. As James says in his book Ch. 2:8 “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all“. That being the case, it was quite bold of our young man to claim that he had kept “all these“!
Take someone like King David. We all know that he was killing people left and right on the slightest of pretexts – committing murder, that is. And his infamous infatuation with Bathsheba and almost immediate sexual intercourse with her, is the epitome of adultery, and may we add (wife) stealing?
Yet, David was confident of eternal life (2 Samuel 12). Indeed he was called a “man after God’s own heart“- eh! So it was not the keeping of commandments. One should think it was rather, love for God that is abundantly manifested in his Psalms; and of course his disdain for nongods and false gods. God accepted that kind of worship and granted him special grace. That said, David was not alone in this. We can think of any number of Old Testament personages similarly “saved”.
Then again, we have so far focused only on Law and Christ. Any thoughts about the period before Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of stone? We know that Abraham transgressed; he was expressly disobeying when he went to Egypt. Agreed, Law was yet to be promulgated, but what about his conscience? Didn’t it trouble him when in fear of his life he glibly portrayed his wife as sister – nonchalantly prepared to sacrifice her chastity?
Jacob is a proclaimed deceiver and Noah is painted as a hopeless drunk. About Lot, there are lots to be said but the less said the better. And yet there are indications that these people were favoured by God, for somewhere along the line, they displayed tremendous faith in Yahweh. Enoch was the only one who was different and Melchizedek is an enigma.
Not much attention is paid to the very first couple, Adam and Eve. We know that they transgressed the express word of God and were consequently driven out of the garden of Eden but the question is, did they make it to heaven?
In his epistle to the Romans where Paul propounds some lofty theology, Adam is castigated time and again as a disobedient forerunner who is the first cause of unrighteousness and death of mankind. The second Adam – Jesus Christ – shines in contrast (as He should). We gain an understanding that physical death came about as the result of disobedience, but what about Adam’s eternal status?
Interestingly the mother of all mankind Eve (along with her husband?) can take comfort from the cryptic verse in 1 Timothy 2:15 which says “she will be saved through childbearing“; this of course is conditional -“if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” I would like to think that Eve was careful to fulfil these conditions after the Fall (once bitten, twice shy!)
Maybe we should leave it at that and not poke our finite noses further into the mysteries of the Bible. I suppose we should likewise adopt a similar attitude towards all mankind outside Abraham’s lineage. This also goes for the generations that follow Ham and Japheth after the deluge (Shem’s line stretches into Palestine, right?). We may also wonder about the eternal destiny of people that got scattered after their sky-high tower project at Shinar was thwarted by God!
Our own sense of right and wrong, through the ability to think rationally granted by God, sometimes makes us question if God is being fair. The idea of the creature making bold to arrogate to itself the right to interrogate (or remonstrate or negotiate with) the Creator is audacious indeed, but the man called Father of Faith did just that. Genesis 18 tells the story.
It is in this narrative that we find a light suddenly shining within Abraham when he says “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25).
You bet He will and of course, He did in the instance in focus. But God is under no obligation to prove His righteousness to us and therefore there are so many things we do not understand.
We can also surmise the fate of various kings of Judah and Israel from their life descriptions. Some of them “did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord their God” and some of them blatantly “did evil in the sight of the Lord” and promoted the worship of other gods.
So, it is quite pointless to rack our brains silly trying to grapple with questions like “did this man go to heaven?” and sometimes reaching facile conclusions like “she is bound for hell”. For, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever ” Deut.29:29. Yes, to what end? “that we may follow all the words of this law”. Underline we.
While we are subject to the commission to preach the gospel everywhere, it is just as important to look within, introspect, and examine ourselves. Surely we do not want to add ourselves to the list of people (great and small) who failed to do just that. When Jesus says “cry for yourselves” could this be one of the meanings?
As it says in Deu. 30:19, “life and death, blessings and curses are set before you” (you personally). It surely is a no brainer:
Choose life!
____________________________________