Too good to be true?

Jesus came to preach the good news. That is the literal meaning of 'gospel' and I, for one, forget this far too often. We speak about "the gospel of Matthew" and think of it as just the story of Jesus' life when it is so much more. It is good news, in fact it is more than that. If true, the message of Jesus is the best news that has ever been reported in the history of humanity.


But, what is the gospel? The good news is summed up beautifully in the famous words of John 3:16-17 and it is far better than I could ever hope to do!
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."


I know that I forget this far too often. The message of Christianity is one of salvation, it is always looking forward to the eternal life that will one day be enjoyed. That is the promise and the focus- not the relationship we can have now, but the perfection of a future spent with God. The picture of heaven is fleshed out in many places in the New Testament but the description of Revelation 21:4 that God "will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away" is certainly a wonderful image and fantastic good news, but is it 'too good to be true'?


That was the accusation made by this question which I received having spoken on the end of the world last Sunday and repeated here in full: 


We all know the saying "If it sounds too good to be true, it is." Why do Christians believe that heaven and the end of the world is exempt from this rule that in every other area of life consistently proves itself to be true? 


This really got me thinking but I think the reason we don't (and shouldn't) simply dismiss heaven as wishful thinking is because actually it so directly matches the internal picture we have of how the world 'should' be. Every time we react to suffering by saying 'that isn't fair', or 'it shouldn't be like this' we are longing for this Revelation 21 version of the world. When we see the wreckage of a natural disaster we don't say "oh well, those people weren't well adapted enough for their environment", on the contrary we are grieved as we watch their sufferings. We have a sense that this world isn't as it should be and the Bible tells us that, actually, we're right. We were made to live in the paradise of Eden and will ultimately be returned to a world which is no longer marred by human sin.


But many of us still cling to this life. We care so much about what car we drive, what job we have, what house we live in. We forget the promise of heaven, of an eternity spent in a perfect relationship with God, in a world without pain or suffering in everlasting life. We forget that the sufferings of this world are but a drop in the ocean compared to the future glory of heaven. Why do we continue to lie awake worrying about the small things of this life when we know that the big picture is so vastly different?


We've heard people talk about heaven thousands of times. But when was the last time we stopped and actually thought about the implications in our own lives? Because this is why Jesus came to this world, to initiate His kingdom and to provide us a way back to Him. And if we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then we must believe that we who know Him will follow Him into eternal life. And this should alter our attitude to our lives here on Earth which are just so so short. Not one person wishes they had spent more time at the office on their death beds. Similarly, no Christian will wish they had spent less time serving God in this life.


But if we turn our attention back to heaven then we see that the Bible goes even further than the promise of eternal life. Looking to 2 Tim 2:11-12: 
"If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him" 

It is not just that we are raised to eternal life with Christ but we are rulers with him. We are God's children "and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ"(Rom 8:17).  Stop and think about this for a moment. Christ's sacrifice didn't merely get you into heaven, it turned you into God's beloved child, on an equal footing with Jesus. If that doesn't make your head spin, I don't know what will because I am clearly nothing like Jesus, my actions don't even come close to resembling his and yet I will share in the ultimate reward by the Grace of God. 

So, yes, it all does sound too good to be true. But then, would you expect any thing less from an all loving, all powerful God? Heaven is not the best thing the human mind could invent, but the greatest blessing that God could bestow.