Eternal Portraits in Everlasting Fellowship

Last week, we examined the sovereignty of God and the truth we find within our own beings: we are Eternal Portraits in Temporal Frames, created in the image of God. Yet these temporal frames have given many cause for concern; among these, you may recall, was none other than W.H. Auden (1907–1973), the influential poet on a quest to find answers to the questions posed within himself. When he underwent his own experience of being haunted by the “God question,” or plagued by the question of existence period, he sought out some of the greatest thinkers of his day for answers. Among them, was none other than Søren Kierkegaard, the so-called father of existentialism, a man whose ideas would influence Auden, though he was to reject at least one aspect of this Danish thinker’s thought: specifically his Gnostic-like division between body and spirit.

In particular, Auden was puzzled by the tension experienced as a creature who exists in time—his temporal frame was subject to all the laws of nature a tree or a flower might be—yet who also exists in history with the freedom to choose and the responsibility for these choices, which always bring consequences. He had no basis, however, for why it was that we have this ability to choose, an idea that provides the spine of existential thought. The temporal frame was obvious, the eternal portrait veiled. There was a realization within him that social injustice was wrong: that we have a responsibility for our choices. Yet why would social injustice be wrong: why are we responsible for our choices: what makes it thus?

Kierkegaard and Auden alike struggled with the idea of being both eternal and temporal—of living in time and history: for Kierkegaard it was perhaps never fully reconciled. This is essentially the same issue we grappled with last week through Schaeffer’s insights: man finds himself finite and yet he is personal. Eventually Auden realized—as did Kierkegaard as well—that behind it all must exist a “God who is there,” as Schaeffer would later write.

We have found this same observation throughout church history, appearing in many forms. We find the controversy over the Lord Jesus Christ: was He more human than God or was He more God than human? And what of body and spirit? Sacred and profane? Mind or matter? Good and evil? How do these tensions manifest themselves and do we ask the right questions?

The dispute over Christ is settled in the same way a dispute over the sacred and profane must be settled, which leads to the explanation of good and evil. The problem is that in asking the question: was He more human than God or was He more God than human is a false dichotomy. It assumes that the answer is either one or the other, when in actuality the answer transcends them both. He was both fully God and fully man: He was not more of one or the other, but fully both. So too, there is no difference between the sacred and the profane: all that exists was created by God, all that is created is sacred, including the temporal frame that houses the eternal portrait. So then, what do we make of good and evil? What is it that makes something evil?

In order for something to be evil, it must go against what we find in the nature and essence of God. Did God create anything that went against His nature and essence? Certainly not if we are to look at the flowers and the trees and the birds and the bees. So what can go against His nature and essence? Only a creature who has the power to choose. Evil mandates a choice and choice implies a sentient being to make it. To be sure, we find the effects of the curse around us, but even this “natural evil,” according to Scripture, is the result of humanity’s existential choice in the very beginning. On its own, there is nothing in and of itself that is evil, for all that has been created exists from the hand of God. Even the fabric by which Satan’s frame has been knit together is not itself evil; rather it was his choice and his choosing that damned him to his unavoidable future in hell.

In the same way, looking at the world as being divided into the holy and the profane, the sacred or the secular, presupposes a false dichotomy. There is nothing in this world that is evil except that it is made thus by a choice: there is nothing that is evil that was not made that way by sentience. The choices we make invariably decide for us what is redemptive and what is not. Alcohol, for instance, can be healing or it can be the destroyer of entire families: in itself it is good, for all that flows from the Father’s hand is good: what makes it bad is choice. Drinking alcohol is not expressly forbidden in Scripture; rather the unhealthy excess that leads to our ruin is forbidden, made unhealthy by our poor choice. Alcohol has been given to us both for healing and pleasure, it is our responsible choice that makes the difference. It is as Peter Kreeft writes of G.K. Chesterton’s brilliant analogy:

There is great freedom in this picture: that of a Father and His children. The only reason we are forbidden certain choices is because God, in His love and mercy, cares enough for us that He does not want to see us unnecessarily hurt. He is ever the gentleman, and the choice is always up to us as to whether or not we wish to comply or not. Those who have spent time walking with the Lord know that life without God is a hollow and futile existence. Yet there are those that in their own stubborn pride choose this way of life: they would rather have their personal autonomy than live in the reality that does exist. Too proud to bow the head or bend the knee in recognition of the truth, they choose to spend their life this way. At the end of their years, the God who is a gentleman sorrowfully lets them continue on apart from Him, bearing the eternal consequences of their declaration of independence.

In conversation with Loyal recently about the subject of hell, he paraphrased the thought of an unnamed Catholic theologian, who maintained that the worm that never dies and the flames that never claim their fill will be merciful distractions from the hell of living with the choice to spend eternity without God, in the utter hollowness of our own finite selves. Do we have within ourselves what it takes to make us happy? Do we have the resources to fill the aching gap in our lives? If given all of eternity, will this ever change? Or will we have damned ourselves to an eternal hollow: to an inward void that will never be filled?

The God who is good, however, has given us other things to enjoy as well. Last week we spoke of the fact that only God can fully fill the vacuum. Yet not enough gets said about the other legitimate pleasures He grants us. Like the doting father who gives good gifts to his children, God has not only offered Himself, but life and the pleasures of living as well. We have been given the pleasure of alcohol to enjoy, yet too much and we suffer the consequences, for we try to replace God with it, instead of accepting it as our Father’s gift. And, on a much grander scale, few pleasures compare to creature to creature before Creator: a man and a woman in a committed marriage relationship have one of the most wonderful gifts ever given to humanity. They are right in enjoying this gift and in gaining tremendous pleasure and satisfaction from it. However, if they try to exalt the other, expecting that another creature will be able to fill what only God can fully supply, they will have lost sight of the Giver in their enjoyment of the gift.

The greatest gift we have been given is the gift of life, and it is this gift for which our Lord and Savior died. We are meant to enjoy it. And while many are the times that will be bleak and stark, when, as I wrote last week, “sometimes our greatest fears will be realized at the expense of our deepest longings,” this is not the full picture. This is the reality of living in temporal frames, but it is because we understand the reality of the eternal portrait and the God in whose image it is shapen, that we can live with this. We know that everything God does is for our benefit and He alone is sovereign. If our greatest fears are realized at the expense of our deepest longings, this is only a temporal perception of something that ultimately evaporates in light of the eternal perspective: we serve a good God. Affliction and trial occur only for a season (and are used for a reason), but eternity lasts forever. It is this eternal life for which every temporal setback occurs: we are being prepared for the greatest gift ever given to any creature made of God: that of life everlasting.

I used to wonder why theologians teach that we are God’s hands and feet: that we are, to each other, “God with skin on.” To me, this seemed to lay one in the lap of the skeptic, for it makes it quite convenient to cover for a God who is not there. After all, you want to see God? He isn’t there, but His people think He is: they think they themselves are Him. I began to realize, however, that the reason we are to be God’s hands and feet is not because anyone is trying to cover for the lack of His presence, but because we will not be alone in the celestial city. Only God can fill the vacuum, but how much sweeter this gift if shared with another! Do you not long to take someone with you when you are moved by the sunrise or the sunset, the majesty of the mountain height, the song that speaks to your heart, the poem that brings tears to your eyes, the baby smiling from its crib? Have you ever thought about why you desire to share it?

We were not created in a vacuum. We were created to bring one another pleasure even as we share, creature to creature before Creator, in God’s pleasure. In heaven, we will not be alone. We are meant to enjoy one another, to share with one another, and this is precisely why we are God’s hands and feet. He alone can fill the vacuum, but He has chosen to give us good gifts that give our lives even greater pleasure. And what is His good pleasure? Simply to give us pleasure. Yet because He is holy and perfect, He cannot give us pleasure just any old way. We quickly find that when we are calling the shots for what constitutes pleasure, we are soon disappointed and turn away unsatisfied. Only He knows what will give us true pleasure and only He can provide it: be it in direct vertical communication with Him or with a joyful horizontal participation with all of His creation.

There is something beautiful about being in a creature-to-creature relationship sharing the joint pleasure of fellowship with our Creator. C.S. Lewis liked to think of heaven as a stringed symphony: each of us is uniquely equipped to respond to the precise combinations of His attributes: no two are exactly alike. This produces a mutually complementary harmony instead of a monotone drone, the swelling strains of the saxophone and clarinet complementing the violin and the bass drum: the tuba and the trombone trading off with the trumpet and flute. We lose the full picture when we assume that since God alone can fill the vacuum, we were meant to go the road alone here on earth. There are times, to be sure, we will be disappointed and lonely, but it will all make the sweet fellowship we share one day be all the much sweeter.

God is a God of order, not of disorder: God is a God of unity. Discord and strife do not come from the Father, but rather from the evil one damned by his own sentient choice. It was not unity he sought, but solidarity. He chose not to enjoy the fellowship of God and His fellow angels, but instead sought to exalt himself at the expense of unity. While there cannot be peace at any price, peace will never be obtained by exalting self, for it renders the enjoyment of pleasure hollow: it exalts gift above Giver and makes too much of a good thing.

Archive note: See also Part I of this newsletter: Eternal Portraits in Temporal Frames

A Triune God, perfect amongst all His members, knew what it was to live in an eternal love relationship: Father loves Son, Son loves Father, and the Spirit flows between the two, taking His own delight in the transaction. So too, a Triune God is meant to be enjoyed by us, creature to creature, linked hand in hand in the meadow of creation before the Creator—the songbirds and the doe with fawn, the stringed symphonies of the crickets, the brook murmuring softly as it trickles down the mountainside—all of creation in worship and praise of the Creator. This composite picture is intended to fill the vacuum, the Capstone locking the puzzle solidly into place: there is no greater giver than God.

How about you, sister, brother? Do you see the beauty in all of this? Do you see why the temporal can only be understood by a recognition of the eternal? Why our deepest longings will not forever give way to our greatest fears? On earth as it is in heaven: the temporal frames will be transformed into perfected vessels to house the eternal portrait—the imago Dei—that will forever enjoy, as creature to creature in all of creation, fellowship with the Creator for all eternity. Can you think of anything more beautiful than that?

“For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

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