Meditation on the Future Life

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. COLOSSIANS 3:1–2

The third of Calvin’s chapters on the Christian life (Institutes 3.9) has a title that sounds old-fashioned: meditation on the future life. Most modern Christians do not meditate on heaven much. We are busy, and heaven feels far away. Calvin thought that was precisely the problem, and his chapter is a remedy for it.

Why God sends troubles

He begins by linking this chapter to the last. Whatever kind of trouble presses on us, he says, we must always look to this end: to accustom ourselves to despise the present life and to be roused to meditate on the future life (Institutes 3.9.1). God knows how strongly we are inclined to love this world with a blind and brutish love. So He sends troubles to loosen our grip on it. When we are full of health, wealth and success, we settle down here as if we would live for ever. When our plans fail and our comforts are taken away, we remember that we are pilgrims.

For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come. HEBREWS 13:14

This is one of the most practical things Calvin says about suffering. Our afflictions are not random. They are the Father gently weaning His children from a world that cannot satisfy them, so that they will long for their true home.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. HEBREWS 11:13

Contempt without ingratitude

Calvin speaks strongly of despising the present life, and a modern reader may flinch. Is he saying that this world is worthless? No. He is careful to add at once that the contempt he means must never become hatred of life or ingratitude to God (Institutes 3.9.3). This life, he says, however full of misery, is still to be counted among the blessings of God. In it we begin to taste His kindness. In it He trains us for the kingdom. It is a gift, and we must receive it with thanks.

This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. PSALM 118:24

What Calvin means is a comparison. Set beside the life to come, the present life is small. The mistake is not to value this life but to value it as if it were everything. When we weigh it against heaven, we can hold it loosely — not because it is nothing, but because what is coming is so much more.

Longing for the day

Calvin goes further. He says that no one has made much progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully look forward to the day of death and of the final resurrection (Institutes 3.9.5). This is a hard saying, and he knows it. Most of us fear death. Calvin does not despise the fear; it is natural. But he says that the believer should overcome it by setting before his eyes what lies beyond.

For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better. PHILIPPIANS 1:23

He asks: if it is a good thing to leave a ruined, decaying house for a solid and lasting one, why should we be afraid to leave the tent of this body for the building of God? Death is not the end of life but the door into it. The one who belongs to Christ goes home.

In his sermon on Enduring Persecution for Christ Calvin makes the same point as a spur to courage. The athletes of the ancient world, he says, endured every hardship for a crown of leaves, and died for a prize they were not sure of winning. God offers us an immortal crown, and He does not ask us to fight at haphazard, for we have a promise of the prize. “Our triumph is prepared,” he says, “and yet we do all we can to shun the combat.”

A double use of the present life

The chapter that follows (Institutes 3.10) completes the picture by teaching how to use this present life and its good things. Here Calvin steers between two errors. On one side are those who would allow themselves only what is strictly necessary, and treat every pleasure as a sin. Calvin thinks this makes consciences far narrower than Scripture does. On the other side are those who use the world as if there were no heaven, and sink into luxury.

His rule is simple. We should use God’s gifts for the purpose for which He gave them, and He gave them not only for our need but for our delight. We should use them with thankfulness, with moderation, with patience when they are lacking, and with the knowledge that we must give account of them. And we should use them as those who are passing through.

But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none … and they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away. 1 CORINTHIANS 7:29–31

Hope that steadies the heart

It is easy to caricature Calvin’s teaching here as gloomy other-worldliness. It is better read as a steadying hope. A person who knows where he is going can travel through hardship without being crushed. The refugees in Geneva who had lost homes, lands and families could hear Calvin say that this world was not their home, and find comfort, not despair. They had a better country.

But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. HEBREWS 11:16

The honest caution is that Calvin’s strong language about contempt for the world, taken alone, could encourage a coldness towards the good things of creation and towards the needs of this world. That is not where he meant to lead, as his own labours for the poor and the refugee show. The hope of heaven, rightly held, does not make us careless of earth. It makes us free to spend ourselves on earth, because we are not trying to secure our treasure here.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Set aside ten minutes this week to think deliberately about the life to come. Read Revelation 21:1–7 slowly.

2. Name a trouble that has loosened your grip on this world. Thank God for what it has taught you.

3. Ask yourself honestly whether you fear death. Bring that fear to Christ, who has gone through death before you.

4. Consider whether you have been too strict or too careless in using God’s gifts. Ask for thankfulness and moderation.

5. Let the hope of heaven make you more generous here. Give something away this week that you would otherwise have kept.

A PRAYER

Lord, I love this world too much and think about my true home too little.

Use my troubles to loosen my grip on what is passing, and to lift my eyes to what is eternal.

Let me receive this present life with thanks, as Your gift, and hold it loosely, as a pilgrim.

Take away my fear of death, and give me a joyful longing for the day when I shall be with Christ, which is far better. Amen.