The living, not the dead
“This is my play’s last scene, here heavens appoint / My pilgrimage’s last mile ; and my race / Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace, / My span’s last inch, my minute’s last point, / And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoint / My body, and soul, and I shall sleep a space, / But my’ever-waking part shall see that face, / Whose fear already shakes my every joint : / Then, as my soul, to’heaven her first seat, takes flight, / And earth-born body, in the earth shall dwell, / So, fall my sins, that all may have their right, / To where they’are bred, and would press me, to hell. / Impute me righteous, thus purge’d of evil, / For thus I leave the world, the flesh, and devil.” - John Donne
As for glory, I have experienced awe. And although such glorious and spectacular wonder is good, I take the awesome consolations of philosophy—no matter how substantial they appear—as thinner gruel than they ever seemed before. Faith doesn’t fill an empty space in our minds with wonder. If that were so, then such would render omniscience inerrancy’s opposite—and self-aware sinners know that’s wrong because sin isn’t invincible ignorance replaced by awe.
As for love, I have experienced passion. But I can report that the older I get, the fewer real, trustworthy, connections I expect to make with people in this life. I will love my neighbor as God intends but the scope continually narrows; there simply won’t be enough time in the world that I should die finally satisfied that I loved enough.
I will die in faith. God doesn’t give us faith so that we might perfect his gift. It doesn’t have its end in ever more rapturous mystical experiences in the knowledge and love of God. If that were so, we creatures would be the actors at center stage. But we’ll never know, love, or wonder, enough to perfect our faith in a God who knows us, loves us, and rejoices in our salvation from eternity. Faith doesn’t come to us as a nutrient-starved sapling. We aren’t denuded of satisfaction in God’s gift of eternal life. By faith we have already begun eternal life—and what greater satisfaction is there?
… The faith which makes us living people from dead ones has such great power that at that very hour when we begin to believe and grasp the Word we also begin to live with eternal life because the Word of the Lord endures forever [Isa. 40:8], and God, who is speaking with us, is eternal and will be with us forever.
(Johann Gerhard).