As Through a Glass, Darkly

The class: Philosophy Capstone Seminar
The prompt: give a personal definition of the Good Life

Elizabeth Ewing
PL462
6 October 2006
As Through a Glass, Darkly[1]

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”[2]

“The world recedes; it disappears! / Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears / With sounds seraphic ring! / Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! / O Grave! where is thy victory? / O Death! where is thy sting?”[3]

What is the Good Life? Before I can answer this question, there is something you should know about me. Three years ago, I gave my life away. I signed over my right to Self, with all the privileges and responsibilities therein. I am now a bondservant of righteousness[4] and the property of Another. In light of this, the decisions that determine the course of my future aren’t really mine to make. In fact, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”[5] Appropriately, I assert that His definition of the Good Life stands in lieu of my own, and as such, my exploration of this topic will refer often to the Bible.

Coming to terms with the fact that I am not my own and struggling to live accordingly has been a defining characteristic of these last three years. Many of my dreams and desires have been given up along the way, and many more will doubtless follow suit before God has finished with me. But pity me not – God has offered me a life far richer, far harder, far less comfortable and far more glorious than any that my own ambition could have forged. However, as the divergence between the life I would choose for myself and the life Christ has called me to live becomes more obviously pronounced, there is a truth which becomes proportionately difficult to deny: if the Biblical account of heaven is not factually true, then it is to my very great detriment that I live as if it were[6]. I am, in a very real way, gambling the whole of my time on earth – its very nature and quality – on the supposition that the Good Life isn’t this life at all.

The substance of Biblical Christian living represents a radical departure from conventional (humanist) thought. Simply put, it is my grave responsibility and great joy to consider my earthly life as forfeit to the service of the Gospel[7]. I am called to practice a consistent denial of my flesh, and to declare as Paul did, “I die daily.”[8] I am called to exhibit a singleness and wholeheartedness of devotion, acknowledging that “anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God,”[9] and recognizing that I love Him too little when I love some other thing together with Him, loving it not on account of Him[10]. I am called to love sacrificially, even to the point of death – a principle which was illustrated definitively and undeniably as Christ hung on the cross. In fact, Christ has much to say on the cost of discipleship. As recorded in Matthew 16:24-26, He says “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

Lest my account of my Christian life thus far seem at all grim or Stoic, permit me to speak now about joy. Not the vapid comfort spoken of by Lucretius, nor even the lofty, self-wrought happiness set forth by Russel, but joy, vibrant and real, immovable and soul-deep, abundant in the midst of lack, abiding in the face of sorrow, and undaunted in the presence of opposition. Lucretius asserts that “the requirements of our bodily nature are few indeed, no more than is necessary to banish pain, and also to spread out many pleasures for ourselves.[11]” However, Jesus appeals to a higher nature when He presents sorrow, rejection and poverty as causes for rejoicing.[12] Consider the structure of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (emphasis added). No value is ascribed to persecution, poverty, or sorrow in and of themselves; Christians are not called to be ascetics[13]. Rather, in experiencing these things we gain access to spiritual treasures, the joy of which vastly overshadows the pain required to obtain them. Satisfaction of “the requirements of our bodily nature” ought only to be denied if a truer, more lasting satisfaction is the result. In a broader and yet more personal sense, I ought only to forsake the pursuit of a self-centered, comfortable life, choosing instead to live as a “sojourner and exile,” if I am convinced that in doing so I manifest my eternal citizenship in a Kingdom compared to which all the enchantments of this world are but cheap and glittering artifice[14].

Faith in the reality and supremacy of the life to come, that life which is promised to me by Christ and purchased for me at the cost of His blood, is the very substance of the joy that is to be found in this life. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). When one’s longing for heaven transcends the realm of hope and becomes certainty of what we do not see, immediate joy is the result. When a mother whose son serves overseas in a war zone is informed that he has been discharged and is returning home, she need not wait until he walks through the door in order for her heart to leap in celebration. Receiving the good news, even if it has not yet fully come to pass, is sufficient for her joy. And yet her joy will certainly be even greater when her son really does walk through the door. So it is for the life of a Christian. According to C.S. Lewis, "The very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting." The definitive word on this matter is given in 1 Peter 1:8-9: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”[15] Surely the echo of heavenly joy, the ring of “sounds seraphic,” travels backward as well as forward across the soundscape of eternity. Another poignant illustration of this is found in Genesis 29. Jacob, hopelessly in love with Rachel, agrees to work for her father for seven years in order to procure her hand in marriage. Verse 20: “So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.” When my days on earth have ended, I hope to have lived in such a way that others can say of my life: “So Liz served sixty years for Christ, and they seemed to her but a few days because of the love she had for Him.”[16]

In summation, the Good Life, for me and for all who call on the name of the Lord, is one which strains forward to catch the first glimpse of heaven’s dawn on the horizon. It is one built wholly on the bedrock of God’s promises. It is one which, when ended, has merited the commendation of the Lord Himself: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”[17] Eternally speaking, the Good Life is that life in which the whole of my desire is slaked to its uttermost and beyond by God Himself. Indeed, I will settle for nothing less, since God has promised even more than this: “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”[18] “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”[19]

“And as [Aslan] spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”[20]


Endnotes:
[1] 1 Corinthians 13:12 “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
[2] From the journals of Jim Elliot, missionary to Ecuador. He was martyred seven years later.
[3] Alexander Pope, “The Dying Christian to his Soul”
[4] Romans 6:17-18 “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”
[5] Galatians 2:19-20 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
[6] Paul confirms this in 1 Corinthians 15:19: “If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
[7] The definitive scripture on this matter is Philippians 3: 7-14: “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
[8] 1 Corinthians 15:31
[9] James 4:4
[10] Modified from Augustine’s Confession, Chapter XXIX
[11] Book Two, “On the Order of Things”
[12] Matthew 5:3-12: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
[13] Colossians 2:20-23 “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ (referring to things that all perish as they are used)--according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”
[14] In speaking of the faithful Israelites of the Old Testament, the author of Hebrews has this to say (11:13-16): “All these people … did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
[15] The passage in its entirety reads thusly: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
[16] Yet, unlike Jacob and Rachel, I do not earn Christ, but rather, Christ has earned me. “Let the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering!” – Moravian missionaries, circa 1732
[17] Matthew 25:21
[18] Ephesians 3:20-21
[19] 1 Corinthians 2:9
[20] C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle