Things I Can't Comprehend

Revelation 19     Eric Boberg

But as it is written, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love Him."
1 Corinthians 2:9 ISV

In Revelation 19, victory is in sight and shouts of praise and gory to God pour from heaven.

Then I heard what sounded like the voice of a large crowd, like the sound of raging waters, and like the sound of powerful thunderclaps, saying, "Hallelujah! The Lord our God, the Almighty, is reigning." Rev 19:6 ISV

The nations that have gathered for war are soundly and completely defeated. The Beast and the False Prophet are captured and those kings and armies that that have aligned themselves against God are destroyed.... What were they thinking anyway?

I can understand the reason for the battle and for the judgement of God to fall on the earth and on all evil. I can understand the reason for joy in heaven and earth. I can understand how wonderful it will be to have God's justice and righteousness on the earth. But I don't understand what comes next. What I can't get my mind around is peace.

Let me take one step back. One of the most important lessons I derive from all of scripture has to do with our struggle against evil. If I could be so bold as to condense it into one word it would be this. Overcome. Revelation has a lot to say about overcoming; the word appears 16 times. The concept is throughout scripture. In Romans 12:21 we read, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." God has been training us to persevere in the most dire of circumstances. This usually involves a fight. There are so many references to battle in scripture. In Psalm 144 David praises the Lord who "trains my hands for war and my finger for battle." Paul encourages Timothy to "fight the good fight." Later he instructs believers to "put on the whole armor of God." C. S. Lewis has correctly said, "Christianity is a fighting religion." By that I think he meant, we are at war against evil in this world; we are not passive.

There are great lessons we learn from the battle and the struggle, as I alluded to in my earlier post about superheroes. There is no victory without a battle and no battle without an enemy. The greater the enemy the greater the battle, and the greater potential for victory or defeat.

But what happens next? What happens when the battle is over? What happens when this heavy cart we have been straining to push up a steep hill is simply removed? Do we fall forward on our face? How do we avoid becoming lazy and apathetic? We know what happens when people just have everything handed to them. Do we lose our strength in a universe that no longer requires any nobility, service and sacrifice? And what happens to creativity, invention and problem-solving? And what about God Himself? It seems He no longer has any obstacle to push against either. I can't get my mind around it. I can't get my mind around a world without conflict, a world without contrast.

I have to confess up to this point most of my thoughts about heaven and eternity have been really just better versions of earth. Earth on steroids. It's kind of an earth remodel or restoration. We could make a TV show about it and call it This Old Earth. I'm guessing you think the same way too. If I asked you, I guess you could probably come up with a thousand things the would make the earth a better place. And I'm guessing they are very similar to the list of what you think heaven will be like. But what if those thousand things and bunch more were already done? Yes done, for us, finished, complete, perfect? Then what? What do we do then? I'm not saying our faith is all about doing. As our friend Rodney is fond of saying, "We are human beings, not human doings." I'm just thinking that the process of overcoming is so deeply valuable, it is difficult to imagine a world without it - even a perfect world, even heaven.

I have some friends, a married couple, who are very creative and industrious. Recently they sold their wonderful, almost perfect house, on a beautiful lot overlooking the river. One of the reasons they gave was that they realized there was little they could do to make the house better. They, in turn, bought a very average (I'm being kind here) house that needed a lot of love because as they said, "Anything we do to it will make it better." Which brings me to the question: when we get to heaven, will there be anything we can do to make it better? And if not, what will we do with all our fancy skills of overcoming and perseverance that God has been equipping us with down here? He is equipping us for heaven, right?

So this brings me back to 1 Corinthians 2:9.

But as it is written, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love Him."

I have no doubt eternity with God will be a totally wonderful experience. I think the reason "no mind has imagined such things" might be because it represents such a huge paradigm shift. It's way beyond our comprehension. We can imagine "streets of gold" and all the standard heaven pictures; it's a remodel, a very, very, very nice remodel - but still just basically, a better earth. That's not that difficult to imagine. But a place where everything is good without the contrasting bad? I don't know. That is very had to understand. It's like trying to define anything without contrast: heat without cold, light without darkness, the thrill of victory without the agony of defeat. Up until now our life has been about making choices good or bad. But what happens when there is no bad? Does good still stand out? Can a light shine brightly when there is no darkness? Again I'm probably trying to understand things that are unknowable in our current state of flesh and blood. This is why God is going to need to give us more than new bodies; He is going to give us new minds as well.

Going though the Book of Revelation and forcing myself to write something has been difficult; its been a big struggle. Yet it has been extremely worthwhile and faith building. It's almost like the goodness of the difficulty has proven my point. I'm still holding on to 1 Corinthians 2:9. I trust in the wisdom and goodness of God, but while I'm on this earth I'm probably always going to think that the battle or the contest is more valuable and more interesting than the victory party afterwards.