Friday, November 23, 2007
Commemoration of Clement, Bishop of Rome, Martyr, c.100

Eternal life is not an unending continuance of this life—that would, perhaps, be Hell—but Eternal Life is quite a different life, divine, not mundane; perfect, not earthly; true life, not corrupt half-life. We cannot form a conception of Eternal Life. What we imagine is ever simply of the earth, temporal, worldly. Nor could we know anything about our eternal life if it had not appeared in Jesus Christ. In him we realize that we were created for the eternal life. If we ask, what is this eternal life? what sense is there in thinking about it if we can have no conception of it?, the answer is, “It is life with God, in God, from God; life in perfect fellowship.” Therefore it is a life in love, it is love itself. It is a life without the nature of death and sin, hence without sorrow, pain, anxiety, care, misery. To know this suffices to make one rejoice in eternal life. If there were no eternal life, this life of time would be without meaning, goal, or purpose, without significance, without seriousness and without joy. It would be nothing. That our life does not end in nothing, but that eternal life awaits us, is the glad message of Jesus Christ. He came to give us this promise as a light in this dark world. A Christian is a man who has become certain of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

... Emil Brunner (1889-1966), Our Faith [1936], tr. John William Rilling, New York: C. Scribner's sons, 1954, p. 151 (see the book; see also Rom. 6:8; more at Providence, Eternal life, Perfection, Promise, Love, Jesus, Meaning, Purpose, Joy)

 
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