Week Six

Difference Between an Eternal Hope and Believing in an Afterlife 

All religions and most people believe in existence after death; only a minority believes that when a person dies he ceases to exist.  The Hebrews who lived as slaves in Egypt were exposed to a belief in an afterlife – as attested by the pyramids.  Even though you can find no promise of eternal life given by God to the individual in the Old Testament, the average Hebrew believed in an afterlife, even though that belief may have consisted of nothing more than an eternity in Sheol.  A belief in an afterlife however is very different from an eternal hope.  By eternal hope, I mean the decision to sacrifice temporal hope, when called upon by God as revealed in Scripture, in exchange for the accruing of eternal gain, found in biblical promises.  I do not mean to suggest that people who embrace other religions lack an eternal hope.  But understand, Jesus declares that their eternal hope is invalid: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."[1] 

The author of Hebrews says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."[2]  Hope defines the object of your faith; you express faith in the direction of your hope.  In the Greek, faith and believe are the same word.  Faith is the noun and believe is the verb.  Faith/believe is commitment without knowing.  Therefore you can define faith as "risk taking."  When you say that you have faith in the surgeon's ability to perform a successful operation, you are saying that you are taking a risk in having that surgery. 

Thus, hope defines the object of your faith.  You say, "I hope the operation will be successful."  You define hope in terms of what you perceive to be gain.  You never say that you hope the operation will be a failure, or you hope you lose your money invested in the stock market; you always say the opposite.  In summary, you take your risks in the direction of what you consider to be gain.  Biblical faith is always active, never passive.  By this I mean that an active faith always comes with a price.  Noah paid the price of building an ark before he knew that the rains would come.  Job paid the price of refusing to compromise his confidence in God when all evidence seemed to suggest that God had abandoned him.

James invalidates passive faith: "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble."[3]  Faith without taking the risk of obedience is "dead faith."  James says, "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only."[4]  You demonstrate your hope in the promises of God by being His obedient servant; the risk of faith is found in obedience. 

You can have a strong conviction in an afterlife without being the obedient servant of God.  You may say that you hope in eternal life, but because you take no risks in the direction of that hope, you may not say biblically that you hope in the fulfillment of God's promises; your actions speak louder than your words.  The existence of hope always requires risks.  James declares that people who do not take risks have a "dead faith;" "faith without works is dead."[5]

You can easily deceive yourself on this issue: you can confuse obedience with agreement.  Many appear to obey God in the sense that they agree with His expectations; they are moral people.  You cannot say that you obey God unless you find yourself not wanting to do His will, vote against yourself, and do it anyway.  For example, the only recorded instance of Jesus meeting God's will and not wanting to do it is the agony through which He went in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered."[6]  You learn obedience when you, like Jesus, know God's will and don't want to pay the price of doing it, but because of your eternal hope, you nevertheless obey Him. 

Many in the body of Christ live lives of selective obedience, that is, they "obey" when they agree.  If they don't wish to obey, they call the biblical command "cultural," or they say, "I know God prohibits divorce, but He wants me to be happy, and besides, He will forgive me."  Such people may believe in life after death, and even say they have an eternal hope, but James says that their faith is dead. 

Hebrews 11 records Old Testament saints that had an active faith, taking risks in the direction of their hope: "And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.  Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.  And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."[7]  So also, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego demonstrated an eternal hope when they chose the fiery furnace: "If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, He will deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and out of thy hand, O king.  But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."[8]

You see, then, that many of God's people in the Old Testament had an eternal hope, demonstrated by the risks they took in choosing death rather than disobedience- even though Old Testament Scripture makes no mention of God giving the promise of eternal hope to the individual.  Conversely, many today claim the promises of an eternal hope offered in the New Testament, while refusing to take the risks inherent in a life of obedience.[9]  Such people deceive themselves.  They think they have an eternal hope when in reality they have nothing more than a belief in an afterlife. 

Mentally draw three columns on a page. In the first column ask, How does a person get to heaven?" you would put "Christ alone."  In the second column ask, "What does a person have to do to have Christ?" and put "believe/faith alone." In the third column ask, "What evidences must be present in your life to conclude that you have faith?"  In this column you must put, "all the other conditions in the NT, such as obedience, good works, and perseverance."

If "faith without works is dead," what practical difference does it make whether works goes in the second or the third column?  The difference is that if works become a condition for salvation rather than an evidence of salvation, the efficacious work of Christ is denigrated, and you run the risk of performing "dead works."[10]

Questions For Reflection

1- Why is belief in an afterlife (without an eternal hope) insufficient to motivate one?

2- Why does 1Peter 3:15 refer to the "hope" in you, rather than the "faith" in you, when referring to evangelism?

3- List the areas in which you have obeyed God, even though you did not want to- validating that you have a legitimate eternal hope, rather than just a belief in an afterlife. 

4- In what areas of your life have you refused to be obedient because you didn't want to take a risk?