A Longer Read — Worth Taking Your Time
I have never been able to forget what Jim McCarthy said to me one evening fifteen years ago. I have often thought about his question over the years. At the time, I never realized just how frequently it would return to my mind or how much more deeply I would one day come to understand the answer.
It happened during a three-day retreat in the mountains east of Los Angeles. A dear friend of mine, Ken Bradley, had invited me to go with him. Jim McCarthy was doing the teaching, and although I did not know much about him at the time, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him teach on the subject of discipleship from the Gospel of Matthew. I had never heard discipleship taught quite that way before, and it gave me a desire to study Matthew more closely. Over the years, I have continued studying Matthew and have gleaned much about Christ's heart, methods, and instructions regarding discipleship. Much of what I have learned I have put into a book which I hope to publish someday.
On the second evening of the retreat, something unexpected happened. After dinner, most people had already left the dining hall. Ken and I lingered upstairs in the hallway, sitting comfortably on some couches and talking. Unbeknownst to us, McCarthy came out of the dining hall and sat beside us. We talked casually for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet of the evening. Then, as our conversation continued, McCarthy told us he was working on an article for a magazine and wanted my thoughts on what he was studying.
Then he asked me the question.
“What is God's plan and purpose for us to live eternally with Him?”
Surprised, I was caught off guard by the question. After listening to him teach for two days, I had come to appreciate what a brilliant teacher he was. Now he was sitting there looking at me, genuinely attentive, waiting to hear what I thought about something so profound. I was in my early thirties, and I certainly did not feel qualified to give him some great theological answer. All I could do was respond as gently as I could by asking why someone of his standing would desire to hear what someone like me had to say. He replied that he was thinking through the question and wanted to hear my understanding.
For a moment I considered it and answered, “Hmm… Ephesians 2:7 tells us.” I then read the verse: “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” We talked about it for a while, and mostly I listened eagerly. I don't know what publication his article eventually appeared in, although I would still love to read it.
In the years since that conversation, I have come back to that question again and again. The older I have become, the more I have reflected on what the Holy Bible shows about God's purpose for the future. The more I think about it, the more remarkable the answer becomes. Although I believe my answer to McCarthy that evening was essentially correct, I did not yet grasp the full wonder of Ephesians 2:7. I knew the verse, but I had not yet spent sufficient years reflecting on its meaning.
The Bible shows that God progressively reveals more of Himself throughout history. God did not become something different each time He made another aspect of Himself known; rather, people came to understand more of the God who had always been there. Abraham is a beautiful example of this. He came to know God as the Most High God (Genesis 14:18–22), as his shield (Genesis 15:1), as Almighty God (Genesis 17:1), as the Judge of all the earth (Genesis 18:25), as the everlasting God (Genesis 21:33), and then on Mount Moriah as Jehovah-jireh, the LORD who provides (Genesis 22:14). Abraham was not discovering different gods. He was progressively discovering more about the same infinite God.
This is why the term “ages” in Ephesians 2:7 is so intriguing. The passage does not merely tell us what God has revealed in the past or what He will reveal when we first enter His presence; he points us further ahead, saying, “in the ages to come.” Scripture gives us much to anticipate about the future.
If we look back, we can see clearly distinct periods in God's unfolding plan. There was the age of the patriarchs, the period of the Mosaic Law, Christ’s first coming, and the present age in which the Gospel is being proclaimed among the nations. Scripture also tells us about events still to come, including the Tribulation, Christ’s millennial reign, and the Great White Throne Judgment, and the creation of the new Heaven and new Earth.
Yet even after everything the Bible shows about the past and future, Scriptures directs our attention beyond what has been made known about the events still ahead. We tend to think of eternity as one long, endless age, but Scripture speaks of “the ages to come.” We are not told how many ages there will be, nor are we given a detailed description of all that will take place during them. We are simply told that there will be ages to come and that God has a purpose for them.
Consider the Law. For roughly fifteen hundred years, God dealt with humanity, specifically Israel, under the Mosaic Law. Through the Law, God revealed His holiness, righteousness, justice, and goodness. Romans 7:12 says, “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Yet the Law also revealed something inescapable about mankind: we could not keep God's perfect standard. Romans 3:20 says, “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Generation after generation demonstrated that man could not make himself righteous before a holy God. The Law was good; our sin was the problem. God's judgment upon sin demonstrated that He is holy and just.
Then Christ appeared, and with Him we see a glorious aspect of the LORD God which the Law could show but could never fully display: grace. Hebrews 1:1–2 tells us that God, who in sundry times past spoke through the prophets, has “in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” Jesus Christ is not merely another messenger telling us what God is like. He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). If we want to see the heart of God, we look to Christ.
This brings us back to Ephesians 2. Here God tells us that He, being “rich in mercy” and having saved us by His grace, has raised us up together with Christ and made us sit together in heavenly places. He gives the reason for this, saying, “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”
Notice what God plans to achieve. God intends to show something: Heaven will not simply be wonderful because of the blessings we shall receive; it is about God continuing to manifest His character and display the immense riches of His grace and kindness toward those He has redeemed through Christ Jesus.
I believe that we tend to make eternal life too small. We imagine Heaven as a place where there will be no sickness, no sorrow, no death, and no sin. Those things are wonderful, and Scripture promises all of them. But Jesus gave us a deeper understanding of eternal life: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is not simply living forever. It is knowing God.
If eternal life consists in knowing God, then what will happen when the God whom we are coming to know is infinite? We will never exhaust Him. God does not change, but our understanding and appreciation of Him can continue to deepen.
Think about that. Even after countless ages have gone by, there will still be further wisdom of God to appreciate, more of His goodness to understand, greater depths of His mercy to marvel at, more of His faithfulness to recognize, and fresh experiences of His grace to experience. There may even be attributes of His nature, dimensions of His glory, and expressions of His power that we have yet to know about. Because God is infinite, there will never come a moment when we have reached the end of knowing Him. We will know Him truly, but we will never know all there is to know of Him.
Paul understood something of this during his earthly life. Near the end of his ministry, after years of knowing Christ and serving Him, he could still say, “That I may know him” (Philippians 3:10). That desire did not come from ignorance of Christ; it came from a deepening love for Him. If that was Paul's desire while still living in this fallen world, surely that desire will only deepen when we enter eternity. If anything, the limitations which now hinder us will be gone, and our ability to appreciate the glory of the One we love will be greater than we can presently fathom.
What makes this even more remarkable is that God has already begun this work in us. He is not waiting until eternity to make Himself known. Paul prayed that believers would receive “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1:17). The more we meditate on the Bible, pray, obey Him, trust Him, experience His faithfulness, receive His forgiveness and go through the circumstances which He permits ourselves, the more we come to learn who He is.
God is doing more than showing us about Himself; He is transforming us. Romans 8:29 says that we are being “conformed to the image of his Son,” and 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that as we behold the glory of the Lord, we are “changed into the same image from glory to glory.” As God reveals Himself to us, He is also forming Christ in us, and this process will continue from one age to the next.
Our trials too form part of that process. Romans 8:18 states, there will be “the glory which shall be revealed in us,” and 2 Corinthians 4:17 asserts that our present affliction “worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” We often see only the difficulty of the moment, but God sees the eternal purpose He is accomplishing through it.
What else astonishes me is that God's purpose involves more than what He is doing in us for us. Ephesians 3:10–11 says that “unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places” is being made known “the manifold wisdom of God,” according to His “eternal purpose.” Our redemption is included in something that extends beyond ourselves; the redeemed are a living testimony to God's wisdom and grace, bearing witness to all the heavenly hosts for all eternity. So even they are learning more about God by observing what He has accomplished in us.
So when I think back to that evening on the couch with Jim McCarthy all those years ago, I am grateful that his question had such a strong effect on me. It led me to reflect on an answer that, as a young man, I could only grasp in part. The understanding I had that night was just the beginning of something much greater, and even now I still feel I am only touching the surface of its true significance. Almost two decades later, I still feel that I have only begun to understand what it all means. Nevertheless, I believe I now have a much better understanding of the question.
What is God's purpose in allowing us to live eternally with Him?
I believe the Bible gives us a glimpse of the answer. God intends throughout “the ages to come,” to demonstrate “the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that this future purpose of God is not something that begins when we die. God is already preparing us for it. The relationship we will enjoy with Him throughout eternity has already begun.
That should change the way we live today. If eternal life is knowing God, then we should not put off knowing Him until we reach Heaven. It should be the pursuit of our lives now. Paul wrote, “That I may know him.” That should be our desire as well—not just to know about God, but to know Him; to understand His heart, to see His character reflected in our lives through His Word, to trust Him when we do not understand His ways, and to allow the knowledge of Him to transform us into the likeness of Christ.
We cannot yet see all that God has prepared for the ages to come. Scripture gives us very little detail, and perhaps it is better that way. Nevertheless, it tells us enough to make us long for it.
Christ will be there. His grace will be there. His glory will be there. And we too will be there with Him.
And perhaps that is the greatest reason to look forward to eternity; not simply because we will be free from everything that has caused us sorrow in this life, but because we will finally have all of eternity to know the One we have spent our lives learning to love.
Then, age after age, we will continue discovering more of the God who has loved us, redeemed us, and brought us into His eternal purpose through Jesus Christ.
What a wonderful eternity awaits us.
RETURN TO ALL BLOGS
It happened during a three-day retreat in the mountains east of Los Angeles. A dear friend of mine, Ken Bradley, had invited me to go with him. Jim McCarthy was doing the teaching, and although I did not know much about him at the time, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him teach on the subject of discipleship from the Gospel of Matthew. I had never heard discipleship taught quite that way before, and it gave me a desire to study Matthew more closely. Over the years, I have continued studying Matthew and have gleaned much about Christ's heart, methods, and instructions regarding discipleship. Much of what I have learned I have put into a book which I hope to publish someday.
On the second evening of the retreat, something unexpected happened. After dinner, most people had already left the dining hall. Ken and I lingered upstairs in the hallway, sitting comfortably on some couches and talking. Unbeknownst to us, McCarthy came out of the dining hall and sat beside us. We talked casually for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet of the evening. Then, as our conversation continued, McCarthy told us he was working on an article for a magazine and wanted my thoughts on what he was studying.
Then he asked me the question.
“What is God's plan and purpose for us to live eternally with Him?”
Surprised, I was caught off guard by the question. After listening to him teach for two days, I had come to appreciate what a brilliant teacher he was. Now he was sitting there looking at me, genuinely attentive, waiting to hear what I thought about something so profound. I was in my early thirties, and I certainly did not feel qualified to give him some great theological answer. All I could do was respond as gently as I could by asking why someone of his standing would desire to hear what someone like me had to say. He replied that he was thinking through the question and wanted to hear my understanding.
For a moment I considered it and answered, “Hmm… Ephesians 2:7 tells us.” I then read the verse: “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” We talked about it for a while, and mostly I listened eagerly. I don't know what publication his article eventually appeared in, although I would still love to read it.
In the years since that conversation, I have come back to that question again and again. The older I have become, the more I have reflected on what the Holy Bible shows about God's purpose for the future. The more I think about it, the more remarkable the answer becomes. Although I believe my answer to McCarthy that evening was essentially correct, I did not yet grasp the full wonder of Ephesians 2:7. I knew the verse, but I had not yet spent sufficient years reflecting on its meaning.
The Bible shows that God progressively reveals more of Himself throughout history. God did not become something different each time He made another aspect of Himself known; rather, people came to understand more of the God who had always been there. Abraham is a beautiful example of this. He came to know God as the Most High God (Genesis 14:18–22), as his shield (Genesis 15:1), as Almighty God (Genesis 17:1), as the Judge of all the earth (Genesis 18:25), as the everlasting God (Genesis 21:33), and then on Mount Moriah as Jehovah-jireh, the LORD who provides (Genesis 22:14). Abraham was not discovering different gods. He was progressively discovering more about the same infinite God.
This is why the term “ages” in Ephesians 2:7 is so intriguing. The passage does not merely tell us what God has revealed in the past or what He will reveal when we first enter His presence; he points us further ahead, saying, “in the ages to come.” Scripture gives us much to anticipate about the future.
If we look back, we can see clearly distinct periods in God's unfolding plan. There was the age of the patriarchs, the period of the Mosaic Law, Christ’s first coming, and the present age in which the Gospel is being proclaimed among the nations. Scripture also tells us about events still to come, including the Tribulation, Christ’s millennial reign, and the Great White Throne Judgment, and the creation of the new Heaven and new Earth.
Yet even after everything the Bible shows about the past and future, Scriptures directs our attention beyond what has been made known about the events still ahead. We tend to think of eternity as one long, endless age, but Scripture speaks of “the ages to come.” We are not told how many ages there will be, nor are we given a detailed description of all that will take place during them. We are simply told that there will be ages to come and that God has a purpose for them.
Consider the Law. For roughly fifteen hundred years, God dealt with humanity, specifically Israel, under the Mosaic Law. Through the Law, God revealed His holiness, righteousness, justice, and goodness. Romans 7:12 says, “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Yet the Law also revealed something inescapable about mankind: we could not keep God's perfect standard. Romans 3:20 says, “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Generation after generation demonstrated that man could not make himself righteous before a holy God. The Law was good; our sin was the problem. God's judgment upon sin demonstrated that He is holy and just.
Then Christ appeared, and with Him we see a glorious aspect of the LORD God which the Law could show but could never fully display: grace. Hebrews 1:1–2 tells us that God, who in sundry times past spoke through the prophets, has “in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” Jesus Christ is not merely another messenger telling us what God is like. He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). If we want to see the heart of God, we look to Christ.
This brings us back to Ephesians 2. Here God tells us that He, being “rich in mercy” and having saved us by His grace, has raised us up together with Christ and made us sit together in heavenly places. He gives the reason for this, saying, “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”
Notice what God plans to achieve. God intends to show something: Heaven will not simply be wonderful because of the blessings we shall receive; it is about God continuing to manifest His character and display the immense riches of His grace and kindness toward those He has redeemed through Christ Jesus.
I believe that we tend to make eternal life too small. We imagine Heaven as a place where there will be no sickness, no sorrow, no death, and no sin. Those things are wonderful, and Scripture promises all of them. But Jesus gave us a deeper understanding of eternal life: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is not simply living forever. It is knowing God.
If eternal life consists in knowing God, then what will happen when the God whom we are coming to know is infinite? We will never exhaust Him. God does not change, but our understanding and appreciation of Him can continue to deepen.
Think about that. Even after countless ages have gone by, there will still be further wisdom of God to appreciate, more of His goodness to understand, greater depths of His mercy to marvel at, more of His faithfulness to recognize, and fresh experiences of His grace to experience. There may even be attributes of His nature, dimensions of His glory, and expressions of His power that we have yet to know about. Because God is infinite, there will never come a moment when we have reached the end of knowing Him. We will know Him truly, but we will never know all there is to know of Him.
Paul understood something of this during his earthly life. Near the end of his ministry, after years of knowing Christ and serving Him, he could still say, “That I may know him” (Philippians 3:10). That desire did not come from ignorance of Christ; it came from a deepening love for Him. If that was Paul's desire while still living in this fallen world, surely that desire will only deepen when we enter eternity. If anything, the limitations which now hinder us will be gone, and our ability to appreciate the glory of the One we love will be greater than we can presently fathom.
What makes this even more remarkable is that God has already begun this work in us. He is not waiting until eternity to make Himself known. Paul prayed that believers would receive “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1:17). The more we meditate on the Bible, pray, obey Him, trust Him, experience His faithfulness, receive His forgiveness and go through the circumstances which He permits ourselves, the more we come to learn who He is.
God is doing more than showing us about Himself; He is transforming us. Romans 8:29 says that we are being “conformed to the image of his Son,” and 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that as we behold the glory of the Lord, we are “changed into the same image from glory to glory.” As God reveals Himself to us, He is also forming Christ in us, and this process will continue from one age to the next.
Our trials too form part of that process. Romans 8:18 states, there will be “the glory which shall be revealed in us,” and 2 Corinthians 4:17 asserts that our present affliction “worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” We often see only the difficulty of the moment, but God sees the eternal purpose He is accomplishing through it.
What else astonishes me is that God's purpose involves more than what He is doing in us for us. Ephesians 3:10–11 says that “unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places” is being made known “the manifold wisdom of God,” according to His “eternal purpose.” Our redemption is included in something that extends beyond ourselves; the redeemed are a living testimony to God's wisdom and grace, bearing witness to all the heavenly hosts for all eternity. So even they are learning more about God by observing what He has accomplished in us.
So when I think back to that evening on the couch with Jim McCarthy all those years ago, I am grateful that his question had such a strong effect on me. It led me to reflect on an answer that, as a young man, I could only grasp in part. The understanding I had that night was just the beginning of something much greater, and even now I still feel I am only touching the surface of its true significance. Almost two decades later, I still feel that I have only begun to understand what it all means. Nevertheless, I believe I now have a much better understanding of the question.
What is God's purpose in allowing us to live eternally with Him?
I believe the Bible gives us a glimpse of the answer. God intends throughout “the ages to come,” to demonstrate “the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that this future purpose of God is not something that begins when we die. God is already preparing us for it. The relationship we will enjoy with Him throughout eternity has already begun.
That should change the way we live today. If eternal life is knowing God, then we should not put off knowing Him until we reach Heaven. It should be the pursuit of our lives now. Paul wrote, “That I may know him.” That should be our desire as well—not just to know about God, but to know Him; to understand His heart, to see His character reflected in our lives through His Word, to trust Him when we do not understand His ways, and to allow the knowledge of Him to transform us into the likeness of Christ.
We cannot yet see all that God has prepared for the ages to come. Scripture gives us very little detail, and perhaps it is better that way. Nevertheless, it tells us enough to make us long for it.
Christ will be there. His grace will be there. His glory will be there. And we too will be there with Him.
And perhaps that is the greatest reason to look forward to eternity; not simply because we will be free from everything that has caused us sorrow in this life, but because we will finally have all of eternity to know the One we have spent our lives learning to love.
Then, age after age, we will continue discovering more of the God who has loved us, redeemed us, and brought us into His eternal purpose through Jesus Christ.
What a wonderful eternity awaits us.
RETURN TO ALL BLOGS
