Aroma
Do we hold a narrow view on what eternal life is? For so long I’ve associated it with believing in Christ to have a heavenly home. But diving into scripture more and more shows us that this is not a completely correct view to have.
Paul writes something very interesting in Romans 6:22-23:
“22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
At first glance it looks like Paul is saying that our eternal life is a result of a fruitful life. Which is a deep identification of Christ and His death, burial and resurrection. So much so that it is He who is leading us into our own sweet aroma of sacrificing our old nature to become more like Him. But at the end of that He says that it’s a free gift from Christ. So what is it?
This reminds me of what Jesus speaks of in John 3. He says that whoever believes in Him will not perish. We tend to stop reading there because it makes us feel good that all we have to do is believe to inherit eternal life. Is Christ showing us that there is a quality of eternal life? Do we spend eternity in hell, separated from His presence because we do not acknowledge Him? Do we maintain a carnality that we sometimes really enjoy while claiming we believe in Him? Does this type of living now present a loss to us later? Do we actively seek out Christ to search our hearts, to say to the Vinedresser (God the Father) “Please prune me and remove my old nature?“
Jesus takes the eternal life idea to the max in John 3 as we read His words more. We tend to gloss over it. He says that “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” Are there dark places our flesh likes to still go to even though we say we believe in Him? John says we are deceiving ourselves (1 John 1:8). Sin in us is to show us where we aren’t being perfectly led by Him. He has great patience with us and great grace for us. He desires for our hearts to move to a place where we love the things He loves and hates the things He hates.
Each scenario of how we live by faith, the degree to which we surrender more to Him, I believe leads to a different end of the age scenario. Paul clears that up with how “each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Cor 3:10-15)
What are we suffering loss in? Paul is clear that it’s based on works. But Christ is clear that we can do nothing apart from Him (John 15:5). So whose works are we doing? This is the key in all of our lives. We must learn to cease from the only thing we know (works of the flesh – our old nature) in order that the works of Christ can be done by Him through us. This is what overcoming is. This is what Jesus declares to the Churches in Revelation to hear!
Christ’s judgement of Christians (2 Cor 5:10) and their lives isn’t meant to be a punishment. It’s meant to be a driver of understanding that He is about testing and reward. Testing in this life (1 Peter 1:3-12) which is intended for us to understand that we can do nothing on our own and that is the test Christ wants us to pass. Faith that is walking and moving and being led by the Spirit will say to Him, “I cannot do this, you must do it through me” is more precious to Him than gold that can be refined with fire. Christ’s refining of us is supposed to heat us up so He can scrape all the dross off of us in order to have a mirror finish (like you would do if refining precious metals in a furnace). The mirror finish is important because He wants to get us to the point where when He looks at us all He sees is us because He has so faithfully led us to put to death our nature so He’s more perfectly living through us more and more. This Christ judgement is different from the great white throne judgement (Rev 20:11).
If we only believe in Him to the extent He can give us salvation but do not allow Him to receive the reward of His suffering, which is animating us to be more like Him, we will understand firsthand what it means to be saved but only as if through fire. Everything in that scenario, what we think is important will burn. What gold, silver, and precious stones does Christ want to produce in us, but we get in the way of?
Christ’s definition of eternal life is that we know the one true God and Jesus His son that One He sent (John 17:3). To what degree do we want to know Him? This word “know” is to have a deep intimacy that is compared to when a husband and wife lay together to consummate marriage. Do we want to know Him to the point where He is leading us to kill our old nature? Or do we want to know Him to the point where we simply like where we are and in some cases enjoy what our flesh likes and are content with “being saved as if by fire?”
He loves us too much to let us stay where we are. Ask for deep revelation into His purpose for your life. It turns out that He desires us to look more like His son because that’s how much the Father loves the Son. What kind of eternal life do we want? One that smells like smoke? Or one that smells like Christ? Is this smell connected with how we smell today? Do we stink of the works of the flesh or do we smell of the throne room and the fruit of the Spirit?