The life everlasting
Heidelberg Catechism
Heidelberg Catechism Question 58. What comfort does the article concerning “the life everlasting” give you? That, since I now feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, I shall possess, after this life, perfect blessedness, which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, and thereby praise God forever.
Study Catechism
Study Catechism Question 87. What do you affirm when you speak of “the life everlasting”? That God does not will to be God without us, but instead grants to us creatures — fallen and mortal as we are — eternal life. Communion with Jesus Christ is eternal life itself. In him we were chosen before the foundation of the world. By him the eternal covenant with Israel was taken up, embodied, and fulfilled. To him we are joined by the Holy Spirit through faith, and adopted as children, the sons and daughters of God. Through him we are raised from death to new life. For him we shall live to all eternity.
- John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
- John 6:54 “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.”
- John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
- Rom. 6:22 “But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.”
- Rom. 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- 1 John 2:25 “And this is what he has promised us, eternal life.”
- Matt. 25:34 “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”
Study Catechism Question 88. Won’t heaven be a boring place? No. Heaven is our true home, a world of love. There the Spirit shall be poured out into every heart in perfect love. There the Father and the Son are united in the loving bond of the Spirit. There we shall be united with them and one another. There we shall at last see face to face what we now only glimpse as through a distant mirror. Our deepest, truest delights in this life are only a dim foreshadowing of the delights that await us in heaven. “You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11).
- John 14:2-3 “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
- Matt. 6:20 “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
- Matt. 8:11 “I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”
- Col. 1:5 “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel.”
- 1 Cor. 13:12 “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
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