The article reads …
Until the day he died, in 2011, Robert Ettinger hoped humanity would figure out a way to cheat death. Today, his body is stored in a cryonic vessel filled with liquid nitrogen and frozen to -196 degrees Celsius. He lies in cryopreservation at the Cryonics Institute in Michigan, which he founded, alongside his late mother, his first and second wives, and more than 150 other deceased. “We’re classified as a cemetery, but I would like to think of us as being more like a hospital, caring for patients that are metabolically challenged,” says Ben Best, the president and CEO of the Cryonics Institute, in Myles Kane and Josh Koury’s short documentary about the institute, We Will Live Again (https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/591979/cryonics/).
I’m certain some would say … “If only.” Me, no thanks. I don’t want to come back to this earth with all its sin, corruption, pain and suffering. For me … I want what is offered in The Holy Bible … Eternal Life! The Apostles Creed ends …
I believe in the Holy Spirit … and the life everlasting. Amen.
The last function or ministry as per this Creed is that the Holy Spirit provides everlasting life for the one who believes.
1) What is Everlasting Life? It is an endless life with God, but we must not think length as in quantity but rather quality. The word “life” in the Creed here speaks of spiritual life that relates to God as in parent / child. The one having this life has been birthed into God’s family … and this family is an everlasting family. This person is no longer spiritually dead but spiritually alive and may enjoy all the blessings and offering God has for His blood washed, Spirit born children. Is there a difference between Everlasting Life and Eternal Life? Not at all. They are exactly the same thing.
2) Everlasting Life starts with Salvation. When you are redeemed you are immediately transferred into God’s household. Everlasting life starts immediately! This is proved by Scripture:
Jn 5:24 “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life”
Jn 6:47 “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.”
In each verse Jesus is saying that the moment you believe … as in full salvation … everlasting life starts.
3) Once Everlasting Life starts it never ends. Wonderful passages like the following one must be memorized and recalled often.
Jn 10:27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
If this be the case, then everlasting life cannot be lost. The Spirit does not give birth (life to the soul) only to abort that soul. In God’s world there are no abortions and no dumping or losing a child. What eternal security we are able to enjoy. Allow me to add that should a person believe they are saved and then drift so far away from God, the chances are that this soul was never saved to start with. The big doctrinal difference between George Whitefield and John Wesley was that Wesley believe one could lose their salvation, whilst Whitefield believed and taught that the saved soul is saved for eternity. Again … we ought to rejoice about our eternal security in Jesus Christ.
4) Everlasting Life will be experienced in full when in heaven. Here on earth we are still sinners. The intention is to grow in holiness and blamelessness … but we do still sin and will do until we breathe our last breath. A proof of Everlasting Life is that we desire Christlikeness even though we sin. We will hate our sin because we know Jesus died in our place for these sins. This is the reason we will pursue the quality of life here on earth that we will experience and enjoy in heaven so that once we crash through the barrier of death we will be ready to enjoy our sinless state in the presence of our Holy God. We cannot visualize that life because no one, apart from our Lord Jesus has been in heaven and on earth. We have no one other the testimony of Scripture to describe a little of how heaven and Everlasting Life would be in that holy, sinless environment. As you are aware, the Holy Spirit is the one who authored the Bible and He provides the Bible for us to use and shape our life with in preparation for heaven … for Everlasting Life.
5) Everlasting Life is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. Although we have used a passage like 2 Corinthians 5:5 often, it is appropriate to remember that
2Co 5:5 Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 We live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
(1) God made us for this very purpose … heaven. “Made” means He saved us for heaven because He chose us before creation and He predestined that we conform to the likeness of the Lord Jesus. God is not like us when we bake a cake or shape a piece of wood and it does not come out the way we want and then we discard it. No! His purpose for the chosen soul is heaven … warts and all!
(2) To prevent the loss of a soul, our Father deposits His Holy Spirit into our hearts (spiritual dimension) to dwell within for many reasons but chiefly, He assures our Eternal Salvation. He is God’s engagement ring guaranteeing our Everlasting Life with Him in glory. Lastly we conclude the Creed with an “Amen”. Normally when we end a prayer we say “Amen”. By this we are saying “so be it” or “I agree”. Here in the Creed when we say “Amen” we mean “It is so” or “It shall be”. In other words we are saying that we believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and all that they have done and are doing for the benefit of those He elected unto salvation. “Amen” is therefore a statement here. We are saying we except and believe what we have said.
Our glorious and Wonderful Triune God, we love and adore You. We thank You for Your perfect salvific plan. We rejoice that we belong to You and will be with You one day forever. Keep us faithful and true to You as we follow You Jesus, all the way to heaven. Amen.