Final Perfection – Our Glorious Future
It's another Sunday in Lent! Maybe today you will be breaking your fast and celebrating Jesus' victory over death. Enjoy that!
I do hope that this week has made sense to you – for some, Christian perfection is a scary notion, and there are those who reject it altogether and call Wesley a heretic. But, as I hope you've seen this week, there is a Scriptural basis for this. Scriptural perfection is not the same as blasphemously seeing yourself as on par with God – not at all! In fact the scripturally perfect are humble, because they know it was a gift of God that made their hearts clean, not their own works; and all perfected believers still know how much growth they have to experience as they walk with Jesus, and how much improvement of their performance is still lying ahead of them.
Our Glorious Transformation
You see, ultimately, our sanctification process will only properly finish when we die. There'll be no more need to grow when we are with Jesus in glory. Charles Wesley wrote this lovely hymn called Love Divine, in which he says:
"Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise."
We are being changed, here on earth. We are being transformed into His glorious image, and Christian perfection is an important step on that journey. But in the end, we will each die and take our place in heaven with Jesus, and then we will be changed out of our human bodies into new glorious bodies and become more like Jesus. And in that place, we'll be so lost in wonder, love and praise as we cast our crowns down and worship.
Our Eternal Hope
This is picture of what we read in Revelation 4:10-11: "They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 'Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.'" You see, even if we receive the 'crown' of holiness in this life, we'll just be casting it down in Jesus' presence in the next! We'll be so enraptured by Him, that we won't need to think about anything else.
There's a difference, in Wesley's thinking, between perfection in this life, and final perfection. Christian perfection in this life is that perfection of the will towards God and people, as we've seen this week. But final perfection is the complete transformation we will experience after we die – and this is our ultimate hope, to be in that place one day with Jesus.
Promoted to Glory
I have a friend who doesn't talk about a Christian dying, but prefers rather to say that the Christian who dies has been promoted to glory. I like that! I know many saints who have been promoted to glory, and I can't wait to join them on my knees worshipping in wonder, love and praise.
Death no longer scares the Christian. Death means the final step in our journey of grace. When death comes our way – may it be a long way from now – may we face it with confidence and joy, because taking our place in heaven will mean our final perfection.
