Sunday 8th June 2025 

And [God] raised us up with him and seated us with him
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the coming ages
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:6-7 (ESV)

Why is eternal life eternal?
Have you ever considered why eternal life is eternal?  I think the closest I’ve got in my own thinking is to say that eternal life is life with God, and so it has to be eternal because he’s eternal.  It wouldn’t make any sense for life with God to be anything less than eternal.

But John Piper has stretched my thinking in his (very big) book on the (very big) topic of providence, which has the helpfully simple title Providence.  If you know any of Piper’s writings, you’ll know how God-saturated and God-glorifying they are.  I find he routinely helps me to put God back where he belongs: at the centre, and not on the edge of my thinking.

In one stirring passage, reflecting on Ephesians 2, he links our eternal life in the ‘coming ages’ with the ‘immeasurable riches’ of the grace that God has for us in the ‘heavenly places’:

“Every day for all eternity – without pause or end – the riches of the glory of God’s grace in Christ will become increasingly great and beautiful in our perception of them.  We are finite.  They are ‘immeasurable’ – infinite.  Therefore, we cannot ever take them in fully.  Let that sink in.  There will always be more.  Gloriously more.  Forever.  Only an infinite being can fully take in infinite riches.  But we can, and we will, spend eternity taking in more and more of these riches.  There is a necessary correlation between eternal existence and infinite blessing.  It takes the one to experience the other.  Eternal life is essential for the enjoyment of immeasurable riches of grace.”

In other (fewer but less stirring) words, eternal life is eternal because God’s riches are immeasurable, and we’ll need eternity to enjoy them fully. 

Once again we discover that God is both far bigger and far better than we realise or imagine.  We’re forever falling for the devil’s lies that there’s somehow something lacking in either how great God is or how good he is – or both.  This helps us to set ourselves straight once again.  And we’ll need eternity to discover just how good and how great God is.  Bring it on!

Prayer
Lord, “e’en eternity’s too short to extol thee,”* but please grant me, even in what remains of this age, to experience and enjoy as much of the immeasurable riches of your grace as I can, even as I wait for the fullness of eternity to appreciate them – and you – fully.  Amen.  [* George Herbert].

Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)