A question about eternal life

A question about eternal life (1)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)

A new story begins from Mark 10:17 about the relationship between possession and faith and it continues till verse 31. A certain rich man came to Jesus and asked about eternal life. Jesus suggests the standards to inherit eternal life which is mentioned in the later part of the Ten Commandments. In reply, he said that he had kept all these from his childhood. Hearing this, Jesus demanded him a totally new and revolutionary way. According to Jesus, to inherit the kingdom of God, he has to give all his properties to the poor and follow him. When the rich returned in despair, Jesus told the disciples the parable of camel and the eye of a needle. Jesus’ dialogue with his disciples continues till verse 31 dwelling on salvation, the matter of giving up property and true discipleship.

This story represents the unique life style of early Christianity and it has also become a lesson of serious challenge for us today. Jesus’ command to follow him by selling all the properties and give it to the poor put us into trouble and great dilemma. What on earth is this command valid today? Who are living in this manner? It seems to be a very cruel command for those who have a duty to support family. Let us enter into the story slowly.

A man of great wealth asked Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" In those days, whoever asked Jesus, not all of them, but mostly harbored a hostile feeling against Jesus or formed a conspiracy against him. Especially the vested right group represented by the Pharisees had a lot of questions. The person in today’s content was a rich man. According to Luke 18:18, 23, he was not only a man of great wealth but also and a ruler. Then he also might be a member of the vested right group. However, he did not show much hostile feeling against Jesus in today’s content. He was a rare person who asked Jesus out of pure heart.

Question about eternal life (2)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)

In the question what must we do to inherit eternal life contains the essence of human’s naked being just as he is. Our life with limited number of hours either consciously or unconsciously dreams of eternal life. As we can see the Babel tower, Pyramid, Pharaoh’s mummy, Chinese emperors’ underground grave etc, human civilization is a continuous struggle toward eternal life. Endless and continuous quest and effort of man for scientific and technological development could also be the product of such desire.

It may sound as a lecture that none of this world attains eternal life. It is a similar situation of the fruitless effort of Sisyphus who rolled up a rock to the top of mountain but again has to see the rock rolling down the cliff of the mountain. We do our best to come near the top of eternal life but again we are all destined to fall into the bottomless pit. In the same line, Camus expressed that our existence is shrouded in absurdity.

What is the problem? Why does human strain with all their might to reach eternal life which is not possible by him. Taking precedence over such question, we are impelled to put a mark of interrogation as “what on earth ‘eternal life’ is all about? It neither has come to our hand and nor will it catch us in the future. We have already entered into the world in which everything is tentative and limited, and where present yields to the past and future comes to the present time. This world is moving with the principle of irreversibility. A man thrown into such world only steps on the shadow of eternal life but cannot recognize the reality no matter how hard he tries.

Some of you may think strangely that eternal life is eternal life as it says itself and then question why not we recognize it. Such thought is near to the understanding of the Greek’s world as recursion and iteration, eternity and recurrence. We cannot experience the time, the true essence of eternal life from here.

Question about eternal life (3)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)

I would like to give an additional explanation to the last sentence of yesterday’s meditation which concludes that there can be no chance of experiencing celestial quality of peace, the essence of eternal life in this endless mechanism of life cycle. Just imagine that we live forever. Suppose our age advances to 100, 1,000 and 10,000 and so on but still we do not die. Then in this case, we may have thousands of descendants. And also we can hardly imagine how our figure and looks be at the age of 10,000 years. There are people who think that youth and beauty are the condition of happiness. However such an extremely old age of a person could be considered as a sort of curse.

Some of you may think of the possibility of having eternal life someday through medical technological development. Will it be a happy life with youth and beauty like an actor or actress in their twenties even at the age of 10,000? We cannot give a deceptive answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for we have not experienced it practically but, one thing will be very clear that the youth and life of today will be relatively regarded. As we grow older and older, we consider the stage of youth more preciously than ever and the thought of the impending death makes us feel the state of being alive more precious. Practically, if there is no difference between a 20 years old youth and a 10,000 years old man in their looks, we may not endure the pains of our lives rather this kind of life will be a perpetual source of joy.

It is possible for us to experience the essence of life by accepting the fortune of life as it is, irrespective of its movement of ups and downs. In other word, we can practically experience the real essence of life by going through the path of old age, physical sickness or sound health. The journey of life involves a lot of changes. The cycle in this world cannot be considered a change. Is the change of a level only a sufficient condition of a real life? Christianity says the entrance into another time in quality as an end of physical life.


Question about eternal life (4)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)

The life that the Bible talks about, points out not a mere continuation of time but the life with God. God is the eternal being who he is the unique Creator, and through identifying with him we can experience eternal life. The difficult problem lies in the fact that we cannot proof what identification with God is nor can we show who God is. The main reason of our incapability in this matter is that human is a mere creature.

Deeply think about the relationship between the creator and the creatures. This is an emphasizing point of the Bible from the beginning till the end. The tradition of creation and the tradition of apocalyptical end found in the Revelation accept the fundamental difference between the creator and the creatures. The time which is critically important in understanding the concept of eternal life is also associated with God’s creation. Therefore time is also an outcome of God’s creation. Living in such limitation as the creature, any method can help us face the subject and substance of creation directly.

I do not want to exclusively talk about creativity in a tune of agnosticism and credibility of its evidence. I would like to emphasize the fact that we should not confine eternal life in our epistemic category. In other word, we should not try to reduce the enormous size of eternal life that is evident within our own experience in this world. Needless to explain in detail, but it is very clear how often such things happen in our life of faith. We are thinking of our unconditional and eternal happy life in the kingdom of God after death. The desire for eternal life in a secular level is simply wrapped with a wrapping paper of Christian faith.

We can say eternal life is in God alone. It is the teaching of incarnation that the eternal God entered into this limited world. Hence, the mysterious combination of eternality and finiteness is eternal life.

Question about eternal life (5)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)

The man who asked Jesus about eternal life asked nothing but salvation. The question ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ is equivalent to the question ‘what should I do to get salvation?’ As mentioned earlier, when I say eternal life is it talks about salvation.

Why did a man ask such a question? Perhaps he raised such question to clarify his sudden feeling of nihilism in his life. People often face such a moment. There are moments when we lost the clear meaning and purpose of everything that we have pursued and could not find any ground for what is our lives sustained. However, the man who asked the particular question was a rich man. Even his property could not satisfy him. He could not get a real satisfaction even through his family. He wanted to be saved. He might miss the peace like an infant nestling in its mother's bosom and the complete rest that is not disturbed by anything.

Yes. Nothing in this world can satisfy our souls. He eventually gets disappointed if he tries to find out satisfaction from these worldly things such as property, power and hobby. Of course, there is a person who insists that he is fully satisfied with his life in this world. Also those who find out rest in God may satisfy in the way of living in this world. The matter is that man can never be satisfied with these worldly things. In this case, satisfaction has the negative connotation of either lying or a proof of one’s immaturity.

He was not satisfied with his property but, at the same time, he was not able to give it up. Jesus said, “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Hearing this, his face cast down. Is this our true character; running after two hares at the same time?

Question about eternal life (6)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)

I wonder you might have misunderstood my previous explanation which says that we cannot satisfy with the goods of the world but real satisfaction is possible only with God. The misunderstanding could be like as if I tried to find out the reality of salvation from the other shore of life by denying the life of this world. If it has been delivered in that way, it could be due to my poor skill of writing. The key point and the intended message is to focus on the relationship between this world and the other side of the world.

As a matter of fact, the world in which we are now living is a momentary one. The items of God’s creation such as man, other species, the earth and the entire universe have the same nature of durability. We cannot expect an immortal status from a mortal one. For example, a young couple falls in love. They want to expect a certain absolute from the other party. Sometimes they may feel like having absolutes in their lives. However, clearly all such experiences pass by like a moment of dream. It means that we cannot expect any absolute thing from a human being.

Then finally we have to find out an absolute from the other side of world by faith. This is also not a simple matter. We have not experienced the other side of world as a reality yet. Precisely speaking, people do not know how to have experience from the other side of world as a reality. The reason is that it is beyond our experience.

How the evanescent world and the eternal and absolute one are connected though the two look different and there seem to have a chasm of difference between the two in reality. What is the connecting ring? The way between the two worlds is just like a labyrinth. It is a hidden path through a dense forest. The eyes that could see it may be rightly called as spirituality. For those who are in this world of spirituality, though their lives on in this world look like an empty dream, at the same time, they can really feel the current of spiritual power in the other side of world ‘here and now’ beyond this visible world.

Question about eternal life (7)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)

Shall we look into his question a little more minutely? He asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Two matters are involved in this question. One is a matter of activity and the other accomplishment. In fact, these two matters deal with the same thing.

This man had kept the Law including the Ten Commandments from childhood. A norm ethics became familiar with his life. He was an exemplary man. Such people always keenly think about a valuable activity. They are recognized and respected by society.

The problem was that he pulled down eternal life, the salvation, as part of human activity. He reduced an absolute incident to a relative one. He confused the work of God with that of man. He thought he would get God’s salvation through his exemplary activity that he had pursued throughout his life time. In short, he might visit Jesus to solve his anxiety and doubt having the apprehension that he would not be saved in such way of his life.

Jesus literally deconstructed his thought so as to light with his thinking standard. Jesus told him that if he had such confident in his activity he should go and sell all his property and give it to the poor. It is impossible for man to do this. At this point, Paul and Luther’s teaching which says ‘a man cannot get righteousness by his activity’ is proved to be right.

Then how can we get eternal life? Firstly, it has defined that we cannot get it by our own effort. For it is always relative in nature. So we have to change the question differently-changing the question into a humble prayer. It is not ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ But for us, we must only humbly pray, “Oh Lord. Please save me!”

Lord’s blessing

And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:16)

I once again take an excerpt from Moltmann’s book the content about the relationship between child’s wonder and their cognition.

“When we say that the first perception always and to everybody excite wonder, we get over childlike wonder. All new ‘discovery’ in natural science excites the first wonder. After that such cognition repeat through experimentation and it is accepted as an extension of cognitions that we already have. However, we recall ‘the first’ when we indicate new discoveries in the name of a discoverer. We, that is, are able to distinguish first of cognition and first of a certain phenomena. Because of such incidents excite wonder for the new, we say about ‘exposure’ subjectively and it reveals a concealed one which means to perceive unknown thing that we haven’t acknowledged yet. Such discovery, for some person, happens passively and therefore we say our ‘eyes open’ or ‘the scales fall from our eyes’”. (Science and wisdom, p. 230)

Children fall into wonder as they face the world without preconceived idea. Such similar things may be happened in God’s salvation rule. However, once our faith is matured, we cannot stay in the mere status of a child. Our wonderful experience with the kingdom should be deepened more and more.

Keeping the child’s point of view, it is not easy to simultaneously enter into the deeper spiritual world. If things go wrong we lost purity or lost the process of deeper quest. May the Lord’s blessing be with your way of pure maturity and matured purity. Amen!

Power of child

“I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:15)

What does the Lord mean by his statement “receive the kingdom of God like a little child?” Does this imply the child’s character of unconditional dependence upon their parents? Or does it mean their natural behavior of touching anything around them without knowing what is his and what are others? Moltmann says, “The root of cognition is in wonder.” Following is an excerpt from the writing of Moltmann that may help you understand the above mentioned verse:

“We first recognize the thing in wondering. There is no other possibility to have the first cognitive experience without wondering. We are entrusted to the image of object without any protection in our first cognition. That experience rules over us. Wondrous child doesn’t have any presentation to understand all impressions when the stimulation rushes to all his sensing organization from every side. It is because a child cannot retrospect anything to compare to the object at all. When such perception is repeated reflections are formed to recognize an impression of object as itself. So an attitude to repeat for approaching impression to him is generated. Child is familiar with this impression and knows it. Now a child has knowledge for an object and no more wonders. Whom we call a genius like scholars, artist and philosophers kept more childlikeness of wonders and a sense for new and wonder than others. They are original for they stayed near to the root of cognition.”(Moltmann, Science and Wisdom, p. 229)

Do we identify with the kingdom of God when we frequently experience the kingdom of God with such wonder only?

Jesus Christ

The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Mark 1:1)

A certain manuscript copy omits the expression of ‘son of God’ that we have dealt with yesterday. Might be for that reason, Luther translated verse 1 in this way. “This is book is the beginning the gospel about Jesus Christ.” Likewise we don’t need to mention the reason of content difference of the Bible, though it took very small portion, according to manuscript copy. And that not even the same manuscript copy has been found among thousands of copies. However, we can drift from this subject to another after confirming two points based on such objective fact that everybody should recognize. First, the verbal inspiration of the Bible doesn’t have any persuasive power. We have a difficulty to make judge the original manuscript copy among many copies that has minor varies. Moreover, the contention that the Bible is complete word of God in verbal level is not true faith but a religious fanaticism or a self-opinionated person for we don’t have the original copy now. Second, the common opinion of the Bible scholars who studied various manuscript copy comparative way is that the Old and New Testament we are using now is almost closed to the original. This is rightly our reality. The Bible we Christians believe today as the word of God is though not the original copy but is second to the original.

Let’s ask a little detail. Why is the phase ‘son of God’ missed in certain copy? If we want to deal this matter in real earnest we may write a book. We not only have to look into the matter how the conception of son of God was treated in Egypt civilization, Mesopotamia civilization, and furthermore in the Old Testament but also we have to try to find out what happened in the process of editing Mark’s gospel. We leave such matter to the special scholars and for us the following answer is enough to get our needy. The statement as ‘son of God’ is not a decisive fact in Mark’s gospel. It means this term prescribe the character of Mark’s on the whole. However, the foundation of Mark’s gospel doesn’t receive any damage.

The foundation of Mark’s gospel is ‘Jesus Christ’. ‘Son of God’ is a phrase to qualify ‘Jesus Christ’. If Jesus Christ is the subject then son of God is the predicate. It doesn’t mean that the term of ‘Son of God’ is unnecessary. It is necessary but not decisive. The early Christian community borrowed the term of ‘Son of God’ in order to explain ‘Jesus Christ’. However, a calligrapher of the copy boldly omitted it. The reason of his omission of ‘Son of God’ in his copy was probably to reveal Jesus Christ more.

Do we need such discernment in our faith life today, the discernment to distinguish a constant and a variable? However, generally necessary but not an absolute often becomes the major in our faith life. Church organization and its administration, visiting and various meeting, social service and welfare activity and etc are some of this. It should stay in the place of subordinate in church life though these are really necessary and valuable facts for the organization. Otherwise the pastors may be burnt out soon.

Childlike person

When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” (Mark 10:14)

As I pointed out in the preceding meditation, the author of Mark’s gospel invited children to the core of faith. (Mark 9:36, 37) The above verse, we meditate today, confirms it once again that the kingdom of God belongs to such children as these.

Who are ‘children’ here? As mentioned the preceding medication, the children of those days were treated badly. They were the minority isolated from main stream of society. However, they were accepted by God though they were isolated from people. These were tax collectors and sinners around Jesus.

However, the above explanation does not seem to explain the entire meaning of ‘these’. Practically it is not easy to say that such anti-social people also belong to ‘these’. People like terrorist and child kidnappers do not belong to the kingdom of heaven. Then are those people who keep their conscience among the isolated people in their society ‘these? How can we distinguish it?

We have to know that the Bible is not a social science book. We cannot analyze the entire problems of society and suggest its solution with the lesson of the Bible. It means we cannot confirm one by one who really ‘these’ are. The text of today suggests one point. Those who are neglected by their society are ‘these’. In this connection, we can conclude that kingdom of God is rebelling against the world. Those who are neglected from this world can be dignified in the kingdom of God.

The church that depends on such kingdom of God should function against the world. It does not mean that we have to be humanists. We have to emulate Jesus. No one in this world has ever been despised more severely than Jesus who was executed on the cross. Remember, we are the people who believe him as our Messiah.

The attribute of revelation

People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. (Mark 10:13)

People were bringing little children to Jesus. Expecting to have them touched by Jesus would mean to have them blessed by laying Jesus’ hands on the children. That was a natural thing for Jesus who was regarded as a Rabbi in those days.

However, the disciples acted in a little strange manner. They rebuked them. The text does not mention whom they rebuked. They might not rebuke the children. Probably they rebuked their fathers who brought them to Jesus. The disciples might have thought that the children and their father were disturbing Jesus. Children in those days were somewhat neglected and disregarded as minors.

The author of Mark has already talked about children in 9:36, 37. It says, “He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me." Despite the vivid statement made by Jesus regarding the right attitude of welcoming children, it is strange that the disciples had made a mistake again. Is this because of unskillful writing of the author of Mark? Or was it an intention to emphasize the disciples’ lack of understanding?

It is not easy for us to judge. The important point here is that the disciples do not understand Jesus at all. This problem is pointed by the author of Mark throughout the entire of Mark’s gospel. The disciples neither understand Jesus’ cross nor his resurrection.

It can be hard to say that the disciples were so dull to understand and the people were without faith. Understanding Jesus is an attribute of revelation. It means we do not know the meaning of revelation at that very moment but understands later when Jesus reveals. It is just like the true nature of Jesus was later made understood to his disciples after the manifestation of his resurrection.

Adultery(03)

And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery. (Mark 10:12)

Contrary to the subject of adultery in Mark 10:11, in verse 12 it is a woman who initiates divorce. We easily understand the natural incident that a husband takes another woman in marriage leaving his wife. However, it is difficult to understand that a woman leaves her husband and takes another man in marriage. In the ancient society, it does not have much probability that a woman deserts a man initiatively. Why does the author of Mark's gospel intentionally add verse 12 though he could deliver his intended message from verse 11 alone?

It is difficult to find out an answer. And it is better to neglect it for this matter is not much important in this context. How about to give answer in this way indirectly by stating that either a man or a woman giving one's heart to another after leaving his own spouse commits the same level of adultery.

Matthew 19:1-12 is parallel to that of Mark 10:1-12. There is one interesting point of slight difference between Jesus’ answer in Matthew and of Mark. Jesus says, "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery (Matthew 19:9). Mark's gospel does not give the comment 'except for marital unfaithfulness'. According to Matthew, Jesus allows divorce in case of committing adultery. That adultery might be, as the above verse says, an act of marriage with another man or woman.

In his teaching on the mountain recorded in Matthew chapter 5-7, Jesus says, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:28) Nobody can escape from this sin. At this very point, ethics and faith crashes each other again. The ethics does not say anything about adultery of the mind but faith regards it seriously. Christians have to handle the greater tension of maneuvering to live in these two worlds together.