Entrusted with the Gospel

The Best Day of Your Life

If you are a Christian, the best day of your life is coming:

…we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2 (ESV)

On this day you will see a vision, called the beatific vision by theologians, which will so fill you with joy that you will be transformed into His likeness. Indeed, even considering what this vision will do to you today is transforming:

And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. 1 John 3:3 (ESV)

The Worst Day of Your Life

Here’s the awful thing, though –  the unbeliever will also have a vision, the same vision of Christ. But in contrast, this vision will be the worst day of his life. Consider the soldiers who crucified Christ and then followed through with their attendant duties. John writes that there is coming a day in their lives which these men will remember through eternity:

And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.” John 19:37 (ESV)

Someday, those soldiers will see Jesus, and they will know. With all the gut-wrenching agony of regret and remorse, they will know that they tortured and killed the Son of God. And they will pay for it in eternity. But it’s not just them, as John writes in the last book of the Bible:

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. Revelation 1:7 (ESV)

Every eye will see Him, and there will be no middle ground. There will be no human being who will say after that day, “Ho hum. I don’t remember much about the first time I saw Jesus.” Not going to happen. You see, there are no part-time, “sorta, kinda” Christians. You’re in, or you’re out. You love Him, or you don’t.

On that day, there will only be two groups of people – those in total, rapturous joy….and those in total remorse and agony.

Which group will you be in?

For tomorrow, Friday, October 30th: John 20