Jun P. Espina 5 min read
Updated on November 18th, 2022
Your Fame and Pleasures Do Not Define the Meaning of Life ▸
The real meaning of life lies in its perpetual nature—its permanence and everlastingness. Christ came to prove our bodies’ resurrection after death. Both our souls and bodies were created to last forever. Life, therefore, is not pleasure, achievement, fame, travel, good health, longevity, or other similar matters we experience since all these will pass away. Rather, it is how we can defeat hell—our natural home after death, given our lack of interest in heaven and the things of God! It is how we can be forgiven and saved; it is how to enter heaven and live there forever together with Abraham, Jacob, the angels of God, and Jesus Christ, our Lord. Life’s meaning is our immortality! Anything less than that is worthless (not worth spending all our time and strength on!) because of death.
What is 1,000 years of life, for example, and what meaning can we find when, in the end, you will meet death? Observe Genesis 5:27: “So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.” If someone told me I could live forever by eating the fruit of the tree of life, I would find that tree in spades and eat its fruit. Stop assuming that life is about money, pleasure, and a healthy relationship, for it is about crossing the river of death. The good news is that Christ promised us eternal life and a resurrected body. But “you will see Me,” He taught, “because I live, you will live also.” (John 14:19)
Christ, therefore, is the real meaning of life. “I am the way,” He asserted, “and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) With our body as the temple of His Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19), every minute of existence counts—God is there watching you every moment of life. You are not alone—in Jesus Christ!
Read Also: How Did I Gather Courage to Move Forward?
Christ is the Meaning of Life ▸
Some said, “natural intuitions [instincts] determine the meaning of life.” Intuition means “direct perception of truth… independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.”
The writer continued, “for those intuitions resonate through much of life and give it its purpose.”
One problem with this summary of life’s meaning is that intuitions or instincts are just “tools” of life. Instincts can be our equipment for a living, but not for decoding the substance and value of life. For example, in carpentry work, tools don’t make the table, which is the goal of the design.
The meaning of life, from the Biblical view, is our immortality in heaven. Eternal life is not intuition, but our goal of attaining eternal existence in our Creator’s city.
God created Adam and Eve as immortal beings until their fall. After Adam’s separation from God because of sin, he left paradise, lost, and his constant and burning inquiry was how to regain or re-establish a friendship with God. Humanity then invented such religious systems as grain, blood, and other religious offerings to appease God’s wrath for man’s disobedience to his Creator and obedience to the devil.
Adam’s descendants (all of us) invented a million superstitions; almost every man-made guide to regain paradise and restore God’s fellowship and intimacy became a religious creed.
But life continues to be meaningless, full of vanity, and full of chasing after the wind.
Then Christ condescended from heaven and said: “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40) We will live forever in Christ—and it is the meaning of life; He is the meaning of life!
The Meaning of Life is Our Immortality ▸
Without Christ in my heart and soul, life would be pointless. My toils and hardships are meaningless in my grave.
But with Christ, I would not die because He will give me eternal life and a new spiritual body “on the last day.”
I believe in all His promises in the Holy Scriptures. If they are not true, then what? I would lose nothing. If this is true, then I would have everything prepared by Christ, the Carpenter of my endless life in heaven.
He said: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3)
As we trusted our Lord, we became hopeful we would finish up our sojourn in this world victorious and saved.
To the born-again Christian, death is just a bridge to the spiritual dimension or the entrance to the world that is deathless. “For this perishable must put on the imperishable,” wrote the Apostle Paul, “and this mortal must put on immortality.” (1 Cor. 15:53) We have a place in heaven; we have immortality in Jesus Christ.
The Immortality of the Soul is Serious Business ▸
Some just don’t care about the things to come, the future of their souls after death. But spiritual carelessness is a poor defense before God’s courtroom of judgment.
“Lord, I don’t have a Bible!” No, we cannot use that tricky rationalization.
The apostle Paul wrote: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Rom. 1:20) The Word of God is clear: you couldn’t prove your innocence because God is seen and understood “through what has been made.”
It is also written in John 1:9 that Christ “enlightens every man.”
We need to take care of our physical needs and gravitate toward the spiritual side of our being. Life’s meaning is our immortality; the salvation of our souls from divine wrath because of sin.
I don’t want to just work and work and then die—it is meaningless! The apostle Paul wrote: “If from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Cor. 15:32)
Can you imagine Paul fighting wild beasts while spreading the gospel? From human motives, such is pointless. If there is no life after death, “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
Do we have a brilliant rebuttal to Paul’s hope that the dead in Christ will be raised and provided with a spiritual body?
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