This political system will not become corrupt
27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (Revelation 21:27–ESV)
What is all too evident in the lives that we now live is that people put a personal stamp on the political systems in which they live. Self-service becomes the rule of the day and in comes graft and corruption. Read any book of history, and you will see these termites in the structure. Some parts of the political framework will be sound, but running through it will always be rot of one sort or another.
Those corruptions are the unclean things written of in verse 27, but that verse emphasizes their absence. Is this not another way in which the Bible tells us of good things? The eternal world will not be pock-marked by dishonesty and double-dealing. Those who look at the systems around themselves and see ways to exploit them will not be in the picture. That strategy will not be part of that equation. Self-service will be in hell.
Realism now & idealism forever. The believable optimism of Christianity
In Danielle Steel’s book Blue, there is a woman named Ginny whose life has gone to pieces. She reacted by running to refugee camps around the world crusading for the downtrodden. The oppressed and troubled became her task, but this task never finishes. The core of each situation is unrepairable.
In Christianity, we get a realistic explanation for the evil core. The Bible tells us Jesus was God. Jesus demonstrated life in the face of that evil core and then capped off his life by seemingly being destroyed by it. The grave could not hold him, however, and on the third day, he came back from that death now living forever.
Here in Revelation 21, another portal to forever shines out for us. Ginny, and by extension us, faced impossible odds. The happily-ever-after seems to be a foolish optimism having no realistic schema in life as we know it. In the forever world, Jesus reigns. It is so glorious that it emits light, brightening the New Jerusalem.
So Jesus showed us how to live realistic lives in the now and yet hold optimism for life forever. It requires faith, but faith in Jesus always pans out.
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