This was originally posted on the blog of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA.
I used to know someone who hated the song “Amazing Grace.” The first few verses were fine enough, he said, but then he would get to the last stanza — the one about eternal life — and freeze.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.
“That’s absolutely terrifying,” my friend insisted. He pictured himself as a halo-ed Energizer bunny playing a harp on a cloud day after day after day.
“That would be pretty terrifying,” I agreed.
But what if that’s not what eternal life means? What if eternal life is less about the continuation of time forever and more about the removal of the limitations of time forever? Less about the “ten thousand years” and more about the divine irrelevance of years?
