My Blog Overview contains the following statement: “This blog seeks to encourage Christians to embrace the kingdom of God and its King, Jesus Christ, as the central elements of their message to the modern world … through discussions related to the interpretation of prophetic passages throughout the Bible.” It also mentions the development of an improved prophetic framework that I call inmillennialism.1
This view of prophecy rests on the traditional Jewish two-age model of history: the age before the Messiah came and the age after. As I explain in the post The Main Thing, I call these two ages the Mosaic age and the messianic age. Jesus the Messiah said the temple’s fall in AD 70 would serve as the official dividing line between them.
This understanding allows us to understand better a statement Paul makes in his conclusion to 1 Timothy:
But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Tim 6:11–12)
Some Christians see the appeal to “lay hold on eternal life” as a reference to our future in heaven after death and the resurrection. Commentators often unwittingly reinforce this idea. John Gill, for example, says believers are to fight the good faith now “so that when they have done fighting they have nothing else to do but to lay hold on eternal life.”2 Laying hold on eternal life is a reality for a future time.
Inmillennialism suggests Paul has a broader idea in mind. For him, eternal life is life in the messianic age. This view makes eternal life include our post-resurrection existence but sees that existence as the natural and necessary outcome of Christ’s kingdom reign. Eternal life also includes life in the kingdom as we await that result. As the Apostle says elsewhere, “He [Christ] must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:25–26). Eternal life is life during Christ’s reign, too.
If eternal life is life in the messianic age, then to “lay hold on eternal life” means to live in subjection to Him as King. In this post, I want to explore three (non-exhaustive) aspects of kingdom life using selections from Paul’s letter to the Hebrews.
Education
To “lay hold on eternal life” means to live with the knowledge of specific facts. Paul rebuked the Hebrews for the slow pace of their education:
Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Heb 5:12–14)
He said these words in the context of age transition and wanted Christians to learn how to live in the soon-coming age of perfection (or maturity; cp. Heb 6:1, 5). To do so, they needed to know certain facts to “lay hold on eternal life.” We need to know them, too.
First, we should recognize that the years between Jesus’ ministry and the temple’s fall were the “last days” of the Mosaic age (Heb 1:2). Jesus would soon come just as He had promised (Heb 10:37; Matt 24:34). His coming would cause “the removal of those things that [were] being shaken [i.e., the Mosaic-age kingdom] … “that the things which cannot be shaken [might] remain [i.e., the messianic-age kingdom]” (Heb 12:27).
Second, Christians should know that Jesus reigns in the messianic-age kingdom and will continue until God makes all His enemies His footstool (Heb 1:13; 10:12–13; cp. Ps 110:1). This optimistic view of the kingdom age is a critical element in the eternal life Paul wanted Timothy (and us) to lay hold on.
Third, messianic-age eternal life includes our knowledge of Christ’s work. He has made an end of our sins (e.g., Heb 1:3), something the Mosaic-age sacrifices could never do. Christ serves as our High Priest during the messianic age; the Aaronic priests of the Mosaic age were only types of His priesthood.
Laying hold of eternal life means living in the knowledge of these things and many more facts like them.
Experience
Laying hold of eternal life means enjoying the things God has provided for us through Christ. My list will be brief but representative.
First, eternal life is living in fellowship with a community of like-minded people. Paul said, “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb 10:24–25). God did not make us to live in isolation, no matter how introverted we may be. We need other people, and life in the messianic-age kingdom meets that need for fellowship.
Second, eternal life is one of rest (e.g., Heb 3:10–11; 4:1–11). We’ve ceased working to gain approval, whether God’s or man’s. We enjoy a glorious rest in Christ that nothing else can give (Heb 4:10).
Third, life in the messianic age includes peace. God disciplines us so we can enjoy “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11). We “pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14). Eternal life includes profound peace.
Eternal life is life in the messianic-age kingdom; it is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17).
Expectation
Laying hold on eternal life includes living in the expectation of God fulfilling His promises to His people. Paul told the Hebrews they should “hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end” (Heb 3:6). And, “We desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end” (Heb 6:11).
Christianity is a here-and-now religion, no matter how often its enemies paint it as pie in the sky when you die. Still, our faith holds out the prospect of increased future glory. Paul says, “By two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us” (Heb 6:18).
Eternal life includes knowing that Christ will reign until all nations serve Him (cp. Ps 2:8–9; 22:27; etc.). Afterward, our Lord will defeat His last enemy (death) in the bodily resurrection (1 Cor 15:25–26). Paul says, “When all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).
Laying hold on eternal life includes living with the expectation of a glorious future.
Conclusion
To “lay hold on eternal life” means to live in the messianic age and to enjoy its benefits. In the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles tell us how to live this way. At a minimum, it includes our education regarding specific facts, our experience of glorious realities, and our expectation of an even more glorious future. We “lay hold” of these things now, not just in the future.
Let us “lay hold” on this life to the glory of our God.
Footnotes
- For a full-length account of this prophetic model, see Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020). It is available here. For a summary, see the free PDF here.
- John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 9 vols. (1809–10; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 9:312.
3 comments
Love your posts. Thanks for your insights and diligence.
The new article on your blog is fantastic. Totally agree with your analysis of Christianity being a here/ now religion.
So good and such an encouragement. “Christianity is a here and now religion.” This is a truth we often lose sight of. It really just speaks to how short-sighted we can be. We are eternal creatures created in Him before the foundation of the world. We are living in eternity now. Thanks for this encouraging word.