Exiled on Earth from our Heavenly Home (Calvin)

One of the more comforting truths of Scripture is the fact that Christians are pilgrims in this world. This world is not our ultimate home. Long ago, when Abraham lived in the promised land, he lived in a tent because he knew his eternal dwelling was the heavenly city of God (Heb. 11:8-10). Peter uses the terms “sojourners and exiles” for Christians (1 Pet. 2:11). Christians are destined for the New Jerusalem, the eternal Kingdom. It’s a fundamental aspect of the Christian faith.

However, some American Christians who are extremely political and hyper-focused on various issues often fail to remember and discuss the fact that we are pilgrims here. Specifically, I’ve seen people so focused on a Christian America that they never talk about the age to come and what it means to be a pilgrim. John Calvin’s comments on this topic in the Institutes are worth reading and re-reading on this topic. (NOTES: I’ve edited it for readability. And I recommend reading the section of the Institutes around this quote for fuller context.)

Let believers, then, in forming an estimate of this mortal life, and perceiving that in itself it is nothing but misery, make it their aim to exert themselves with greater alacrity [eagerness], and less hinderance, in aspiring to the future and eternal life. When we contrast the two, the former may not only be securely neglected, but, in comparison of the latter, be disdained and contemned.

-If heaven is our country, what can the earth be but a place of exile?
-If departure from the world is entrance into life, what is the world but a sepulchre, and what is residence in it but immersion in death?
-If to be freed from the body is to gain full possession of freedom, what is the body but a prison?
-If it is the very summit of happiness to enjoy the presence of God, is it not miserable to want it?

But “while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord,” (2 Cor. 5:6). Thus when the earthly is compared with the heavenly life, it may undoubtedly be despised and trampled under foot.

We ought never, indeed, to regard it with hatred, except in so far as it keeps us subject to sin; and even this hatred ought not to be directed against life itself. At all events, we must stand so affected towards it in regard to weariness or hatred as, while longing for its termination, to be ready at the Lord’s will to continue in it, keeping far from everything like murmuring and impatience.

For it is as if the Lord had assigned us a post, which we must maintain till he recalls us. Paul, indeed, laments his condition, in being still bound with the fetters of the body, and sighs earnestly for redemption (Rom. 7:24); nevertheless, he declared that, in obedience to the command of God, he was prepared for both courses, because he acknowledges it as his duty to God to glorify his name whether by life or by death, while it belongs to God to determine what is most conducive to His glory (Phil. 1:20–24).

Therefore, if it becomes us to live and die to the Lord, let us leave the period of our life and death at his disposal. Still let us ardently long for death, and constantly meditate upon it, and in comparison with future immortality, let us despise life, and, on account of the bondage of sin, long to renounce it whenever it shall so please the Lord.

 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997).

Shane Lems Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) Hammond, WI, 54015