Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Will We Work in Eternity?

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Will We Work in Eternity? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Happy Monday. Today is Labor Day for many of us, a day when
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  we rest from our work and think of well, just about anything but work.
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  But here we are talking about work, actually, and we're doing it
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  because a number of you have emailed over the years wanting to know about work
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  in eternity. Here's one version of that email from a listener named Steve pastor
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  John. Hello, and thank you for this podcast. I have a question
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  about work in heaven or work in the New Creation. To be more exact,
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  First, will we work in the New Creation? And if so,
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  what types of vocations will be needed? Does the Bible give us any hints
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  here? And if we work, do you think this future vocation will resonate
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  with or consummate some gifting that we always felt drawn to express here on earth,
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  whether or not we could make money doing it here? And if you
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  answer yes to all of this, put on your out of prediction. What
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  will you be doing in eternity. Let's start with what we know for sure
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  about the eternal future that all those all of us who are in Christ will
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  definitely enjoy. Jesus said that we will be with him, we will see
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  his glory, we will have the capacity to love him with the very love
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  that the Father has for him. As John seventeen twenty four to twenty six.
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  The Apostle, John tells us in his first letter in the third chapter,
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  we will see him and we will be like him, and that includes
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  both sinless purity of heart and the glory of our new resurrection bodies. According
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  to Philippin's three twenty one and then Revelation twenty one, John tells us that
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  God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death will be no
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  more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.
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  And then Psalm sixteen eleven twists that around and makes it positive, namely,
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  in God's presence we will have fullness of joy and pleasures Forevermore of that is
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  for sure. Now the question is will work be part of our experience of
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  that eternal joy in God's presence? And I think the answer is yes.
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  But I say that not because the Bible has decisive statements to that effect,
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  but because there are significant pointers in that direction. So I wouldn't elevate this
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  conviction that I'm going to argue for here to a top level doctrine, but
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  rather call it a reasonable probable hope. And if not this, then something
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  way better. I mean, if it turns out it won't be what you
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  think you thought it was, it's going to be better because we know there'll
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  be no sorrow there, no regret, no frustration, no disappointment with God's
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  decisions about what our happiness should look like. So here are my six pointers,
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  and then I'll end with a caution. Number one, And these are
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  pointers for why we can be relatively confident there will be work for us to
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  do in the age to come, in our eternity with God. Number one.
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  God himself is a worker, and we will be more like him then,
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  not less than we are now Genesis two. Two. On the seventh
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  day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on
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  the seventh day from all the work that he had done. And Jesus said
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  in John five seventeen, my father is working until now and I am working.
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  So God is a worker. Number two. God created man to be
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  a worker before the fall into sin. The curse that fell on man after
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  the fall was not work but feudal work, miserable work, sweaty work that
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  makes us hate it want to play instead of working. But God made man
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  from the beginning to work the world, shape the world Genesis one twenty eight.
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  And God blessed him, blessed them, and God said to them,
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  be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have
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  dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens,
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  and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And then Genesis
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  two fifteen, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden
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  of Eden to work it and keep it. Number three. The parable that
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  describes how Jesus settles accounts with his servants at the Second Coming suggests that now
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  that Jesus has come, they will have work given them to do. In
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  Luke nineteen seventeen, the master says, well done, good servant, because
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  you have been faithful in a very little you shall have authority over ten cities.
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  Now, whether that's parabolic or metaphorical, it may well to the fact
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  something like that we will be given responsibility in the age to come. Number
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  four. According to Ephesians two ten, we are God's workmanship created in Christ
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  Jesus, four good works which got prepared beforehand that we should walk in.
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  When Paul identified a purpose for the new creature in christ Us, he said
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  the purpose was work, good works. Number five Isaiah sixty five, seventeen
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  to twenty five describes the new heavens and the new Earth to include work Versus
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  twenty one following go like this, They shall build houses and inhabit them.
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  They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. My chosen shall long enjoy the
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  work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for
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  calamity. Now, the reason I say this is only a pointer, not
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  a decisive statement, even though I may look like that about work in the
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  final state, is that there is serious disagreement about whether this passage in Zaiah
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  sixty five is a description of our final state, because it speaks of bearing
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  children, and Jesus said that in the final state there would be no marriage
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  and presumably no bearing of children. And in the age to come, we're
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  not going to experience death. And yet verse twenty says a young man will
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  die a hundred years old in the New creation. We know there is no
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  death in the Age to come. So what the disagreement is is whether those
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  kinds of statements here in Isaiah sixty five are somehow metaphorical for eternal life in
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  the Age to come, which I have never been able to understand how death
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  is a symbol for life, or whether this is a description of a millennial
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  period after the Second Coming, which is much higher in its blessing, higher
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  level than presently in blessing than now, but not yet the final stage of
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  the new heavens and the New Earth. And that would be my view.
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  But in either case, whether those are metaphorical statements and that we will be
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  working in the final state, or whether this is a next stage of redemptive
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  history in which yes, there will be work, and maybe pointing to the
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  fact that there's work in the final state. It seems to me that we
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  can't settle that with enough certainty to persuade all the evangelicals who love the Bible.
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  I mean, I've got a good friends who disagree with me on this,
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  and so I don't call those verses in Isaiah sixty five a decisive,
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  precise statement that there will be work in the final state, but it seems
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  to me it points in that direction. Number six, when you take sin
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  out of the heart and out of the world, which will happen in the
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  Age to come, the line between work and play becomes almost invisible. What
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  is play when all our work will be totally enjoyable? I mean, totally
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  is there's no work now, it is totally enjoyable. All work has some
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  element to it we find frustrating or disappointing, or feudal or discouraging. Perhaps
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  speculation. Perhaps there will be sweet weariness of mind and body, new body
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  getting weary in the age to come that needs something different than its usual occupation,
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  namely rest and play. I don't know, Because work itself will be
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  so profoundly satisfying and sweet and enjoyable, nobody will say I need a weekend.
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  I got to have some playtime, because everything will be as happy and
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  satisfying as play. But there may be a difference, And that word perhaps,
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  I mean I've been using the word perhaps all along. Leads me to
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  wrap up with a caution about making more precise statements about the age to come
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  than the Bible gives us warrant to make. There are cautions in the Bible
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  that remind us the glories of the age to come are going to be beyond
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  our present comprehension and imagination. Second Chrinatian's twelve four, Paul said he saw
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  things in heaven that no man can utter. A First Corintians two nine,
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  Paul says that God has prepared things for those who love Him that are beyond
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  human imagination. They've never entered into the heart of man. He tells us
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  that our resurrection bodies will be spiritual bodies. Well, who can say all
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  that is involved in a spiritual body? John speaks in Revelation twenty three of
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  a world in which there will be no need of sun or moon, because
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  the glory of God give it light, and its lamp is the lamb.
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  Well, who can imagine a world with no sources of created light, but
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  only God's light? And in Revelation twenty one eighteen, John says the city
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  New Jerusalem, this city was pure gold, like clear glass. What's that
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  gold that is clear as glass? Jonathan Edwards wrote an entire sermon on that
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  text, Revelation twenty and eighteen, and here's the title. Nothing on earth
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  can represent the glories of Heaven because there's no such thing on earth as gold
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  that is clear as glass. And that's what it's going to be like.
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  So yes, I think we will work in the Final Age to come,
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  whether we will do what we were gifted for here, or whether we will
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  have holy new giftings a thousand times greater, or what kind of work John
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  Piper will be doing. I leave in the hands of God, who planned
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  the universe for the happiness of his people in himself, we will not be
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  disappointed. Yeah, amen, we know that for sure. There's no disappointments
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  in store and the new creation. Thank you, pastor John, and thank
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  you for joining us today, and Happy Labor Day for those of you for
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  whom this applies. I'm your host, Tony Ranki, and we will see
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  you back here on Thursday talking about Calvinism. We'll see you then,