A Poor Bargain
Jesus was a master when it came to forming talking pictures. Not just the time He talked about the mote and the beam or the time He talked about people who would strain gnats and devour camels, but also when He talked about the worth of the soul.
One time He lumped together Asia and Africa, Europe and [the then unknown] Australia and America. Plus the Antarctic. He placed all six continents with everything they contained of treasures and resources in an enormous pan on a scale. Then He took just one person’s soul and placed this invisible something in the other pan on the scale. The six continents with all their resources flew up into the sky as if they were lighter than air. The soul was heavier. Then, He exclaimed: “What does it help a person if he wins the whole world but loses his soul!?”
The soul! What is that?
Yes, this matter is not merely about our ability to think and to feel, to react and to take action. In this matter lies the question of our innermost I — our real I — our eternal I. The question about our innermost I is about something that can be either saved or lost. And this something is of priceless value and it is worth more than the all the contents of the entire world.
It is priceless not only in light of our eternal destiny, it is true now in the present. It is also true for you who are young and healthy and strong and do not think about death.
Scriptures tell us that humankind is created “almost as a god.” Not quite, but almost.
This means that God has placed something in you and me that can be seized by God — that can experience God — and be transformed so completely, that one day we become so like our Savior, that His eyes can rest on us with pleasure and we will feel perfectly at home in a perfect world.
This something Jesus calls our “soul.” In other contexts it is called something else. And this something — no, we should call it “someone” — is of greater worth than all the treasures that exists in the material world.
This is obvious. For all the treasures in the world are perishable. “Heaven and earth shall burn, hills and mountains shall disappear.” But “God has placed eternity in humankind’s heart.”
This means that when the doctor confirms death and the minister has said his: “From dust did you come, to dust shall you return” it is not over.
But when this does happens — this event that we are all on our way to and must experience — our hands are empty. Absolutely empty. And not one thing of all that we owned on earth shall be of the slightest benefit to us in the other world. We are exactly as naked and poor as we were when we entered into the world. Our ownership has been an episode only — an episode that is gone forever.
When this happens, the burning question appears: How is it with our soul? With our real I? Our eternal I? During our life, has our soul melted together with the Spirit and with the heart that prevails in the divine world?
Everything hangs on that question because when we are done with our life here on earth, we go home where we belong. Judas, the betrayer, went to “the place that was his.” And the angels carried Lasarus to “Abraham’s bosom.” Both went home.
This is serious. Every day we continue to chisel our eternal face, form our eternal destiny, and choose our dwelling place in the other world.
No, I neither can nor will give any detailed description on conditions in that world. And, I have no authority to predict the destination for anybody. It is clear, however, that we go where we feel suitably at home. Just as precisely, it is clear that we do not take anything with us when we go.
But to sell one’s soul in order to win the world is not only poor business in eternity, it is poor business now as well. We cannot deny the worth and value of money, because we need it to acquire food, clothes, and a place to live. If we cannot pay, someone else must step in. If we are to continue to live, earthly possessions are necessary for our service.
The difficulty is that this world’s goods cannot satisfy our souls. Art can not create harmonious homes. Stocks and bank accounts cannot give the owner supernatural and glorious happiness. Great amounts of insurance cannot create a living hope for existence on the other side of the divide. Both for this time and for the time to come we need something other than what the world can give.
Is it not insanity — the height of insanity — to act as if the body and time and the temporary moment means everything?
But this is the insanity in which most of us live.