John closed his record of the life of Jesus like this: “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” John 20:30, 31. “This is the disciple who testifies of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.” John 21:24, 25.
Indeed, we are delighted to join John in expressing our hope you too will come to appreciate, know Jesus and love God. In 1 John 4:8 and 16 we see the phrase “God is love.” In examining His love we begin to explore what God is like.
We are among the societies God established. An essential quality of Him and the societies He established is love. Love craves company. Love craves companionship. Love is hurt and disappointed when one of its society fails or dies – becomes unavailable. God did not design death into His work and creation. Death came as the result of a breakdown. Recovery from that breakdown is given the term “salvation.” Salvation fixes what broke. Life without end is reestablished. Life will include: fellowship with God at such a high level we call it worship. Love with those who have also experienced salvation. We will associate with those of other “states” of God’s kingdom. There we will have unlimited opportunities for conversation, arts, crafts, research, construction, travel, fun. At the time of this writing (late 2020) astronomy research has discovered well over 4000 exoplanets – stars with other planets in our galaxy (https://exoplanets.nasa.gov). There is even talk that stars without planets may be the exception. If the planet we are on was made to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18) what about at least some of those? That means there are a lot of other “people” to get to know.
Some may consider the above speculative. We’ll see. My intent is to provide a sense of what salvation is and a bit of what to look forward to. We are designed to live. We love life (unless the brokenness of this life has totally demoralized us).
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a significant scientist, mathematician, theologian. It was he who began to make sense of the fuzzy math of probability, statistics and wagering. He expressed this wager well worth consideration:
God is, or God is not. Reason cannot decide between the two alternatives
A Game is being played… where heads or tails will turn up
You must wager (it is not optional)
Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing
Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (…) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal’s_wager)
The Bible is the core and standard of our study and understanding. So we look first at this essential resource.