My Christmas query

The big preoccupation of my life these years can be stated as follows: "What did we gain by the First Coming?" I know the answer to the question, "What will we gain by the Second Coming?" Everything---every blessing you can name in the Old and New Testament; seeing Christ "as he is" (1 John 3:2); the "yes and amen" to every promise; the end of every suffering; the drying of every tear; the extinction of every evil, within and without; the full possession of our inheritance in Christ, and not just the down-payment.

I hope you don't mind me putting it this way---"What did we gain?" I would like to clarify that I am not into prosperity; it's a little late for that anyway. The "gain" I crave is actually what Paul craved: "to know Christ" and to know "the power of his resurrection" (Philippians 3:10). I make no apology for being obsessed with what Paul was obsessed with.

It's the size of the "down payment" the church quarrels over, isn't it? On one end of the spectrum are those who think the First Coming secured just about everything but an actual change of address to heaven. They see the Christian's life after Christ's ascension as more similar to the future era than the past era in terms of possibilities. They understand the victory of Christ on the cross and the comprehensiveness of the atonement and the authority of the Victor seated at the right hand of the Father to be so huge that there is nothing we can ask for that is outlandish, if it be God's will. They have a good case: "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or thing, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory . . ." (Ephesians 3:20-21).

At the other end of the spectrum are those who worry that it may be a bit self-serving or unspiritual or man-centered or shallow or ignorant or a threat to the doctrine of justification or an insult to the saving grace of Christ to quest after benefits in Christ.

The previous sentence was very difficult to write because I was trying hard to be gentle with it, but I'm afraid I tipped my hand. When I die I'm sure there will be surprises enough. I don't want one of them to be that there was much more of Christ available to me after Christmas than I enjoyed on earth. And that I didn't enjoy it because I didn't believe it was for the asking.