On the Edge of Eternity

Another way J. I. Packer’s view of Christianity was shaped by Puritan thought has to do with the shortness of this life.  This is certainly emphasized often in Scripture, and it was the subject of many sermons by Jonathan Edwards.  Packer wrote: “The Puritans have taught me to see and feel the transitoriness of this life, to think of it, with all its richness, as the school where we are prepared for heaven, and to regard readiness to die as the first step in learning to live.  The Puritans lived in a world in which more than half the adult population died young and more than half the children born died in infancy.  They would have been lost had they not kept their eyes on heaven.  The Puritans’ awareness that we are just one step from eternity gave them a deep seriousness, calm yet passionate, with regard to the business of living that Christians in today’s opulent, earthbound Western world rarely manage to match.  Few of us, I think, live daily on the edge of eternity in the conscious way that the Puritans did.”