Rev 2:10 “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
The majority of mankind believes in the afterlife. The Bible makes it very clear that there is an eternal life and an eternal hell. The jailor at Philippi asked a very pertinent question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Acts 16:30. The question suggests that the man believed in eternal life and he desired the knowledge that would prepare him for eternity. Each of us should ask ourselves the same question.
Thayer’s describes the faithful in three ways:
1. The faithful trusts in God’s promises. He knows God is always faithful in His promises because He never lies, Titus 1:2. In the New Testament we are told three times that God is faithful, (1 Cor. 1:9, 10:13; 2 Cor. 1:18) therefore God who cannot lie and is faithful to His Word should be trusted. The true believer will have confidence in His promises concerning heaven.
2. The faithful is convinced that Jesus has been raised from the dead. That is the hub of the Christians belief system. If Jesus was not raised then there is no proof He is the Son of God, “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” Romans 1:4. If He is not raised then we are to be pitied. “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. “For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” 1 Cor. 15:14-17.
3. The faithful have no doubt that Jesus is the Messiah and author of salvation. In John 6, Jesus had just fed the 5,000 and had went away to pray. Seeing Him, the multitudes followed Him the next day. He then preached to them the sermon on the bread of life. After that sermon many of His disciples turned away because of the difficulty of His words. Disheartened, He asked the 12, “Will you go away also?” In verse 68, we have the response of faithful Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Jesus said in John 5:24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”
In Hebrews the writer pens, “And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” Heb 5:9. The word author has to do with a cause. Jesus is the cause of eternal salvation. In Hebrews 12:2 notice, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” In this context He is the cause of our faith.
The faithful are the ones who have confidence in God’s promises, and are convinced that Jesus was raised from the dead, and know that in His words is eternal life and have obeyed them. If we have these three traits, then our commitments and service will follow in kind.
Terry Jackson