Deuteronomy 31.16
And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, you will rest with your fathers...
The orientation of God’s Law is decidedly toward the future, as we shall see more fully a bit later on, and the assurance that God gave His people in His Law was that He would continue His promises and blessings into the future for generations of those who loved and obeyed Him.

God’s intention for His people was that, listening to His Word and loving Him from their souls, they would enter the future with hope, eagerly anticipating the good promises of God in all things (cf. Jer. 29.11; Deut. 28.1-14).

The only “seen” reality Israel could have known would have been their own moment in time. In each of those moments they were to obey the Lord and serve Him, but not for the sake of that moment alone. God taught His people to live in the present, with a view to the past, and an eye for the future. The decisions and actions they took in the present, based on what they knew from their past, would determine the course of Israel’s experience for generations to come.

The future was unseen, but that does not mean that it could not be known. God had promised in His Word to bless for the generations those who loved Him and kept His commandments. We live faithfully, and in obedience to God, when we remember that our decisions in the present affect not only us but the generations of those who come after us (Ps. 45.17). The future may lie yet beyond the horizon, but by faith in the present we can help to ensure that the people who succeed us will know the promises of God for themselves and the generations who succeed them.

God also wanted His people to know that the future He held in store for them reached beyond the horizons of time, into a realm of eternal life with Him.

God declared Himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, as Jesus explained, but of the living (Matt. 22.29-32). By this Jesus meant to correct the Sadducees who were trying to catch Him with a question that seemed to preclude the idea of a resurrection from the dead. Jesus’ reply was to say that God was teaching about the resurrection and eternal life as far back as Exodus 3.

The Law only hints at what subsequent revelation will make abundantly clear: there is a realm beyond this temporal existence where the faithful continue forever in the presence of the Lord. This is the destination to which all may expect to be delivered who, like Moses, walk in obedience to God and His covenant.

The worldview of God’s Law thus begins and ends in the unseen realm, the realm of spiritual vision. Further, it is sustained by that realm, by the Word and angels of the Lord. The worldview of God’s Law comes from beyond this world to bring fullness of life to those dwelling in this world, and to prepare them for a greater world yet to come, where the faithful have gone before them to the presence of the Lord.

Act: Given what we have seen of the unseen realm, how should this affect a Christian’s approach to his or her own future? Talk with some Christian friends about this question. 

T. M. Moore

The book of Ecclesiastes is a crucial resource for understanding the Biblical worldview against the backdrop of our secular age. Follow T. M.’s studies in Ecclesiastes by downloading the free, weekly studies available in our Scriptorium Resources page at The Fellowship of Ailbe. Click here to see the weekly studies available thus far.

Want to learn ore about the unseen realm? Order a copy of The Landscape of Unseen Things, T. M.’s 24-lesson study of that realm which anchors our Christian worldview.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.