Fulfillment of the Promise (Revelation 7:9-17)

“Now as man could not live in society without truth, so likewise, not without joy.”

— Thomas Aquinas

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. “

— The Apostle Paul to the Galatians

Revelation 7:9-17

Resurrection Changes Everything (John 11:17-27)

“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”

—C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

John 11:17-27

Guarded by the Promise (1 John 5:13-21)

“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou doest overthrow
Die not, poor Death, no yet canst thou kill me…
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.“

—John Donne, Holy Sonnets

1 John 5:13-21

From Haters to Lovers (1 John 3:11-24)

“If I were sitting on the end of the pier on a summer day enjoying the sunshine and the air, and someone came along and jumped into the water and got drowned ‘to prove his love for me’,I should find it quite unintelligible. I might be much in need of love, but an act in no rational relation to any of my necessities could not prove it. But if I had fallen over the pier and were drowning, and someone sprang into the water, and at the cost of making my peril, or what but for him would be my fate, his own, save me from death, then I should say, ‘Greater love hath no man than this.’ I should say it intelligibly, because there would be an intelligent relation between the sacrifice which love made and the necessity from which it redeemed.”

— James Dennon, The Death of Christ

1 John 3:11-24