According to Scripture, the ultimate state of salvation in Christ is
bodily resurrection in a transformed creation freed from death and decay. Our bodies will be made immortal and all creation
will be filled with the presence of God. Pain, suffering and evil will be forever
gone. Redeemed human beings will become
all that God has intended for us to be, liberated from the limitations of sin, disease
and death, and fully conformed to the character of Jesus himself. We will finally become the faithful stewards
of creation that God created us to be in the first place, and will know God as
fully as he knows us.
This picture – as incredible as it is -- should not be controversial for
Christians. It’s clearly what Scripture teaches, as everyone agrees. But, oddly, many – perhaps most – Christians,
including pastors, talk as if salvation is eternal life in heaven after death. Is that the same thing?
Well, no, it isn’t. The biblical hope is eternal life in created, embodied,
transformed existence in a new heaven and new earth “in which justice dwells” (2
Pet. 3:13) – where all that is wrong with this world will be made right. The
popular view is eternal life as a blissful, disembodied soul, or spirit, in
heaven.
The biblical hope is something that will one day happen as an actual event
in time and space – when Jesus appears in glory and God’s Kingdom comes to earth in fullness. The
popular hope is something that happens to people individually outside of time
and space when they die.
The popular hope by itself, while understandable, is escapist – it is life
and world denying. It views the world and all creation as having no lasting
significance. “We are only passing
through,” as the old church song intones. It conceives of what ultimately matters
as a spirit-life in some other realm, an ethereal paradise on another plane in
a non-material existence.
In contrast, the biblical hope is life and world affirming. God made
creation “very good,” and he will restore and renew that creation to fulfill his
original intent – not non-physical, but, as Paul describes in 1 Cor. 15 and
Romans 8, hyper-physical – physical to the highest degree of perfection – with all
corruption and death removed, and suffused with God’s presence. That is our eternal destiny in Christ.
There are, of course, passages that speak of the redeemed as being in
heaven with Jesus after death. They are “present with the Lord” (2 cor. 5:6-8)
as perfected “spirits” (Heb. 12:22-24). Knowing
this is an immeasurable comfort when our loved ones die or we face our own
death. But life in heaven after death is still an incomplete and temporary
state, as the heavenly residents await the union of heaven and earth and the
resurrection of the body (Rev. 6:9-11).
It is certainly a lot easier to accept the idea of eternal life as a spirit,
or soul, in heaven than that heaven will come fully to earth and this created
world will be transformed into perfection. Maybe that’s why so many fix their hope there.
Considering that the earth is about 4½ billion years old, believing in the
biblical promise of a transformed creation could feel next to impossible.
But Christians are convinced that Jesus rose from the dead in a
resurrected, immortal body -- not as a one-time unique event -- but as the
first installment of the transformation of all creation. If that is true, if
Jesus’ resurrection really happened in space and time, then all the rest – the
renewal of creation and our own resurrection – is assured. If “the mortal has become clothed with immortality”
(1 Cor. 15:50-54) even for one, then it can happen for all. Indeed, if Jesus
rose bodily from the dead, then as the saying goes, it’s all over but the
shouting. The Christian hope of new creation is certain.
How we view the Christian hope tends to determine how we live now- the
importance that we put on transforming the world through our prayers and
actions now.
If life in the Kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10) will
be focused on love of God and neighbor, then learning to live that way now exemplifies
and prepares us for life in the fully renewed world to come.
If our future is a transformed earth and heavens in which all things are brought
into unity in Christ and into right relationship with God, each other, and all
creation, then peacemaking and responsible care for the earth embody and
anticipate what that future will be.
If God’s kingdom on earth will be a place where love and justice reside in
fullness, then treating all people with respect, practicing compassion toward those
struggling to overcome poverty, and acting to change unjust structures in
society are essential ways of expressing and implementing God’s present Kingship
over the earth now.
Empowered and guided by God’s Spirit and reflecting the servant character
of Jesus, our witness and work for a better world isn’t a sideline for Christ’s
followers. It is the way Jesus’ Lordship is put into effect now and a foretaste
of what the whole world will become.
Our calling isn’t to dominate or rule this present world -- no more than
it was Jesus’ calling. Rather we to live
as representatives of the Servant King, bearing humanity’s hurts and absorbing
its wrongs in ourselves, just as Jesus did, pointing the way forward to the
future God is bringing. This is our calling and mission as we “await and
hasten” (2 Pet. 3:12) his kingdom coming to earth in fullness, when heaven and
earth are made one, and the glory of God “will fill the earth as the waters
cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9-10).
Martin Shupack, August 27, 2012
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