Christian Eschatology: A Sketch

All things must come to an end, and there are two alternatives before us. They are life and death; and every one of us will have to go to his own particular place. There are two different coinages, so to speak, in circulation, Gods and the worlds, each w ith its own distinctive marking. Unbelievers carry the stamp of the world; while the faithful in love bear the stamp of God the Father, through Jesus Christ. (Ignatius to the Magnesians)i What is it that Christians hope for? The ultimate Christian hope has often been made into something like this: Jesus will come back. All the bad people will go to hell. All the Christians will live in heaven with Jesus. But the Christian hope, which we find in the New Testament, is markedly different from the popular answer above. The ultimate Christian hope is a hope that, when embraced, gives strength to weak limbs and sustenance to wearied hearts. When we read the letters of the New Testament and see that joy is often directly correlated to hope, we become confused: We have hope. Why dont we have joy in that hope? I believe part of the answer may lie in the nature of our hope itself; if we hope for that which is a mere caricature, or parody, of the genuine Christian hope, then hope-inspired joy can easily become nonexistent. The reason many Christians do not experience joy in hope is because either (a) their hope is ill-informed or (b) they dont understand the Christian hope at all. Christian eschatologythe understanding of what God has done, is doing, and will do in cosmic historyis drawn from two sources: first-century Jewish eschatology and the resurrection of Jesus. First-century Jewish eschatology can be diagrammed (shown below) as a straight line. Jewish eschatology anticipated whats known as The Day of the Lord, the day when their God would do many things: recreate the heavens and the earth, judge the pagan nations oppressing his people, Israel, and it also involved the exaltation of Gods people over their persecutors. Following the Day of the Lord, th e world would know a new day and age, when Israel would rule over a world reborn and flooded with peace, prosperity, and justice. Built into this eschatology was the coming of Messiah, the Anointed One, who would do several things, not least take center-stage with God in dealing with all the worlds problems. Messiah would rebuilt the Jewish temple in all its extravagance (which had been destroyed by the Babylonians centuries before and had been rebuilt without the splendor of the original) and lead the Israelites in military victory over the pagan nations, a victory both empowered and ensured by God, which would result in the recreation of the cosmos. First-century Jewish eschatology can be mapped like this:

Christian eschatology differs from Jewish eschatology, but not because the early Christians decided to throw out Jewish hopes for their own version. Christian eschatology is a reworking of Jewish eschatology. This reworking came about due to a peculiar and mind-blowing historical event: the resurrection of Christ. Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, but he didnt do what the Jews expected him to do; or, rather, he didnt do it in the way they expected him to do it. All the promises attached to Messiah either came true or are coming true. Did Messiah defeat the oppressive pagan nations? Yes, but not through the violence of the sword but through the paradoxical victory of suffering followed by a cruel death and resurrection. The pagan nations have been judged, the powers and principalities at work among them have been defeated, and Messiah rules over them from heaven, whether they admit it or not. And while the ultimate enemy in Jewish eschatology took the form of oppressive pagan nations (such as the Romans in Jesus day), the New Testament tells us that the greatest enemy, of which pagan nations are mere pawns, is evil, an enemy marked by sin and death, an enemy defeated in Christs death and resurrection. Did Messiah rebuild the temple? Yes, but not the physical temple in Jerusalem: the Jerusalem temple served as a foreshadowing of what was to come in Christ, and while the Jerusalem temple reached its destruction (for a second time!) in A.D. 70 under the Roman armies, the function of the temple namely forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with Godwas located in Messiah. Thus Jesus became the temple, and because all those who belong to Messiah are incorporated into him, the church has become the new Jerusalem Temple. Did Messiah exalt Gods people? Yes and nothe Christians who survived the destruction of Jerusalem experienced a sort of exaltation, but final exaltation has yet to take place. Did Messiah come to rule over the world? Yesfrom heaven, and his reign will not be complete until he has crushed all his enemies under his feet. Christian eschatology can be mapped out like this:

Thus we find that Jewish eschatology, with a clear divide between Epoch A and Epoch B, differs significantly from Christian eschatology, which embraces a two-part eschatology: first there is the resurrection of Jesus, inaugurating Gods new age, and then there will be the resurrection of all Gods people. The resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of all his people sandwich a period of time known as the present evil age. The one-stage Jewish eschatology became a two-stage Christian eschatology in light of Christ. New creation, the over-arching theme of eschatology, takes place in two stages: new creation (the remaking of the heavens and the earth) was inaugurated at Jesus resurrection, but it will not be consummated until Jesus returns.

Because Gods new age, his kingdom, has been inaugurated, but awaits completion, a term to depict the current state-of-affairs in Gods story has emerged: now but not yet. The kingdom of God that is, Gods rule on earthhas been inaugurated through the death and resurrection of Jesus. This inaugurated kingdom remains to be consummated, a future event which will take place at Jesus 2 nd Coming. What happened at Easter (inauguration) will be completed in the future (Consummation). In the meantime, Christians live in the present evil age, or the last days, or the end timesall terms that depict the time period between Easter and Consummation, none of which give any clue as to how long this time period will last. When Jesus returns, new creation will be completed, and all those things for which the Jews longed for (and for which Christians now long for) will take place: the exaltation of Gods people, the complete and total overthrow of the pagans, the full realization of Gods k ingdom, and the establishment of peace, prosperity, and justice. We find ourselves living in the in-between times, between Easter and Christs 2nd Coming. This interim period has been called limbo by some, but that word carries the idea that this present time is more or less a waiting stage, where we wait impatiently for God to finish what he started. But this interim period is important, because God in his wisdom has decided to have such a period, so that (a) more people will come to him, and so that (b) the church can be instrumental in the coming of Gods kingdom (noting, of course, that it will be God, and not the church, who has the last word and claims the victory). In 1 Peter 2.11, Paul identifies Christians as sojourners and exiles. Its been suggested that Peters addressing them as such because, due to the persecution theyve experienced at the hands of Roman officials and disgruntled pagans, theyve been ostracized from the larger community. While this may indeed have happened, this probably isnt all that Peter means. The very identity of exiles from a Jewish point-of-view carries with it all sorts of baggage, and Peter, knowing this all too well, chooses this title with purpose. Hes saying that Christians are exiles in the sense that this world is not our home. Christians belong, as St. Paul says in Philippians, to heaven, which isnt the place where Christians go when they die but the state of the world when God completely remakes it through Christ. Christians are new creations, and as such we belong to the future (when God will complete new creation) even though we live in the present world, a world marked with death and decay. This current physical world will not be destroyed, as some suppose, but will be made new, in all its glorious physicality. Christians belong to this future world, and thus we are exiles in the sense that were living in a world that isnt our home, a world still groaning for liberation from death and decay. When it comes to the study of eschatology, i.e. the study of what will happen in the Last Days, no two Christians seem to think alike. Books have been written on the subject, volumes upon volumes contrasting and comparing different views. There are at least 48 ways to interpret Revelation itself along the most popular approaches! What Im laying out here is simply what I believe to be a general approach to what will happen when Jesus comes back, and how these events relate to the redeemed. The return of Jesus is a one-time event of cosmological significance, a turning-point in the history of the world, and its comprised of not just one event (Christs return) but, at the least, five different but interconnected events: (1) The Appearance of Christ Jesus (2) The Glorification of the Redeemed (3) The Great Judgment (4) The New Creation (5) The New Future for the Cosmos

THE APPEARANCE OF CHRIST JESUS

The subject of Jesus 2nd Coming is rooted in scripture. While Jesus mentions it only a handful of times (most of the gospel texts that seemingly speak of Christs return are actually speaking about something entirely differentii), most of the scripture on the subject actually comes from the letters of St. Paul, the headlining ones found in Colossians 3 and 1 Thessalonians 4. Paul uses two Greek words to talk about this future event: phaneroo (Colossians 3) and parousia (1 Thessalonians 4). Both words serve as signposts to what the 2nd Coming is all about. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears [phanerothe], then you also will appear [phanerothesesthe] with him in glory. (Colossians 3.1-4, ESV) The Greek words highlighted above are often translated into English as some form of appearing. Instead of the coming well see associated with parousia in 1 Thessalonians 4, we have an appearing of sorts. Jesus is currently present in heaven, the realm of God, which is different from our plane of existence but closely related to ours, even intersecting ours in places. The idea of an appearing is the idea that the 2nd Coming is what happens when the curtain between heaven and earth is ripped asunder, when the entire world will be flooded with heaven, and those of us who arent in heaven become suddenly aware, either to our joy or horror, of the reality that Jesus is indeed King and Lord. Phaneroo implies that when Jesus appears, it wont be like hes descending to the earth like some Martian from a distant world. Theres no image of him moving geographically from one place to another (i.e. from heaven, which we often assume is located somewhere in Outer Space, to our little planet, the third rock from the sun). The idea isnt about geographical movement but about Jesus showing up where hes been all along: in heaven, but not that far away, eerily close. Heaven is different from earth, but the two interweave and intersect, and when the veil, often thin as a mere breath, is dissolved, and when the heaven and earth are welded together or married like we find in Revelation 21-22, the result is that Jesus will appear right where hes been all along: in heaven, ruling over the universe, subjugating all his enemies under his feet. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming [parousian] of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4.15-17) The word parousian is translated coming in English, and in our contemporary minds it quite easily invokes images of geographical movement: Jesus comes halfway down to earth, and then he stops (if you take verses 16-17 literally). The word in its ancient form has two connotations, one being religious and the other political.

The religious connotation speaks of the strange presence of a god or divinity, especially when this gods power was unveiled in divine acts of healing. Thus the parousia can refer to the power of gods making themselves known by their saving actions. The Jewish historian Josephus used this word when he wrote about God coming to the rescue of Israel. While Paul would do well to mean this and only this by his use of the word here, wed do well to take into account the fact that Paul often utilized political language of the day to speak of Jesus kingship and kingdom triumphing over the worlds kingship and kingdom (words like Lord, salvation, gospel, redemption, and savior were all political words used in reference to the Roman Empire). To sweep aside the political connotations of the word in favor of the religious ones, often simply because theyre religious rather than political, is to devalue what Pauls saying here. In the ancient Roman Empire, when a person of high rank, such as the Emperor, made a visit to one of his provinces or cities, that visit would be deemed his royal presence; in Greek, his parousia. Taking both the religious and secular connotations, we find a dynamic and breathtaking picture of what the 2nd Coming really is. Paul is saying that just as Caesar might make a visit to a colony like Philippi or Thessalonica or Corinth, so Jesus will make a visit to earth. Being a busy man, Caesar didnt make many impromptu visits to his outposts and colonies just for fun; his appearance was one that meant he was coming to personally deal with the problems within the provinces. When Jesus comes back, or, rather, makes his royal presence known, hell deal with the problems on earth, namely evil in all its guises. Jesus 2nd Coming is his appearing to rule over the entire world in person, so-to-speak, and that involves him vindicating the righteous and judging the wicked. Following that, Jesus will remake the entire heavens and earth, and it will basically be a return to Genesis 1 and 2. Evil is trying its hardest to destroy Gods good world, but God will have the final victory, will bring his world back to its full and intended beauty and life, and he will vanquish evil and history will be written anew. When Jesus returns with all the fanfare of a King coming to set things right in his kingdom (the herald of the archangel and the blasting of trumpets announce that the King has come), something strange happens: those who are loyal to the King go up into the air to meet him. When Caesar would be nearing the citys walls, his loyal subjects didnt just wait for him to show up; they streamed out the gates to align themselves with him, and then they returned to the city with him, to participate in what he was about to do. Paul, invoking this image, doesnt need to say what everyone knows: those who meet Christ in the air, those who are changed, dont stay in the clouds but return to the earth, and here the story gets even more interesting. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:2-3, Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?... Do you not know that we are to judge angels? It seems that Christians will have a role in the judgment of the world, but more on that in a moment. The return of Jesus Christ, that future event when the veil between heaven and earth is torn in two, when the realities of heaven become visible for all to see, will be a moment of great joy for those who are members of Gods family. It will be the end of the present evil age (Galatians 1.4) and the beginning of the restoration of all things (Matthew 19.28). For those who have refused to put their loyalty in Christ, that future day will be one of dread and horror. The hymn of Philippians 2 speaks of that future day when it says in so many words that all the people of the earth, the righteous and the wicked, will bow down before Messiah and confess that he is, indeed, King (2.10-11). This act of bowing down will be one of reverence and love for those who have served and worshipped him; but for those who have refused him, mocked him, ignored him, and tried to explain him away, it will be a bowing down born of the natural result of seeing reality for what it is, the natural result of false worldviews and meta-narratives crumbling in a single moment. Their hearts will rupture and their spirits will break; and just as a mother

collapses when she hears the news that her dearest daughter is dead, so it will be for those who have rejected Christ when they see that their perceptions and worldviews have been wrong. They will see, recognize, and acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Messiah and the King of the Cosmos. They will bow down before him because, as such, he is precisely their King. If a subject refuses to acknowledge his Lord as King, that doesnt change the fact that the Lord is his King. In the same way, Jesus is King, and those who reject him dont excuse themselves of their rebellion. He is still their King, and they have still been rebellious, and they will be judged as rebellious subjects.

GLORIFICATION
Glorification is a biblical word with echoes of the word glory. Glory, when used in reference to human beings, speaks primarily to the ruling-ship of human beings over creation. Harking back to Genesis 1, human beings were created as Gods image-bearers with the divine vocation of advancing Gods kingdom. Glorification is the return of human beings to the glory of God, ruling over all creation. When Jesus appears, those who are in him, those who have been justified, will be glorified (Romans 8.30). The redeemed will not only be vindicated (that is, they will be shown to be in the right by virtue of being in Gods covenant, vindicated above all those who have oppressed, persecuted, and mocked them), but they will be glorified before the entire world, and they will be glorified for Gods own glory. When Jesus appears, Christians, both the dead and the living, will be restored fully and finally to their truest identities as Gods image-bearers, and they will take their places over the renewed creation to rule over it with creativity and love. The first act of glorification, of ruling over the cosmos, doesnt take place once the new creation has been completed but before, at the Great Judgment (well get there soon enough). Intimately tied to glorification is the redeemed receiving new bodies. Paul talks about these bodies in 1 Corinthians 15. He says that these bodies are different than our current bodies, but the difference isnt that one is material while the other is immaterial. The difference is that one is natural, animated by natural powers and subject to decay and death, and the other is spiritual, animated by Gods own Spirit, not subject to decay and death. A spiritual body, as Paul puts it, isnt an immaterial body but a physical body that is animated by Gods Spirit. We dont know what these bodies will look like, and theologians down the centuries have speculated about it to-and-fro. Its all speculation and conjecture, and its fun to do, but in the end, what these bodies look and feel like will be a matter of experiencing for ourselves. Receiving resurrection bodies isnt just a reward of sorts for Gods people; its God giving his people the ability to live forever and to do his work without the limitations set upon us by our current bodies, animated by natural causes and subject to death and decay. These new bodies will be glorious, wonderful, and strong. We will be able to do the work that God has in mind for us to do when it comes to our roles in his new world. In this sense, glorification and receiving new resurrection bodies arent two disconnected future realities; they go hand-in-hand. Glorificationbeing wholly remade into the people whom God intends us to becant be done unless the body itself is new or, at the least, transformed. Ultimately, glorification and the associated receiving of resurrection bodies is about becoming the kind of humans that God has always desired us to be. We will receive new bodies, we will be vindicated above our oppressors, and we will exercise our God-given authority as his image-bearers and vice-regents before God even recreates the world: our first act of rule will be participating in the Great Judgment.

Christians arent the only ones who will receive resurrection bodies, however. St. Paul writes again and again of the future resurrection of believers, but he also speaks of the future resurrection of unbelievers. In 2 Corinthians 5.10, Paul says that all people, righteous and wicked alike, must appear before the Messiahs judgment seat, and for that (as implied by context) there will be the need for new bodies. In Acts 24.14, Paul in his trial before Governor Felix said, I have the same hope in God as [these respectable Jewish folk], that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. In John 5.28-29, Jesus says, [For] a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come outthose who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. The resurrection of the dead implies a bodily resurrection: resurrection, in Jewish thought, didnt happen unless there was bodily resurrection. Bodily resurrection is indeed a future reality for those who dont find themselves, at death or at the appearance of Jesus, within Gods family. The wicked will rise not for life, not for glorification and all it entails, but for condemnation: they are rising to stand bodily before the judgment seat of their King, to receive what they have courted for themselves for so long: destruction. St. Paul says of such people, Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. (NIV) We can assume that the wicked who are living when Messiah appears will be bodily transformed just as living Christians are bodily transformed (Philippians 3.20-21). Just as we speculate about what the resurrection bodies of the redeemed will be like, so now I ask, What might the resurrection bodies of the wicked be like? Certainly they wont be the same as glorified resurrection bodies, which will be given to those in Gods family. Just as the resurrection bodies of the redeemed reveal who theyve been all along despite the world not realizing it (Colossians 3.1 -4), so, too, perhaps, the resurrection bodies of the wicked will show that which has been a reality unseen in the body: dehumanization. Just as the cryptic prophecies in the Book of Daniel equivocate the wicked pagan nations rising out of the chaotic seas as fearsome and ugly beasts, so too it may be that the resurrection bodies of the wicked will be crafted in the same light: ugly, brutal beasts whose identities as sub-human are now evident for all to see. The most beautiful wretches in this world may be resurrected as unsightly, nauseating monsters. Just as the glorified resurrection body of the righteous point to the Christians identity as a full-fledged, healed, and restored human being, so, too, perhaps, the resurrection body of the wicked will point to their full-fledged, broken, and dehumanized states. All conjecture aside, at the appearance of Christ, the dead will be raised and the living will be transformed. All will receive resurrection bodies: the righteous will receive bodies for glorification, and the wicked will receive bodies crafted for destruction. In a great passage where St. Paul writes of the future resurrection body for those in Christ, he says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Corinthians 5.10) The wicked will stand before Messiah in judgment, and the resurrection body of the wicked will be there so that the person can, indeed, receive what is due, and, subsequently, receive it in the body. Following the resurrection of the dead, the righteous to life and the wicked to condemnation, comes the Great Judgment.

THE GREAT JUDGMENT

The subject of the coming judgment isnt in vogue within western Christianity these days (except for those ultra-fundamentalist churches where the Great Judgment has become the Great Victory over homosexuals). Our cultural and religious images of the Great Judgment carry so many negative

connotations that most Christians, in an effort to be hip and welcoming, sweep it under the carpet and only mention it ever-so-briefly when its brought out into the open by those with disdain for the subject. The Great Judgment is an uncomfortable subject, and we live in an age when churches value comfort over conviction, when pastors value how well theyre liked over and against how well they proclaim the gospel. That a day is coming when God will bring all careless and casual living to book, when he will deal fairly and decisively with his wayward creation (and not least with his rebellious image-bearing creatures) is uncomfortable. We dont like to think about such things; wed much rather dwell on sweet and pleasant subjects than on those that bring us mental discomfort. This perception of judgment, which makes us squirm is, to say the least, flawed. We perceive judgment simply as the moment when God will send all the bad people to hell; and while it does indeed involve the calling -out of all that is evil, including people, and dealing with that evil in the appropriate manner, judgment involves so much more. When one grasps what judgment truly is, he can, as the early Christians did, hope for it and celebrate it. The bible testifies that the future moment in history when the dead will be resurrected and judged for their deeds and for their hearts is something to be celebrated. Yes, it involves something unnerving to many of us: the destruction of the wicked. The Great Judgment, however, isnt just about what happens to the wicked; its about Gods final victory over evil. One might say that evil w as judged and condemned on the cross, and the Great Judgment is when the death sentence is finally carried out. The entire universe, the redeemed included, wont just breathe a hefty sigh of relief (though there will be that) but will leap up and down, weep tears of joy, and celebrate on the mountaintops and in the valleys. The psalms depict creation itself shouting in joy at the coming judgment, that moment when creation is liberated from the decay and corruption that has infected it since evils entrance into the world. The concept of the future judgment isnt a Christian invention. Its drawn straight from the Jewish worldview and finds its foundation in the Old Testament. In the Hebrew bible, the future Day of Judgment is referred to as The Day of the Lord (Malachi 4.1-3). For the Jewish person in Jesus day, the coming judgment, the future Day of the Lord, was the fulfillment of the age-old Jewish hope, the answer to all the lamentation in the psalms, and the final statement that God rules over the kingdoms of the mortals. The coming Day of the Lord incorporated many themes: it involved (1) the overthrow of oppressive pagan nations, (2) the vindication of all Gods people throughout history, and (3) Gods peace and justice flooding the cosmos. When God deals with the evil and creation and finally sets everything right, people will shout for joy, and Psalm 98 tells us the trees of the field will clap their hands in gladness. The Jews understood God not to be remote and far away, disinterested and detached from his creation; rather, God is concerned for his creation, and hes devoted and destined, according to his covenant with Abraham, to rescue his world; and this ultimate rescuing will take place at the Great Judgment. Faced with a world steeped in rebellion, the manipulation, exploitation, and abuse of others, a world flooding with wickedness, a good God must be a God of judgment. Judgment flows primarily from Gods love, not his anger; judgment isnt so much about God pouring out his wrath on all tho se who refused him, but its God, in his love, doing what hes promised to do: rescuing creation, all of creation, from microbes to galaxies, from lightning bugs to human beings, from the present state of death and decay. One of the most famous Old Testament texts on the Great Judgment is found in Daniel 7. In this apocalyptic text, the oppressive pagan nations are envisaged as ugly, nasty, and powerful monsters, reminiscent of something even Stephen King could hardly invent. Israel, the people of God, is shown to be a small and defenseless human being at the mercy of the terrifying and tyrannical beasts. The entire chapter is set out as a court scene that climaxes as the Judge, the Ancient of Days, takes his seat and rules

in favor of his terrified people against the brutalizing monsters. The son of man is then given authority and dominion over all the nations of the beast. When we come to the New Testament, we find Jesus calling himself the son of man, an echo of Daniel 7. He doesnt use this title to id entify himself with humanity; its his identification with the one who, in Daniel 7, is given authority and dominion over the nations, the one who will perform the judgment of the Ancient of Days. When this Day of Judgment comes, the son of man will deal with all the evil in within creation, not just that within Gods imagebearing creatures. The Bible tells us, not least in Genesis 3, that all creation is infected with evil. At the Fall, evil rippled throughout the cosmos. Like gangrene spreading throughout the flesh of the infected, so evil spread throughout the entire created order, affecting everything from the subatomic level to the organization of galaxy clusters. Human beings havent been left unaffected; outside Christ, outside the cross, humanity is enslaved to sin, infected with evil to the core. At the Great Judgment, God will eliminate all the evil that permeates and saturates his good and physical creation; evil has already been defeated in Jesus death and resurrection, but its limping around, bloodied and bruised, mortally wounded and destined for death and annihilation, though still wreaking havoc wherever it can. Many Christians fear the Great Judgment, afraid that when it comes, theyll somehow be punished. Many Christians are consumed by a fear that when judgment comes, theyll escape the wrath of God by only a hair, and the idea of being humiliated at the judgment, when our hearts and deeds are exposed to the world as if on some sort of big-screen HDTV, is nauseating to say the last. After all, we all have dark skeletons in our closets, things which only we and God know, things which we dare not even whisper in private, and the coming into the open of these things before the entire world, not least before those whom we love, is a terrifying thought. This fear, however, does an injustice to the biblical testimony. Yes, there will be a judgment by works; but this judgment by works, at least for the Christian, is a judgment focused on works done in the Spirit and for Gods kingdom, a judgme nt that will produce rewards rather than condemnation. The New Testament is adamant, again and again, that those in Christ are justified; this is law-court language meaning that, in the present and in anticipation of the future, the verdict of the Great Judgment has been drawn. The person who is justified is declared to be in the right. Christians have been justified; theyve already been judged, the Great Judgment has already taken place. The eschatological Judgment will be a reiteration and a cementing of the anticipatory judgment found in justification. The Christian who fears the great judgment hasnt grasped the beauty of justification, the evil-defeating reality of forgiveness, and the grace, mercy, and love of God that has been poured out upon those who have staked their lives to the cross. The Great Judgment, that moment when Christians will be vindicated, ought to bring hope and joyous anticipation for the Christian. We who are in Christ have already passed through the fires of the Great Judgment; for us, the Judgment will be one where we are rewarded for our faithfulness to God and for those ways we served him and advanced his kingdom in our earthly lives; when Judgment comes, we who are saved in the present will experience not humiliating condemnation but vindication and even participation in the Judgment following our glorification. One of the trademarks of the Jewish hope was the vindication of the true people of God over and against their pagan oppressors and the people-of-God-posers (those who were Jews by birth but who were disobedient before God and within the covenant). This theme of vindication is picked up in the New Testament. Jesus talks about it a lot, both in reference to his own vindication, which took place on Easter and then again with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and also in reference to the vindication of his followers, a vindication that took place with their escape and survival of Jerusalems destruction, an historical vindication that points forward to the future vindication of all Gods people at the Great Judgment. The future vindication of the people of God, reworked around Christ, is seen in Colossians 3.1-4. Paul is saying, If youve participated in the death and resurrection of Jesus, if youve

been raised to new life and have become members of the New Age in the present, then reorient your thinking around all of this. Dont be like everyone else, focusing on all that will decay and die. He adds, Your true identity is hidden with Christ in God. That is to say, while the redeemed may look like everyone else in the world, being of various social classes, male and female, slave and free, barbarian and Scythian, their true identities are cemented in heaven, in the realm of God. When Christ appears, when the veil between heaven and earth is dissolved, the redeemed will appear as well, their identities in Christ, formerly hidden in heaven, now made known to the world: When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. This vindication involves not only having the curtain drawn back so that everyone can see Christians for who they really are; it also involves their persecutors and mockers being confronted with the reality of their actions and being judged in relation to that. The vindication of the righteous is intimately connected with the judgment of the wicked, in which the righteous will play a part. Or do you not know, Paul quips in 1 Corinthians 6.2, that the saints will judge the world? If theres any confusion as to what he means, he says in the second part of the verse that the world will be judged by the saints. The saints will judge the world, and so the world will be judged by the saints. This idea of the saints partaking in the judgment on the world, especially in relation to those who have persecuted them, isnt a shot out of the dark but a common Jewish idea derived from Daniel 7, where the saints, the people of Israel, or at least the obedient Israelites, participate in the judgment of the monsters that rise up out of the sea, those pagan nations that oppressed and persecuted them. When the Great Judgment comes, when God will deal once and for all with the evil in the world, the saints will have a part to play, though the extent and nature of that part isnt explicitly laid out in the scriptures. When Jesus appears, his kingship will be shown to be a reality, and all his peoplethe dead who will rise from their graves and the saved who havent diedwill be vindicated above the wicked, they will be glorified and given new resurrection bodies, and they will take their seats of judgment. The scriptures dont tell us exactly what role were to play in the Great Judgment, but its relief enough knowing that we dont have to fear the Judgment at all, for There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8.1) But for those who are outside Christ, judgment is, indeed, something to be feared. Judgment necessarily involves Gods dealing with all the evil in his creation, not least in those dehumanized image-bearing creatures who have refused him. Mankind embraces courtship with sin and death, plunging into evil with laughter and singing, reveling in transgression like the Israelites partying around the Golden Calf while Moses climbs Mount Sinai. Ironically, those who celebrate evil are also enslaved to it; and in their celebration and indulgence of evil, they partake in its guilt. That God will deal with such people is an uncomfortable thought for many of us. We dont like the idea of God negatively judging those whom we love but who dont know Christ. Much of this might be due to our inability to see what wickedness really is. Wickedness is, according to the Old Testament, an abomination; and the Hebrew word for abomination literally means, that which makes one vomit. We human beings lack the faculties to see wickedness for its true colors; if we did, wed have bile creeping up our throats every time we saw some form of evil manifesting itself around us. The greatest wickedness isnt that people lie, steal, or even murder; its that we refuse to worship God and instead worship ourselves. Worship of the Self is the greatest act of idolatry, the idolatry in which all other idolatries find their niche, and when we worship ourselves rather than our Creator, we fail to live out our intended purpose as Gods image-bearers and instead become our own image-bearers. The person who rejects God is, at the heart, refusing to be what God has created him to be. He is saying No to Gods kingdom and Yes to his own. When judgment comes, God is, in effect, giving the person

what hes always desired: his own kingdom, albeit one of death and destruction. The person who refuses to submit to God and his kingdom will have no part in Gods future and fully realized kingdom, not just because he didnt make the cut but because, throughout the entirety of his life, he consistently rejected it. Those who have worshipped themselves rather than God as Creator, those who have persisted in lives of idolatry, those who have continuously rejected the offer of grace and mercy, those who have dehumanized themselves, some to the point of being beyond hope and beyond pity, will be dealt with as they deserve. Non-Christians laugh about the future judgment in mockery. I once met a man who he worshipped the devil and was excited about the coming judgment, because then hed give God the finger. Hes grossly mistaken: in Psalm 2, the Gentiles tremble with Messiah is enthroned, because they know whats coming. Unless that man repents, hell find himself collapsed on his knees in fear and trembling when Christ appears to execute judgment with his saints. The Christian doctrine of the future judgment goes beyond what happens to the wicked. It involves the declaration that God isnt finished with his world. He isnt just going to scrap the universe and throw it away (to do so would be akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater). God will renew creation, restore it, rescue it. A day is coming when God will do what hes always promised to do: he will deal with evil and restore his world, including his image-bearing creatures, to its good and rightful and originally-intended place. Those who have put their loyalty and allegiance in Christ will participate in that future day. In calling people to faith and repentance, were not just calling people to escape the destruction theyre courting for themselves; were inviting them into a future where they will receive new bodies and will dwell with God and with one another in a restored, pristine, and beautiful new universe free of death and decay. But for those who have persisted in dehumanizing, destructive, and rebellious manners of living, the future is bleak. Such living not merely invites but ensures destruction upon themselves and their world, both in the present and in the future. Jesus says in John 10.10 that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. This is a present reality for those who refuse allegiance to Christ, but following the Great Judgment, what is the future of the wicked? How does the stealing, killing, and destroying manifest itself in the world to come? That is the subject called Hell.

HELL
Following the Great Judgment, what happens to the wicked? Dont let anyone fool you: answers arent easy to come by, and any study of hell must take into account several different factors. The mere mention of the word Hell, for instance, draws forth from our minds all sorts of graphic images rooted in medieval imagery rather than in the Bible. When we imagine hell as this underground lair full of worms and rotting flesh and unquenchable fire, we not only do an injustice to the biblical texts but create a mockery out of a very somber reality. If we perceive hell to be some sort of divinely-wrought torture chamber, then we may as well question the biblical portrait of God. Our perceptions of hell are often rooted more in fable and folklore, in Dante and medieval paintings, than in what the Bible actually says. Compounding this, the words most often translated hell in our English bibles arent solidified in their meaning. In the New Testament, several Greek words are used. Theres the Greek word hades, which was the Greek underworld, where all the dead went (both the wicked and the righteous, though their experiences would differ; e.g., the heroic and virtuous would rest in the Elysian fields). Hades was used by Greek Jews to speak of the Hebrew sheol in their Greek bibles, which, like hades, was the underworld, where both the righteous and the wicked eventually wound up. Another Greek word,

popular with Jesus, was Gehenna, a geographical location outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem. It was called the Valley of Hinnom, and it had originally been the place of ancient Israelite child sacrifices to pagan gods, but by Jesus day it had become a sort of city garbage dump full of smoldering fires and trash. It was where the wasted, useless, and despicable wound up (interestingly, the language Jesus often uses to speak of hell is typical of ancient garbage dumps: the gnashing teeth of wild and feral dogs, the constant fires consuming the garbage, the maggots covering the organic materials, etc.). A third Greek word, found only in 2 Peter 2.4, is tartarus. In Greek mythology, this place was located within hades and was the dwelling-place for the most despicable people, a bottomless abyss that function as a dungeon of torment. Peter uses this word to depict not a final resting place but a waiting room, where the rebellious angels are enchained as they await the Great Judgment. Rather than trying to deduce from these word meanings and their surrounding contexts what hell geographically and literally looks like, we should rather be humbled in our perceptions of hell by the point that there is no single Greek word for hell, and each Greek word conjures up all sorts of denotations and connotations. While we in the West are accustomed to reading everything literally and informationally, that isnt how literature worked in the days of the New Testament. The ancient art of symbolism and metaphor was commonplace, and the writers of the New Testament, not least Jesus, utilized these linguistic tools. The language describing hell is often stock imagery from Jewish and Greco -Roman thought, symbols and signposts to a deeper reality. When we interpret things literally, perceiving hell, for instance, to be this dark pit where demons bite at the wicked and where worms crawl through their flesh and where bodies are burned by a black and unquenchable fire, we miss the critical points altogether. The New Testament writings dont seek to lay out doctrinal treatises on the subject but endeavor to bring about behavioral and cognitive changes in the hearers. Jesus words on hell, for example, are employed to warn the nationalistic Jews of their foolish endeavors for the purpose of changing their thoughts and behaviors. Most of Jesus warnings regarding hell were, we might say, political rather than religious. He proclaimed that if the Jews continued in their zealous, nationalist rebellion, they would indeed experience Gehenna: not some ethereal place that Jesus likened to the garbage dump, but the garbage dump itself. Jesus isnt just alluding to Gehenna; hes pointing straight at it! His message of repentance isnt one about escaping the miseries of the eschatological hell but of escaping the miseries of your corpse being thrown into the burning garbage dump outside the city walls. The hell Jesus speaks of most often isnt some eschatological torture-chamber but the direct result of what national rebellion would lead to: the Jewish nationalists would be squashed like bugs under the heels of Roman soldiers and cast outside the city to burn and rot (this all happened, by the way). There are two parables which could easily refer to an afterlife in hell, but these are parables, not descriptions of hell. The point of the parables (such as with the famous one about the Rich Man and Lazarus) is that justice and mercy must be implemented in the current life. Its a social message to a present reality. When it comes to the eschatological hell, Jesus doesnt say much. Most likely he agreed with the normal Jewish expectation of his day: that there was a thing called hell, certain people would experience it, and it would be preceded by the judgment. If were being honest, hell isnt that big a deal in the New Testament. Its simply not talked about that much. Paul only mentions it once (Romans 2.1-16) and perhaps one other time in 2 Thessalonians 1.9-10. In other New Testament books, hell is mentioned, it seems, merely in passing, and its almost always referred to as destruction, except for that strange tartarus text in 2 Peter 2.4. Revelation is unique in that hell is mentioned quite often, but before using any of it as a foundation for an understanding on the subject, remember that there are, at the least, 48 responsible ways of interpreting

the text. Standing on Revelation as a theological crutch is akin to standing on a wood-rotten rockingchair while screwing in a light-bulb. No matter how beautiful and wonderful that chair may be, theres always a good chance youll lose your footing and miss the goal entirely. Anyone who engages in a study of hell cant fault Martin Luther for tearing it out of his bible altogether. In light of all this, we cant be too careful in our study of hell. Theres no air -tight understanding of hell within the realm of biblical studies, and those who have spent entire lives seriously studying the subject will confess theyre still not sure if theyre even close to the truth. Taking all of this into account, I dont want to sketch out a diagram or map of hell, or talk about what people might experience there, but, rather, I want to lay out some of the more popular theological ideas regarding the nature of hell: eternal torment, universalism, annihilationism (a.k.a. conditional immortality), and two additional theories that have recently risen in scholastic thought. Eternal Torment is the belief that hell will be conscious torment for all time. All the wicked suffer eternally. They may suffer in a geographical place, or a spiritual place, but they suffer eternally for the things that they have done, as Paul says, in the body (2 Corinthians 5.10). Universalism is the belief that, eventually, everyone will get to experience life in the new heavens and new earth. Most universalists dont deny the reality of hell; rather, they insist that the time spent there wont last forever, and that after an interim period in hell, during which the wicked pay in full for all they have done in the body, even those who rejected Christ in their earthly lives will get to participate in Gods brave, new world. Annihilationism, also known as Conditional Immortality, proposes that the wicked will be destroyed, annihilated, will cease to exist. Immortality, adherents say, is a gift of God given only to those in Christ (2 Timothy 1.10), and the punishment given to the wicked is one of withholding. Thus their destruction is an inactive rather than active destruction: God isnt destroying immortal souls, hes simply not intervening in the mortality of the wicked. Some recent waves in the study of hell have come to two more interesting theories. One, advocated by the New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, is that some people will become so dehumanized that they come to the point of being beyond hope and beyond pity. Although once human, they have atrophied in their identities to the point of ceasing to be human in all senses of the word. Beings? Yes. But human beings? No. Perhaps hell, we might suggest, is what happens when a person becomes so dehumanized that he or she can no longer exercise activity as a human being, and though being present in the new heavens and new earth, is no more than a mere animal-like creature. Another interesting theory builds greatly upon Jewish nationalistic hopes. In Revelation 21-22, we find that there are those who are outside the New Jerusalem (the unclean, the fornicators, the liars), and thus we find a nice categorical picture of the Heavenly City: the righteous inside and the unrighteous outside. But things begin breaking down when we find, later in this passage, that the river of life flows out of the city, bringing healing to the nations outside the city, where the unclean, fornicators, and liars apparently dwell. Perhaps, some have said, hell is not the end of the story. Perhaps, just ma ybe, there remains hope for those who have found themselves outside the city. Perhaps Gods grace and mercy will reach farther and further than any of us have imagined. Discussions on hell ultimately boil down to conjecture. Where the Bible speaks, we spe ak; where the Bibles silent, we conjecture. No two people seem to think alike, and theres no shame in holding a minority viewpoint when the answers arent crystal clear (its funny how minority viewpoints often become majority viewpoints given the flow of time). At this moment, my own perspective on hell is a hybrid between Conditional Immortality and Eternal Torment. I believe that God is a just God, and that he

will deal with evil in an appropriate and fair manner. All evil will be dealt with as it deserves. Evil has already been defeated on Calvary, but the sentence remains to be, so-to-speak, carried out. To put it another way, evils been sentenced to the electric chair and is currently in the cell, defeated and dismantled, but its not yet been put to death. Gods dealing with evil must involve dealing with the evil of those human beings who havent received forgiveness, washing, and renewal in Christ. When we take Gandhi and Hitler, both who didnt experience the forgiveness in Christ but whose sins were drastically different, we must acknowledge that both will pay for their sins and that both will pay for their sins as they deserve, no more and no less, for if it werent so, it wouldnt be justice. If you punish too little, justice hasnt been done; punish too much, and justice has failed. Its my conviction that Gandhi will experience hell, though not to the extent of Hitlers experience. Hitlers evil far outweighs the evil of Gandhi; over against those who say that all sins are the same and that lying is just as bad as rape or that all people stand guilty in the same degree before God, I take seriously the reality of evil, the degrees of evil, and the fact that God despises some types of evil, such as child abuse and divorce, more than others. I take seriously, too, that justice in the case of lying will not be as severe as justice in the case of genocide; and thus Hitlers suffering in hell will be far worse than that of Gandhis. The experience of hell in degrees is no new idea: Dante popularized it with his infamous The Inferno. Wed do well to detach ourselves from Dante, from his graphic and lurid descriptions that entertain but fail to be of value in actual study. My point is that if God is just, and if not all evil is of the same degree, and if all evil of varying degrees is to be dealt with fairly and justly, then Gandhi and Hitler mustnt suffer the same. Eternal torment may take this train of thought and say that while both suffer eternally, Gandhis suffering is on a lesser tier than that of Hitlers. This is valid, and if it werent for two interesting points, I would adopt it. As 2 Timothy 1.10 states, immortality is a gift. Its not something human beings actively have. Its a gift given to those in Christ Jesus. The curse of Genesis 3 isnt so much that death entered the world but that death spread to human beings. Death was part of Gods good world since the beginning, as we see in the fossil record. Human beings, created special by God and of a different caliber altogether, werent subject to the same natural laws as Gods lesser creation. But when mankind sought to become like God in Genesis 3, the result was the opposite: we fell to become like the animals, subject to death and decay. We lost our immortality; we became mortal. Annihilationists parade the new term conditional immortality to distance themselves from the violence of the first, which invokes images of God taking a persons immortality and crushing it to dust. The second term implies that Gods role is passive rather than active, simply denying the person that which isnt theirs anyhow. In a sense, then, part of the torment of hell is the inabilit y to participate in the renewed creation, which may not sound like too big a consequence for many, but how many of us have been refused a great opportunity and have had, for whatever reason, to sit it out? The very nature of punishment as exclusion from the new heavens and new earth should key us in to the brilliant wonders of the recreated world. Secondly, Gods dealing with evil involves the eradication of evil. As long as there are still souls in hell, then the victory over evil hasnt been fully concluded. Taking these two points into account, I believe that a person outside Christ suffers exactly what he or she deserves and then is allowed, if I can use that word, to fizzle out. The person no longer exists in any shape or form, and thus has no consciousness. Ultimately, my perspective among all others is mostly conjecture. We simply dont have the information we need to answer the questions about hell. At the very least, hell as exclusion from the new heavens and new earth is punishment enough, as we shall see.

THE NEW CREATION

A few years ago, I was invited to teach a lesson on Heaven to a group of high school students. When I talked about how the Christians ultimate destination wouldnt be some pie-in-the-sky, ethereal world where wed sit in the clouds and play harps with our immaterial fingers, I caught a few strange looks. The puzzled glances quickly turned to shock when I told them that the ultimate Christian hope isnt an immaterial, supra-spiritual realm but a recreated physical universe in which wed dwell in recreated physical bodies. One girl exclaimed, Ive never heard any of this before! The contemporary Christian perception of heaven as a supra-spiritual and immaterial realm to which Christians go when we die has its roots not in the revelation of scripture but in the influences of Platonic and Gnostic thought. Plato taught that physicality is temporal whereas the spirit is eternal, and Gnostics preached that physicality is evil whereas the spiritual is good. Blend the two together, and what we have is a denunciation of the physical and praise of the spiritual. This isnt in any way scriptural. Indeed, the Jews taught that all of creation, in all its wondrous physicality, was good, and the New Testament doesnt deny this but upholds it, and with a promise: though now stained by evil, God will one day purge his beautiful physical creation not of physicality but of evil. The ultimate Christian hope is new creation, not the destruction of creation. The New Testament is resplendent with texts on the subject (Ephesians 1.10, Colossians 1.15-20, Romans 8.18-25, Acts 3.21, etc.), and in the Old Testament, we find several texts that speak of this new creation being a return, as it were, to the state of the universe prior to the Fall in Genesis 3 (Isaiah 25.1, 51.3, 55.13; Ezekiel 36.35). The most popular New Testament text is 2 Peter 3.11-13, and the power of the text lies in the fact that its often used to say the exact opposite of what its actually saying. Some Christians point to this text as proof that the universe will indeed be destroyed at the end of time, and that all of Gods people will dwell in heaven with God, enjoying a blissful afterlife. A closer examination of the text shows something remarkably different: This is now the second letter I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandments of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. (2 Peter 3.1-4) Peter isnt saying that these scoffers will arrive in the future last days, which some label the final years before Jesus reappearing. In early Christian thought, last days was a signifier of different periods of time, the periods to which the phrase points being determined by the context. Some references to the last days could refer to the final days before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70; here, however, we see in this context that the last days as the Christian depiction of the time period between Easter and Consummation. As such, these last days are no less a reality for us now in the 21st Century as they were for Peter and the original readers/hearers of this letter in the 1st. Scoffers have always been around, making fun of the Christian hope, pointing out that things just seem to keep going as they are with no change in sight. Scoffers ridicule Christians for their hope in Jesus coming.

For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (2 Peter 3.5-7) The Flood is one of Peters favorite stories: he used it in chapter 2, and he uses the Flood motif in his first letter, comparing the Flood in the days of Noah to baptism (1 Peter 3.20-22). The Flood, which didnt come about to destroy the earth, per se, but to renew the earth (and humanity, too, through Noah and his descendants) is compared to baptism in 1 Peter because, in the same way, what happens in baptism isnt about the destruction of the person (though by participating in Christs death and resurrection through baptism, the old self is destroyed) but the renewal of the person: the one of faith who is baptized into Christ is raised up into new life (Romans 6.3-4, Colossians 2-3). The synergism between baptism and the Flood is that while both involve the destruction of something, both have the purpose of new creation. The Flood imagery, which we find here in 2 Peter 3.5-7, only shows half the picture (well get to the other half of the picture in a moment). Peter is looking ahead, into the future, and doing this through the lens of the Flood. He harks back to the Flood story to make the point: yes, things are being stored up for the day of judgment and for the destruction of the ungodly. If we only look at half the story of the Flood, we see only the destruction; we miss what it was ultimately about: new creation. Sadly, many Christians stop here, or a few verses later, and declare that the physical world is being stored up for its destruction. But if we keep reading, things take a turn for the better. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. (2 Peter 3.8-10) Peter isnt advocating some strange mathematical calculation regarding how God perceives the space time universe. His answer to the scoffers is that theyre ignorant fools, unaware of the way things really are: God isnt slow, hes patient, waiting, holding out, and not just so the world can keep bathing in evil but so that more and more people can come to repentance. A day will come, however, when the time is up, and when that happens, the cosmos will be in for some big changes. The language of passing away and things being exposed (or laid bare) isnt to say that the world will be destroyed, as it might seem at first glance. Different theories exist as to the point Peters making with this language. Reformed theologian Wayne Grudem postulates that the laying bare refers to the surface of the earth being laid bare, not the earth itself (in the same way that the surface of the earth, and not the earth itself, was laid bare during the Flood). Theologian John Piper speculates that passing away doesnt imply the physical universe passing away as such but the present condition of the universe passing away, in the same way that a caterpillar passes away only to emerge as a butterfly. The tension between passing away and new creation isnt lost: its not a matter of disconnectedness but continuity. Another interpretation focuses on the Greek

word for laid bare, which can also mean to be found or shown. In this sense, the world will be exposed. Exposed to what? To Gods judgment. God will destroy the evil and refine the good. The destruction of evil and all its affects will take place, and new creation will be the end result. There is no thought within this text, unless one reads his presuppositions into the passage, of the universe being dismantled and destroyed, burned to a vapor and blown away in Gods judgment. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! (2 Peter 3.11Christian ethicsthe question of how we are to live our lives as the saints of God in Christfalters when it doesnt take into account the eschatological scheme of things. The letters of St. Peter frame Christian ethics again and again within the lens of eschatology. Here, in verses 11-12, Peter looks forward into the future and demands that the Christians should live as if this future were already here, a living that is characterized by godliness and holiness. We find, again, the language of the heavens being set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies melting as they burn. Destruction, destruction, destruction! Or is it? But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3.13) There you have it: the classic Jewish hope of recreation reworked around Messiah Jesus. The Jewish hope isnt discarded or abandoned but embraced and reshaped. New creation has been inaugurated in Jesus resurrection, and the day is coming when new creation will be complete. When the Day of the Lord comes, when the veil between heaven and earth is torn asunder and the Great Judgment begins, a new physical universe will be created, and Gods people will dwell in this new physical universe in new physical form. New creation will be cataclysmic, a purging of evil and a reawakening of Gods world as he created it to be and what God is determined it should be. All that is evil will be dissolved and all that is corrupted will be cleansed. Gods good world will be recreated, including redeemed mankind, and so Gods people will share in this act of new creation.

THE NEW FUTURE

Once new creation has been completed, what then? Life in the new heavens and new earth will be quite different, I think, than what many of us expect. There are hints and signs throughout the scriptures regarding what itll be like, but theres still a lot of ambiguity. God likes to surprise us. There are, however, a few things of which we can be certain. The world will be as God always intended it to be. There will be beauty of all fantastic conjuring: waterfalls, oceans, rivers and streams. Great prairies and savannahs, woodlands and jungles. The world will teem with all the creatures of Gods good creation. The universe will be a return to Genesis 1-2. It will be Revelation 21-22 come to life. There will be no sorrow, no crying, nor pain, and God will wipe the tears from everyones eyes. Life will be as we have always desired it to be but have been unable to

experience. That awful pursuit of happiness, a pursuit engrained into the deepest parts of who we are, will no longer be a pursuit but a reality. We will be happy. We will dance, celebrate, drink, perhaps even smoke. There will be great parties and barbecues and get-togethers in this new world of serenity, peace, and joy. The new creation will hold the gems of that life weve always dreamed of. This experience of heaven is the only experience, thus far, that is guaranteed for the Christian. In this life, one is subject to all sorts of experiences, but none are guaranteed. When Gods new world comes to birth, and when we dwell in it, we will experience, by virtue of it being the world God has intended, happiness and joy. This happiness and joy wont be confined to human beings alone; even creation itself, according to the psalms, will participate in our elation. Life for the saints in this new creation wont be one of crowding shoulder-to-shoulder in the New Jerusalem to worship God while the world does its own thing outside the city gates. Mankinds God-given vocation as image-bearers will be fully reinstated and realized. Mankind will advance Gods glory throughout all the world and, dare we say it, throughout the cosmos. Creativity, exploration, adventure, daring, the utilizations of all our talents and abilities and passions and uniqueness, all of this will become the tools of our trade to turn the wilderness of the world into the Garden of Eden. This is, after all, Gods original mandate to mankind in Genesis 1-2; he has not and will not abandon it. The new heavens and the new earth is a return to the first pages of the Bible. Its a return to the glory of God. Redeemed, restored, and glorified humankind will reign over the cosmos as Gods vice-regents. This is what God has always intended, and hell bring it to completion.

POST-SCRIPT: PARADISE
What happens when a Christian dies before Jesus appearing? Where do they go? Are they conscious? Do they exist in some sort of soul sleep, time passing absent their awareness? When it comes to the concept of heaven, and here I mean it as the place where Gods people go when they die, the Bible is surprisingly quiet. This place is mentioned in only a handful of New Testament texts: 2 Corinthians 5.8, Philippians 1.23, Revelation 6.9-11, and Luke 23.43. The latter text is where we find Jesus hanging on the cross and telling the penitent criminal beside him, Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. I capitalize the letter of that last word not because its a noun but because its a proper noun: Jesus is talking about a very specific and concrete place cemented in Jewish minds. The word paradise comes from the Persian word pairidaeza, meaning a walled park or an enclosed garden. This word was used to describe the great walled gardens of the Persian King Cyrus, not least the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Many Jews believed that God would restore Eden. The word paradise came to describe the eternal state of the righteous, and to a lesser extent the nature of the present heaven. Paradise wasnt invoked as mere allegory, with some strange metaphorical or spiritual meaning that we have to decipher. In Jewish thought it was a real place, be it physical or spiritual, where God and his people lived together, bathing in beauty and enjoying much pleasure and happiness. So what, then, is Paradise? It is, as Jesus says in Luke 23, the place where the saints go when they die. And heres the kicker: it could actually be the real-life, physical Garden of Eden. In Revelation 2.7, we find the tree of life in the Paradise of God. The same tree is seen later in the New Jerusalem on the New Earth (22.2). Remember: after the Fall in Genesis 3, God banished

mankind from the Garden and made it unreachable for them (Genesis 3.24). It may very well be the case that Eden didnt dissolve or disappear but, in a sense, was relocated. As a physical place, it very well may not have been destroyed. Theres no notion of Eden being torn of its physicality and stripped down into a mere spiritual reality. The tree of life, found in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2.9, shows up in Revelation 22.2 and then becomes a hallmark of the New Jerusalem. One can make the argument that the Garden of Eden is the Paradise of God, that physical place of beauty and rest, a place where the saints go and relax following their lives on earth, a place from which (as some texts seem to imply) they can rule presently over the world with Christ. Following the Great Judgment, Paradise/Eden will not be discarded or done away with: in the portrait of new creation in Revelation 21-22, the tree of life is smackdab in the middle of it all. Come the appearance of Christ and the Judgment, Eden will take its place in the center of New Jerusalem; but until then, I believe, it remains dislocated from us, and those who die in Christ spend their time there, resting and ruling with Christ, until the day Christ makes his triumphal entry to finally put all the universe to rights.

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Penguin Classics, Early Christian Writings, 72 Many popular End Times texts found in the gospels, such as Luke 17.20-37 and Matthew 24, among others, are pointing to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 rather than to Christs eschatological return to consummate Gods kingdom. The signs in these texts are signs leading up to that historical event rather than to signs leading up to Christs physical return. When Roman armies began to surround the ancient city, the Christians fled for the hills, interpreting Jesus prophecies in light of the great tragedy about to befall the city. The destruction of the city proved to the world, and not least to those who had put him to death, that Jesus was indeed who he said he was. This event was a judgment upon the rebellious Jews for their refusal to be loyal to him.