HOPE! - ...and more hope!

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us…”

There are many distorted images that people have about the Christian hope. Platonism has distorted it by saying that the soul, and not the body, is eternal and is therefore all that really matters, leading Christians to partake in an escapist belief. People have lost the hope of the resurrection and the redemption of creation in the present sense as well as the future sense. Both are real, but not recognized.

God’s redemption will make everything new, and is already at work this present life. People mostly seem to think that the goal is to get to heaven some day after death. All eschatological thought then functions under the notion that God is going to destroy the world and take us to heaven so that we can get out of this mess. Christ’s return is not seen as the complete restoration of the created order in which we now play a part, but is rather the point at which Christ takes us “home to heaven” so he can damn the rest of his creation.

In short, people are generally confused, not understanding at all the implications of Christ’s incarnation, much less his resurrection and what that means for us.

The early Christians did not believe that the world was getting better over time, nor did they believe that the world was getting worse over time. “They believed that God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter.” The early Christians recognized the goodness of creation, the nature of evil, and the plan of redemption.

There are six themes in the New Testament writings that are laid out in relationship to this.

The first is “seedtime and harvest,” which is based on the resurrection of Jesus being the “first fruits” of the resurrection of all people. Because of Christ’s resurrection, we also may be resurrected.

The second is “the victorious battle,” in which the entire cosmos must submit to Christ, even death itself, so that Christ may make everything new.

The third is “citizens of heaven, colonizing the earth,” which meant that we would not depart into heaven, but that Christ will come from heaven to earth to transform everything and we will serve under him.

The fourth is “God will be all in all,” which means that “God intends to fill all creation with his own presence and love.”

The fifth is “new birth,” which speaks to how the whole creation is waiting to be freed from bondage and that when the children of God are revealed or resurrected the whole earth and the created order itself will be resurrected or renewed as well.

The sixth is “the marriage of heaven and earth,” which describes the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. This is the opposite of what a lot of Christians think, where they are brought up to heaven to meet God there. Heaven and earth are not opposed to one another, and they are not two different ideas conveying the same message. They are like male and female, who are made to be joined together.