Trick question: "Where is the ultimate destination of the people of God?"
Heaven? I realised that playing harp in clouds, in endless singing doesn't appear to be very appealing to many Christians. They were positively terrified of boredom!
The language of 'departing and being with Christ' is the way NT writers express 'a temporary stage, ahead of the time when God will restore all things and will renew his people to bodily life, in the midst of His new creation'. (NT Wright)
Our final blessed hope is spoken in terms of the resurrection, not an 'eschatological escape' from the world.
"The ultimate future of humankind is not a disembodied existence somewhere OUTSIDE the material universe but rather IN a resurrection body HERE in space and time" (Ben Witherington)
Wow! In the glorified, new heaven and new earth, I hope to go scuba diving in the restored Dead Sea...
"Depicting humanity as struggling to escape an evil creation not only contradicts the goodness of creation but also insults the God who is responsible for it. In fact MISSION is God himself entering into our world and seeking to restore us and our environment to the GLORY God intended" (Ken Gnanakan)
Heaven? I realised that playing harp in clouds, in endless singing doesn't appear to be very appealing to many Christians. They were positively terrified of boredom!
The language of 'departing and being with Christ' is the way NT writers express 'a temporary stage, ahead of the time when God will restore all things and will renew his people to bodily life, in the midst of His new creation'. (NT Wright)
Our final blessed hope is spoken in terms of the resurrection, not an 'eschatological escape' from the world.
"The ultimate future of humankind is not a disembodied existence somewhere OUTSIDE the material universe but rather IN a resurrection body HERE in space and time" (Ben Witherington)
Wow! In the glorified, new heaven and new earth, I hope to go scuba diving in the restored Dead Sea...
"Depicting humanity as struggling to escape an evil creation not only contradicts the goodness of creation but also insults the God who is responsible for it. In fact MISSION is God himself entering into our world and seeking to restore us and our environment to the GLORY God intended" (Ken Gnanakan)
Comments
yes, i can't wait to explore the new heaven and earth too...it'll surely be beyond our imagination. :)
bonhoeffer reminds us about the reason we are such believers in resurrection, is precisely why Christians are/should be a people who loves the world too much...
amen to a more 'worldly' christianity...
AL is right abt the sea, always something scary and chaotic to the Jews who prefer land... (The folks in surfer's paradise must be moaning now)
But i speculate (no creedal certainty here) in the new cosmos, the spiritual and the material will be so intermingled that sea-water may not qualify as sea as we know it, but still be in liquid form.. heheh.... then i'd still have hope to be a whale-rider.