Prophecy charts. Best-selling books. Study Bibles organized around one position about the return of Jesus. Entire schools and movements centred on the sequence of events that would occur before the end. It wasn’t so long ago that you couldn’t avoid talking about the eschatology, the branch of theology that deals with the final events in the history of the world including the return of Jesus.
But now, many of us don’t talk or think about the it much at all.
I’m not arguing that we go back to the old arguments. But I am arguing that we need to emphasize three biblical truths again.
We need a clear picture of what happens after death.
The Christian faith is designed to help us face death with confidence, and yet I sense that many Christians only have a fuzzy idea of core Christian doctrines that should help us when facing our final test. Many seem surprised, for instance, at the physical resurrection of believers. They picture living in eternity as disembodied souls floating in the ether. I once heard a pastor at a funeral praise God the deceased had already experienced resurrection, even though the body lay in the casket before us.
When we die, believers will be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). That should give us hope; what lies on the other side of death is better than what we experience here. But that’s not our ultimate hope.
“Our ultimate hope is not simply to be with Christ in immaterial existence, but to have resurrected bodies,” observes theologian D.A. Carson. Scripture teaches that our bodies will be raised and transformed. We will live as physical beings forever (1 Corinthians 15).
We need the hope that the resurrection offers. We need be able to proclaim Scriptural truths at funerals and gravesides the provides hope for our future. We need a clear picture of what happens after death.
We need a better understanding of the new heavens and the new earth.
The first time I tried to teach about heaven, I failed. I didn’t have a robust biblical understanding of our future as believers. No wonder I didn’t hope for the new heavens and earth; it sounded unclear at best, and maybe even a little boring.
Scripture doesn’t explain every detail of our eternal home, but it describes enough that we should neither be unclear or bored. Revelation 21 describes “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,” and God making his dwelling with humanity. “We don’t hope merely for the day when we go to live with God, but ultimately for that final day when God comes to live with us,” writes Mike Wittmer.
Our future is on the new earth. While it will be vastly different from our current world, it’s also physical and will include much of what we know now, only better. “My understanding of Scripture suggests that the New Earth will include not only resurrected geographical locations but also resurrected cultures,” writes Randy Alcorn. “Every legitimate and excellent fruit of human culture will be carried into and contribute to the splendour of life in the new creation,” argues Cornelius Venema.
The new earth will be anything but boring. It will include culture, food, relationships, and more, except without the presence of sin and suffering, but including the presence of God himself. We need this hope.
We need to refocus on the Lord’s return.
Because of opposition, Paul left a new church full of baby Christians sooner than he would have liked (Acts 17:10). When he wrote to them a short time later, he spent a lot of time talking about the return of Jesus. Repeatedly, he mentions “the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:13).
The second coming is meant to give us hope and encouragement (1 Thessalonians 4:13, 18). It should cause us to stay alert and sober (1 Thessalonians 5:6). We can trust God even when we’re mistreated, because God will afflict those who afflict us, and grant relief to those who are afflicted (2 Thessalonians 1:6-7).
Teaching about the second coming isn’t reserved for advanced Christians. It’s the hope that every Christian owns, and that comforts and encourages us in the hardships of life.
I don’t advocate a return to the charts and conflicts over eschatological views, but I’d sure like to see us talk about the resurrection, new heavens and new earth, and the second coming of Jesus more than we do now.