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If you asked me what is one of the least understood, most important areas of theology, I would say, “It is the continuity between this Creation and the eternal destination of believers.”
Contrary to what many envision, the Bible always envisions an earthly destination for God’s people. We won’t spend eternity floating in clouds. (See quotes below).
Fortunately, there is an increasing recognition of the need for more teaching about the New Earth, including in the blogosphere.
Recently, the Jollyblogger has posted about a Nightline interview with N.T. Wright.
Tullian Tchividjian’s has developed this area on more than one occasion. See, for instance, his post about Cosmic Renewal.
Tangent on the Rapture
Dr. Jolly rightly questions one point by N.T. Wright.
One more caveat – while I do appreciate [N.T. Wright] taking some digs at the whole Left Behind phenomenon, there is a place in the interview where he says he doesn’t believe in a rapture. The interview seemed to cut at that point so I don’t know if he intended to elaborate on that or not. But left alone I think it is improper to say there will be no rapture. We do believe that a day is coming when the dead in Christ will rise and we will be changed (I Corinthians 15:51ff). So it is proper to believe in a rapture, we just need to specify that the bible doesn’t support all of the baggage that is loaded into the Left Behind views.
Rev Jolly rightly asserts that it is wrong to dispense categorically with the idea of the rapture. I concur, especially given that the word rapture comes from the Latin Vulgate translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 – - completely dispensing with the idea of “rapture” would mean eliminating that verse from the Bible – - though, like Pastor Jolly, I don’t accept all the Left Behind baggage that comes along with it.
Below are Some Important Quotes About the New Earth
Seiss quote. “If the nature of the fall was to destroy the existence of man as a race and to dispossess him of his habitation and mastery of the earth, the nature and effect of the redemption must necessarily involve the restitution and perpetuation of the race, as such, and its rehabilitation as the happy possessor of the earth; for if the redemption does not go as far as the consequences of sin, it is a misnomer, and fails to be redemption.”
Ladd quote. “In typical dualistic Greek thought, the universe was eternal spiritual order. Salvation consisted of the flight of the soul from the sphere of the transitory and ephemeral; to the realm of eternal reality. However, biblical thought always places man on a redeemed earth, not in a heavenly realm removed from earthly existence (Ladd’s commentary on Revelation, 275).”
David Turner from Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary. “The new universe in Christ is none other than the old Adamic universe gloriously liberated from its cacophonous groan to a harmonious song of praise to the One who sits on the throne.” David Turner, ‘The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1-22:5: Consummation of a Biblical Continuum,’ in Dispensationalism, Israel, and the Church, published by Zondervan, 1992), page 265.”
“So the Christian hope is not merely that someday we and our loved ones will die and go to be with Jesus. Instead, the Christian hope is that our departure from this world is just the first leg of a journey that is round-trip (Mike Wittmer, Heaven is a Place on Earth, page 17).”
“. . . we earthlings are made to live here – - – on this planet. This is where we belong. We’re already home. . . So we may conclude that this world is not our home, but only if we’re speaking in an ethical rather than an ontological sense . . . We were made from the earth so that we might live here forever. In this ontological, though not ethical sense, we’re already home (Wittmer, 74,75).”
Gale Heide, writing in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (JETS 40/1 (March 1997), page 40, writes, ” . . .[there has been] neglect towards passages teaching continuity between the old and new earth. Certainly these problems are being corrected, but as yet the corrections have not reached the people in the pews.”
