The most original parts of my sermons are when I sing a pop song (Maroon 5 was my head's playlist today instead of the 80's), or when I spew my hatred of the New England Patriots or cats. I received this jewell of a text from a college student after church today: "Hello Mr. Moses! This is Rachel C. My dad wants you to know Jesus loves Tom Brady and my mom says Jesus love cats! Don't you want to be more like Jesus?" Now that's good biblical theology, Rachel. I am stumped and struggling to obey.
My best sermons are my own distillation of the teaching of much better biblical scholars and heady Christian theologians than myself, made hear-able by the afore-mentioned simplistic originality. I promised my next post would address the physicality promised in the Bible of 'the new heavens and the new earth.' The best I can do is point you to N.T. Wright's "Surprised By Hope" for a full treatment on the subject. Even better, read Randy Alcorn's "Heaven," the two books I recommended in my sermon on Death a week ago. Second best is to provide you with this excerpt from Wright. Enjoy, search the scriptures, and allow your paradigm of eternity to shift from conventional Christian to biblical.
"The Marriage of Heaven and Earth (pages 104-107, emphases mine):
We thus arrive at the last and perhaps the greatest image of new creation, of cosmic renewal, in the whole Bible. This scene, set out in Revelation 21-22, is not well enough known or pondered (perhaps because, in order to earn the right to read it, one should really read the rest of the Revelation of St John first, which proves too daunting for many). This time the image is that of marriage. The New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.
We notice right away how drastically different this is from all those would-be Christian scenarios in which the end of the story is the Christian going off to heaven as a soul, naked and unadorned, to meet its maker in fear and trembling. As in Philippians 3 (treated in previous pages), it is not we who go to heaven, it is heaven that comes to earth; indeed it is the church itself, the heavenly Jerusalem, that comes down to earth. This is the ultimate rejection of all types of Gnosticism, of every worldview that sees the final goal as the separation of the world from God, of the physical from the spiritual, of earth from heaven. It is the final answer to the Lord's Prayer, that God's kingdom will come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 1:10, that God's design, and promise, was to sum up all things in Christ, things both in heaven and on earth. It is the final fulfillment, in richly symbolic imagery, of the promise of Genesis 1, that the creation of male and female would together reflect God's image in the world. And it is the final accomplishment of God's great design, to defeat and abolish death forever - which can only mean the rescue of creation from its present plight of decay.
Heaven and earth, it seems, are not after all poles apart, needing to be separated forever when all the children of heaven have been rescued from this evil earth. Nor are they simply different ways of looking at the same thing, as would be implied by some kinds of pantheism. Nor are they are different, radically different, but they are made for each other in the same way (Revelation is suggesting) as male and female. And when they finally come together, that wil be cause for rejoicing in the same way that a wedding is: a creational sign that God's project is going forward; that opposite poles within cretation are made for union, not competition; that love and not hate have the last word in the universe; that fruitfulness and not sterility is God's will for creation.
What is promised in this passage then (Rev. 21-22), is what Isaiah foresaw (treated earlier in the book): a new heaven and a new earth replacing the old heaven and the old earth, which were bound to decay. This doesn't mean, as I have stressed throughout, that God will wipe the slate clean and start again. If that were so, there would be no celebration, no conquest of death, no long preparation now at last complete. As the chapter develops, the bride, the wife of the Lamb, is described lovingly: she is the new Jerusalem promised by the (Old Testament) prophets of the Exile, especially Ezekial. But unlike in Ezekiel's vision, where the rebuilt Temple takes eventual center stage, there is no Temple in this city (21:22). The Temple in Jerusalem was always designed, it seems, as a pointer to, and an advance symbol for, the presence of God himself. When the reality is there, the signpost is no longer necessary. As in Romans and I Corinthians, the living God will dwell with and among his people, filling the city with his life and love and pouring out grace and healing in the river of life that flows from the city out to the nations. There is a sign here of a future project that awaits the redeemed in God's eventual new world. So far from sitting on clouds playing harps, as people often imagine, the redeemed people of God in the new world will be the agents of his love going out in new ways, to accomplish new creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love...
"For in Christ all the Fullness was gald to dwell and through him to reconcile all to himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, through him--yes, things on earth, and also the things in the heavens." Colossians 1:19,20 (Wright translation)
As to the questions: "Will the old earth be destroyed? How familiar will the new earth be? What will the Great City be like? What will our resurrected bodies be like - will we eat and drink, know and learn? What will relationships be like? Will animals in habit the new earth? Will heaven be boring - will there be arts, entertainment and sports, and will we design crafts, technology, and new modes of travel?" you will have to read Randy Alcorn's excellent book on what the Bible teaches about "Heaven."
Stay thirsty, my friends. For the new heavens and new earth.
