Category Archives: Ethics

All Things New: God’s Bringing Creation to Its Glorious Destiny

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There is a fascinating website called “The High Calling,” dedicated to a Christian view of work and vocation. Each week they feature a different theme. The theme for the last week of October 2014 was “Designed to Work.” I recently posted (with permission) an article by Bob Robinson that was part of this theme, called “Made in God’s Image.”

Bob invited me to write an article on the theme for the second week of January 2015, which is “All Things New.” My article, entitled “Bringing Creation to Its Glorious Destiny,” tells how I moved from being a dualist, with a sacred/secular worldview, to embracing a wider vision of God’s redemption of creation.

I recommend you check out this wonderful website for its range of interesting articles (print and video) on a holistic view of work and vocation.

More Discussion and Clarification of My Views on Eschatology (Jesus Creed Blog)

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A couple days ago Scot McKnight (New Testament scholar; prolific author and blogger) posted a review of my book, A New Heaven and a New Earth. This generated a number of comments, some of which seemed to misunderstand what I was saying, so I responded with clarifications. I then got further questions, and I responded again. I’ve highlighted below some of my responses, for those interested.

The Motive for Ethical Living Today

One commenter wondered whether “new heavens and new earth eschatology should be a motive and basis for caring for creation and culture,” since there are people without this eschatology who are, in fact, concerned for this world.

This is how I responded:

I am basically a Wesleyan in orientation. This means that it isn’t some abstract concept of the eschaton that motivates me to care about this world. Rather, as one who passionately desires to be conformed to God’s image and thus to manifest what Wesley called “social holiness” in my life of discipleship, I want to love what God loves.

So I understand the promise of the renewal of creation, which began with Christ’s resurrection, and which can be a reality in the life of the church, to signify the heart of God.

My motivation to love the world (human and non-human) with God’s love, empowered by Christ’s Spirit, and thus manifest the imago Dei, is grounded in God’s unswerving commitment to humanity and creation after sin (see Genesis 9), and to Israel after the idolatry of the Golden Calf (see Exodus 34), and to the disciples after their abandonment of Jesus (and I could keep adding to that pattern, which recurs throughout Scripture), which culminates with the new heaven and new earth or the reconciliation of all things through Christ.

Have Christians Throughout History Always Thought of “Heaven” as Otherworldly?

On of the points that Scot McKnight himself raised in the review is that it is inaccurate to characterize all Christian speculation about the afterlife as otherworldly.

I responded:

I wanted to comment on your point that the history of eschatology suggests that not all Christian visions of the afterlife have consisted in an otherworldly, ethereal “heaven.” You’re absolutely right there, as I think my survey of eschatology (in the Appendix to my book) verifies.

However, you seem to be claiming more than I do, namely that it has been somewhat common for Christians to envision a new heaven and new earth as the final state (and you mention the history of heaven book by McDannell and Lang). I’m not sure I agree. Or, at least, it may be that I interpret the same data differently.

Part of the issue is that it has been typical to envision “heaven” in concrete earthly terms, while believing that it is some sort of hyper (non-earthly) reality. This is analogous to the point Caroline Walker Bynum makes in her book, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336. She notes that despite the influence of Platonism on Christian visions of the afterlife, the impact of the biblical teaching of the resurrection of the body led even those Christians who shunned a physical vision of the eschaton to conceive of immaterial “bodies” (whatever that means). Likewise, it seems to me that many have transferred concrete elements of the known world to the afterlife, even when the final reality is thought of as immaterial.

Beyond that, however, many Christians (especially in modern times) have envisioned the afterlife as a perfect replica of this world, without thinking of of it as the redemption of this world. Rather, what is envisioned is another, better world. To me, this difference is crucial, since it is the renewal of this world that articulates the vision I am interested in (even a replacement cosmos won’t do).

How Often Does the Bible Speak of New Creation?

One of the points McKnight made is that only Isaiah and Revelation speak of “a new heaven and a new earth,” so we shouldn’t think that this theme is all that common in the Bible. I was not the only person who responded to this point. One respondent pointed out the transformation of the cosmos mentioned in Hebrews 1 and 12, and in Romans 8.

So I joined the discussion:

I would agree that Isaiah 65:17-25 (also 66:22) and Revelation 21:1 aren’t the only places in Scripture that address the new creation. Beyond these two texts that explicitly use the phrase “a new heaven and a new earth,” there is 2 Peter 3:13.

But, of course, as you intimate, new creation is addressed in many more places in the Bible than where the phrase “a new heaven and a new earth” appears.

In the book, I address some of the clearest New Testament texts, such as Acts 3:21 (the restoration of “all things”), Ephesians 1:10 (the gathering up of “all things” in Christ), Colossians 1:20 (the reconciliation of “all things” in Christ), and Romans 8 (the liberation of creation itself from its bondage to decay, so that it might experience the same glory as the children of God). Both the Ephesians and Colossian texts specify “all things” as all things in heaven and on earth, thereby alluding to the cosmos God made in the beginning (when God created “the heaven and the earth”).

But many other texts also address the same reality, using different language. I actually address the text in Hebrews that speaks of the “changing” of the cosmos (parallel to Paul talking about being changed and clothed with the resurrection body, like a new suit of clothes, in 1 Corinthians 15:50-54).

So I think the theme of new creation is much broader than the phrase “a new heaven and a new earth.” Part of the thrust of my book is to show this pervasiveness, which is not limited to specific lexical items. The book is thus an attempt at a biblical theology of the eschaton, where the eschaton is the logical unfolding and natural telos of God’s purposes from the beginning for the flourishing of the world he made.

Whatever Happened to the New Earth?

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Here is  a post I wrote for the Baker Academic Blog, introducing my new eschatology book (it covers some ground I have previously blogged about). You can read the post in its original context on the Baker Academic Blog here.

My book, A New Heaven and a New Earth, has been a long time coming.

I wrote it over the last few years. But I’ve been working on it most of my life.

I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, and enjoyed the beautiful Caribbean Sea ever since I was a toddler. But it wasn’t until I was nineteen that I began to go on hiking trips to Blue Mountain Peak, the highest point on the island.

On one such trip, I watched a breathtaking sunrise at seven and a half thousand feet above sea level. After some minutes of silence, my friend Junior commented wistfully, “This is so beautiful; it’s such a shame that it will all be destroyed some day.” I still remember the dawning awareness: I don’t think it will be. It did not make sense to me that the beauty and wonder of earthly life, which I was coming to embrace joyfully as part of my growing Christian faith, could be disconnected from God’s ultimate purposes of salvation.

Cover ArtTracking a Worldview Shift

This basic intuition or theological insight was confirmed by my study of Scripture during my undergraduate studies at Jamaica Theological Seminary.

Most contemporary Christians tend to live with an unresolved tension between a belief in the resurrection of the body and an immaterial heaven as final destiny. Many also have in the back of their minds the idea of the new heaven and new earth (from the book of Revelation), though they aren’t quite sure what to do with it.

I myself started my theological studies with this very confusion. But as I took courses in both Old and New Testaments and tried to understand the nature of God’s salvation as portrayed in the various biblical writings, it became increasingly clear that the God who created the world “very good” (Genesis 1:31), and who became incarnate in Jesus Christ as a real human being, had affirmed by these very acts the value of the material universe and the validity of ordinary, earthly life.

More than that, I came to realize that the Scriptures explicitly teach that God is committed to reclaiming creation (human and nonhuman) in order to bring it to its authentic and glorious destiny, a destiny that human sin had blocked.

It was during my junior year of theological studies that I came to the startling realization that the Bible nowhere claims that “heaven” is the final home of the redeemed. While there are many New Testament texts that Christians often read as if they teach a heavenly destiny, the texts do not actually say this. Rather, the Bible consistently anticipates the redemption of the entire created order, a motif that fits very well with the Christian hope of the resurrection—which Paul calls “the redemption of the body” (Romans 8:23).

It was after this startling realization that I first challenged an adult Sunday School class I was teaching at Grace Missionary Church (my home church in Jamaica) to find even one passage in the New Testament that clearly said that Christians would live in heaven forever or that heaven was the final home of the righteous.

I even offered a monetary reward if anyone could find such a text. I have been making this offer now for my entire adult life to church and campus ministry study groups and in many of the courses I have taught; I am happy to report that I still have all my money. No one has ever produced such a text, because there simply aren’t any in the Bible.

The Bible’s Best-Kept Secret

After my theological studies in Jamaica I moved to Canada to pursue graduate studies. During this time I coauthored a book with my friend Brian Walsh on developing a Christian worldview entitled The Transforming Vision. This book not only advocated a holistic worldview, without a sacred/secular split, it also explicitly grounded this worldview in the biblical teaching of the redemption of creation, including both the physical cosmos and human culture and society.

After writing The Transforming Vision together, Brian and I teamed up some ten years later to address the implications of this same holistic vision for postmodern culture in Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be, which, like the former book, combined biblical studies with cultural analysis.

Since that time the focus of my research has shifted more and more toward biblical studies, particularly Old Testament, the primary academic field in which I teach and write. In all my teaching and writing the consistent background assumption has been the same basic vision of holistic salvation that I have been working with since my undergraduate days in Jamaica—though in recent years I have been able to flesh this out in much more detail.

This holistic vision of God’s intent to renew or redeem creation is perhaps the Bible’s best-kept secret, typically unknown to most church members and even to many clergy, no matter what their theological stripe.

Having had to explain that the Bible envisions a new earth as the final destiny of the redeemed in many different settings and to different audiences, I finally decided to write an article that would marshal the central biblical evidence (as I understood it) for a holistic understanding of salvation, with a focus on eschatology. The article, entitled “A New Heaven and a New Earth,” was published in 2006.

The Time Is Ripe

Soon after its publication Rodney Clapp, who was then senior editor of Brazos Press/Baker Academic, suggested that I turn the article into a book. “The time is ripe,” he said, over a spicy dinner of Thai food, for an accessible and clear book-length statement of holistic eschatology. This book is my attempt to respond to Rodney’s eschatological-sounding challenge.

Whereas earlier centuries have attempted to clarify theological topics such as the incarnation, the Trinity, or justification by faith, the twentieth century has seen more intense focus on eschatology than ever before. Yet much of this eschatological reflection has been confused and inchoate, conflating an unbiblical impetus to transcend earthly life with the biblical affirmation of earthly life. This is true among both professional theologians and church members, and also among Christians of differing theological traditions.

The time is ripe, therefore, for a clearly articulated Christian eschatology rooted in responsible exegesis of Scripture, which is also attuned to the theological claims and ethical implications of the Bible’s vision of salvation. This eschatology will also need to be serviceable for the church, pointing the way toward faithful living in the here and now.

This book is one small contribution toward such an eschatology. Its primary purpose is to clarify how New Testament eschatology, rather than being a speculative add-on to the Bible, actually coheres with, and is the logical outworking of, the consistently holistic theology of the entirety of Scripture. It is the primary purpose of this book to sketch the coherent biblical theology (beginning in the Old Testament) that culminates in the New Testament’s explicit eschatological vision of the redemption of creation.

Along the way the book also explores some of the ethical implications of holistic eschatology for our present life in God’s world. And it investigates what happened to the biblical vision of the redemption of the earth in the history of Christian eschatology, tracing the loss of this vision and its partial recovery in recent times.