All Things New
It can feel like the only choices we have right now are blind optimism and cynical pessimism. But when we look to the end of history and see the trajectory of our Story in Christ, we find another option: radical, stubborn hope. Our story doesn’t end in ruin, but restoration!
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
1 Corinthians 15:19
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”
Revelation 21:1-5
Misinterpretation: We have a disembodied future in heaven away from an earth doomed for destruction.
“We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
“Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Matthew 19:28
Heaven must receive him until the time of the restoration of all things, which God spoke about through his holy prophets from the beginning.
Acts 3:21
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Colossians 1:19-20
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ…
2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-54
“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Luke 23:43
Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:6-8
The future that awaits us should transform both our presence and our posture in the world.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 6:10
People who believe in the resurrection, in God making a whole new world in which everything will be set right at last, are unstoppably motivated to work for that new world in the present.
N.T. Wright, Surprised By Hope
“I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.”
– Lesslie Newbigin
A lot of what we understand about our differences developed in our childhood. How did you grow up processing the differences between you and others in the world around you? Did you encounter or learn any prejudice or racism? Talk a little about your experience.