God's New Creation

One thing I get a lot as a pastor is questions around the topic of the afterlife.  What will heaven be like? Who will be there?  When is the end coming?  These questions are undoubtedly important to each of us, as we want to have hope of a future after this life, and Scripture attests to God's promises of a new creation in the next life.  Now I'm not going to speculate anything in the future, mostly because Scripture is very difficult on the topic of exactly what the future holds and exactly what it will be like.  But I want to write today about what this matters for today.  The problem is that we assume that the next life--whatever it holds--is only relevant in the next life.  But the witness of Christian Scripture is altogether opposed to this view.  In Scripture, we are taught that the promise of God's future redemption is relevant for us right now, because God is already engaged in God's process of making all things new.  Let's look at this more closely and see why tomorrow matters for us today.

Let's begin with an example from the Book of Revelation, a vision from the apostle John which describes God's new world for us tomorrow.  Revelation 7:9-10 reads: "After this I looked, and there was a great crowd that no one could count.  They were from every tribe, nation, people and language.  They were standing before the throne and before the Lamb.  They wore white robes and held palm branches in their hands.  They cried out with a loud voice: 'Victory belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.'"  Here we have just a piece of the vision that John gives us which grants us some foresight as to God's future kingdom, when God will reign in full glory through Jesus Christ who sits at his right hand.  This vision makes clear that there will be people from all groups and nations represented in glory, rightfully praising God and perfected by God's grace.  Why does this matter for us today?  Because we know that through this vision, God intends for the Gospel to spread throughout the earth, that God is actively reaching out to people from all groups and nations and languages to join him in eternal glory.  Without this vision, we might be deceived into thinking that God's kingdom is somehow limited to people of certain types or backgrounds.  But one thing is clear--what these people have in common is their eternal victory song for the Lamb, Jesus Christ.

You see, if the next life only mattered tomorrow, we might be mistaken into thinking that we can simply sit and enjoy our Christianity at home as a personal faith that had no impact on the world around us.  But this is simply not the case--if God is expecting all peoples to join him in glory, then he must be expecting us to go out into the world to share the good news in preparation for this heavenly event.  God is not only interested in the outcome of eternity; he's interested in our engagement with other people right now, which was his plan all along.  In engaging with others, we not only help prepare heaven with all of the people who belong praising God, but we are actively forming a new world right here and now, a new reality which inches ever closer to God's final reality in eternity.

This is why Jesus does not only reach out to spread the truth of God's forgiveness, but also heals those who are ill and feeds those who are destitute.  Jesus is not only interested in "pie in the sky" that is offered for eternity, though that is certainly a primary concern of his.  Jesus seems equally interested in offering abundant life to people on earth right now in addition to giving forgiveness which leads to eternal life.  And this is the work of the church; not only to spread the word about God's ultimate victory over sin and death, but also God's healing for the nations as God blesses us with his goodness even in today's day and age.  When we compartmentalize Christianity as a religion that only offers us a promise for tomorrow, we destroy part of the truth of the Gospel, that God seeks to restore and reconcile humanity and all of creation here and now.  God has not abandoned us in this world, forsaking us to the evils and principalities of this world; God has come in Jesus Christ to show that God refuses to be God without us, even before he fulfills his final promise to establish his new kingdom, his New Jerusalem, right here on earth.

So when people ask me about heaven, or what happens after death, I don't always have an answer that satisfies them.  The fact of the matter is that God's kingdom is already coming, and this we experience as we live in Christ Jesus through a vigorous repentence and in loving service to our neighbors.  In fact, you have foretasted heaven already, if you have come to the Lord's Table with humility and emptiness, if you have served your neighbors with compassion and love, if you have joined hands with other Christians in passionate worship and intentional devotion together.  Certainly, this is not the end!  God promises a new heaven and a new earth wherein we will sin no more, and all the tears will be wiped from our faces!  But God is not delaying his work, leaving it for the future--he is already at work through us, the church, to establish his heavenly reign among us on earth forever.

How does this fact change the way you think about tomorrow?  How does this make you think a little differently about heaven?  We have confidence through faith that God has determined to raise the dead through Christ's resurrection; but even now that we live together, dead to ourselves and alive anew in Christ Jesus today and now, how does this grant us a foretaste of that heavenly banquet when we feast in victory at Christ's table for all eternity?