CREATION HOPE 21
Our final destination
What , then , is our final destination ? It is amazing ( and regrettable ) how many Christians believe that the world ends with us all leaving the earth behind and going off to heaven to live there instead . It may well be the influence of countless hymns that unfortunately use that kind of imagery of us going up , or going home , or going up to our eternal rest , but that is decidedly not how the Bible ends .
Now of course , there is an important truth that gives great comfort and hope , that when believers die in faith and in Christ , they go to be with him – safe and secure and at rest , free from all the perils and suffering of this earthly life . But the Bible makes it clear that this ‘ intermediate state ’ ( as it is sometimes called , the ‘ state ’ of believers between personal death and the return of Christ ) is just that – intermediate – it is not our final destination to ‘ stay in heaven ’. The Bible ’ s final great dynamic movement ( Revelation 21-22 ) is not of us all going off up to heaven , but of God coming down here , bringing the city of God , establishing the reunification of heaven and earth as his dwelling place with us forever .
Three times the loud voice from the throne of God says ‘ with mankind , … with them , … with them ’ ( Revelation 21:3 ). We should remember that Immanuel does not mean ‘ us with God ’, but ‘ God with us ’. We do not go somewhere else to be with God ; God comes to earth to be with us – as the psalmists and prophets had prophesied and prayed for . ‘ O that you would rend the heavens and come down !’ ( Isaiah 64:1 ).
And in that new creation , with God dwelling at last in the cleansed temple of his whole creation ( so that no microcosmic temple will be needed , as John saw ), the tribute of the nations will be brought into the city of God – the ‘ glory of kings ’, purged and purified and contributing to the glory of God ( Revelation 21:22-27 ). 2
Conclusion
Here is a resounding paragraph from the Cape Town Commitment ( the statement of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation , 2010 ).
The earth is created , sustained and redeemed by Christ . 3 We cannot claim to love God while abusing what belongs to Christ by right of creation , redemption and inheritance . We care for the earth and responsibly use its abundant resources , not according to the rationale of the secular world , but for the Lord ’ s sake . If Jesus is Lord of all the earth , we cannot separate our relationship to Christ from how we act in relation to the earth . For to proclaim the gospel that says ‘ Jesus is Lord ’ is to proclaim the gospel that includes the earth , since Christ ’ s Lordship is over all creation . Creation care is thus a gospel issue within the Lordship of Christ . 4
What does all this mean for our ecological thinking and action in the here and now ? It means that in godly use of and care for creation , we are doing two things at the same time . On the one hand , we are exercising the present created role that God gave us from the beginning , and in so doing we can properly be glorifying God in all our work within and for creation . And on the other hand , we are anticipating the future role that we shall have in the new creation , when we shall then assume fully our proper human status as kings and priests – exercising the loving rule of God over the rest of his creation , and serving him as we do so ( Revelation 5:10 ).
Ecological action now is both a creational responsibility from the Bible ’ s beginning , and also an eschatological sign of the Bible ’ s ending – and new beginning . Christian ecological action points towards and anticipates the restoration of our proper status and function in creation . It is to behave as we were originally created to , and as we shall one day be fully redeemed for .
The earth is waiting with eager longing for the revealing of its appointed kings and priests – redeemed humanity glorifying God in the temple of renewed creation under the Lordship of Jesus Christ .
1 . E . g . in Old Testament Ethics for the People of God ( IVP , 2004 ), chs . 3-5 ; The Mission of God ( IVP , 2006 ), ch . 12 ; and The Mission of God ’ s People ( Zondervan , 2010 ), chs . 3 and 15 .
2 . I have discussed the theme of new creation , and what is implied by the glory and splendour of the nations being brought into the city of God , in The God I Don ’ t Understand : Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith ( Zondervan ).
3 . Colossians 1:15-20 ; Hebrews 1:2-3 4 . Cape Town Commitment , I . 7 . a .
Chris Wright
Rev Dr Christopher J H Wright is the International Ministries Director of the Langham Partnership , which provides literature , scholarships and preaching training for Majority World pastors and seminaries . He taught in India for five years , and at All Nations Christian College , England , for thirteen years . As well as commentaries on several Old Testament books , his books include Old Testament Ethics for the People of God ; The Mission of God ; The God I Don ’ t Understand ; and The Mission of God ’ s People . Chris was the chief architect of The Cape Town Commitment – from the Third Lausanne Congress in October 2010 . Chris and his wife Liz have four adult children and eleven grandchildren and live in London , as members of All Souls Church , Langham Place .