“The striking thing about the Second Coming is that it will be the culmination of what is happening right here, right now. The new humanity is going to be finally and completely formed and born, but it is this world that is pregnant with that glory. The relief will be great, but it will be …
Pies, Heavenly and Earthly
“We have two directions in which we may look, and they are as follows. From the vantage point of our present suffereings, we may look back at the old creation, a creation which ends in the death of all living things. We may look to the way of the flesh, but the days of the …
What Abraham Saw
“Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ, and he was glad in it. But Abraham did not just rejoice to see a Christ with no particular job description. He rejoiced to see the Christ who would be the fulfillment of God’s promise to him, the promise that Abraham was going to inherit the world” …
Getting Good Back Into the Good News
[Concerning Gal. 3:8] “It says that he believed God. The gospel, as it was declared to Abraham, was that the heathen would all be converted. That is the gospel. That is what Abraham believed. That is what Abraham saw” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 32).
Two Mistakes
“Of course, there are two mistakes to avoid. We are talking about a complete transformation — not a minor refurbishment. One mistake is that of thinking this creation will be burnt to a cinder and not replaced, or replaced by something completely unrelated. The other mistake is that of thinking that this creation will simply …
Heaven As a Colonial Power
“How you take the line of the story matters a great deal. Many Christians believe the cosmos has an upper and lower story, with earth as the lower story and heaven as the upper story. You live the first chapters of your life here. Then you die, and you move upstairs to live with the …
And the Old Way is Closed Off Forever
“The materialism that came from the Enlightenment was a concerted way to get us back to the old way of knowing, the old way of relating to the authorities, the old way of dying. We are being asked to ‘know’ the world as though Jesus had not be raised from the dead in the middle …
The Plot Point of the Whole Thing
“So this means that the resurrection was not an odd event in the first century, with all ‘normal’ things staying just the same. The resurrection was the central event of all history, but we have to take this as the central event for all history. It defines history; it establishes the trajectory of the remaining …
The Future as God’s Gift, All of It
“The Lord’s promises to us are truly staggering, and it is not surprising that we cannot get our minds completely around it. But He delights to give to His people, and one of the greatest gifts that He has given to us is the future . . . What is the future of this world, …
And That’s Pretty Wet
“I asked earlier what the characteristics of His rule would be. The passage from Isaiah 11 should take your breath away. The earth will be as full of the knowledge of God as the Pacific Ocean is wet” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 16)