Tuesday 26th May - Rethinking Heaven & Hell – It’s not just about me and it’s not just spiritual

DAILY BYTE

At some point in time, Christian notions of salvation became both incredibly selfish and individualistic: Jesus was presented as nothing more than a passport guaranteeing entry to a better country. This kind of thinking tends to see the earth much like it was presented in the movie Wall-E - as being so trashed and messy that it would be better off for humanity to leave it all behind. So the plan is that one day Jesus will arrive to whisk Christians off somewhere better while the rest of it be damned.

In the 80’s there was a popular book called ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ which summarized this tendency – earth is gonna be smashed so get on the heaven bus while you still can. As the Christian rock pioneer once sang, we’re only visiting this planet.

Based on these assumptions, Christians have at times been pretty sour on creation. We have not cared for or stewarded creation as we are commanded to do in Genesis, but rather treated everything as disposable products ready to be used and consumed. After all, we think to ourselves, it’s all going to burn anyway!
You may be surprised to learn that this kind of thinking is actually thoroughly un-Biblical! As Romans 8 reminds us the WHOLE of creation is groaning, awaiting its final redemption.

John Ortberg writes that biblically speaking, “Redemption is always the redemption of all creation. God never creates something in order to destroy it, and if it goes wrong he intends to redeem it”. Revelation 21, which is a vision of the end of all things, provides a picture not of us disappearing in the nick of time whilst the earth is engulfed with flames, but of heaven coming down to earth! This passage of Scripture describes a new heaven and a new earth which does not mean a different heaven and earth but rather that the originals been redeemed, restored and transformed. Much like the Bible describes us as ‘new men or women’ after we have been re-born in Christ.

Yesterday, I mentioned that we would be focusing on a few different misconceptions of salvation, and this brings us to our first, which is that salvation is NOT JUST ABOUT US! God’s saving work is intended for all creation itself. This thought leads us directly into another very common misconception regarding salvation which is that it is NOT JUST A SPIRITUAL MATTER.

We imagine heaven and hell to be places where our spirits will exist but our bodies remain behind. This thinking comes not out of Scripture but out of the teachings of the Greek philosopher Plato who believed that our bodies, and in fact all material things, were inherently evil and should be done away with – thus salvation could be seen entirely as a spiritual affair.

Central to the New Testament promise is that we will all experience a bodily resurrection (as Jesus did). Nothing will be wasted, all will be redeemed. Where our bodies have been touched by suffering or evil, they will be healed and restored. In other words, God plans not just to save our spirits from death but our bodies as well!

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says that our present bodies contain the seeds of the bodies we will receive once death has passed. I am not sure what exactly our bodies will look like (or whether we will be taller or thinner!) but what the Scriptures are clear on is that we will have bodies and not just spirits. Essentially, all creation (all material things) are intrinsically linked to God’s great salvation plan.

If any of this confuses you, why don’t you spend some time carefully reading through 1 Corinthians 15 (where Paul develops his teaching of bodily resurrection). Jot down and pray over any questions you may have.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Holy God, sometimes my understanding of salvation is both selfish and individualistic. Help me to see how your dream is to redeem and restore all things and that you do not view material things as inherently evil, but rather you declare them to be good. Amen.

FOCUS VERSE

Roman 8:19-24 NRSV

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.