Friday, July 13, 2012

Coming rather than going


"May we go where he is gone," we sing at the end of one well-known hymn, "rest and reign with him in heaven!" But that is precisely not the point that the New Testament draws from Jesus's resurrection. Yes, there is a promised rest after the labors of this life, and word heaven may be an appropriate, though vague, way of denoting where this rest takes place. But this time of rest is the prelude to something very different, which will emphatically involve earth as well. Earth -- the renewed earth -- is where the reign will take place, which is why the New Testament regularly speaks not of our going to be where Jesus is but of his coming to where we are.

N.T. Wright
Surprised by Hope

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