Let's begin with eschatology (ha ha, begin with the end) which is the doctrine of last things. I have always avoided the subject of escatology because I hate popular escatology. For example the left behind series makes me gag. I purposely avoided the classes in Bible school, yet I couldn't quite pin down what it is that really bothered me about it. I think it was this constant focus on when Jesus will come back and this tribulation stuff. Yet there was something more that bothered me and only recently have I been able to put my finger on it. Someone once asked me if I thought we were living in the “last days.” I responded with what Peter said on the day of Pentecost. “This is that...” Yes I think we are living in the last days and we have been living in them for the past 2000 years. Our problem is that we have allowed so called prophecy experts to tell us how to read our bibles. Peter quotes Joel and says it is here, right now, but as he moves through the passage we hear that the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon will turn to blood. These images, I don't quite grasp, but they seem to be for a future time period. Which brings us to the “now and not yet”. The kingdom of God (God's sovereign rule, see Ladd "Gospel of the Kingdom pgs 13-23) has broken into the present time and will come to completion at the end of this evil age. Why else to we read such language as “firstfruits”, “foretaste”, “downpayment” , etc. 1 cor. 13:8-12 also.
What if the goal of salvation isn't simply to redeme us and get us to heaven? What if it is to redeme us and give us back the stewardship we lost in the garden, in God's new heaven and new earth?
So, the sovereign rule of God breaks into this evil age and is right now bringing about his new creation, right now, though incomplete. Jesus rising from the dead means something way greater than I ever thought before.
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