The festive season might seem like it’s in full swing, but for Christians adhering to the Church’s traditional liturgical calendar, it’s still a time of anticipation known as Advent. This period, rooted in the Latin term for “coming,” is not only about preparing for the celebration of Christ’s humble birth but also anticipating His glorious return, as foretold in the Bible’s Revelation.
Throughout history, Christians have awaited Christ’s return, yet today, even among believers, there’s ambiguity about this hope. This article delves into the New Testament’s portrayal of Christian hope and what it truly signifies.
Contrary to a simplistic belief in an afterlife, orthodox Christianity speaks of the ‘general resurrection,’ as highlighted in Jesus’ words in John 5:25-29:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”
These words imply a universal resurrection led by Jesus, though not all will greet it with hope. Those who reject faith in Jesus face the ‘resurrection of judgment,’ a state described as eternal damnation. JI Packer elaborates on this fate:
“Jesus uses His own solemn imagery – ‘Gehenna’ (hell in Mark 9:47 and then other gospel texts), the valley outside Jerusalem where rubbish was burned; the ‘worm’ that ‘dieth not’ (Mark 9:48), an image, it seems for the endless dissolution of the personality by a condemning conscience; ‘fire’ for the agonising awareness of God’s displeasure; ‘outer darkness’ for knowledge of the loss, not merely of God, but of all good, and everything that made life seem worth living; ‘gnashing of teeth’ for self-condemnation and self-loathing. These things are, no doubt, unimaginably dreadful, though those who have been convicted of sin know a little of their nature. But they are not arbitrary inflictions; they represent, rather, a conscious growing into the state in which one has chosen to be. The unbeliever has preferred to be by himself, without God, defying God, having God against him, and he shall have his choice.”
Thus, those who have rejected Jesus will face a dreadful eternity of their own making. Conversely, those who believe and act in accordance with their faith will receive the ‘resurrection of life,’ a concept of eternal glory. Paul the Apostle describes this as an “eternal weight of glory beyond comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
CS Lewis and Tom Wright provide insights into this ‘glory.’ Lewis, in his sermon “The Weight of Glory,” reflects:
“… makes no immediate appeal to me at all, and in that respect, I fancy I am a typical modern. Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous. Either glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity. As for the first, since to be famous means to be better known than other people, the desire for fame appears to me as a competitive passion and therefore of hell rather than heaven. As for the second, who wishes to become a kind of living electric light bulb?”
However, Lewis continues:
“When I began to look into this matter I was shocked to find such different Christians as Milton, Johnson and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures—fame with God, approval or (I might say) ‘appreciation’ by God. And then, when I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.’ With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my life fell down like a house of cards. I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child—not in a conceited child, but in a good child—as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse. Apparently, what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years. prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures—nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator.”
He envisions a profound moment when a redeemed soul, beyond expectation, pleases its Creator:
“… when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero’s book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself; ‘it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign.’ ….It is written that we shall ‘stand before’ Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”
The New Testament further reveals that the blessed will have roles to fulfill. In Romans 8:29-30, Paul describes this life journey:
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
This reflects a Jewish belief that glory and divine appointment to rule are intertwined. Psalm 8:5-6 echoes this thought:
“… thou hast made him little less than God,
and dost crown him with glory and honour.
Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet.”
Paul indicates that through Christ, humanity’s lost dominion will be restored, leading to creation’s liberation (Romans 8:21). Tom Wright, in his commentary on Romans, explains:
“God’s covenant faithfulness was always about his commitment that, through the promises to Abraham, he would one day put the whole world to rights. Now at last we see what this meant. The human race was put in charge of creation (as so often, Paul has Genesis 1-3 not far from his mind). When human beings rebelled and worshipped parts of creation instead of God himself (Romans 1:21-23) creation fell into disrepair. God allowed this state of slavery to continue, not because the creation wanted to be like that but because he was determined eventually to put the world back to rights according to the original plan (just as, when Israel let him down, he didn’t change the plan, but sent at last a faithful Israelite). The plan had called for human beings to take their place under God and over the world, worshipping the creator and exercising glorious stewardship over the world. The creation isn’t waiting to share the freedom of God’s children as some translations imply. It is waiting to benefit wonderfully when God’s children are glorified. It is waiting – on tiptoe with expectation in fact – for the particular freedom it will enjoy when God gives to his children that glory, that wise rule and stewardship, which was always intended for those who bear God’s glorious image.”
The Christian hope, as Isaiah 11:6-9 poetically illustrates, envisions a harmonious world where:
“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
In this Advent season, Christians are encouraged to reflect on and share the hope of this better world yet to come.
This article was originally written by www.christiantoday.com
