Western Christians have imagined that, at the end of the day, God is going to throw the present space-time universe into a trashcan and we'll be sitting on clouds playing harps. The ultimate future that we're promised is much more interesting than that. It's new heavens and a new Earth with new bodies to live in.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the Christian understanding of the afterlife is more profound and transformative than commonly imagined.
N. T. Wright challenges the simplistic view of the afterlife as a mundane existence in the clouds, and instead presents a vision of a new creation, signifying renewal and transformation. This perspective emphasizes that the ultimate promise for believers involves not an escape from the physical world, but a restoration and enhancement of reality, where individuals will embody renewed existence in a re-created world.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to illustrate a richer understanding of the afterlife.
The resurrection completes the inauguration of God's kingdom. . . . It is the decisive event demonstrating thet God's kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven." "The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it.
True worship doesn't put on a show or make a fuss; true worship isn't forced, isn't half-hearted, doesn't keep looking at its watch, doesn't worry what the person in the next pew is doing. True worship is open to God, adoring God, waiting for God, trusting God even in the dark.
Most of the things that really matter require faith. How do I know that my wife loves me? How do I know that Mozarts Jupiter Symphony is sublime and beautiful? There are all sorts of things which come at a more lowly level than that - How do I know that two plus two equals four? There are different layers, different types of knowing.
To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry.
Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.
I'm not a universalist, and the way I talk about final loss is this: People worship idols - money, whatever. Their humanness gets reshaped around the idol - you become like what you worship. That's one of the basic spiritual laws.
God seeks comrades and claims love,_x000D_ _x000D_ The devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.
A law is something which must have a moral basis, so that there is an inner compelling force for every citizen to obey.
If we say that we have no sin, We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us. Why then belike we must sin, And so consequently die. Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions.
The more I think about it, the more there is to be said for the sloth. He sleeps fifteen to eighteen hours a day and is known to have taken forty-eight days to travel four miles. He hangs in the trees after he's dead. But he lives longer than the cheetah.
Accidents, try to change them - it's impossible. The accidental reveals man.
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