By Richard L. Floyd on 6/25/2009 11:44 AM

Might a robust cross-centered Gospel be the best stewardship tool? Read More »

By gfackre on 6/22/2009 8:50 AM

The life that lasts forever includes the redemption of a fallen nature. We have to do in the end with "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev. 21:1) as well as a New Jerusalem and new saints. The latter live in a new kingdom settled on a new earth under a new heaven. In such a redeemed creation the struggle for survival will be over, for "the wolf will live with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the kid" (Isa 11:6). The animosity between human nature and cosmic nature is finished for "the nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adders den" (11:18).

While the Western tradition had a place for the natural dimension of everlasting life, certainly so in its teaching on the resurrection of the body, it was the Easter Church that gave it special accent: "The whole of nature is destined for glory....The divine Spirit which in its fulness is poured out from Christ on all who believe in him, whose ... Read More »

By gfackre on 6/6/2009 7:11 AM

We look forward, as Christians, to an "everlasting" kingdom come, and in it the ultimate city of God (2 Peter 1:31; Luke 11:2, 13:29, 18:25, 22:16; 2 Timothy 4:18; Rev.21:10-26). Again the qualifier about the eschatological commonwealth, for we have to do with a realm like nothing we've seen on ourearth of ordinary flesh and blood (1 Cor. 15:20), a new Jerusalem "coming down out of heaven from God" (Rev. 21:10), not of human manufacture. The light imagery contrasts with the shadowy structures we inhabit: "It has the glory of God and a radiance like a rare jewel....And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb (Rev. 21: 11,23). And the coming together of waring states is so new to us, for "the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it" (21:24). In every systemic setting, justice will "roll down as like waters, and rightesousness like an ever-flowing strea ... Read More »

By gfackre on 6/2/2009 7:13 AM

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