Douglas J. Moo
“I am making everything new!” proclaims the one seated on the throne (Rev 21:5). The story of the Bible is the story of the way our sovereign and loving God is “making everything new.” The sin of the first man, Adam, not only brought death to every human (Rom 5:12–21) but also subjected the entire creation to “frustration” and “bondage to decay” (Rom 8:20–21). God’s grand reclamation project extends to every part of the universe that sin has damaged. The cross of Christ provides the basis for this universal “reconciliation” as God works to bring everything in creation back under his sovereign rule (Col 1:20). Human beings, the crown of God’s creation, are the special objects of God’s reconciling work in Christ. But the plan of God will result, in the end, in nothing less than “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1).
Old Testament Promise
God’s plan to remedy the dire consequences of sin begins to take form with his promise to Abram (Gen 12:1–3). The promise is both particular and universal: Abram would become “a great nation,” and “all peoples on earth” would be blessed through him. The story of how God fulfills this promise focuses on the particular. Through successive generations of Abraham’s descendants, God forms “a great nation.” That nation, Israel, is birthed through the exodus from Egypt, and God’s giving of the law at Sinai provides direction and structure. Yet even as Israel stands poised to enter their new land, Moses hints that the people will fail to obey God’s direction and be exiled from their land (Deut 28:15–68; 29:20–28; 30:15–18). Yet exile will not end Israel’s story, for in his mercy God promises to restore his people to their land and to the blessing he originally promised (Deut 30:1–10). And so unfolds the sad story of Israel’s persistent unfaithfulness and the amazing story of God’s persistent faithfulness. Israel is finally exiled because of its sin, and God brings his people back from exile to their land again. Yet the return from exile falls far short of the glorious future that God promised Israel through the prophets (e.g., Isa 60). And so the OT story ends on the note of renewed hope for God to intervene in the future and fulfill his promises.
Those promises often focus on Israel’s settling securely in their land and prospering (e.g., Ezek 34:11–31). But the universal dimensions of the original promise to Abraham are by no means forgotten. The blessings promised to Israel and mediated through Israel’s ideal king (see Ps 72:17) would be extended to the Gentiles. Indeed, God’s promise will ultimately encompass nothing less than a new heaven and new earth (Isa 65:17–25; 66:22–24).
New Testament Fulfillment
“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (2 Cor 1:20). Paul and the other early Christians rejoiced to live in the era when God had fulfilled so many of these promises. The “last days” that the prophets predicted had dawned with the coming of Christ and the pouring out of the Spirit (Acts 2:14–21; 1 Cor 10:11; Heb 1:2). In a typological and spiritual reenactment of the exodus, God had “redeemed” his people, liberating them from the ultimate enemy: sin and death (Rom 3:24; 1 Pet 1:18). But God’s people are now defined not by ethnic origin but by faith in Christ, so believing Jews and Gentiles together enjoy the fulfillment of God’s promises (Eph 2:11–18). And the new covenant people of God not only rejoice in promises fulfilled but also keenly anticipate promises yet to be fulfilled.
NT eschatology is therefore marked by a tension between the “already” of promises fulfilled and the “not yet” of promises yet to be fulfilled. Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom reveals this tension: his power over Satan, revealed in his exorcisms, displays the kingdom’s presence (Matt 12:28), but he instructs his disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come” (Matt 6:10; Luke 11:2). Likewise, while celebrating believers’ “adoption to sonship,” Paul claims that believers “groan” in the present, awaiting “our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:15, 23). This two-stage fulfillment (called “inaugurated eschatology”) is a fundamental structure of NT theology and, by extension, biblical theology.
Therefore, as believers look back to and rest on the many promises already fulfilled in Christ’s first coming to earth, so they also eagerly anticipate the complete fulfillment of all God’s promises when Christ comes back again. The NT refers to Christ’s second coming with many words, but especially prominent is the word parousia (“presence,” “coming”). Jesus himself speaks of his parousia in the Olivet discourse (Matt 24:3, 27, 37, 39). While some interpreters think that Jesus is referring to his “coming” to judge Jerusalem in AD 70, Jesus is probably referring to his “return” to gather his own people (Matt 24:31) and judge his enemies (Matt 25:31–46). Paul speaks of Jesus’ parousia both as the “blessed hope” for God’s people for which they long (Titus 2:13; cf. 2 Pet 3:12–13) and as the time God judges his enemies (2 Thess 1:5–10). This dual focus picks up the two sides of “the day of the Lord” as the prophets present it (e.g., Isa 13:6–13; 19:16–25). Paul hints that this “day” has already dawned (Rom 13:11–14), yet he focuses on the “day” associated with Christ’s return in glory.
The NT typically presents the parousia as imminent (1 Thess 4:15; Jas 5:7–8; 1 Pet 4:7). Since Christ’s first coming inaugurated the “last days,” the next item on God’s agenda is consummating his redemptive plan. That consummation, associated with Christ’s return, can take place at any time. God has determined the time of this final act in the drama of redemption, but no human—not even Jesus himself—knows “that day or hour” (Matt 24:36). Believers live in expectation of that day, “watching” for it by conforming their lives to Christ’s image so that they can appear before him without shame (1 Thess 5:4–11; 1 John 2:28).
Since “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” believers must have their bodies “changed” when Christ returns to usher them into God’s eternal kingdom (1 Cor 15:50–52). Believers who are living will be transformed and taken up to “meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess 4:17), while believers who have died will have their bodies raised and transformed (1 Cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16). Indeed, all humans will participate in the final resurrection (John 5:28–30; Rev 20:5–6). Believers will be raised “imperishable” (1 Cor 15:52), destined for eternal fellowship with God in the new Jerusalem (Rev 21:2—22:5). Unbelievers, on the other hand, will rise only “to be condemned” (John 5:29; cf. Rev 20:5–6, 11–15). The unbelieving dead are consigned to “hell” (gehenna), where they experience unending punishment (Matt 25:46) or “destruction” (e.g., Phil 3:19; 2 Thess 1:9), which refers not to “annihilation” but to “undoing.”
Many Christians believe that the resurrection of believers and the resurrection of unbelievers will be separated by a period of time—the “thousand years” or “millennium” (Rev 20:1–6)—during which Christians reign with Christ on this earth. This “premillennial” view (Christ returns before the millennium) is countered by two other views, “postmillennialism” and “amillennialism,” each of which holds (in different forms) that the “thousand years” refers to all or part of the church age. Christians also debate the more minor issue of the relationship of a final period of intense “tribulation” (predicted in some NT passages) to the rapture (see 1 Thess 4:13–18 and notes). Whether believers are physically removed from the earth before the rapture begins (“pretribulationism”), are physically removed from the earth before the infliction of God’s wrath during the tribulation (the “pre-wrath” view), or are left on earth during these events (“posttribulationism”), the NT is clear that (1) believers, by whatever means, will be spared God’s wrath (1 Thess 5:9) and (2) believers will experience significant “tribulation” in this life (e.g., Acts 14:22).
The NT focuses on the fate of humans at the consummation. But the consummation ultimately includes more than humans. The OT often pictures the consummation in terms of the return of Israel to a prosperous and secure land. Some Christian interpreters think that the NT implicitly endorses this view of the future, suggesting that it will be during a millennial period after Christ’s return when these promises to Israel will be fulfilled. While Rom 11:25–27 may, indeed, suggest a spiritual future for some ethnic Israelites, other NT texts (e.g., Rom 4:13) suggest that the OT promise of the land is “universalized,” finding its consummation in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1). History ends, not with the annihilation of humans or the universe but with the eternal existence of humans in resurrected bodies and with believers joyfully inhabiting the new heaven and new earth (Rev 21:1) that Isaiah predicted (Isa 65:17; 66:22). This new heaven and new earth, since it is the place where God himself dwells (Rev 21:3), is appropriately also simply “heaven” (Col 1:5). The new heaven and new earth is “new” in the sense that it involves a thorough renovation of the present universe (2 Pet 3:10–12), a renovation that frees the very universe to be what God first intended it to be (Rom 8:19–22). Nevertheless, by climaxing his prophecy with the image of a city, the “new Jerusalem,” John implies that this renovated universe is particularly focused on the intimate eternal fellowship of God with his people (Rev 21:1–4).