Tenet #12: We eagerly wait for the day of Christ’s return to restore a new heaven and a new earth.

How would it change your decisions in a situation if you knew how that situation would end? For example, the person in the car behind you is so close to your rear bumper that if the car gets any closer the driver will be in your backseat. Your blood would normally boil with anger, but you happen to know the future and you know he is going to get his just reward when a police officer gives him a ticket just around the bend in the road. How would that change your emotional response to his tailgating?

Or, you are invited on a blind date because your friend really wants to go out with a girl who has a sister that would be left behind. Normally, you are far too shy to go on that date. This time, you happen to know the future, and you know that you are going to meet the woman of your dreams. She will be the one that you marry one day, and with whom you will live happily ever after. Would that vision of the future bolster your courage to go on that date?

When you know the ending, it makes all the difference in how you face the present. The ending, the big ending at the end of life, for the Christian is conveyed in Revelation. Particularly in chapter 21, Revelation gives us a vision of the End, or Heaven. Heaven is eternal communion with God and all of his redeemed people. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’”(Revelation 21:3 ESV) We, and all who have ever placed their trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, will spend the rest of eternity in the visible presence of our Creator.

Heaven will be a place of joy and peace. Every one of our faculties will be satisfied. For example, our minds will be fully enlightened so that we will have answers to all of these questions we have about life now. Our wills will be content. Our bodies will be restored, and they will be freed from their current subjection to the laws of thermodynamics. The things that rob us of joy now will be gone. Sin will no longer exist. We will not experience temptation. The current consequences of a broken and sinful world will no longer burden us. In other words, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4 ESV) As you can see, it ends well for Christians.

This Easter it is appropriate to remember that this ending is secured through the Resurrection. The entire foundation of Christianity crumbles if the Resurrection is not true. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:16-17 ESV)

There are some Christians that believe that Jesus existed and was crucified, but he was not raised from the dead. Their reason for being Christian is based on the inspiration of Jesus’ life; a life they hope to emulate. It is crucial that we follow Jesus’ way of life, but, if setting an inspirational example was all that Jesus accomplished, then he did not achieve the victory attributed to him in Revelation. We would have no reason to hope in anything beyond this world.

To the contrary, the Christian has hope because of the Resurrection. Jesus lived a perfect life and allowed the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities to crucify him. Jesus really died. He didn’t pass out. There was no primitive anesthesia in that gall he drank on the Cross. He died like any human died, and he remained dead until the day after the Sabbath, or Sunday. God raised him bodily from death and gave him a Resurrected life. There were others that were raised from the dead, but they were returned only to die a physical death again. For example, Lazarus died and was raised, but he died eventually a physical death. Jesus was the first one of many God would raise to spiritual life.

In doing so, he changed the laws of Creation. Death no longer is the final word on existence. Sin no longer has the power to sentence every person’s life to spiritual death. Death itself died. As we sing in that great hymn “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”, “When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside; Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.”

Jesus will return to bring an end to this world, and the beginning of the full reign of the Kingdom of Heaven. The dead will be raised. Those who are named in the Book of Life will be raised to eternal life. Those who names are not there will die spiritually, and be separated from God forever. That latter is not what we would wish for anyone, but it is a result of the freedom God gives us. Far from wishing it, we work hard to be used by the Holy Spirit to ensure that as many as possible will join us in this heavenly vision.

You may have heard the old saying, “Begin with the end in mind.” It is a good idea for many pursuits, and that includes the Christian life. Knowing that Creation ends well changes how we live now. To live with the end in mind for us is to live with hope. If God can create a new heaven and new earth, then he also owns this heaven and this earth as well. We already live under the sovereign reign of God. Our security is already present. All of the resources of Heaven and Earth are available for God to allot them to our lives.

What is there to fear, then, in this world? How would you change your decisions on the big issues of life if you did not have fear? When you come to one of those forks in the road where you believe that one way may be safe but the other way may be more faithful to God, would it change your decision if you knew you had nothing to fear in this world? I’m guessing it would. When fear is gone, we don’t to worry about ourselves. We can do great things for God, which invariably brings peace and joy. All that is required is that we place our trust in Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives and as Savior of the World. Trust him now so that you too can know that your story ends well.

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Others have written on the topic of essential tenets. One author you may want to read is Mary Naegeli, who also uses the FOP/ECO Theology Project for her work, though her list has fewer tenets than ours. You can find her work here: http://wordtolife.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/are-you-ready-to-offer-some-hope/. Also FOP/ECO has a study document on the Theology Project, which is here: http://www.fellowship-pres.org/wp-content/uploads/ETL-Front-Matter-L130.pdf.