A New Heaven and a New Earth

Revelation 1:7–8

"Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

My friend's post went like this: "Can any of my Christian friends on Facebook enlighten me on whether the church preaches that the Book of Revelations [sic] is bound to happen sometime is mankind's history? Or the church believes it is an allegory for redemption, fall from grace, good triumphs over evil? and will there be really a Second Coming of Jesus Christ? As far as I am concerned, it is still/just a tour de force of literary fiction."

Where do we even begin with this? (with prayer ;) And then I thought to myself, my, we sometimes do not even know our own doctrine. It doesn't even have to be in depth, but at least the basics. I had a vague idea of the end times and I have always dismissed it as somewhat trivial to Christian Living – we're all going to die (either one by one or collectively with the universe) sooner or later. It is still good to know though, and so I launched into some crude research and surveyed different ideas within the church and I was not surprised to learn that a lot concerning the Doctrine of Last Things is disagreed on and even hotly debated (as with a lot of other Christian doctrine): The Rapture, the Tribulation, Preterism, the nature of our own resurrection, the rising of the dead, and the Millenium Kingdom. Be that as it may, we can establish a few facts as answers to my friend's public question: (1) Yes, End Times is 'bound to happen sometime in mankind's history', and that yes, (2) there will be 'really a Second Coming of Jesus Christ'. It is interesting to note that we have a variety of sources in the Bible of end times prophecy and (3) the Doctrine of Last Things is not limited to the Book of Revelation by the apostle John. We have teachings of our Lord Himself in what is called "the Olivet Discourse" in the Gospels (Mark 13, Matt 24, Luke 21), when He discussed with His disciples in the Garden of Olives. We also have it in the letters of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor 4) and Thessalonians (1 Thes 4, 5, 2 Thes 1, 2), letters from the apostle Peter (2 Pet 3) and others (1 John, Jude, Old Testament: Isa 9, 11, Dan 7) and all these are likely literal-historical references to End Times Prophecy and our Lord Jesus Christ's Return. So did I publicly answer his question? Well, I was very tempted to, but no, I did not. What is amazing to me is the discernment that God brings when we prayerfully consider questions such as this from our prebelieving friends and most of the time not answering is simply the best response. Kindly note: Such instances really require extra thoughtfulness, consideration and a prayerful grasp of the overall situation—your relationship with that friend, your prayer life about him/her, face-to-face interactions, and other context clues; although I am always ever so eager to give an answer to anyone who asks me *seriously* about my Christian worldview, I do not for a moment advocate jumping into all kinds of discussion and debate, especially online, whenever we get the chance). The Holy Spirit leads us to dig deeper through prayer, and more often than not, He calls us to think about these critically – to evaluate the question itself, the circumstances that surround it (based on our own God-given judgment), and on another level, the spritual environment at play (based on the Holy Spirit's revelation in prayer). This lead me to question the earnestness of the questioner is posting this – My friend is an ardent and outspoken LGBT activism supporter and also calls himself "anti-organized religion" (he wants us to be disorganized instead, brothers ^^) his question itself reeked of prejudicial conjecture since he already started with his conclusion that this is all an "allegory" and some "tour de force of literary fiction", his mind is already made up whatever we might say isn't going to convince him other way, to state publicly such an otherwise private/personal question that can be googled/asked in private if one is seriously seeking the answer is something I am usually wary of. 

Someone else did reply, it was a common friend, our former professor, who is a very Liberal Catholic from the university. He replied: "It depends on what denomination is doing the interpretation :) better just focus on loving and giving... death and destruction are a certainty. :)"

My initial reaction to that was, "meh, that's not enough, in behalf of all Protestant Christians, I can do lightyears better than that!", "Last time I checked no major Christian denomination, including Roman Catholics, hasn't interpreted all this as non-historical", "without Christ, giving and loving are ultimately futile in the face of inevitable oblivion", and on and on my mind went. But I settled down, and thought, this answer is enough (in the non-disparaging sense that it was actually not wrong and it is just the right and timely response) for a question with questionable earnestness. I could be wrong, I could've just missed a genuine opportunity, but I was not warranted in thinking so. I prayed about it, for my friend, and looking back until now, it is clear that the direction was/is to choose my battles. I thought maybe the meat of the matter is that people are simply scared of the coming judgment – the idea that we will all be held accountable for our deeds and that there exists an objective criteria for such evaluation in Jesus Christ. It's rather sad, though a lot of times, and we can observe this without being presumptuous, that some of our friends have this unargued philosophical bias™ against the Gospel – this Good News that justice ultimately exists and will be served and that redemption is offered at the same time through our Lord Jesus Christ. It seems this good news of salvation is so often eclipsed by the "bad" news that we will all be held accountable for our deeds. An unargued philosophical bias™ is like this: "I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that." (Dr. Thomas Nagel). It is quite possible that the implication of struggling measuring up to that high standard of living that New Life Lifestyle is something some, if not most, find repulsive. GK Chesterton said, "It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting but that it has been found difficult and left untried". Difficult in what sense? Right then I was reminded of the Spiritual Rebellion (Revolution to its adherents) of this last 100 years in the words of Aldous Huxley: "..We objected to that morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom..." But even more so, this very same Message throughout centuries has changed hundreds of millions of hearts and that human civillization has been radically changed and in one sense, restored, what more then of the even better prospect of our Complete Restoration/Redemption from The Fall into a New Heaven and a New Earth?

Sidenote: Cosmology is the study of the universe. The study of its beginning is Cosmogony – a subset that deals with the past. There is another sub-discipline where cosmologists discuss the End Times as well (the future of the universe), and it is interestingly called Eschatology (which is also the theological term for the End Times Doctrine). What is more interesting, one of the descriptions of how the universe will end goes like: "Silently, and without warning of any kind, it came... The shock wave began at a particular but rather undistinguished point of space-time and then traveled outward at blinding speed, rapidly approaching the speed of light. The expanding bubble then enveloped an ever larger portion of the universe. Because of its phenomenal velocity, the shock wave impinged upon regions of space with no advance warning. No light signals, radio waves, or causal communication of any kind could outrun the advancing front and forewarn of the impending doom. Preparation was as impossible as it was futile. Inside the bubble, the laws of physics and hence the very character of the universe were completely changed. The values of the physical constants, the strengths of the fundamental forces, and the masses of the elementary particles were all different. New physical laws ruled in this Alice-in-Wonderland setting. The old universe, with its old version of the laws of physics, simply ceased to exist. One could view this death and destruction of the old universe as a cause for concern. Alternatively... as a reason for celebration. Inside the bubble, with its new physical laws and the accompanying new possibilities for complexity and structure, the universe has achieved a new beginning." —cosmologists Dr. Fred Adams and Dr. Gregory Laughlin, "The Five Ages of the Universe" Well, brothers, that sounds all too familiar. ;)

2 Peter 3:3–13

"First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything  goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells."

~27.10.2014