The
New Testament writers recognized that God’s victory through the life, death,
and resurrection secured the future. The New Testament is full of visions of
God’s future. God’s future is bright and good. It is one of abundant love and
mercy. It is the full reversal of the effects of human sin and brokenness. It
includes the full redemption of all creation. It marks the return of shalom and
rest. It involves the climactic consummation of God’s future.
Our
day has seen an ongoing fixation on figuring out dates and time tables. The
Bible is mined ingeniously for insights used to predict the end of days.
However, this is not a missional approach to Scripture. As humans, we may long
to gain control of the future by
connecting it to our calendar of events, but this is not the purpose of the
eschatological visions of the New Testament. The New Testament writers describe
God’s future as a means of inspiring a courageous faithfulness in the present.
Since God’s future is secure, God’s people live as the people whom God created
them to be in the present. The New Testament’s eschatological vision subverts
the present struggles by proclaiming a dogged and audacious confidence in God’s
final victory.
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