Thursday, June 7, 2012

Is it Heaven, or something else?

I am currently reading from A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Today's offering was entitled "A Whole New Nature." This is an excerpt from his work, Miracles. He made the argument that, because of the physical characteristics of Jesus' body after the resurrection, a new environment was necessary. Although Jesus ate and drank with others, there was something different about his make-up, like the ability to show up in rooms behind locked doors, that necessitated a new Nature. This will presumably be the environment in which he is preparing a place for those who follow him.
This seems to agree with N. T. Wright's position as it was described in his Surprised by Hope. Rather than the blessed dead going to live in heaven, God is preparing a new Earth that will be inherited in the future resurrection. According to Wright, heaven is a place for God, the angels and other heavenly creatures. Humanity, however, is made for Earth. We should not look to some escape to heavens shores, but should be about Yahweh's work here, in the physical, earthy environment. God is  not interested in "unmaking, but of remaking." The business of living and breathing and cultivating and stewarding will be taken up in this new Nature. We should be about preparing for that business now.

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