B.(S.W)

The New View of Heaven Is Too Small Our recent emphasis on “kingdom work” misses the real hope of the afterlife.

J. TODD BILLINGS| FEBRUARY 15, 2018

Heaven isn’t what it used to be.

A friend of mine’s favorite Sunday school song growing up was

“Dwell in Me, O Blessed Spirit,” the first verse of which goes,

“Dwell in me, O Blessed Spirit, Gracious Teacher, Friend Divine.

For the home of bliss that waits me, O prepare this heart of

mine.” But my friend, Laura Smit, who is now a theology

professor at Calvin College, notes that this song is now revised in

the hymnal to read “For the kingdom work that calls me, O prepare

this heart of mine.” Apparently, those revising the song worried

that speaking of the “home of bliss that waits me” leads to

otherworldly passivity. Rather than prepare our hearts for the

“home of bliss” in the age to come, we should focus on “the

kingdom work that calls me.”

This revision reflects the broader trend of evangelical scholars and

pastors countering a wispy, ethereal view of heaven, separated

from our present life. Rather than use “rapture” movies to scare

non-Christians into faith so they are delivered from the burning

earth, these evangelicals insist that Christian hope is not for the

annihilation of the earth, but the restoration of all creation to

service of the Lord. Our heavenly hope is that the Lord sets things

right, and heaven comes to earth. Our kingdom work now

anticipates the new creation to come, in which we reign with King

Jesus in the renewed creation.

I embrace the main features of this counter-narrative to the

rapture account. Redemption restores God’s good creation.

Heavenly hope involves a material, embodied restoration. Heaven

and earth will come together as Christ’s kingship is recognized by

all creation. Moreover, we should embrace “the kingdom work”

that calls us, as the revised song states. Yet, I also sense that we

impoverish our hope for heaven when we turn it into an

expression of our current activist emphasis upon “kingdom work.”

Resurrection Hope in the Present Age

New Testament scholar Richard Middleton speaks for many in

this “kingdom work” movement in insisting that “we need to drop

pious ideas of a perpetual worship service as our ultimate purpose

in the eschaton.” Instead, we need to focus on what we will do in

the new creation. Likewise, in his popular recent book, All Things

New: Heaven, Earth, and the Restoration of Everything You Love, pastor

John Eldredge laments that “everybody I talk to still has these

anemic, wispy views of heaven, as a place up there somewhere,

where we go to attend the eternal-worship-service-in-the-sky.”

Instead, “the renewal of all things simply means that the earth you

love—all your special places and treasured memories—is restored

and renewed and given back to you.”

A watershed book for the recent discussion of these issues was N.

T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and

the Mission of the Church. Wright presents a forceful counter to a

“rapture-based” view of heaven where the earth is left behind. As

he does so, he presents a wide-ranging vision of how the church is

to “bring real and effective signs of God’s new creation to birth

even in the midst of the present age.”

A key verse for Wright is Paul’s admonition at the end of his great

exposition of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 to “give

yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that

your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (15:58). While many

interpreters understand this “labor” as preaching the resurrected

Christ (referenced by Paul several times earlier in the chapter),

Wright claims that all faithful actions in the Christian life will “last

all the way into God’s new world. In fact, it will be enhanced

there.” These actions give signs of what is to come:

What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing,

sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells,

campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy,

loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future.”

Christian identity in the present age and the age to come is framed

in terms of what we as humans do. For only will our own actions,

as “real and effective signs,” last into God’s future; in the coming

age God will undertake “fresh projects” through us as actors “in

his new world.”

Hopeful or Harmful?

While I celebrate Wright’s holistic vision in Surprised by Hope, his

account here creates more problems than it solves. What does it

mean for our actions to “last” into the new creation? Wright

unpacks his idea by saying, “I don’t know what musical

instruments we shall have to play Bach in God’s new world,

though I’m sure Bach’s music will be there.” Our present

actions—whether in composing a cantata or a poem or sewing or

caring for the needy—are signs of the coming new creation. But is

this really a healthy way to cultivate resurrection hope?

A friend of mine is facing death; he spent his life as an auto

mechanic. Will his repaired cars make their way to the new

creation? If not, why does Bach’s contribution have kingdom

value, while my friend’s does not? Likewise, a pastor in my home

state of Michigan mentioned to me that many members of his

congregation assume that there will be plenty of woods and deer

in heaven. So naturally, they fantasize about shooting a 39-point

buck in the heavenly woods. Can deer hunting be a clue, a “real

and effective sign,” of the coming new creation? Why include the

human labors of Bach but exclude those of Michigan hunters?

Middleton, Wright, and others have sought to counter a “boring”

view of heaven. But is the solution to focus on our own desires

and actions as “effective signs” and project them into the future? I

fear that such an approach does not generate a cosmic view of

2

God’s work in restoring the whole creation (as they desire), but

small, individualized versions of paradise.

Instead of this approach, we should rediscover the wisdom in the

historic Protestant notion that God provides “means of grace” to

the church—real and effective signs, through the Spirit, through

which the Father gives his people concrete foretastes of Christ’s

coming kingdom.

Preaching the gospel of Christ, as in 1 Corinthians 15, is the

Spirit’s instrument for transformation. In addition, many

Protestants add the sign-actions of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

These Protestant traditions assume that not all “spiritual

experiences” are equal—instead, we need to gather corporately to

hear Scripture proclaimed and to look to Christ himself as the one

who will give us a taste of heaven. For he is the one who has gone

to heaven before us, and through the Spirit, we are united to him.

Rather than discuss whether we will be pulling out rifles to shoot

deer in heaven, we need to hear, wash, eat, and drink the Word

together in these acts of worship, receiving real and effective signs

of the age to come.

Concrete New Creation Hope

How can the celebration of a sacrament, such as the Lord’s

Supper, lead us to properly cultivate new creation hope? When we

come to the Table, we enter into a corporate experience of

worship where the biblical images for the coming age are at the

center. Consider just two.

Temple: We come to Christ, the Temple, the dwelling place of God,

as people whose true identity is to be temples of the Holy Spirit.

Personally and corporately, we receive atoning forgiveness and

new life from Christ, the High Priest. We also feed upon Christ as

the manna in the wilderness—manna that provided a foretaste of

the promised land of milk and honey and was placed in the

Temple’s Holy of Holies.

Marital Fellowship: We celebrate together at the Table in joyful yet

aching anticipation of the wedding feast to come. In the Old and

New Testaments, the Lord speaks of his people as his spouse, and

Revelation speaks of the coming “wedding feast of the Lamb.”

This is not just an abstraction, either now or in the age to come.

As we celebrate the Supper now, we celebrate a foretaste of a great

feast that includes table fellowship with peoples of all nations and

cultures and ethnicities. We’re brought together as a people who

praise and delight in our life-giving spouse and lover, Jesus Christ.

These concrete “instruments” of the Spirit do not give us a to-do

list of tasks—for now or for the age to come. To the contrary,

through the Word and Sacraments, the Spirit does something

greater than disclosing a list of tasks: the Spirit reveals our true and

future identity in Christ, which even death itself cannot sever.

Thus, I’m left with a conclusion that is unfashionable at the

moment, against the grain of the cottage industry of recent

evangelical books: that it’s basically right to see worship as central

to the “purpose” of the eschaton. By this, I don’t mean that hitting

a high C in singing or mastering our footwork in the worship-

dance will be central. Rather, corporate worship is an appropriate

image for our final end because the Triune God and his glory will

be the central actors in the age to come. Our lives will be lived

only in him, always pointing beyond themselves to the Lord of life;

we won’t be defined by what we do.

The central question is not what we will do in heaven, but what

drama will we be incorporated into? If this is our question, we find

our acting instructions in receiving God’s Word in worship

exalting Christ our Lord, not in setting our eyes our own good

deeds of “kingdom work” now.

If we have a problem with imagining heaven as a gathering of

worship of the risen King, the real issue may be with our

expectations of worship. All too often, we would rather sing of

our own deeds now than to worship in anticipation of the delights

of communion with God and one another in the coming age. “Let

earth and heaven combine/Angels and men agree/To praise in

songs divine/The incarnate Deity” (Charles Wesley).

I recall a pastor of a church focusing on ministry to millennials

who shyly mentioned to me that in five years of ministry, he had

never even spoken of the coming culmination of the kingdom.

“We just focus on how we can participate in the kingdom in our

practices here and now,” he said. But as he said it, he realized that

there was something hollow about this. Is our action, our own

work, at the center of the cosmos? Does this really reflect Paul’s

lofty hope that the Lord is “achieving for us an eternal glory that

far outweighs them all” with our present order? (2 Cor. 4:17)

Paul, for one, values our all of our work as Christians as labor that

brings glory to God. Yet he declares, “to live is Christ and to die is

gain.” Fruitful work now is “necessary,” he says. But it pales in

comparison to Christian hope. “I desire to depart and be with

Christ, which is better by far” (Phil. 1:21, 23). We can and should

offer our lives as service to God in the world, whatever our

vocation and whatever our calling.

For both Bach and the auto mechanic down the street, heavenly

hope is not to keep doing what we have been doing or what we

wish we could have done in this earthly life. Life in the coming age

will be better because of who we will be: adopted children of the

Father who will be fully and completely united to the Son, Jesus

Christ. For “to live is Christ,” and we will never need to move

beyond delight-filled communion with our spouse and Savior and

Lord, Jesus Christ.

Accessed 15 February 2018 at

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/february-web-only/new-view-of-

heaven-too-small-resurrection-hope.html

1

Annotated Textbook Chapter Summary Writing Guide

The Basics: An Annotated Textbook Chapter Summary (ATCS) is a concise summary of a chapter or section of

a course textbook. It can serve several purposes in a course: (1) milestones helping you pace your pre-reading

for the class sessions; (2) solidifying your understanding of the reading as you process the material and consider

how best to summarize it; (3) assist with retrieving material you may use in class discussions, writing course

papers, and even after the course is completed; (5) provide insight for the professor into areas which may

require more clarification in class sessions.

Elements: There are 4 components for each ATCS entry: Thesis Sentence, Main Ideas, Application, and

Questions

Thesis Sentence: The first sentence is the thesis sentence—what the chapter is about. This sentence should be

general enough to cover the entire reading yet specific enough that someone who has not read the reading

would have a decent idea of the content and that if you came back to read it 2 years from now you would have

a good idea of the content. This must be a single sentence without semi-colons—although colons, dashes, and

even parentheses are allowed. Learning to express yourself succinctly is an important skill in our cultural

context.

Main Ideas: Following the topic sentence is a bullet point listing of the 4–6 most important or interesting

concepts found in the reading. If you have less than 4 points, go back and see if you can break one of the points

into multiple smaller points to use instead. If you have more than 6 consider how you can combine two or

more or decide which points to cut. Each point should have 1–3 sentences explaining the idea. Use citations

within square brackets (e.g., [13]) so that you can easily go back later and find the location of these main ideas.

Avoid large, explicit quotations from the reading—but you will often find you are lifting words directly from

the text, especially technical terms and phrases. These terms and phrases do not need to be placed within

quotation marks. Doing the Main Ideas is as much of an art as it is a science. Notice in the example below that

in the first point a general statement is made covering pages 8–10, but the next sentence goes back and provides

two additional details. The next entry, however, has two sentences that follow the page order. And the last three

all are single, complex sentences. All are fine—it is just a question of what makes more sense to you and will

help you recall the material when you go back to re-read it.

Application: For the application write 1–3 sentences regarding how an idea or a concept from the reading might

impact your individual life or that you could build a sermon around. If you choose the sermon option, please

include the primary biblical text you would use.

Questions: Finally, you will ask 2–3 questions regarding the reading, again arranged as bullet points. These can

directly relate to understanding the material, implications raised by the reading, questions regarding the

relative strength, etc. Each sentence in this section should end in a question mark—you are asking questions

here, not making comments. Provide a citation—this will help the professor have a better idea of what you are

asking about.

Example ATCS: Note I have indented the margins and changed the font to make it stand out from the rest of

the page:

Thesis: Argues for the priority of grace over alternative starting positions for theology.

Main Ideas:

2

▪ Doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation, taking the inter-trinitarian love of the Father and the Son as

the essence of God [8–10]. The author uses Augustine’s idea of the Holy Spirit as the mutual love of

the Father and the Son [9] and the social model of the trinity as proposed by Richard of St Victor [10].

▪ Grace as the extension of God’s trinitarian essence (love) to creation [13]. Grace precedes all other

relations between God and his creation including being sovereign or creator [15–17].

▪ The priority of grace demonstrated through biblical examples: the calling of Abraham [18], the exodus

preceding the giving of the law [19], and most crucially the incarnation [20–23].

▪ Distortions when alternative starting points are utilized: sovereignty [23–24], power [24], free will

[25], tolerance [26], and rationality [27].

▪ Pentecostal positions are explained in terms of grace including the nature and distribution of spiritual

gifts [28–9], prophecy [30–32], and physical healing [34].

Application: I tend to see sovereignty as the thing that makes God “God,” so Christianity is reduced to

obedience to God’s commands. But if God is essentially love, then God’s commands are based in

love (not just divine power) and my obedience is a loving response to a loving command—this has

a totally different feel to it.

Questions:

▪ Why isn’t the Father’s love for the Son part of the Father and the Son’s love for the Father part of the

Son instead of being a distinct person who is neither Father nor Son [9]?

▪ Does starting with grace [15–17] reduce God’s role to “God for me” compared to other starting points

like God’s sovereignty or glory?

▪ Does the author’s pentecostal background, with its emphasis on “gifts” [28–29] cause the author to be

more inclined to the idea of the importance of grace?

As you can see in the example, grammar is not the highest priority; instead, economy of expression in

communicating the content takes precedence. Even so, intelligibility, including spelling, is still expected for the

entries.

Assessment: Annotated Textbook Chapter Summaries are graded generously as long as it is clear to the

professor a good faith attempt has been made and all requirements are met—typically in the 85 –90% range.

Scores below 85% usually occur from not including an element (like forgetting citations) or failing to meet the

minimum or exceeding the maximum requirements—for example having 8 main ideas or having only one

question. Points may also be deducted for a late ATCS. Typically, ATCSs will not receive credit if they are

submitted after the class session where those readings are being discussed. Talk to the professor if a situation

arises that causes a problem submitting an ATCS on time.

Tips + Tricks: Here are few things that might help—none are required.

Compressing a Long Thesis: If you are having trouble coming up with a single sentence for your thesis here are

two approaches that can help. The first is to write out a multi-sentence thesis. Then try and compress it down to

just one sentence that has the most important parts in it. The second is to do the Main Ideas first, then look at

them and ask yourself, “what do they all have in common?”—that’s your thesis!

Cut and Paste: Some students may find it easier to do their ATCS entries in a Word document and then paste

the particular entry into the assignment on Discovery. This also makes it easier to go back and do a quick

review before the class sessions and doing projects.

Make a Template: The most common loss of points in an ATCS happens when someone (1) forgets to cite their

main ideas, (2) forgets each sentence in the question section ends with a question mark, and (3) doesn’t meet

the length requirements. To help avoid this, create a blank template within your Word document. Fill it out,

then copy and paste what you’ve written into Discovery. You’ll quickly see if you didn’t meet the assignment

requirements. For example: Assignment: Thesis:

3

Main Ideas: ▪ [] ▪ [] ▪ [] ▪ []  []  []

Application: Questions:

▪ [] ? ▪ [] ?  [] ?

In this example I put square brackets to remind me to cite and a question mark at the end of each question—so

that it doesn’t become a comment instead of a question. I also put the minimum number of bullet points with

one symbol (the square) and the optional ones with another symbol (the circle) to help remind myself of the

minimum and maximum. You don’t have to use this system (or do a template at all) but I just put it up here to

stimulate your thinking.

Start Early + Take Breaks: Annotated Textbook Chapter Summaries are a great way to help you read and process

the textbooks at a deeper level, but this deeper level takes more time. So starting earlier is better than starting

later and taking breaks becomes even more important as you work your way through these assigned readings.

The New View of Heaven Is Too Small Our recent emphasis on “kingdom work” misses the real hope of the afterlife.

J. TODD BILLINGS| FEBRUARY 15, 2018

Heaven isn’t what it used to be.

A friend of mine’s favorite Sunday school song growing up was

“Dwell in Me, O Blessed Spirit,” the first verse of which goes,

“Dwell in me, O Blessed Spirit, Gracious Teacher, Friend Divine.

For the home of bliss that waits me, O prepare this heart of

mine.” But my friend, Laura Smit, who is now a theology

professor at Calvin College, notes that this song is now revised in

the hymnal to read “For the kingdom work that calls me, O prepare

this heart of mine.” Apparently, those revising the song worried

that speaking of the “home of bliss that waits me” leads to

otherworldly passivity. Rather than prepare our hearts for the

“home of bliss” in the age to come, we should focus on “the

kingdom work that calls me.”

This revision reflects the broader trend of evangelical scholars and

pastors countering a wispy, ethereal view of heaven, separated

from our present life. Rather than use “rapture” movies to scare

non-Christians into faith so they are delivered from the burning

earth, these evangelicals insist that Christian hope is not for the

annihilation of the earth, but the restoration of all creation to

service of the Lord. Our heavenly hope is that the Lord sets things

right, and heaven comes to earth. Our kingdom work now

anticipates the new creation to come, in which we reign with King

Jesus in the renewed creation.

I embrace the main features of this counter-narrative to the

rapture account. Redemption restores God’s good creation.

Heavenly hope involves a material, embodied restoration. Heaven

and earth will come together as Christ’s kingship is recognized by

all creation. Moreover, we should embrace “the kingdom work”

that calls us, as the revised song states. Yet, I also sense that we

impoverish our hope for heaven when we turn it into an

expression of our current activist emphasis upon “kingdom work.”

Resurrection Hope in the Present Age

New Testament scholar Richard Middleton speaks for many in

this “kingdom work” movement in insisting that “we need to drop

pious ideas of a perpetual worship service as our ultimate purpose

in the eschaton.” Instead, we need to focus on what we will do in

the new creation. Likewise, in his popular recent book, All Things

New: Heaven, Earth, and the Restoration of Everything You Love, pastor

John Eldredge laments that “everybody I talk to still has these

anemic, wispy views of heaven, as a place up there somewhere,

where we go to attend the eternal-worship-service-in-the-sky.”

Instead, “the renewal of all things simply means that the earth you

love—all your special places and treasured memories—is restored

and renewed and given back to you.”

A watershed book for the recent discussion of these issues was N.

T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and

the Mission of the Church. Wright presents a forceful counter to a

“rapture-based” view of heaven where the earth is left behind. As

he does so, he presents a wide-ranging vision of how the church is

to “bring real and effective signs of God’s new creation to birth

even in the midst of the present age.”

A key verse for Wright is Paul’s admonition at the end of his great

exposition of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 to “give

yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that

your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (15:58). While many

interpreters understand this “labor” as preaching the resurrected

Christ (referenced by Paul several times earlier in the chapter),

Wright claims that all faithful actions in the Christian life will “last

all the way into God’s new world. In fact, it will be enhanced

there.” These actions give signs of what is to come:

What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing,

sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells,

campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy,

loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future.”

Christian identity in the present age and the age to come is framed

in terms of what we as humans do. For only will our own actions,

as “real and effective signs,” last into God’s future; in the coming

age God will undertake “fresh projects” through us as actors “in

his new world.”

Hopeful or Harmful?

While I celebrate Wright’s holistic vision in Surprised by Hope, his

account here creates more problems than it solves. What does it

mean for our actions to “last” into the new creation? Wright

unpacks his idea by saying, “I don’t know what musical

instruments we shall have to play Bach in God’s new world,

though I’m sure Bach’s music will be there.” Our present

actions—whether in composing a cantata or a poem or sewing or

caring for the needy—are signs of the coming new creation. But is

this really a healthy way to cultivate resurrection hope?

A friend of mine is facing death; he spent his life as an auto

mechanic. Will his repaired cars make their way to the new

creation? If not, why does Bach’s contribution have kingdom

value, while my friend’s does not? Likewise, a pastor in my home

state of Michigan mentioned to me that many members of his

congregation assume that there will be plenty of woods and deer

in heaven. So naturally, they fantasize about shooting a 39-point

buck in the heavenly woods. Can deer hunting be a clue, a “real

and effective sign,” of the coming new creation? Why include the

human labors of Bach but exclude those of Michigan hunters?

Middleton, Wright, and others have sought to counter a “boring”

view of heaven. But is the solution to focus on our own desires

and actions as “effective signs” and project them into the future? I

fear that such an approach does not generate a cosmic view of

2

God’s work in restoring the whole creation (as they desire), but

small, individualized versions of paradise.

Instead of this approach, we should rediscover the wisdom in the

historic Protestant notion that God provides “means of grace” to

the church—real and effective signs, through the Spirit, through

which the Father gives his people concrete foretastes of Christ’s

coming kingdom.

Preaching the gospel of Christ, as in 1 Corinthians 15, is the

Spirit’s instrument for transformation. In addition, many

Protestants add the sign-actions of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

These Protestant traditions assume that not all “spiritual

experiences” are equal—instead, we need to gather corporately to

hear Scripture proclaimed and to look to Christ himself as the one

who will give us a taste of heaven. For he is the one who has gone

to heaven before us, and through the Spirit, we are united to him.

Rather than discuss whether we will be pulling out rifles to shoot

deer in heaven, we need to hear, wash, eat, and drink the Word

together in these acts of worship, receiving real and effective signs

of the age to come.

Concrete New Creation Hope

How can the celebration of a sacrament, such as the Lord’s

Supper, lead us to properly cultivate new creation hope? When we

come to the Table, we enter into a corporate experience of

worship where the biblical images for the coming age are at the

center. Consider just two.

Temple: We come to Christ, the Temple, the dwelling place of God,

as people whose true identity is to be temples of the Holy Spirit.

Personally and corporately, we receive atoning forgiveness and

new life from Christ, the High Priest. We also feed upon Christ as

the manna in the wilderness—manna that provided a foretaste of

the promised land of milk and honey and was placed in the

Temple’s Holy of Holies.

Marital Fellowship: We celebrate together at the Table in joyful yet

aching anticipation of the wedding feast to come. In the Old and

New Testaments, the Lord speaks of his people as his spouse, and

Revelation speaks of the coming “wedding feast of the Lamb.”

This is not just an abstraction, either now or in the age to come.

As we celebrate the Supper now, we celebrate a foretaste of a great

feast that includes table fellowship with peoples of all nations and

cultures and ethnicities. We’re brought together as a people who

praise and delight in our life-giving spouse and lover, Jesus Christ.

These concrete “instruments” of the Spirit do not give us a to-do

list of tasks—for now or for the age to come. To the contrary,

through the Word and Sacraments, the Spirit does something

greater than disclosing a list of tasks: the Spirit reveals our true and

future identity in Christ, which even death itself cannot sever.

Thus, I’m left with a conclusion that is unfashionable at the

moment, against the grain of the cottage industry of recent

evangelical books: that it’s basically right to see worship as central

to the “purpose” of the eschaton. By this, I don’t mean that hitting

a high C in singing or mastering our footwork in the worship-

dance will be central. Rather, corporate worship is an appropriate

image for our final end because the Triune God and his glory will

be the central actors in the age to come. Our lives will be lived

only in him, always pointing beyond themselves to the Lord of life;

we won’t be defined by what we do.

The central question is not what we will do in heaven, but what

drama will we be incorporated into? If this is our question, we find

our acting instructions in receiving God’s Word in worship

exalting Christ our Lord, not in setting our eyes our own good

deeds of “kingdom work” now.

If we have a problem with imagining heaven as a gathering of

worship of the risen King, the real issue may be with our

expectations of worship. All too often, we would rather sing of

our own deeds now than to worship in anticipation of the delights

of communion with God and one another in the coming age. “Let

earth and heaven combine/Angels and men agree/To praise in

songs divine/The incarnate Deity” (Charles Wesley).

I recall a pastor of a church focusing on ministry to millennials

who shyly mentioned to me that in five years of ministry, he had

never even spoken of the coming culmination of the kingdom.

“We just focus on how we can participate in the kingdom in our

practices here and now,” he said. But as he said it, he realized that

there was something hollow about this. Is our action, our own

work, at the center of the cosmos? Does this really reflect Paul’s

lofty hope that the Lord is “achieving for us an eternal glory that

far outweighs them all” with our present order? (2 Cor. 4:17)

Paul, for one, values our all of our work as Christians as labor that

brings glory to God. Yet he declares, “to live is Christ and to die is

gain.” Fruitful work now is “necessary,” he says. But it pales in

comparison to Christian hope. “I desire to depart and be with

Christ, which is better by far” (Phil. 1:21, 23). We can and should

offer our lives as service to God in the world, whatever our

vocation and whatever our calling.

For both Bach and the auto mechanic down the street, heavenly

hope is not to keep doing what we have been doing or what we

wish we could have done in this earthly life. Life in the coming age

will be better because of who we will be: adopted children of the

Father who will be fully and completely united to the Son, Jesus

Christ. For “to live is Christ,” and we will never need to move

beyond delight-filled communion with our spouse and Savior and

Lord, Jesus Christ.

Accessed 15 February 2018 at

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/february-web-only/new-view-of-

heaven-too-small-resurrection-hope.html