But He rose up from the dead
and mounted up to the heights of heaven.
When the Lord hath clothed Himself with humanity,
and had suffered for the sake of the sufferer,
and had been bound for the sake of the imprisoned,
and had been judged for the sake of the condemned,
and had been buried for the sake of the one who had been buried,
He rose up from the dead,
and cried with a loud voice,
“Who is it that contends with me?
Let him stand in opposition to me.
I set the condemned man free;
I gave the dead man life;
I raised up one who had been entombed.
Who is my opponent?
I am the Christ
I am the one who destroyed death,
and triumphed over the enemy,
and trampled Hades underfoot,
and bound the strong one,
and carried off humanity
to the heights of heaven.”
“It is I,” says the Christ.

– Melito of Sardus (ht: Reggie Kidd via Ben Davy. Thanks Ben! )

So when you came out of that mindset, the (understandable) reaction was to say “eschatology doesn’t matter! Why waste time debating about postmillenialism or premillenialism when there is _______ to do?” That was my reaction and I know it was the reaction of several other friends. And while it’s an understandable reaction, I think it’s misguided.

Eschatology - the study of last things - is the conclusion of the Christian story. You can’t call it the climax - that’s the cross - but it is the conclusion. Also, in the four chapter redemption story of Scripture, it is the fourth chapter, consummation. So you can’t say it doesn’t matter, it’s the way the story ends, it has to matter. The problem is not so much that we talk about it as in the way we talk about.

Most discussions of eschatology center around the when and the how of Jesus’ return. IE “It’ll be after the Antichrist’s armies invade Israel that Jesus returns to the Mount of Olives,” or “It’ll be after a long golden age of history that Jesus returns,” or something similarly unhelpful. I think this is where the problem lies. After all, scripture explicitly states on multiple occasions that it is not for us to worry about the time of Jesus’ return. In fact, it goes so far as to encourage us to always live in the light of our king’s triumph and soon return. That’s the whole point of the thief in the night verses that are so frequently abused by Dispensationalists.

What our discussions of eschatology should center on then is not the when or the how because Scripture condemns such frivoulous discussions. Rather it should focus on the what - what will Jesus do when he returns? Will he go postal on the entire planet and start from scratch? Will he segregate Israel and the Church? Will he renew all of creation? What will his return look like? Unlike abstract questions like “are you amillenial or postmillenial?” this one is quite useful because it’s going to affect how we live today.

Is the earth a sinking ship that God is going to destroy when he comes back? If so, then things like ecology really don’t matter (why rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic?) and all we should be doing with other people is trying to get them to convert.

Or is the earth our permanent home, temporarily distorted by the effects of sin, but ultimately meant for full restoration? In that case, everything changes. From our relationship to the physical planet to our relationships with other human beings, it’s all touched by how we answer that question.

Jerram’s response was to say, “We are.” Point being - our notions of God’s kingdom fully present should be of every good and perfect thing we enjoy now, fully refined and free from the curse.

With that being said - my roommates and I (inspired by one of our pastors) started making a list of things we enjoy now and half-fecetiously, half-seriously hope to find in the New Heavens and New Earth, here’s what we came up with:

1) Cockapoos

2) El Toro (local Mexican restaurant)

3) Cardigans

4) Clove cigarettes

5) Martin Miller gin

6) Jimi Hendrix

7) The Lord of the Rings

Jane Austen novels

9) PBR

10) Cyclocross Bike

11) Bocci Balls

12) Yia Yia’s

13) Bob Marley

A year ago I don’t think I would’ve been comfortable with this because I was still going through my Left Behind detox phase in which all things end-times scared me. I grew up watching the Thief in the Night videos and regularly feeling great fear that the rapture would happen, I’d be left behind, and I’d have to face the guillotine of the anti-christ (and if I didn’t, it’d probably mean I had been tricked into taking the mark and was going to burn in hell forever as a consequence).

But I think in the past year I’ve learned two things about the study of the end-times: 1) A bad theology of the end will kill people. Whether it’s escapist dispensationalism (my background) or theonomist post-millenialism (the background of some in our denomination) both seem equally capable of causing great damage to the souls of those taught such destructive doctrines.

However, 2) good eschatology is powerful medicine to the broken. To anyone who has sincerely attempted to understand evil, there are few things more hopeful than the thought of Jesus coming back, of bent things being made straight, and death working backwards. In that vein, I want to create a new topic for posts that focus on this second point.

The new topic is going to open, appropriately enough, with a quote from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, from which the category gets its name.

“‘Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?’

But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?’

‘A great shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed… ‘How do I feel?’ he cried. ‘Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel’ –he waved his arms in the air– ‘I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!’

~ J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings