The Nicene Creed (325AD) declares that Jesus Christ 'will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom shall have no end'. But neither mainline Catholic nor mainline Protestant theology has explored very much what exactly we mean by all that. Instead, we have embraced the belief that the ultimate destiny of God's people is 'heaven', seen as somewhat detached from 'earth'. So the aim of Christianity as a whole, and of conversion, justification, sanctification, and salvation itself, is seen in terms of leaving 'earth' behind and going 'home' to a place called 'heaven'.

This is simply not how the earliest Christians saw things. For early Christians the resurrection of Jesus launched God's new creation upon the world, beginning the fulfilment of the prayer that Jesus taught his followers in which God's kingdom would come 'on earth as in heaven' promised by Isaiah and promised again in the New Testament… They were not very interested, as our world has been interested, in what happens to people immediately after they die. Instead, they were extremely interested in a topic which many Western Christians today have forgotten about altogether, namely, the final new creation, new heavens and new earth joined together, and the resurrection of the body, which will create new human beings to live in that new world.

The glory of God's will for creation to be revealed

Paul in Romans 8.19‑23 speaks about the glory to be revealed to us. The whole creation, the entire cosmos, is on tiptoe for God's glory to be revealed to his children. Glory is not simply a kind of luminescence, as though the point of salvation were that we should eventually shine like electric light bulbs. 'Glory' means, among other things, rule and power and authority. Part of the point of God saving his people is that they are destined, not merely to enjoy a relaxing endless holiday in a place called 'heaven', but that they are designed to be God's stewards ruling over the whole creation, with healing and restorative justice and love. The creation itself will be set free from the slavery of moral and physical corruption when God's children are glorified. When God's redeemed people are finally rescued and we are given our resurrection bodies, then we will be set in 'glory' and, as God's image-bearing children, have sovereign rule over all creation. Then, God's project will be where it was supposed to be going right at the start when God created humankind in his own image, to be fruitful and to look after the garden. When humans are put right, creation will be put right. That is the ultimate point, the glorious full sweep of Paul's doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ.

New-creation people

The resurrection, God's recreation of his wonderful world, which has begun with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God's people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last, and be enhanced, in God's new world. I have no idea what precisely this means. I do not know how the painting an artist paints today in prayer and wisdom will find a place in God's new world. I don't know what musical instruments we shall have to play, though I'm sure Bach's music will be there. I don't know how my planting a tree today will relate to the wonderful trees that will be in God's recreated world. I don't know how my work for justice for the poor and for remission of global debt will reappear in that new world.

But I know that God's new world of justice and joy, of hope for the whole earth, was launched when Jesus came out of the tomb on Easter morning. I know he calls me and you to live in him and by the power of his Spirit to be new-creation people here and now, bringing signs and symbols of the kingdom to birth on earth as in heaven. The resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit mean that we are called to bring real and effective signs of God's renewed creation to birth even in the midst of the present age….

This doesn't mean that we are called to build the kingdom by our own efforts or even with the help of the Spirit. The final kingdom, when it comes, will always remain the free gift of God, a massive act of grace and new creation. But we are called to build for the kingdom. Like craftsmen working on a great cathedral, we have been given instructions about the particular stone we are to spend our lives carving, without knowing or being able to guess where it will take its place within the grand eventual design. What we are assured, by the words of Paul and by the fact of Jesus' resurrection, is that the work we do is not in vain