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Can passion for the world to come actually bear good fruit in this present world? Doesn’t such a future orientation make us subject to the old charge that Christians are so heavenly minded we’re no earthly good? Doesn’t it lead to a withdrawal from this present world?

Certainly many people have thought so. Henry David Thoreau laid the blame squarely at the feet of the founder of Christianity. “[Jesus] taught mankind but imperfectly how to live; his thoughts were all directed toward another world.” Thoreau believed people too interested in obtaining eternal life in the world to come were in fact useless in this world; they “have a singular desire to be good without being good for anything.” In fact, some Christians have actually argued that because God intends to destroy this present world, it doesn’t matter what we do with it. Is this a necessary implication of the biblical encouragement to focus on the world to come?

Within the creative tension of restlessness and patience, as the Christian leans forward toward God’s eternal future, the actual result is productive engagement in the world and spiritual transformation within. C. S. Lewis’s words on this matter are justly famous: “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. . . . It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”

There are several reasons why. For one thing, a Christian living as a citizen of a future, perfect world becomes properly dissatisfied with the sinful imperfections of this world: he now has a standard of comparison. Godly dissatisfaction with this world is a necessary first step in getting motivated to change it. You must be very impatient with economic injustice or illiteracy if you want to be motivated to campaign for economic justice or tutor a child. Moreover, a citizen of the future, heavenly kingdom has a goal for work in this world. As G. K. Chesterton said, “we must be fond of another world . . . in order to have something to change [this world] to.” Because heaven is a world of perfect love, we desire to spread the love of God into the unlovely places of this world. Of course, Christians who wait patiently for Jesus are realistic in their expectations; they know they can never usher in a golden age through their own efforts. Only Jesus can bring complete justice and set the world to rights. That’s why we’re waiting for him.

In addition to yielding productive engagement with the world, a life fixed on the new creation also leads to personal, spiritual transformation. For instance, leaning forward toward the new creation helps Christians avoid being paralyzed with regret over past mistakes and missed opportunities. Speaking of the many Christians who live in just this way, Dallas Willard writes,

Much of [their] distress comes from a failure to realize that their life lies before them. That they are coming to the end of their present life, life “in the flesh,” is of little significance. What is of significance is the kind of person they have become. Circumstances and other people are not in control of an individual’s character or of the life that lies endlessly before us in the kingdom of God.

Leaning forward undermines the paralysis of regret. It reminds us that when we leave this one small point of our present existence and plunge into the ocean of eternity, true life is just beginning. Infinite future opportunities and adventures beckon the follower of Jesus.

Reminder of Sovereignty

Why did God design history this way? Why didn’t he bring his kingdom all at once? Why in two stages? God reveals his sovereignty through our inability and ignorance. That we must wait for God to bring about the end of history is a constant reminder of the absolute sovereignty of God. He is the one who created all things and the one who will bring history to its consummation. We don’t even know when God will bring this about (Mark 13.32). Our inability and ignorance remind us that God is God and we are not.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from prison on November 21, 1943, “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, does various unessential things, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.” Bonhoeffer’s point was that the first coming of Jesus and the provision of salvation was an act of God, not of man. We’re in the same situation as we wait for Jesus’ second coming; if we’re to be delivered from all our suffering, if God is to lead us to everlasting joy in his presence, then the door of this world must be opened “from the outside.” We can’t do it ourselves. That fact brings great glory to God, who likes being able to do things no one else can (Isaiah 64:4).

Moreover, God manifests his mercy through our waiting. In 2 Peter 3, the apostle Peter reveals one of the key reasons God has not yet brought history to a conclusion. It is because he “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). We must, “Count the patience of our Lord as salvation” (2 Peter 3:15). It turns out we are waiting for God because he is waiting for us. Scripture tells us God is very good at waiting. He is rich in kindness, patience, and forbearance (Romans 2:4; cf. Romans 9:22; 1 Peter 3:20). Paul says he received mercy in order that Jesus Christ “might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16). Surely one of the most precious attributes of God is his patience. Our eternal future depends upon it.

Example of Edwards

The church in ages past has embraced the practical importance of eschatology. Perhaps more than any other individual, Jonathan Edwards modeled this superbly. George Marsden writes, “If the central principal of Edwards’ thought was the sovereignty of God, the central practical motive in his life and work was his conviction that nothing was more momentous personally than one’s eternal relationship to God. . . . He built his life around disciplines designed constantly to renew that eternal perspective.”

Marsden offers advice to those who want to better understand Edwards’s writings: “If there is an emphasis that appears difficult, or harsh, or overstated in Edwards, often the reader can better appreciate his perspective by asking the question: ‘How would this issue look if it really were the case that bliss or punishment for a literal eternity was at stake?’”

I wonder if others think this way about me: that they can understand my thoughts and actions by considering the life to come. For Edwards, the life to come had intensely practical concern—-it affected his everyday life. It should be the same way for us. Eschatology is a largely untapped resource for Christian life and ministry within the evangelical church today. I pray the “when” of our living will increasingly shape the “how.”


Previously from Stephen Whitmer on Practical Eschatology:

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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