When we imagine heaven we think of somewhere remote and far away. Whether we imagine it (wrongly) as our eternal destination or (rightly) the abode of God and the angelic host, it is still somewhere of which we have no direct experience. But it is also true that we have all seen heaven, at least those familiar with the ministry of Jesus have. When Jesus began his ministry he proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God. Through his words and deeds people around him saw the will of God being done, God's kingdom in action. People were healed, the demons were exorcised, the lost sheep were saved. Jesus walked on the water and stilled the storm. Here, in these actions and in this man, God's kingship could be recognised. In other words what was happening around Jesus on earth was exactly the same as what happened in heaven all the time. The ministry of Jesus was 'heaven on earth', a glimpse of what the world would be like when renewed and restored at the end of history. So if we have seen Jesus we have all seen heaven, at least in sense that the kingdom of God on earth is a mirror reflection of the kingdom of God in heaven. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven", this is exactly what he had in mind, of the church on earth expressing the divine rule that takes place in heaven. 'Heaven' is not so far away after all. "Where and how will these things happen? When the earth is remade and reborn as the paradise of God. Then the meek, the powerless, the downtrodden, the victims of the ambitions and cruelty of others will inherit the earth. Their earth. The earth they were born into, the earth whose blessings they were not allowed to enjoy, the earth which was denied to them by violence and injustice. The gospel hope says nothing about going to heaven when they die. It is the earth, this earth, that is the focus of their longing and hope, and it is the earth that is the focus of God's promise and salvation. This is where the kingdom "happens" - now, through the life and work of the church of Christ, and "then" when all things submit to the will of God, when the creation will "be set free from its bondage to decay". In the meantime we wait and work and pray "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"
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Hello and welcome to the first post of the new blog. The subject of this blog is heaven and hell, and my focus is on how the biblical picture of the afterlife has been shaped by the various cultures in which the christian tradition has developed. Ideas such as 'going to heaven when we die', the existence of a domain of evil (hell) lorded over by Satan and his demonic horde, and the belief that the wicked will be punished after death in such a place, are not found in the bible. And yet these beliefs hold a strong place, not only in the in the beliefs of millions of christians but also in our popular culture. In this blog I want to explore how these unbiblical ideas became part of the fabric of christian reality. I am fascinated by the ways in which the early 'tours' of heaven and hell, medieval art and literature and a modern day pietistic individualism have shaped our Christian hope so that it becomes 'all about me' and my immediate post-mortem future, rather than about God, the creation which God made and loves, and the promise, clearly expressed in the Hebrew bible and the New Testament, that God's future involves the recreation of the heavens and the earth and the resurrection of the righteous to fill and inhabit that newly renovated creation. At the heart of my concern is that the resurrection of Jesus has become less and less central to the Christian hope. If my hope is simply to 'go to heaven when I die' then Jesus needn't have risen from the dead. But he did rise, and that fact stands as the central point of human (indeed cosmic) history. And it does so precisely because the resurrection of Jesus is the revelation in the present of God's promised future. The Resurrection is not just some interesting miracle that God performed for Jesus, but rather, in the resurrection of Jesus we see the beginning of the fulfillment of God's promise of redemption for the whole of creation. So, this blog is about the afterlife, but actually it is much more about the Christian hope and about how that hope is focused on the risen Lord of life Jesus Christ. I am not writing this just because I want to knock a view of heaven and hell with which I disagree but because I am passionate about the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus for our life in the church and for the life of the world, the creation. I invite you to read to share and to comment.
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Archives
April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
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