Weird Ideas: Coming to Judgeনমুনা

Jesus is coming. He’s coming! This means hope! This is good news!

There’s an assumption today that no one is coming and that the world is going nowhere. In the grand perspective of the universe, at most, we only have a short time to live. After we’re gone, life will go on until someday – due to the slow decay of entropy or some other factor – life and the universe will finally fizzle out. No goal. No glory. No real purpose to it all. Just a slow creep towards a pitiful end.

Jesus has a different idea. He says he’s coming. And when he comes, he’s coming to bring life to the full and the universe towards its purpose and goal. This is up close and personal. It’s for everyone who’s ever lived. It’s also grand and large-scale. It includes the very created order of the universe itself. The New Testament has a word for this: telos. An end. A finish line. A coming to fullness, or maturity. A completion and accomplishment. A goal towards which history is heading. All of this, when Jesus comes again.

Here’s how those early Christians summed it up. The Apostles’ Creed explains that Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God in heaven, seeking to bring his rule over every aspect of the universe. And “from thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.” Or as the Nicene Creed puts it: “And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.”

This week we’ll dive into the implications and hope surrounding this. Today, just read some of the passages describing it. As you do, try to capture the expectation of each writer. Ask yourself: How would living with this kind of perspective and hope – with eyes focused on this telos to come – affect the quality of my life and the way I live today?