Romans - Part 4: SPIRITSample

Longing for the New Creation

In the Apostles’ Creed, we acknowledge that we believe in “the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting.”

Why does it say that we believe in “the resurrection of the dead,” rather than saying something like “the soul going to heaven?”

Isn’t the Christian hope that some disembodied part of ourselves goes to heaven when we die, and we then spend eternity with God there? Not so! The Christian hope is in our embodied resurrection from the dead. The excellent world God made will be redeemed, not escaped from. Though when we die, those who are in Christ will be with Him, our ultimate hope is in the resurrection of our bodies. Like Christ was raised on the third day, we too will be raised when heaven and earth become one and all of creation is fully reconciled to God. Until then, we have received the “first fruits” of the Holy Spirit. As Christians, God has already begun the work of reconciling us to Himself through the Spirit, but we will continue to wait, to see the whole world reconciled to Him as well. This anticipation of the new heavens and new earth should create in us a sense of longing for the glory of the Kingdom of God to become fully realized. This is what Paul is talking about in today’s reading when he says that we, “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

Longing for “what is yet to be” can be painful, but it can also be good. N.T. Wright put it well when he wrote:

“The whole creation is in labour, longing for God’s new world to be born. The church is called to share that pain and that hope. The church is not to be apart from the pain of the world; it is to be in prayer at precisely the place where the world is in pain. That is part of our calling, our high but strange role within God’s purposes for new creation.”

Because we know that all creation will one day be redeemed, we know that God loves it. Because we know it isn’t as it ought to be, we can long for the better things God has in store for it. Because we have been given the Spirit, we can be agents of healing and redemption in this world, as we long for the world to come.

-Wesley Viau