05: A Fiery Hope

05

A Fiery Hope

Todd Hinrichsen | Phoenix, Arizona

“It’s all going to burn.” As a child of the 1980s, that was the “hope” I was given for the future of the world. Back then, Christian books and movies in America obsessed over lurid depictions of the End Times; God’s chosen ones secretly snatched away, the earth destroyed in a nuclear holocaust, and the fallen world of space, time, and matter brought to an abrupt end. At least, that was the general story sketched out for my generation.

They look at the inevitability of climate change and ongoing political disorder and see no alternative but escape; that is, flight to a colony on the planet Mars, abandoning all hope for the late great planet Earth.

While this view of the future has largely fallen out of favor with Christians today, its doomsday sentiments have endured. With some irony, the mantle of cosmic pessimism has passed from religious Fundamentalists to Silicon Valley investors. Our contemporary prophets of doom are high-tech visionaries. They look at the inevitability of climate change and ongoing political disorder and see no alternative but escape; that is, flight to a colony on the planet Mars, abandoning all hope for the late great planet Earth.

For some reason, neither of these narratives ever seemed entirely convincing to me. A heaven devoid of material existence would be missing things like houses, hugs, and hamburgers. As embodied creatures, physical things are the medium through which we experience life and love. As for a future on Mars, this seems to me like a vacation to the worst version of northern Arizona imaginable; a place with plenty of red rock vistas but horrible weather and no pine trees or good restaurants.

In the end, I revisited the Bible and found an outlook on the future far stranger, and more beautiful, than I expected.

All this speculation about the destiny of the planet raises questions about the God who supposedly created it. Has he given up on the creation he declared “very good”? Did he abandon his design for humans to rule it as his royal representatives? The gloomy forecast of both religious and secular stories makes God look like a poor planner at best.

Unfortunately, most Christian talk of heaven only confuses the matter further. These stories typically present heaven as an escape from the physical world, giving silent assent to the idea that creation is ultimately a failed project. It was not until I read an accumulation of modern Bible scholars and ancient Church Fathers that I was forced to rethink the matter. In the end, I revisited the Bible and found an outlook on the future far stranger, and more beautiful, than I expected.

The first big surprise I found was the absence of any passage that describes heaven as the ultimate destination. The Psalmist and Jesus both claim the eternal inheritance of the “meek” as “earth,” not heaven (Psalm 37 & Matthew 5:5). Elsewhere heaven is described as God’s space, not ours. “The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man” (Psalm 115:16). Against modern prognosticators, the inspired ancient writers seem confident that our planet will last. “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever” (Ecclesiastes 1:4).

This message is so foreign from what I heard in Sunday School, that I doubt it takes any less faith for Christians to believe today than it does an atheist. Yes, good things are being “stored up” or “prepared” for us in heaven, however, the implicit message is that they will eventually be enjoyed on earth. Jesus’ own ascent to heaven is described as temporary, concluding with a glorious return (Acts 1:11). The last book of the Bible concludes the story with visions of humans ruling “on the earth” as kings and priests forever (Revelation 5:10).

Yes, good things are being “stored up” or “prepared” for us in heaven, however, the implicit message is that they will eventually be enjoyed on earth.

But doesn’t the Bible talk about “elements” melting and the earth being “burned up”? This question highlights an important point. The Bible does not provide an account of gradual progress towards a renewed Eden. Its dreams, visions, and prophetic clues depict cosmic trauma. A renewed creation is not born without pain; resurrection comes only from death. Yet the popular interpretation of a certain New Testament passage (2 Peter 3:10-12) turns the dramatic transformation of the world into a rejection of all material existence. What Bible scholars point out is that the “elements” described by the biblical authors have nothing to do with those of the periodic table. No ancient writer had the scientific imagination or language to describe wholesale destruction on the atomic level.

The dramatic events associated with the “Day of the Lord” have to do with setting the world right and purifying God’s good creation. Newer translations convey the meaning of the Greek text more clearly; “the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (ESV). Truth will be revealed, hidden things brought to light, and justice dealt out to the powerful and oppressors. The principal things which order the heavens and earth will “melt” or “dissolve” so that a new order can take their place. The kind of destruction the inspired writer had in mind is alluded to by references to the great flood recorded in the Book of Genesis and near-Eastern mythology (2 Peter 2:5,3:5-7). While this event ended one world and began another through dramatic environmental change, no one presumes we inhabit a different planet than Noah. The idea of a future fiery judgment simply suggests that another age of the earth, very different from our own, is on its way.

And the more intimate I have become with the goodness of creation, the harder it has been to think that none of it matters because “it’s all going to burn.”

What exactly the age to come will look like is impossible to tell. Yet the prophetic clues point to radical renewal. The heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, will come down to an earth restored rather than abandoned (Revelation 21:1-2). Streams will flow in the desert and stately fir trees and flowering myrtles grow in place of thorns and thistles (Isaiah 55:13). At special times and places, I have caught a brief glimpse of this age to come, usually at sunrise or out in the mountains. And the more intimate I have become with the goodness of creation, the harder it has been to think that none of it matters because “it’s all going to burn.” Even though our world is presently a mess, the Bible offers a strange and compelling hope that someday, “creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:21-22).