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How the Story Ends
David Sceggel | Peoria, Illinois
One of the reasons we love stories is because they present information through an emotional and social context. Stories connect us to the characters, the principles, the storyteller, and even the other listeners in powerful ways. Since the beginning of creation, storytelling has been the primary means to convey and organize information effectively because it makes that information memorable through social and emotional connections.
The best and most powerful stories are those with dramatic and memorable endings. Often, a disappointing ending can ruin a novel or movie. Sometimes an ending is so perfect, it can redeem an otherwise dull storyline. This is because “stories gain their meaning from their conclusions.” 1 The power of the ending of the story is of course the most memorable and most impactful moment to the listener.
What you believe about the end of your story will be the motivating factor for the millions of decisions you make throughout your life.
This principle of the impact of the narrative’s end is most powerfully evident in the Biblical storyline. It is no accident that the end of this present evil age and the dawn of the age to come is the most dominant feature of the scriptures. The Day of the LORD, or what the New Testament writers begin to call the Day of Christ is the unifying theme in the Bible. This is because “eschatology is the true driver of discipleship.” 2 What you believe about the end of your story will be the motivating factor for the millions of decisions you make throughout your life.
A few years ago, the renowned atheist Richard Dawkins appeared on a popular American podcast and mocked what he apparently believes to be the Christian hope, saying “Sitting up in heaven for… trillions of years… how unbelievably boring it would be.” Dawkins has a long history of mocking and misrepresenting Christians; however, it is revealing that in all his debating and research, the clear Biblical witness of the joy of the age to come has apparently never been explained to him. So how then does the story end? First, we should look briefly at how the story begins.
God always keeps his promises. After the rebellion in the garden, the Lord pronounces the curse of death on the man and the woman:
“By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)
Immediately following this curse of death, Adam does what seems to be a strange thing. He names his wife. Why would he choose this moment to name the woman? The answer is found a few verses earlier in Genesis 3:15. Speaking to the deceiving serpent, God says:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
This is the first promise, the first declaration of the good news. The woman will bear a Son who will crush the head of the enemy. This is the promise that begins the drama of the Biblical storyline. Because of our sin and rebellion, we human beings have been cursed with death, however there is a Man coming who will destroy our enemies and reverse this curse. How does Adam respond to the devastating news of death, but also to the hope of the promise of a reversal of the curse? He names his wife. The name he chooses reveals how he understands this moment: “The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20). Adam understood this prophecy, at least in part, that from Eve’s womb would come life: not simply future sons and daughters, but they expected the Snake Crusher: a Man who would come to restore what they had lost in the garden, to bring life.
Because of our sin and rebellion, we human beings have been cursed with death, however there is a Man coming who will destroy our enemies and reverse this curse.
This is how the story begins, a beautiful garden of encounter with the One Creator God, a horrible rebellion, the devastating curse of death haunting every human being, but the promise of life coming from a Man born of a woman. But how does the story end? If this coming Snake Crusher delays, how can he bring life to the faithful ones who have already died? How will he answer the injustice of the last six thousand years of human history? The answer of course is by the resurrection of the dead.
This is the “blessed hope” the New Testament authors cannot stop talking about. The Day when Jesus returns to the earth, and with his voice raises up the dead. On that Day, the same Man who was crucified outside that city in humiliation, injustice, and misery, will enter that same city with joy and honor in his glorified body, with his resurrected saints to bring perfect justice to the earth.
The gospel is a resurrection story. You were never meant to die, and one Day, depending on your response to the cross of Christ, you won’t.
Yet the story does not end with a disembodied existence in heaven, playing harps on clouds, but with a glorious re-embodied life, joyfully reigning with the King from a restored Jerusalem.
Richard Dawkins is wrong, and it is probably not his fault. For the last seventeen centuries, Western Christians have unknowingly inserted otherworldly Platonic ideas into the story, slowly removing the Jewish hope of physical resurrection in a renewed creation. Yet the story does not end with a disembodied existence in heaven, playing harps on clouds, but with a glorious re-embodied life, joyfully reigning with the King from a restored Jerusalem. The story of the Bible reaches its end when all the consequences of the curse have been undone. Only then will the glory of God cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. Maranatha!
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