I wrote this blog entry before the appalling events in Israel and Gaza came out of the blue to horrify us all and dominate the headlines. But the thoughts I had then seem even more pertinent now, in this uncertain world in which we live......
'Where will we be in a hundred years from now?' is the title of a macabre song which was popular in the 1950s, and which as children we found hilarious. I’ve now had most of my hundred years and the question seems ever more relevant. The world has become a different place, with many concerns vying to top the list of worries:
Warfare and terrorism
Overpopulation
Environmental pollution
Food shortages
Contaminated water
Global warming
Pandemics
A ‘hurricane of immigration’
It seems that the four horsemen of the apocalypse have doubled to at least eight!
As people worry about the future of mankind on earth, Tim Peake, a British spaceman, recently produced an engrossing TV series entitled Secrets of our Universe. In the first programme we were told that the universe consists of billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, many of which are surrounded by planets.
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| Distant galaxies, photographed by the James Webb telescope |
My first thought was that it takes a greater step of 'faith' to believe that this is all a random result of a random big bang which came out of nothing than it takes to believe in a creator. To me, intelligent design makes much more sense. Later Tim addressed one potential solution to the problem of the survival of mankind – setting up human colonies on other planets! He took us to an experimental environment (not dissimilar to the Eden Project) called Biosphere 2 in Arizona, where research is going into the requirements for living on other planets.
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| Biosphere 2 |
My reaction to this is to think that preserving the human race by sending tiny numbers of people to Mars or elsewhere will be hugely expensive, will only benefit a tiny number of humans, and will put them in an alien environment where they will be virtually trapped in very limited spaces. Maybe it might preserve the human race, but it won’t solve the problem of where you or I will be a hundred years from now. It also makes me think back to ancient times when humans had no concept of an afterlife. Abraham, for example, thought in terms only of preserving his family line by reproduction. When he was 100 and his wife Sarah was 90 they were still childless. When they were promised by an angelic visitor that their descendents would be ‘as numerous as the sand on the seashore’ , Sarah found the very idea laughable – yet they did indeed become the ancestors of a huge tribe, later to become a nation. (The Bible: Genesis 17 and 18; also Genesis 22.17)
Yet what really interests most of us, particularly as we get older, is whether we will survive death or whether this life is all we have. Atheists will try to persuade us that as random products of a self-generated universe we only have one life and then we’re snuffed out. Yet many people believe instinctively that although our bodies will die, some part of us (which we’ll call our spirit) will survive death.
I’m writing here from a Christian standpoint, and believe that the universe, the earth and all that is in it were designed and created by a being higher than ourselves – namely God. God has provided us with hope for the future because he has given us many hints in the Bible (which I believe consists of writings inspired by God) about life after death.
Hint 1: resurrection
Let’s start with the strongest hint of all. Christianity hinges upon the belief that Jesus is alive today, having been killed by his enemies but having risen bodily from the dead. If he could rise from the dead, so can we! But we have no need to fear that if we die riddled with disease or disability we’ll rise with an identical body. No, we’re told that our resurrection body will be as different as wheat is from its seed.....
and that our new ‘spiritual’ body will be imperishable. In the Bible Paul says “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” and he goes on to explain the answer. (1 Corinthians 15.35-54) We see the miracle of renewal every year: winter to summer and seedtime to harvest. We too shall be renewed.
Hint 2: What kind of renewed body will we have?
We won’t be like immaterial ghosts! When Jesus rose, it was in a resurrection body which was material and could eat. (Luke 24.39-43). Yet it was not bound by the laws of nature ( Luke 24.31, 24.36-37) . We're told that in the next life we will be like him: (1 Corinthians 15.49 and Philippians 3.21)
Hint 3: Renewal isn’t just for us!
Renewal isn’t just for us! The whole earth is to be renewed, and long before Jesus came to live on earth, the prophet Isaiah was given an insight into this: in a remarkable piece of foreknowledge he says “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11.9) It suggests that the whole earth will be renewed, drenched in the knowledge of the Lord: evil will be swept away. It hasn’t happened yet. The world around us is waiting for this renewal, and we’re told that “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8.21)
This powerful imagery of childbirth reminds us of the fantastic renewal which occurs every time a baby is born. The process is dramatic and traumatic, but the whole of creation is to be renewed - and so will we, if we take this on board and trust in our creator, God, who will bring it all about.
Hint 4 -Where will we be? Do we go to heaven when we die?
People tend to think that heaven is ‘up there somewhere’, partly because we describe the night sky as ‘the heavens’ and we vaguely think of the dead sitting on clouds playing harps.
Some have questioned where ‘up there’ can be, since ‘up’ for us in Britain and ‘up’ for people in Australia takes us in opposite directions! But this is not how the Bible describes our destination.
The clearest image of the renewal and the new creation, of which Christians will be a part, is at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 21 and 22, where the picture language is of a wedding – where the groom (Jesus) comes down to meet his bride (us).
There is a supplementary picture too of the church community, which is described as the heavenly Jerusalem and it comes down to earth. Heaven is combined with a renewed earth – which is what we pray for every time we pray the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven”.
So the destination of those who are committed to the Lord Jesus Christ is heaven, if by that we mean ‘where the Lord is’. But it isn’t in an identifiable location somewhere in the sky. The Kingdom of Heaven comes to us! We’ll be re-created and part of a new creation. Charles Wesley in his well-known hymn, ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’ rounded off with
Finish then, Thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be;
let us see Thy great salvation
perfectly restored in Thee.
Changed from glory into glory,
till in heav'n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before Thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.
