With the End of the World Comes the New Creation

When we meditate on the End Times, which we are supposed to do during Advent, we think of the Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and Judgment Day. But there is another aspect of Christ’s return–indeed, of the Christian faith–that we often forget about.

When this world comes to an end, God will create the world again. There will be a new creation. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Revelation 21:1).

The Fall will be undone; Paradise will be regained. Everything will be restored to what God initially intended it to be. Including us.

Yes, meditating on the End Times can be daunting, especially as we reflect on the horrors described in the Book of Revelation that seemingly must come first, and, what is even more terrifying, as we reflect on the Last Judgment, knowing ourselves as we do. But the prospect of the New Creation should fill us with joy. This is certainly the mood when Christians of the past anticipated Christ’s return and what that will mean.

Jonathan Warren Pagán has written an article for Christianity Today entitled Come Thou Long Expected Judgment. He says that Christians should welcome the Last Judgment. The church fathers and other Christians of the past certain did. They saw the connection between that judgment–along with salvation itself–and God’s new work of creation. Here are some of the quotations he cites:

In a homily on the 96th psalm, [St. Augustine] writes that Adam fell and broke into a thousand pieces that filled the earth with dissensions, wars, and hatred, “but the Divine Mercy gathered up the fragments from every side, forged them in the fire of love and welded into one what had been broken. That was a work which this Artist knew how to do. … He who remade was himself the Maker; he who refashioned was himself the Fashioner.”. . .

“Just as a bronze vessel that has become old and useless becomes new again when a metalworker melts it in the fire and recasts it,” wrote St. Symeon the New Theologian in the tenth century, “in the same way also the creation, having become old and useless because of our sins, … will appear new, incomparably brighter than it is now. Do you see how all creatures are to be renewed by fire?”. . . .

In a famous sermon, John Wesley declared that “the whole brute creation will, then, undoubtedly, be restored, not only to the vigor, strength and swiftness which they had at their creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed. They will be restored, not only to that measure of understanding which they had in paradise, but to a degree of it as much higher than that, as the understanding of an elephant is beyond that of a worm.”

In this new creation, we ourselves will be created again. God created each of us and sustained us ever moment of our lives. He knows us completely. Though we die and return to the dust, we still exist, both in our souls and in the mind of God. And in the New Creation, He will re-create us all, as we were, out of dust as he did originally, but with a new body. That is to say, the dead will be resurrected.

But then comes the judgment! This is the frightening part. And yet, the final judgment, Pagán writes, is not just about consigning sinners to hell. “It was primarily a final victory over the three cosmic enemies of Christ—sin, death, and the Devil, according to Martin Luther.”

Every time we are frustrated when the world seems to be going wrong; every time we wish people would do what is right for a change; every time we are repelled by evil and yearn for what is good–we are craving Christ’s judgement, in which he will eradicate evil and make everything right.

Part of ridding the universe of evil will involve ridding the world of evildoers. And if we are honest, we realize that we are included among those evildoers who have wreaked such harm on others. This is why the prospect of the Last Judgment is terrifying.

But the Adam of the old creation, who brought death into the world and all our woe and whose nature we share, gives way to the New Adam of the new creation, namely, Jesus Christ. “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). And, as St. Paul says again, in the context of the final resurrection of the dead, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Indeed, we learn that the New Creation has already begun: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

If we are “in Christ”–by faith, by baptism (see Romans 6:3-5)–we need not fear the Last Judgment. Our verdict has already been announced: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

In the meantime, we can say with St. Peter, in his reflections on the Second Coming of Christ, “according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).

So much for Advent! Starting tomorrow, this blog will shift its attention to Christmas!

Illustration: “All Things New” by Sharon Tate Soberon, via Flickr, CC 2.0