Wright on afterlife
- Thread starter Scott
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It's possible he is refering to Rev 21
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."
Scott
Puritan Board Graduate
I can see some sense is the view that God is going to complete what he started in the Garden of Eden. God did not create Adam in heaven (at least a heaven distinct from earth). The Fall ruined the design. I could see a recreation of the Edenic enterprise to be what it was meant to be. It seems that for people to simply go to heaven would be an abandonment of the initial plan.
Rich Barcellos
Puritan Board Freshman
Heaven, where Christ is now, is where all dead siants exist with disembodied souls ("absent from the body, present with the Lord"). This is the intermediate state for saints - the state of existence between death and resurrection. The eternal state, however, is not the same. It consists of only the saved with Christ in the new heavens and new earth (2 Pt. 3). It is preceeded by Christ's coming, the resurrection, judment, and transformation of heaven and earth (Rom. 8; 2 Pt. 3; 1 Thess 4; etc.). Many older hymns seem to depict the intermediate state as the eternal state. Maybe that's what Wright was pointing out.
WrittenFromUtopia
Puritan Board Graduate
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with what he's saying.
WrittenFromUtopia
Puritan Board Graduate
In my understanding, all the saints will be on the renewed earth and Christ will reign over them as King. Life will be as it was pre-lapsarian.
Rich Barcellos
Puritan Board Freshman
We will be on the new earth. All friction and distorion brought on by the presence of sin will be eradicated. All effects of sin will be gone. All limitations due to sin will be history. It will be edenic and beyond. We will be in a better state than Adam was when created. He was created with the ability to sin or not to sin. In other words, he could fall. We, on the other hand, will be able not to sin, and thus not able to fall from that state. Adam was created in a mutable state. We will be ushered into an immutable state on that great day.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
That's very similar to my view.
Rich Barcellos
Puritan Board Freshman
1. I suppose somewhat similar to now. What I mean by heaven here is not the heaven of heaven (God's special place of manifesting Hismelf) but the expance above the earth.
2. Rev. 21:3, 5ff. says on the earth. Christ is God's tabernacle who sits on the throne.
The new heaven and the new earth will be like the heaven of heaven in the past I think.
2. Rev. 21:3, 5ff. says on the earth. Christ is God's tabernacle who sits on the throne.
The new heaven and the new earth will be like the heaven of heaven in the past I think.
Rich Barcellos
Puritan Board Freshman
No, not a physical city. The New Jerusalem is the church. I suppose you asked me that because of my answer to our throne question. Will Christ be on a literal throne in the eternal state? I know there will be a throne (Rev. 22:3) but just what that throne is constituted of, I do not know.
Rich Barcellos
Puritan Board Freshman
Heaven is where Christ is now. I don't know where that is spacially. After His coming again, heaven is where He is.
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