A Better, Biblical Eschatology

We’re painfully learning what happens when bad theology becomes institutionalized in government.

Our foreign policy is being informed by dispensational theology, which though still popular on the lay level has been all but abandoned on a scholarly level.

(For an overview of this and how dispensationalism influenced the country, see “The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation”.)

If you want to explore a a biblical eschatology that is decidedly not dispensational I recommend two books, both by N.T. Wright.

The first is “Surprised by Hope…Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church”

This is one of my favorite works by Wright and foundational to what he writes later.

From the publisher:

In this paradigm-shifting book, Wright reveals:

• The Biblical View of Heaven: Why the popular idea of “going to heaven” is a profound misunderstanding of Christian eschatology.
• Resurrection of the Dead: How the promise of a new, physical body in a renewed creation—not an escaped soul—is the Bible’s central hope.
• The Second Coming of Jesus: A clear-eyed look at what the New Testament actually says about Christ’s return and the final judgment.
• Hope for the Present World: How a correct understanding of our future hope energizes the mission of the Church to work for justice and renewal today.

The second is the recently released companion volume, “God’s Homecoming: The Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal – Biblical Theology from Genesis to Revelation on the New Creation”

A defining major work from today’s leading Bible scholar: N. T. Wright traces the biblical promise of God’s care for the future, offering authentic hope in a chaotic age.

Many devout believers have been lured into the classic misunderstanding that Christianity teaches how we must leave earth and go somewhere else to be with God. But this outlook dangerously suggests that God created a world he loves only to abandon it. Nothing could be further from the scriptural truth, N. T. Wright contends. In God’s Homecoming, Wright excavates the forgotten story of God’s original purpose to dwell with us and make his home—and ours—in this new creation.

In his groundbreaking Surprised by Hope, Wright dismantled the “going to heaven” narrative. In God’s Homecoming, he returns with a panoramic pilgrimage tracing God’s homecoming promise from Genesis through Revelation. When we read the Bible as a whole, Wright argues, we do not find a narrative of souls ascending a spiritual ladder to heaven, but of God coming down to dwell with us.

Revolutionary and grounded in biblical research, Wright leads readers through the movements of the promise: God created heaven and earth to be his own home, he filled the temple with his presence, then the church with the Holy Spirit, and promises that the all creation will again be filled with his glory. He traces how the popular Christian reading got it wrong—as well as the radical transformation that awaits us and the church today if we return to God’s original vision.

Until we recover this forgotten story, Wright warns, we will keep distorting the Bible’s message. Yet, he argues, its recovery could be the key to revitalizing every aspect of Christian life as we know it: prayer, mission, evangelism, pastoral practice, and personal devotion.

I’m working my way through this at the moment…good stuff.

I heartily commend both books to you…they will change your whole perspective on the faith.