The Renewal of All Things
“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed… in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:19–21)
“Truly, I tell you, at the renewal of all things…” — Jesus (Matthew 19:28–30)
“…until the time comes for the restoration of all things” — Peter (Acts 3:21)
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” — Jesus (Matthew 6:10)
Christians are called to work for the improvement of this present world. Escapist theologies bear bad fruit, such as a willingness to sacrifice the environment, awaiting a “helicopter rescue” from God, and failing to be salt and light for the preservation and enhancement of society.
Scripture calls us to hope for the world to continue to improve, and to have faith that Christ’s principles will usher in unparalleled benefits for Earth.
“[in] Orthodoxy…salvation is cosmic in scope and includes all creation…the promised Kingdom of God will be this world restored and transfigured…a deified humanity will serve as a cosmic priesthood, receiving glory from Christ and mediating it to the natural world.” ~ DBH
Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about.
— NT Wright
The Bible teaches that this cosmos will be renewed, and transformed into the future kingdom of God. Just as humans are to be renewed, the earth and the material cosmos will be renewed as well.
When scripture talks about humans being renewed, it talks about it as a death and resurrection, or a destruction and new creation, or a new person replacing the old person. We naturally understand this language to speak of dramatic transformation. In a deeper sense, the person remains—otherwise renewal would be meaningless.
Similar language is used about the transformation of the material world. It is sometimes described as being "burned up", or being replaced with a "new creation". Yet this is interwoven with language that makes it clear that a deeper continuity remains. The material world longs for "new creation", not because it will be replaced, but because it itself will be preserved, restored, and renewed.
Because everything you do in the present, in the power of the Spirit and in union with Christ, everything that flows out of love and hope and grace and goodness somehow will be part of God’s eventual Kingdom. That is the message of the resurrection.
— NT Wright
The gospel of the kingdom of God is not news from another world about another world. It is a gospel born from the history of God in this world for the sake of this world's future in the kingdom of God.
— Lutheran Theologian Carl E. Braaten (The Future of God: the Revolutionary Dynamics of Hope — 1969)
