Putting "Heaven" in Perspective

Alastair Adversaria has a post with a letter from N. T. Wright defending himself against what he believes are some libelous criticisms. In the letter, Wright has a wonderful little paragraph about heaven.  And before I quote this, please keep in mind that this is a post about heaven, not a referendum on N. T. Wright.  I understand that Wright is a lightning rod these days, and any mention of his name seems to cause people to go all Ado Annie on him - "with Wright it's all or nothing" - and I have tried to avoid that here on the blog, as best I can, by interacting with the views themselves and agreeing or disagreeing as I see fit.

This little statement on heaven is one where i see fit to agree wholeheartedly:

This brings me to 'heaven'. Yes, in the New Testament of course there is the hope for being 'with Christ, which is far better' (Philippians 1.26). But have you not noticed that the New Testament hardly ever talks about 'going to heaven', and certainly never as the ultimate destiny of God's people. The ultimate destiny, as Revelation 21 makes abundantly clear, is the 'new heavens and new earth', for which we will need resurrection bodies. Please, please, study what the Bible actually says. When Jesus talks in John 14 of going to prepare a place for us, the word he uses is the Greek word mone, which isn't a final dwelling place but a temporary place where you stay and are refreshed before continuing on your journey. The point about Jesus being our hope is that he will come again from heaven to change this world, and our bodies, so that the prayer he taught us to pray will come true at last: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven. That is God's will; that is why Jesus came; that is our final hope. Of course, Christians who die before that time go to be with him in heaven until the time when the whole creation is redeemed (Romans 8.18-27 — have you studied that recently?). That isn't a 'symbolic meaning', and I confess I don't know why you should think it does.

The problem is, I think, that there are some Christians who have not been taught what the Bible actually teaches about the redemption of the whole creation. The Bible doesn't say that the creation — including earth — is wicked and that we have to be rescued from it. What is wicked, and what we need rescuing from, is sin, which brings death, which is the denial of the good creation. When we say the creation is wicked we are colluding with death. Sadly, some Christians seem to think they have to say that.

My favorite statement in that is:

When Jesus talks in John 14 of going to prepare a place for us, the word he uses is the Greek word mone, which isn't a final dwelling place but a temporary place where you stay and are refreshed before continuing on your journey.

That's one of the best pictures I have ever read of the intermediate state simply because it calls attention to the fact that the real blessed hope is a hope of physical and bodily pleasures to be enjoyed in the presence of a "physical" Jesus in a new heavens and a new earth.

And it's a good reminder, contra gnosticism (and contra the inroads of gnosticism in Christianity), that to be physical, material and bodily is to be good, and the physical, material and bodily things around us are good and are objects of redemption the same that our soul is.

Which will lead me to another post - I think it's time we jettisoned some old terminology - it's time to jettison the concept of "the salvation of the soul," not because it's wrong, but because it is inadequate and deficient.  But that's for another post.