Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright

Author:N. T. Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins

CONCLUSION: HUMAN GOALS AND NEW CREATION

But I cannot end this chapter on that note—for the very good reason that the New Testament, again and again, refuses to end on it either. Paul in Romans is quite clear that there will indeed be final condemnation for “those who are factious and disobey the truth, but obey wickedness”; but, as the letter goes on, his great emphasis falls on the fact that God has shut up all people in the prison house of disobedience in order that he may have mercy upon all.14 True, it is clear from that passage and others like it that he does not mean “all people individually” but rather “people of all sorts.” But when Paul says “all” he regularly reaches out beyond what his hearers might have expected to show that God’s powerful love embraces the unexpected as well as the obvious. Since Paul knew that his own hard and bitter heart had been changed by God’s grace, he also knew that there was nobody this side of the grave who could not in principle be similarly reached and changed.

Likewise, the majestic but mysterious ending of the Revelation of John leaves us with fascinating and perhaps frustrating hints of future purposes, further work of which the eventual new creation is just the beginning. The description of the New Jerusalem in chapters 21 and 22 is quite clear that some categories of people are “outside”: the dogs, the fornicators, those who speak and make lies. But then, just when we have in our minds a picture of two nice, tidy categories, the insiders and the outsiders, we find that the river of the water of life flows out of the city; that growing on either bank is the tree of life, not a single tree but a great many; and that “the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” There is a great mystery here, and all our speaking about God’s eventual future must make room for it. This is not at all to cast doubt on the reality of final judgment for those who have resolutely worshipped and served the idols that dehumanize us and deface God’s world. It is to say that God is always the God of surprises.

But the most important thing to say at the end of this discussion, and of this section of the book, is that heaven and hell are not, so to speak, what the whole game is about. This is one of the central surprises in the Christian hope. The whole point of my argument so far is that the question of what happens to me after death is not the major, central, framing question that centuries of theological tradition have supposed. The New Testament, true to its Old Testament roots, regularly insists that the major, central, framing question is that of God’s purpose of rescue and re-creation for the whole world, the entire cosmos. The destiny of individual human beings must be understood within

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