Both what we think the future holds (our telos) and what we think the story we live on is (our imaginary) dictate how we receive the world and understand our being within it.

It’s common in evangelical circles for people to talk about ‘going to heaven when they die.’ It’s common in slightly different evangelical circles to politely scoff at that phrase and remind people that the great hope of the Christian faith is the resurrection of the body.

The scoffing isn’t particularly helpful, neither is NT Wright’s take on all of this as though he discovered something unique in the Bible rather than calling for people to return to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

If you believe in Jesus, you will go to heaven (read: the heavenly temple) when you die. Jesus called it ‘the garden’ (Luke 23) when speaking with one of his compatriots on the cross. We will then wait with him in glory for the eventual resurrection of all things. To scoff at that is pompous.

It’s also true that the Bible’s great hope is the resurrection of dead, and even of the heavens and the earth, for all people (Acts 24). The resurrected dead will then be judged and all will receive what they want: either eternal torment for those who would prefer that to living under Jesus’ rule (sadly, a surprising number of people; this is the nature of a sin sick heart) or life everlasting as heaven meets earth and Christ marries the church for those for whom that is good news.

The resurrection is true hope because it’s not just bliss in the heavens, it’s the remaking of the world. What I mean by that is its not just good following bad but its bad made into good. This resurrected future is embodied. A disembodied ‘soulish’ future would not as good as an embodied one, because we wouldn’t be whole people.

Theology of the Body

Here’s the thread I’d like to pick at, though it’s an observation that many have made: if the future is embodied, that has implications for our theology of the body.

In other words, modern ideas that your body isn’t fundamentally you but just something you wear to be shed like a cloak, fall apart before the resurrection. Our most fundamental selves include the flesh we’ve been gifted, and we know that because the glorified future also includes the flesh we’ve been gifted. Of course, its different flesh (1 Corinthians 15) and the same flesh (John 20); it will be us glorified. Even that grammar points in the wrong direction, rather I should say that we will be us glorified.

Read More