There Will Come Here

How many of us have grown up believing that our greatest hope is to one day leave this world to be joined with God in heaven forever?

This is (or has been) the standard summary of the Christian narrative for a lot of us, but it actually gets the Bible’s overarching story almost completely backward.

In that popular version of the story, our greatest hope is one of evacuation. The underlying message is that we must escape this rotten planet and make our permanent home somewhere else—heaven. We leave here to go there, staying there forever.

The problem is, that’s not how the biblical story unfolds.

The story begins in Eden—a shared space where heaven (God’s space) and earth (humanity’s space) overlap. There, God and His creation are united, entirely without separation.

Until, of course, tragedy strikes and that union is no more.

From that point forward, the biblical story traces a long history of successes and failures as God works within the world to bring creation and Himself back together.

The funny thing is, this biblical story ends not with humans escaping earth to go live with God in heaven; instead, it ends with God bringing heaven and earth back together.

“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’ ” (Revelation 21:2-3)

So, what is our hope—our greatest hope? To leave here in order to go there?

No.

Our greatest hope is that one day, there will come here—and we will enjoy both, united forever.