Reigning for a Thousand Years

Reigning for a Thousand Years
Revelation 20.1-6

After I published my book Surprised by Hope, I had a number of letters and emails from people telling me their experiences with thinking it through, leading study groups on it, and in some cases preaching in the new way I was recommending.

The central point of the book is that, over against the common Western Christian view that what matters is ‘going to heaven when you die’, the proper Christian expectation is of a two-stage post-mortem reality. First, those who belong to the Messiah go to be ‘with him’, as Paul says in Philippians 1.23. Then, at last, Jesus will appear, as heaven and earth come together in a great fresh act of new creation. That will be the moment of resurrection, the moment the dead have been waiting for. Resurrection, the abolition of death itself, giving God’s people new bodies to live in God’s new world, is the great hope both of ancient Judaism and of classic Christianity...