Hope
Heaven, resurrection and new creation
What Christians look forward to after death and at the end: not floating on a cloud, but rising again, in a world God makes new.
Many people think of Christian hope as a soul floating up to heaven after death. The Bible says more, and something more down to earth. Christians confess “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting”: a whole person who rises, as Jesus rose, in a creation that God makes new. Heaven is not the end of the story; at the end, God comes to live with people.
Jesus rose from the dead, and He promises to make everything new. One day there will be no more sadness and no more pain, and we will live with God forever, in a world even more beautiful than now.
The big picture
From now to the new creation, as the Bible tells it.
Station 1
Already now
Eternal life does not only begin after death: whoever knows Jesus “has eternal life”. The kingdom of God has already begun, like a little seed that grows.
Station 2
At death
Death is real, and the Bible calls it an enemy. But whoever dies in Christ is “with Christ”, which Paul calls “far better”. To the man beside Him on the cross, Jesus says: today you will be with Me in paradise.
Station 3
Jesus comes back
What the angels said at the Ascension, all churches confess: He will come again in glory. No one knows the day or the hour; that is why Jesus asks us to live watchfully, not to calculate.
Station 4
The resurrection
The dead will rise, with a body that no longer decays, like the risen body of Jesus: real, recognisable, and yet different. “Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption.”
Station 5
The judgement
Everything comes to light, and the judge is Jesus, who died for us. That is serious: not everything is the same. And it is a hope: justice at last for those who suffered injustice. You can read more about hell under the hard questions.
Station 6
A new heaven and a new earth
At the end, John sees the holy city coming down out of heaven. God lives with people, wipes away every tear, and death is no more. Creation is not thrown away, but set free and made new.
What happens when you die?
Every church hopes for the resurrection. About the time until then they speak differently.
Catholic
Heaven, purification and hell
After death comes the “particular judgement”. Whoever dies in God’s friendship but is not yet fully purified is cleansed (purgatory), as preparation for heaven. That is why the Church prays for the dead, as already happens in 2 Maccabees 12, a book that is in the Catholic Bible. At the Second Coming the resurrection and the Last Judgement follow.
Orthodox
Waiting in hope, prayer for the dead
The soul comes to God and waits for the resurrection, in a foretaste of joy or of sorrow. The Orthodox Church prays much for the departed, for example on the third, ninth and fortieth day, but does not define a purgatory.
Protestant
With Christ at once
Whoever dies in Christ is with Him at once, on the ground of His work alone; there is no purgatory, because the cross was enough. Protestants too wait for the resurrection of the body and the new creation. Prayer for the dead is not a custom in most Protestant churches.
Also heard: soul sleep
A minority, including Seventh-day Adventists
Some Christians read “fallen asleep” literally: the dead know nothing until the resurrection, and only then does the person come alive again. The major churches reject this, because Jesus and Paul speak of “today” and “with Christ”.
What will the new creation be like?
The Bible gives no map, but pictures that together make a promise.
God lives with people
The heart of the promise is not a place, but Someone: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.” They will see His face.
No tears, no death
God wipes away every tear. Mourning, crying and pain are no more: “the former things have passed away”.
A new body
Not ghosts or angels, but people with a risen body, just as Jesus ate after Easter and let Himself be touched.
A renewed earth
Creation still groans now, but it will be set free. Christians wait for “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells”.
A feast
Isaiah sees a meal for all peoples on God’s mountain; Jesus speaks of people from east and west who sit at table. The Bible ends with a wedding.
From every people
A crowd no one can count, from every nation, tribe, people and language. The riches of the nations are brought into the city.
The thousand years: four readings
One of the most debated chapters of the Bible, explained side by side.
Revelation 20 speaks six times of “a thousand years” in which Satan is bound and the faithful reign with Christ. Christians have read what that means in different ways since the first centuries. All four readings below believe that Jesus comes back, that the dead rise and that God makes all things new. They differ on the order of events and on how literal the thousand years are. Draad does not choose here.
Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, many Reformed; since Augustine the most widely held reading
- Now: the Church and Christ’s reign (the “thousand years”)
- Jesus comes back
- Resurrection and judgement
- New heaven and new earth
- Jesus returns
- The thousand years
The thousand years are an image for the time of the Church, now: Christ already reigns, evil has been bound by the cross. At the end Jesus comes back, and at the same time come the resurrection, the judgement and the new creation.
Much remains hidden. No one knows the day or the hour, and the Bible speaks about the future in images: a city of gold, a wedding, a tree whose leaves bring healing. Paul says that for now we see “in a mirror dimly”. What is certain is who is waiting: the same Jesus who rose.
Do you remember?
Five short questions about Christian hope.
Question 1 of 5
What do Christians confess in the creed about the end?
Sources
Sources
- Vatican, “Catechism of the Catholic Church, I believe in the resurrection of the body (988–1060)”
- Wikipedia, “Intermediate state”
- Wikipedia, “Christian mortalism (soul sleep)”
- Wikipedia, “Millennialism (amillennialism, postmillennialism, premillennialism)”
- Wikipedia, “Dispensationalism”
- New Advent, “Augustine, The City of God XX.7–9”