Jesus died for our sins not so that we could sort out abstract ideas, but so that we, having been put right, could become part of God’s plan to put his whole world right. That is how the revolution works.

The “goal” is not “heaven,” but a renewed human vocation within God’s renewed creation. This is what every biblical book from Genesis on is pointing toward.

As we saw, the tabernacle was designed as a miniature heaven-and-earth, a “little world” in which God and his people would meet. It would be a miniature Eden. Now, however, it would be placed under strict conditions, because of the danger of rebellious humans bringing their polluted lives into direct contact with the holy God himself.

It ought to be clear from all this that the reason “sin” leads to “death” is not at all (as is often supposed) that “death” is an arbitrary and somewhat draconian punishment for miscellaneous moral shortcomings. The link is deeper than that. The distinction I am making is like the distinction between the ticket you will get if you are caught

This lawbreaking is a symptom of a much more serious disease. Morality is important, but it isn’t the whole story. Called to responsibility and authority within and over the creation, humans have turned their vocation upside down, giving worship and allegiance to forces and powers within creation itself.

Many dictionaries still define “eschatology” using the terms “death, judgment, heaven, and hell,” often known as the “Four Last Things.”

there is to be a place where the living God will dwell forever among his people, it will not be in a building of bricks and mortar; it will be in and as a human being, the ultimate son of David. Somehow everything that might be thought and celebrated about the Temple and about God’s intention of dwelling with his people would come into a new world

many expound some version of the idea that on the cross God in Christ won a great victory, perhaps we should say the great victory, over the powers of evil. This is the theme many now refer to as Christus Victor, the conquering Messiah.

Whether we believe in Jesus, whether we approve of his teaching, let alone whether we like the look of the movement that still claims to follow him,