Living in Hope

Preface

Living in Hope

Christian hope has often been described as hope for heaven. While that is not untrue, it is incomplete.

The hope proclaimed throughout Scripture is far richer than the expectation of leaving this world behind. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible tells the story of a God committed to the redemption of His creation. The prophets looked forward to the restoration of God’s people, the renewal of creation, the defeat of death, and the establishment of God’s righteous reign. The New Testament announces that these promises have begun to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Yet the New Testament also insists that the story is not complete. Christ has come, but He will come again. The kingdom has been inaugurated, but it has not yet reached its fullness. The resurrection has begun, yet death remains the last enemy to be destroyed. Believers have received the Holy Spirit as the pledge of their inheritance while still awaiting the redemption of all things.

What does it mean to live within this tension?

How should Christians understand the resurrection of the dead? What does the Bible mean by a new creation? How should Revelation 20 be read? In what sense are believers already participating in the age to come while still awaiting the return of Christ? These questions have occupied Christians for centuries, and sincere readers of Scripture have often reached different conclusions.

This book does not attempt to defend a particular theological system or settle every eschatological debate. It considers these questions within the larger story of Scripture, where individual passages belong to an unfolding narrative stretching from creation to new creation, from promise to fulfillment, and from the resurrection of Christ to the renewal of all things.

Several principal millennial views held within the Christian tradition will therefore be considered. Each seeks to take Scripture seriously, each offers valuable insights, and each raises important questions. The aim is not to dismiss any of them, but to understand what each contributes before returning to the broader biblical hope they seek to explain.

Throughout this study, one conviction gradually emerges. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not simply evidence that He is the Messiah. It is the decisive announcement that God’s promised future has entered the present. The age to come has begun, and the kingdom has entered history through its risen King. Christian hope therefore rests not only upon what God has promised to do, but also upon what He has already begun.

The New Testament describes believers as those who live between two horizons. We look back to the resurrection of Christ, the decisive victory over sin and death. We look forward to the day when that victory will be fully revealed in the resurrection of His people and the renewal of creation. Between those horizons, the Church lives by faith, bears witness to the kingdom, and waits with confidence for the return of her King.

If this study helps readers see that resurrection stands at the center of Christian hope, that new creation is the goal of redemption, and that the kingdom of God has already entered history through Jesus Christ, it will have accomplished its purpose.

For Christian hope is not merely the expectation of a distant future.

It is the confidence that, in Christ, the future God promised has already begun.