What the Bible says about the end is that God is Alpha and Omega. So God is the one who began everything, and God is the one who will finish everything. He will consummate it. The Lord Jesus will return in heavenly glory. He’ll gather his saints to him, and raise them from the dead, and raising them from the dead, he’ll bring about a whole renovation of the cosmos. All that curse will be removed: no more crying, no more pain. The first things have passed away. It reads in Revelation 21, “The first things have passed away” (v. 4). The Lord will bring to final fulfillment everything that he’s now begun in Jesus Christ. In Christ, we’re already alive from the dead. In Christ, we’re already justified. In Christ, the power of sin has been broken. The Lord will bring to final fulfillment everything that he’s now begun in Jesus Christ.
Theologian Herman Bavinck says in one place that only in billions and billions of creatures redeemed and made like Jesus Christ can the fullness and the richness of the image of God be fully expressed. So if we think of the Lord coming back and renewing the entire cosmos and raising up his whole church from all the ages, millions and billions, a group no man can number, that will show the glory of the triune God as it images him, and that’ll be us. So we thank God and praise God for that.
- 160Shares