...to eternity

Ultimately, the experience of alienation between God, humans and the creation will be resolved at the eschaton, the time of the Sabbath rest where the original relationship of God, humanity and creation is restored. The future of the Spirit is experienced in the new creation, in “the rebirth of the cosmos to glory, the blessed community of creation which joins all separated creatures, and the direct fellowship with God of the creation united in Christ and renewed in the Spirit”[1]. There are numerous visions of this future of renewal and transformation in the Old and New Testaments, where “what has been distorted and ruined will finally be restored to its original integrity”[2]. No less so than in the creation of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1), when “in a final act of consummation the existing order will be renewed and refashioned” [3].

God will once again make his dwelling place with humanity and live with them (Rev 21:3). God has returned his fellowship with the lives of the redeemed – this time, not in a garden called Eden but in the City of God. Humans are offered a transformed a resurrected body, like Christ glorious body (1 Cor 15), and a continuation and fulfilment of the life in the Spirit that was initially offered as a “deposit” or “guarantee” of the inheritance of the world to come. At this time, the Spirit, as the perfecting cause[4] will “unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10) .

Harmonious relations between humans and their fellow creatures are re-established (Isa 11:6-8), as they are among creatures (Isa 65:25). Creation itself, set free from its bondage to decay, will be enabled to “achieve the glorious freedom for which it was created”[5]. This is the time of “universal shalom when all creatures will live together in harmonious and joyful community”[6]. Here we find the vision of the renewed fellowship of the Spirit indwelling humanity and all creation, liberated from its bondage to the law of sin and death. The inevitable has become the eternal. The fellowship of the Spirit is fully unveiled to the community of the redeemed, and the presence of the LORD will dwell with them forever.

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[1] Moltmann, God in Creation, 100.
[2] McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature, 50.
[3] McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature, 49.
[4] Gunton, Theology Through the Theologians, 120.
[5] McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature, 50.
[6] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 99.