eschatology and restoration

only two days away from my WaSaBI seminar on the above-mentioned topic, subtitled, is it right to say "the Christian hope is to go to heaven when we die"?

my plan is as follows:

why do we think what we think?
and take a look at world histories, and how we get to where we seem to have got to

what actually happens when we die?
we can think thru matrices(!) and a few passages that talk about the now and the not yet

what will be the characteristics of the new heavens and new earth?
looking at a few passages, working out what will be continuous, where the discontinuity is

what is God's goal for creation?
restoration

if we live now for the future because of the past, how does our thinking about the future affect how we live now?

it will be nice to get all this stuff out that has been swinging around in the monkey-bars of my head for so long.
and i hope it should be fun too!
Sunday 24th June, 2:30-4:00pm, Wild St Church Hall, Maroubra

WSBI 5

this is one of the many emotive pictures we were shown this morning, in a primer to the third WaSaBI, this one entitled the cross and eschatology.
i guess, in the same way as you need to understand the absence of something to grasp its true value (try this with oxygen sometime), our presenter wanted us to understand the hopelessness of this world, in order to fully grasp the hope we have in Christ.

after discussing despair, we grappled with 4 views of hope, the marxist, western hedonist, postmodern, and finally the Christian (ours and God's).

i found it a real encouragment looking at the manifold terms the new testament uses to express hope:

• hope
• expectation
• God's purpose for the world
• heaven
• inheritance
• last day
• eternal life
• plan
• predestination
• jesus

just reading through this list, thinking about the images each word or phrase speaks of the hope we have is quite powerful.

slightly off-kilter, but i have been finding more and more of late (perhaps it is sydney? or just my eyes being open a little wider?), the idea of the cross seems very much an after-thought:
the gospel, so i hear, and so the bible tells me, is the resurrection.
therefore the cross in some ways is simply the means to an end. that end being the inreaching, and eventual victory, of the resurrection age into this sin-bound age.
yes, the cross was the only way for our sins to be dealt with, but even the payment of sin is again simply a means to an end, the resurrection.

although this is perhaps a discussion for another time, for a WaSaBI on eschatolohy and the cross, the cross hardly got a leg in!


personally, the framework used to discuss all 4 views of hope, was very helpful, not to mention challenging.
diagramatically this means, the starting point, the present, and the end-point(=eschaton=hope)


so if one of our starting points is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our present is that we are resurrection living, and our end-point is our resurrection bodies, this begs the question: Do we treat one another differently to how we did beforehand? Does the present reality of our partaking NOW in the resurrection show us to be different to the days gone by?
similarly, if the starting point is the sabbath-rest, the end-point is meeting God face to face, then our present reality needs must be fellowship together in the spirit - no longer seeing one another, nor our true selves, as through a glass darkly.


as i hope you can tell, this was another great WaSaBI. top work rob.

the next WSBI will be held on 22nd april - this is a call out for any articles on atonement, of a suitable level to hand out to comers prior to the reading group WSBI. links to any articles would be greatly appreciated - or you can email them to doug at-symbol wildstreet dot org dot au (yes, the reading group is because i'm running it, failing volunteers, and due to preaching commitments am unable to write a talk - though feel free to volunteer your services to wild street bible institute!)

WSBI 4

on sunday it was mark's turn. as previously intimated, he took us thru what the bible has to say about sin.

personally the hardest thing was working out the paradox between total and utter depravity. that is to say, all of us are infected with the curse, in many ways like one bit of yeast affects the whole loaf. (c/f Romans 7:18)
this therefore implies that anything we do is tainted by sin. that would explain why isaiah claims all his works to be but filthy rags (64:6). but, being dead to sin, clothed in Christ's righteousness, are we therefore unable to do nothing that could be described as good, that is free from that curse, as, after all, we are created in our good God's good image, who sends his rain on both the righteous and the wicked.


the answer, it seems, is no, there is naught you can do untainted by sin. AND yes, as you died with Christ, we now walk in newness of life.

the struggle to synergise this seeming antinomy would explain the negative press John Piper received (for saying John Piper doesn't just do bad things. John Piper is bad.), as well as the papist finger-wagging at Luther's encouragement to a friend (to sin boldly).

now if someone could just explain the seeming monergism of judgement i see in Romans 1-2 (particularly the pattern explicit in 2:6-11 mirroring that in 1:18-31) i could move on...

i'm looking forward to the next WaSaBI on the Cross (and what it has to do with eschatology).

stay tuned...

WSBI 3

well, WSBI has begun! incarnate as WaSaBI, the first week: last week, was well attended and was quite encouraging.

the topic was Sanctification, and much to our collective amazement, it seems the picture the Bible paints is one of positional sanctification. this means that Sanctification (in essence, becoming more like Jesus), is something that has been done: in God's eyes we are sanctified, as well as being justified (declared right).
so it's not just that because we have been justified, we are now acceptable to God, and therefore over time we will become more like Jesus, or more sanctified - rather, our identity as Christians is now one of being positionally sanctified, as it says in 1Peter2:9,

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

as for style, it was a bit more MYCesque, more group work, whereas i was thinking more along the lines of a talk, followed by some small group stuff. but the presenter did an admirable job.

so the 2nd one kicks off in a fortnight, with the hopefully juicy topic of sin. John Macarthur (not Mark Driscoll as i previously believed) said that, 'If I had one hour to tell somebody the
gospel, I'd spend 55 minutes on sin, five minutes on everything else.'


will keep you posted...

WSBI 2

Still trying to get topics together since my previous post:

it looks like WS may be better served with systematics, over early church history. now it's not because i don't like early church history - au contrare: as santayana says, "he who forgets the past is destined to repeat it."

however the point was made that people attending may be better served having a conversation about things they can engage with, as opposed to a didactic lecture; the idea was always to be interactive.
systematics will helpfully remain accessible, due to their biblical framework.

so with that in mind, what do we think of these as topics?

1. Sovereignty of God


2. Baptism


3. Eschatology


4. Sin Nature of the Atonement, Why Jesus?, Patripassianism


5. The Bible Canon LXX v Masoretic, Apocrypha/pseudepigrypha Gnostic gospels, DeadSeaScrolls

Predestination

6. The Holy Spirit


7. Christology Who is Jesus

WSBI

firstly: the new-look wild street church website is up! check it out on the sidebar.

secondly: next year the wild street bible institute is underway, and i am still thinking through possible topics. the format is to be (i'm thinking) 45 min talk, 45 min small group discussion. to be held monthly.
topics thus far are:

Carthage (the church of martyrs)
Alexandria (allegory)
Athens (historico-contextual method)
Rome (church governance/leadership)
Constantinople (esp 381 and trinitarian controversy)
Sin - the nature of the atonement
Source Criticism

got any suggestions as regards format of the time, other possible subjects?
any appreciated!