Post - Awakening Views"Post-Awakening" is kind of misnomer here - I'm still "awakening" - learning, discovering, growing. I used the "pre", "mid", and "post" prefixes to divide up my story in an order that seems to make some sense as I reflect on how my views on the end-times have formed and changed over the years. And I hoped you all would think I was clever using these prefixes that usually end up in these eschatalogical discussions.
Probably a better title for this section of my story would be "The Great Reversal". The major shift in my view in the end times has to with a "reversal" of where the earth ends up in the "end of time". Let me try to explain...
Even though I considered myself a Post-triber which viewed the "rapture" (the term is NOT in the Bible) as a welcoming party for Jesus return/second coming to earth I still had the impression that when Jesus came back the earth was doomed, done, over with - destroyed. OK - maybe we got to live here for a 1,ooo years but still - the earth was eventually going to be caput.
But I'm starting to see that God's plan has always been for heaven to come to earth. Hey, yeah, duh - Jesus even taught us to pray this way - Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
I'm starting to see that the beginning of time ties in COMPLETELY with the end of time. Genesis and Revelation go together. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega - the beginning and the end - the first (you can think of Creator and creation here) and the last (you can think of Consummation, the summing up, the pulling together of all things here). What He had planned in the beginning for creation -even before creation - is going to be fulfilled.
The book of Revelation ends with heaven coming to earth and with God dwelling among His people. Amazing! This God - always coming to us! I always thought it was the other way - someday I would be dwelling where God was in heaven out there some place. And that's true EXCEPT - the way Revelation shows it - God comes to us. God does take me to live with Him and he chooses to make His dwelling among men, on earth. He brings heaven to earth. His kingdom comes, His will is done on earth.
I've also come to see that God's "plan of salvation" isn't just the saving of souls for heaven. His salvation, his redemption is for the whole WORLD which includes the earth, as well as its people and creatures - ALL of creation.
I'm also coming to see that the book of Revelation doesn't chart things out like this...
My thinking in these "post-awakening" time has been helped in a large part through reading Brian McClaren's "A New Kind of Christian" trilogy - particularly "The Story We Find Ourselves In" (which is one of the very few books I have ever read more than once) and "The Last Word - And the Word After That". Rob Bell has also been very helpful in tying in Revelation with Genesis.
I'm looking forward to getting into this study with my friends Paul and Ben.
