A persistent driver of the dualism which has weakened the Church ever since its re-birth under the New Covenant is eschatology. Our understanding of the future has critically shaped our understanding of the present. It is always this way. It is unavoidable. It is necessary.
We believe we will not manage to break down and throw out the pagan idea of spirit versus matter, which--as our previous posts have demonstrated--ends up constructing a hierarchy of things that are seen as really important to God, and things which are not. The really important things--the godly things, the spiritual things--are those that last. That is, the really important things are those which continue on into eternity. If matter and material reality is thought not to last for eternity, it will always be degraded in our eyes.
Evangelicalism is racked with this pernicious dichotomy.
It believes deep down that only three things last: God, the Word of God, and the souls of converted men. The rest is all frippery and window dressing. The rest will not last "ten thousand years", whereas the really important things will. This leads to a dualism of a higher and lower order; of the holy versus the mundane. The material world is devalued and seen only as a means to a higher, more holy and spiritual end. But it is not just evangelicalism that is compromised by this dualism: it is pretty much the entire Western Church. Plato and neo-platonic paganism has had a profound, unhealthy influence upon God's people.
Yet the Bible has not left us in the dark in these matters. It speaks clearly and plainly--although not exhaustively. It is abundantly clear that the future of the Kingdom, the eschaton, is decidedly material! It will be made up of space, time, geography, bodies, food and drink, and matter. The reason Christians do not see this is because they have been conditioned not to see it. That, and the fact that degrading God's creation is a native sinful lust of the fallen human heart.
We know that one of the great theological debates in the days of our Lord was over bodily resurrection. the Sadducees (the hellenistic protagonists within Judaism at the time) denied the resurrection of the body. The Pharisees insisted upon it. Our Lord, of course declared, defended, taught, and lived the resurrection of the body. Many Christians have not stopped to reflect upon what this means. It means that the future Kingdom of God, when all is done, and the Final Judgement has been pronounced--that Kingdom of the eternal state will be a very worldly, a very physical, and a very earthy place.
Our Lord, in His resurrection, is the prototype and the head of the new creation, in which all things are made new. This includes the renewing of matter, of atoms, of physics and its laws, and of our bodies. Just as Christ's new life exists in the flesh, so our eternal life will exist in our fleshly bodies.
When the Scriptures record the attributes of Christ's resurrected human nature, it strikes us with descriptions of its tangible earthiness. Although Christ's resurrected human and bodily nature was such that it could move through locked doors (John 20: 19), there are striking continuities with his bodily existence prior to His death. His bodily scars from the nails and spear thrust continued in the resurrection and were part of his resurrected human nature (John 20:25). He described His being as "flesh and bones"--which is about as material a description as you can get. He ate food with His disciples (Luke 24: 42,43).
He promised that He would eat bread and drink wine with His people in His Father's Kingdom. Does not this necessarily require that someone is going to be growing wheat, grinding it, baking it, and growing and fermenting grapes? To be human in the Father's Kingdom is to eat and drink--along with all the tangible, material reality which this implies.
But it gets better. It is not just human beings who are undergoing redemption; it is the entire creation (sans the wicked and all wickedness). The original, entire natural order--with all its beautiful tangible earthiness--its sights, its smells, its tastes, its touch, and its sounds was very, very good. It was glorious--a glorious reflection of God Himself. When all things become new in the Resurrection, the original, entire natural order is not just restored, but perfectly developed thus reflecting the glory of God more potently than in the original creation. (Notice that in Revelation we are no longer in a garden, but a glorious city--something which our first parents never experienced). Men created cities as they subdued and unfolded the creation: the glory of urban living will be taken into heaven.
When Paul is describing the resurrection body and its nature, he stresses its continuity with our present material existence. He uses the analogy of a seed. "But some one will say, 'How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?' You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else." (I Corinthians 15: 35-37)
As Cosden puts it:
What is interesting to notice, however, is that the new body is not a replacement body coming out of thin air, but rather one that comes from and is organically related to, a fulfillment of, the one that dies. . . . Paul does not seem here to be contrasting the physics of this creation and the new creation. These verses show that there is continuity, a genuine carryover between that which dies and that which is resurrected. The new body is the same "in kind" as the first. Cosden, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, p. 62f.But the resurrection of His people to a tangible, empirical, material, and physical eternal life is just part of His redemptive work. He has been raised to reconcile all things to Himself--and in context, all things means literally that--all created reality, both visible and invisible. "For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. . . . For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself." (Colossians 1:16-20)
All created reality--both visible and invisible, tangible and intangible--(including authorities and government) will be reconciled to Him in the Kingdom and will be in the Kingdom. The material and tangible aspects, the visible aspects, will not be obliterated. They are all to be reconciled. The whole creates awaits the redemption of our bodies, so that it too will be freed from the corruption to which it has been subjected because of our sin (Romans 8:18-23).
When we submit to the very earthy and physical future which awaits us, and rejoice in it, any dualism between matter and spirit, body and soul, where one is more important than the other, more holy or spiritual than the other, disappears. Which is more holy: to enjoy a rich mature Shiraz, or to pray? Both alike are holy, provided we enjoy the Shiraz with thanksgiving to the eternal Vintner, and provided we pray according to His commands. Both Shiraz (or its more glorified and perfected equivalent) and prayer are part of His glorious eternal Kingdom. Both alike are reconciled to Him and reconstructed around Him.
How glorious a future which awaits us; how glorious, therefore, is our earthly life upon this wonderful world. How glorious and spiritual, therefore, is all our lawful work and labour in this age.
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