I’m currently reading N.T. Wright’s newest book, God’s Homecoming: The Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal. It’s a great summary of the Bible’s narrative that God’s ultimate goal is God returning to dwell with humanity to renew his creation. Eternal life is not escaping earth and going to heaven. Rather, heaven and earth were divinely designed to merge and overlap. And eternal life is the resurrection life that we will eternally live in the renewed creation.

Here’s a great quote from the book:

“‘Eternal life’ is therefore ‘the life—the resurrection life—of the coming age.’ Unfortunately the phrase is now so widely taken in a platonic sense that one needs to paraphrase it and say something like ‘the life of the coming age.’ As in Romans 8 and elsewhere, this will be the new creation of what we would call the material world of space, time, and matter: like the present world, only with its beauty enhanced, its problems (particularly death) eliminated, and God’s presence and glory glinting from every corner.”

This book is a recurrent theme for Wright, one which I thoroughly embrace and love. God’s creation is good and he promises repeatedly through Scripture that he will renew it. That renewal comes through his people, his “royal priesthood”, as we interact and cooperate with his flourishing reign to bring healing and justice to the present world.

This theme, along with most of Wright’s theology, creates a beautiful and imaginative vision for spiritual formation.

God’s creation is comprised of two interconnected spheres — heaven and earth. Heaven is God’s domain and he has given earth to humans to steward. We are his image-bearers and royal priesthood, bringing his care and wisdom to his earth. But our pursuit of rebellious self-autonomy splits heaven and earth. As the Bible’s narrative unfolds, God promises to renew his creation, to reconnect heaven and earth. As his plan develops, the wilderness Tabernacle and then the Jerusalem Temple become the unique geographical locations where the spheres of heaven and earth meet and overlap. 

When Jesus arrives, he clearly views himself as the replacement of the Jerusalem temple. The temple was ultimately only a signpost pointing to the reality that would come in him. Heaven and earth now fully merged in a true human being. The good news he embodied, demonstrated and proclaimed, is that God’s flourishing rule is now available in and through him right here and now. Wherever Jesus went, heaven overlapped with earth.

In the Bible, the ultimate eschatological goal is for all of heaven and earth to fully merge. This is the New Creation. The New Creation was to fully launch with the resurrection of God’s faithful people at the end this present evil age. The twist is that Jesus, God’s faithful Son, was resurrected in the midst of this present evil age. New Creation launched at Jesus’ resurrection, breaking into and co-existing in the midst of this present evil age. This “already, but not yet” reality of the New Creation will continue until Jesus returns and all God’s people are resurrected. Then this present evil age will end and God’s New Creation will be established in its fullness.

Between Jesus’ resurrection and return, Jesus’ apprentices are those who unite themselves with him in loyalty and trust. And like him, we become the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Cor 6:19). We become God’s New Creation in human form (2Cor 5:17). In other words, Jesus’ apprentices are learning from him how to become the overlap of heaven and earth like he is. As we learn from him to be like him from the inside-out, our lives become the place where heaven and earth meet. Like him, heaven overlaps with earth wherever we go. 

This is why spiritual disciplines are so essential in our apprenticeship to Jesus. They interact with God’s grace. Spiritual disciplines are activities within our power that enable us to accomplish what we cannot do by direct effort. God’s grace is his acting in our life to do what we cannot do on our own.

Notice that both spiritual disciplines and God’s grace enable us to do what we cannot do by our own direct effort. They are the moments in our daily lives where heaven (God’s grace) and earth (spiritual disciplines) meet. Under Jesus’ direct tutelage, our effort overlaps with God’s energy. And in this overlap, we are being transformed and renewed into Jesus’ likeness.

We are renewed into our vocation as God’s image-bearers. We work as his royal priesthood, bringing healing and justice to God’s world. We are God’s temple, the geographical points on earth where heaven and earth meet. We are human versions of the New Creation where heaven and earth overlap. We live God’s eternal life, the resurrection life of the new age, in the here and now.

We are becoming people, like Jesus, who can naturally and easily embody, demonstrate and proclaim God’s flourishing kingdom on earth. In the mundane and ordinary moments of our lives.

Our small practices and efforts join with God’s abundant grace and energy to enable our daily lives to become the place where heaven and earth meet — “God’s presence and glory glinting from every corner.”