by John McClean
(Photo: Yosef (jossy) Futsum on Unsplash)
What is the goal of the world and us?
That is the most important thing about the new creation, the city-temple, is God’s presence. The God we cannot see now will purify his people for his presence, so that we will see him face to face (Rev 22:3b-4). He will look on us as always, wipe the tears from our eyes, and as we see the face of Christ we will see God and know him, just as we are fully known. The heart of the new creation will be God himself, on his throne. Creation will be transformed, flooded by the light of heaven. God will fill our existence with wonder beyond words: his life supplying and empowering us, his glory enlightening and dazzling us, his holiness purifying us, his joy enrapturing us, and God will be all in all. I can’t even try to describe it any further than that. We will see God for who he is, in the glory of Christ. That is creation at the end, at its telos, filled with God’s glory, so we can love and serve him.
This is what gives humanity direction and hope.
Direction, first. The new creation tells us what life is for: knowing and loving and worshipping God. We should not conclude from that, though, that life is only about singing praise songs and worship, like a church service. That is the centre, but it encompasses everything about living in God’s world. There’s a hint at the end of 22:5, where God’s people “will reign”, ruling as Adam was meant to at the start. In God’s presence we will fulfill our purpose to his praise.
The telos of creation sets our direction in all sorts of ways. What is my body for? It is to offer to God as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:2), not to be offered to sin (Rom 6:12-13). It is to serve him by loving the people around us. The telos of creation shows us people are valued. God will gather people from the nations to be with him in glory, so we treat people as precious.
Last year my dad was in a nursing home, in end-stage Parkinson’s with associated dementia. I watched the nurses shower him, feed him, toilet him, dress him, and tried to help where I could. It was easy to ask: what’s the point? What are we achieving? There was no great outcome — we weren’t healing him. The new creation answer is that people matter, bodies matter, human life matters, so we work in that direction. We treat a frail old man with dignity and kindness because that is what he is made for. In the nursing home it is easy to feel hopeless. Seeing God’s purpose in the new creation sets our direction at every point in life.
A few years ago, I was at a conference for Christians thinking about creation care, and sat in on a workshop run by a young woman working in eco-care. She talked about how depressed her colleagues were: things seem to be going backwards, species are going extinct, pollution is worse, the climate is changing. They were desperate. As a Christian, she could be different, with hope. It was not that she thought she or they could change everything, but she knew God would. We work towards God’s ends, knowing that God will bring it to fulfilment. The new creation vision sets us the right direction, and assures us that is not in vain.
So, what is this end?
Our world, and each of us, has a telos — a purpose, a direction. There are famous words about that. The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins: “What is the chief end of man?” We can update the wording: what are we made for? The answer: “Our chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” That’s the new creation city-temple, where we enjoy God fully and know him face to face.
Boldly, I want to add a question to the Catechism! We don’t just need to know our “chief end”, but the telos of the creation. God’s creation is not incidental to his purposes. It is the theatre of his glory, the dwelling in which his people will live and reign and see his face. So, here is a second question: What is creation’s chief end? The chief end of creation is to be filled with the glory of God, as we enjoy him for ever.
In the new creation, the world will reach its telos: all creation will bring glory to God in exactly the way he designed it to do. The picture in Revelation helps us see now what we will live then. Understanding our purpose, we can embark on that calling now, living for God in his world to glorify him and anticipating enjoying him forever.
[This is the final post of a three-post series. View post 1 and post 2.]
