“As citizens of God’s kingdom, we may not just write off the present earth as a total loss, or rejoice in its deterioration.  We must indeed be working for a better world now.  Our efforts to bring the kingdom of Christ into fuller manifestation are of eternal significance.  Our Christian life today, our struggles against sin – both individual and institutional – our mission work, our attempt to develop and promote a distinctively Christian culture, have value not only for this world but even for the world to come.”

- Anthony Hoekema, The Bible & the Future, page 287.

In Plato’s thought, salvation is:

• vertical (our destiny is upward in heaven)
• otherworldly (our souls are saved into another spiritual world)
• an escape (we are saved not as part of this world but rather from this world)

But a genuinely Christian worldview contradicts the Platonic view at each of these points, since biblically, the goal of salvation is:

• horizontal (we look forward in history to the renewal of creation)
• of this world (the creation is to be renewed)
• integral to God’s ultimate plan for this world (no escape is necessary)

- Michael Goheen & Craig Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads, page 52.

Related Posts:

• The Bible and the Future by Anthony Hoekema
• Book Review – Living at the Crossroads by Bartholomew & Goheen
• The Kingdom of Christ by Russell D. Moore
• Book Review: Total Church by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis
• Extended Quote of the Day: Craig Bartholomew & Ryan O’Dowd