20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality (1 Cor 15:20-23,51-52).
Young-earth creationists subscribe to a kind of instantaneous creation, although that's staggered over six days, inasmuch as God instantly made things, but in stages. Serial instantaneous creation.
Critics of young-earth creation regard this as artificial. An ad hoc face-saving device to harmonize their chronology with the scientific evidence.
I’m not going to debate that particular issue, which I’ve discussed on other occasions. Instead, I’d note that in the myopic debate over Biblical protology, it’s easy to overlook a comparable situation in Biblical eschatology.
One of the things that will occur when Jesus returns is the instantaneous glorification of Christians who are alive at his coming. Sickly Christians will be restored. Elderly Christians will be rejuvenated.
Odds are, some Christian women will be pregnant at the Parousia. By implication, babies in the womb will be instantaneously glorified. Mother and child will both be glorified in situ. Although they were conceived in a fallen world, the babies will be born into what looks like an unfallen world. A fallen world that’s restored during their gestation. They will have no direct experience of sin. At most, their glorified Christian parents can tell them what life was like under the curse.
And it seems to me that that’s analogous to mature creation or apparent age. But in this case, instantaneous recreation rather than instantaneous creation.
Just something I have been pondering for the last few weeks I might make known because of this thread and recent passing of dear friends now taking their place in Him on the other side.
ReplyDeleteThink about this.
How "fresh" and actively living were the animals God killed to clothe Adam and Eve?
How "fresh" and actively living was Christ when cut down in His prime, @ 33.5 years of age, taken from the earth?
How alive things and creations will be in and on the earth at that time of that very last moment when Christ's last trumpet blast sounds and all the things we read described in Scripture will instantly be no more at that moment?
I have been driving around my communities thinking just how sudden it will be to the conscious mind at that moment of the end of time!
On the ranch, we hired a shooter to shoot a calf for eating! Bang! He dropped, bam, it was over in an instant!
"...Isa 25:7 And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.
Isa 25:8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
Isa 25:9 It will be said on that day, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation."
Steve, I've been reading Paul Helm's stuff on the philosophy of time recently and was wondering what you think about his theory of eternal creation.
ReplyDelete"Eternal creation" is ambiguous. If God is timeless, then there's a sense in which there was never a time when God wasn't the Creator of the world.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, there's also a sense in which there was never a time when the world didn't exist, if the existence of time is, itself, a mode of creaturely existents. The origin of time and the origin of the world coincide.
However, none of that means the world is eternal. None of that means the world always existed. The world still could (and did) have a first moment.
Thanks, Steve. An intriguing post!
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