The Eschatological Framework – Death to Consummation
Now we come to the heart of the essay: the eschatological framework itself.
I’ve laid out the foundations – God outside time, conditional immortality, the ageless purpose, amillennialism, and annihilationism. Now I need to show how these pieces fit together into a coherent picture of what happens at death, during the intermediate state, at Christ’s return, and in the final state.
This is where the framework either stands or falls. If I can demonstrate that these elements integrate logically and align with Scripture, then I’ve made my case. If not, then I’m just offering another internally inconsistent eschatology to add to the pile.
Let’s begin with what happens at the moment of death.
Death and Instantaneous Judgment
Hebrews 9:27: Appointed to Die Once, Then Judgment
“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
This verse is often cited in discussions of eschatology, but I don’t think we take it seriously enough.
Notice the sequence: death, then judgment. Not death, then waiting, then resurrection, then judgment. Death, then judgment.
The Greek word for “after” (meta) simply means after, following. There’s no indication of a long gap. In fact, the natural reading suggests immediacy – you die, and then (next thing) comes judgment.
I believe this judgment happens instantaneously at the moment of death.
Why Judgment Must Be Instantaneous
Think about what judgment is supposed to accomplish.
In human courts, judgment serves several purposes: determining guilt or innocence, assigning appropriate punishment or acquittal, providing public accountability, and sometimes offering opportunity for repentance or reform.
But what purpose does post-death judgment serve if it occurs at some future event, potentially centuries or millennia after death?
The Pointlessness of Post-Death “Review”
If I die today and my judgment doesn’t occur until Christ’s return, what happens in that judgment?
Presumably, my life is reviewed. My sins and righteousness are weighed. A verdict is reached.
But what’s the point? I can’t learn from this review. I can’t change my behaviour. I can’t repent of newly revealed sins. If the judgment reveals I fell short, I can’t go back and live differently.
The judgment would be purely informational – “Here’s why you’re condemned” or “Here’s why you’re saved” – but with no possibility of response or change.
That seems pointless. Worse than pointless – it seems cruel. “Let me tell you in detail everything you did wrong and why you’re being destroyed, even though there’s nothing you can do about it now.”
Can’t Learn, Can’t Change, Can’t Repent
This is the fundamental problem with delayed judgment.
In life, judgment (whether from God, conscience, or consequences) serves a pedagogical purpose. We learn from it. We change. We grow.
But after death, if judgment is merely declarative – announcing what was already true – then what’s its function?
Some might say, “It’s about God’s justice being publicly displayed.” Fine. But does that require each individual to stand before a throne and hear their sentence pronounced when they already know what it is? When they’re incapable of responding?
It makes much more sense that judgment occurs at death, when the person’s life is complete, their choices are final, and their status before God is revealed.
Judgment as Final Determination, Not Pedagogical Process
I believe judgment is God’s final determination of a person’s status based on their covenant relationship with Christ.
It’s not a process of review, examination, and sentencing. It’s a revelation of what is already true: you are either in Christ, or you are not. You are either constitutionally righteous (clothed in Christ’s righteousness) or you are not.
At death, that status is revealed and finalised. If you are in Christ, you step outside time into God’s presence. If you are not, you are annihilated.
There’s no courtroom drama. No long recounting of sins. No books opened and examined (except in symbolic apocalyptic imagery that we’ll address later).
Judgment is instantaneous because it’s simply the revelation of what was always true: your relationship with God through Christ.
Two Outcomes Only
At this moment of instantaneous judgment, there are only two possible outcomes.
Constitutionally Righteous: Step Outside Time
If you are in Christ – if you have been justified by faith, united to him, covered by his righteousness – then at death you are judged righteous.
Not because you earned it. Not because you were good enough. But because Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to you. You are constitutionally righteous – righteous in your legal standing before God, even though you remain a sinner in practice until glorification.
At this moment of judgment, you step outside time into God’s presence.
You don’t go to some intermediate waiting room. You don’t sleep. You step into heaven – which exists outside the spacetime continuum – and you are immediately with the Lord.
From your perspective, death and resurrection/Parousia are instantaneous. You close your eyes in death and open them in glory, even though from the perspective of those still in time, years or centuries may pass.
Wicked: Annihilation (Body Corrupts, Breath Returns to God)
If you are not in Christ – if you have rejected him, remained in your sins, refused the gospel – then at death you are judged and found wanting.
Your body decays naturally, returning to dust as Genesis 3:19 says: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The breath of life – the ruach, the animating principle that God gave you – returns to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
And you cease to exist.
No intermediate torment. No holding cell. No “waiting” for final judgment. The judgment has occurred, and the sentence is death – real, final, irreversible death.
God remembers you. Your life happened. But you no longer exist as a conscious being. You are gone.
Heaven Outside Time – The Intermediate State
No “Waiting” from God’s Perspective
If God exists outside time, and if heaven is where God dwells, then heaven must also exist outside time.
This solves one of the most persistent problems in eschatology: the intermediate state.
The “intermediate state” is the theological term for the period between a person’s death and the final resurrection. Where are people during this time? What are they experiencing? Are they conscious or unconscious? Are they in their final state or in some temporary condition?
Different theological traditions answer these questions differently, and most of the answers create problems.
But if heaven is outside time, the entire concept of an “intermediate” state becomes misleading.
From our time-bound perspective, there’s a gap between death and resurrection. Someone dies in AD 100, and Christ hasn’t returned yet in AD 2025 – so from our perspective, they’ve been “waiting” for over nineteen centuries.
But from the perspective of the person who died, and from God’s eternal perspective, there is no waiting. Death and resurrection are immediate, simultaneous, part of the same eternal “now.”
The Righteous Dead as “Everywhen and Everywhere”
In an article I wrote in 2019 called “The Ageless Purpose of God,” I used the phrase “everywhen and everywhere” to describe the resurrected Christ’s relationship to time after his ascension.
When Christ ascended, he didn’t go to a place far away in space. He stepped outside spacetime altogether, returning to the eternal reality he had always inhabited as the second person of the Trinity. From that vantage point, he is present to all times and all places simultaneously – not because he’s stretched thin across history, but because he exists in an eternal now that encompasses all temporal moments.
The same is true for believers who die.
When you die and are judged righteous in Christ, you step outside time into God’s presence. You enter heaven, which is not a location in space or a point in time but a reality beyond both.
From this vantage point – if we can even use spatial/temporal language – you are “everywhen.” All of history is present to you. The first century, the twenty-first century, the final consummation – all are part of the eternal now in which you exist.
Observing All History
This raises an intriguing possibility: can the righteous dead observe the unfolding of history?
I think the answer is yes.
Hebrews 12:1 speaks of “a great cloud of witnesses” surrounding us. The context is the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11 – people who died long before Christ’s first coming, let alone his return.
Are they just metaphorical witnesses – examples we look back to? Or are they actual witnesses – observing us, aware of what’s happening?
I think the latter. They are outside time, present to all moments of history, able to observe the ongoing work of God in the world.
This doesn’t mean they’re omniscient. It doesn’t mean they know our thoughts or hear our prayers (though see the next point). But it does mean they’re aware, conscious, engaged with the unfolding story of redemption.
The Righteous Dead and Angels
“Angel-Like” (Luke 20:36)
When the Sadducees try to trap Jesus with a question about marriage in the resurrection, Jesus responds: “For they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36).
We will be “equal to angels” (isangeloi). Angel-like. Similar to angels in some fundamental way.
What does this mean?
At minimum, it means we’ll be immortal (angels don’t die). It means we won’t marry or reproduce (angels don’t marry). It probably means we’ll have some of the abilities angels have – appearing and disappearing, moving in ways not limited by physical space.
But I think it might mean something more.
May Be Equivalent to Angels
Here’s a speculative but intriguing possibility: what if the righteous dead don’t just become like angels, but in some sense are the angels – or at least function as angels?
Angels are “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). They’re servants of God who interact with human history, deliver messages, protect, guide, and minister.
What if those who have died in Christ, now outside time in God’s presence, are doing this work?
It would explain the “cloud of witnesses.” It would explain how the “prayers of the saints” are offered before God’s throne (Revelation 5:8, 8:3-4) – not that we pray to the dead, but that the dead in Christ are participating in the heavenly worship and intercession.
It would also create a beautiful symmetry: we spend our earthly lives being ministered to by angels, and then when we die, we join the angelic host in ministering to those still on earth.
Participating in Ministering Through History
If this is true – and I want to be clear this is tentative, not dogmatic – then the righteous dead are not passive.
They’re not just “waiting” in heaven (even though, as we’ve established, there’s no waiting from their perspective). They’re actively participating in God’s work throughout history.
They might be the angels who appear at crucial moments. They might be involved in spiritual warfare. They might be interceding, worshipping, serving.
This is speculation beyond what Scripture clearly teaches. But it fits with the hints we’re given about the intermediate state, and it makes sense of the idea that heaven is not a holding pattern but active participation in God’s eternal purposes.
The Paradox: Personal Angels Being You?
Here’s where things get really strange – but necessarily so, given that we’re talking about realities beyond our four-dimensional experience.
Jesus speaks of children having angels who “always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10). There’s a long tradition of “guardian angels” – the idea that each person has an angel assigned to them.
What if your guardian angel is… you? You, from outside time, after your death, ministering to yourself during your earthly life?
I know that sounds bizarre. It creates apparent paradoxes. How can you minister to yourself before you’ve died? How can you be in two places/times at once?
But remember: we’re talking about beings outside time. Cause and effect, before and after, here and there – these categories don’t apply in the same way.
I’m not insisting on this. I’m not even fully convinced of it myself. But it’s the kind of possibility that opens up when you take seriously the idea that heaven is outside time and that the righteous dead participate in God’s eternal now.
Cloud of Witnesses (Hebrews 12:1)
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
The “cloud of witnesses” are those listed in Hebrews 11 – Abraham, Moses, Rahab, David, and countless others who died in faith.
They surround us. They witness us.
This is more than metaphor. These people, now outside time in God’s presence, are aware of us. They observe our race. They cheer us on.
Not because they’re granted some special vision from a distant heaven, but because they exist in the eternal now where all of history is present.
Prayers of the Saints (Revelation 5:8, 8:3-4)
In Revelation’s throne room visions, we see intriguing references to the prayers of the saints:
“And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Revelation 5:8).
“And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel” (Revelation 8:3-4).
Whose prayers are these? The prayers of living believers, certainly. But might they also include the prayers and intercessions of the saints who have died and are now in God’s presence?
I’m not suggesting we pray to dead saints – that’s a different issue entirely, and I reject the practice. But I am suggesting that those who have died in Christ and are now in his presence may be actively engaged in worship, intercession, and prayer before God’s throne.
They’re not passive. They’re not sleeping. They’re participating in the heavenly reality, which includes worship and prayer.
The Parousia – Christ’s Return and Resurrection
Amillennial Framework: No Literal Thousand-Year Reign
As I’ve already explained, I hold to an amillennial framework. This means I don’t believe in a literal, future, thousand-year earthly reign of Christ.
The “thousand years” in Revelation 20 is symbolic – representing the complete church age between Christ’s first and second comings. During this period, Satan’s power is restrained (though not eliminated), the martyrs “reign with Christ” spiritually, and the gospel advances throughout the world.
When Christ returns – the Parousia – that’s it. No intermediate millennium. No earthly kingdom based in Jerusalem. No multiple phases of resurrection and judgment.
Christ returns, the dead are raised, heaven and earth merge, and the final state is inaugurated.
This is the only framework that makes sense once you reject soul sleep and accept immediate post-death consciousness. Any other scheme creates the storage problems we’ve already discussed.
Christ Returns, Bringing New Heaven and Earth
At the Parousia, Christ returns not just to judge but to consummate.
He doesn’t come to set up a temporary kingdom that will last a thousand years before transitioning to something else. He comes to bring the final state – the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).
This is the moment when heaven and earth merge. When the timeless reality of God’s presence intersects with and transforms the physical creation. When everything that has been groaning in bondage to decay is set free (Romans 8:21-22).
Paul describes it as the “revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19) – the moment when what has always been true in heaven becomes visible and manifest on earth.
Resurrection: Merging Spirit and Flesh
1 Corinthians 15: The Resurrection Body
The most extensive biblical treatment of resurrection is 1 Corinthians 15. Paul spends the entire chapter defending the reality of bodily resurrection and describing what it will be like.
“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body” (1 Corinthians 15:35-38).
There’s continuity and discontinuity. The resurrection body is related to the earthly body (same person, same identity) but radically transformed.
“So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).
Notice the contrasts: perishable/imperishable, dishonour/glory, weakness/power, natural/spiritual.
The resurrection body is physical (it’s a body, not a ghost), but it’s not limited by the weaknesses and limitations of our current bodies. It’s “spiritual” not in the sense of immaterial, but in the sense of being fully animated and empowered by the Spirit.
Philippians 3:21: Conformed to Christ’s Glorious Body
Paul gives us another crucial insight in Philippians: “[Christ] will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21).
The template for our resurrection bodies is Christ’s resurrection body.
And what was Christ’s resurrection body like?
Physical – he ate food (Luke 24:42-43), could be touched (John 20:27), had flesh and bones (Luke 24:39).
But also, transcendent – he appeared and disappeared (Luke 24:31, John 20:19), walked through locked doors (John 20:19, 26), ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9).
Our resurrection bodies will be like that. Physical but not limited by physics. Material but transcendent. Able to interact with the physical world but not bound by its current constraints.
Physical but Transcendent (Like Christ Post-Resurrection)
This is why I can say that the new heavens and new earth involve both continuity and transformation.
It’s not that we escape the physical into pure spirit. That would be Gnostic dualism. God created matter, called it good, and redeems it.
But it’s also not that we simply get perfected versions of our current physical existence. That would miss the radical newness of what’s coming.
The resurrection involves the merging of spirit and flesh, the transformation of the physical by the power of the Spirit, the liberation of matter from decay and limitation.
We’ll have bodies. We’ll be physical. But we’ll also be “spiritual” in the sense of being fully alive to God, fully empowered by the Spirit, fully liberated from the bondage to corruption.
What Happens to the Living vs. the Dead
Paul addresses this directly in 1 Thessalonians 4:
“For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).
Dead in Christ: Resurrected (Bodies Reunited with Those Outside Time)
The “dead in Christ” – those who died in faith and stepped outside time into God’s presence – are resurrected first.
But remember, from their perspective, there’s no “first” in the sense of waiting. They died, immediately entered God’s presence outside time, and from their perspective, the resurrection is immediate.
What happens at the Parousia is that their spirits (which have been with Christ outside time) are reunited with resurrected, glorified bodies.
They’re not being called back from some distant heaven. They’re stepping back into time – or rather, time is catching up to where they already are.
The resurrection completes them. Body and spirit reunited and glorified.
Living Believers: Transformed (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
Those who are alive when Christ returns don’t die. They’re transformed directly.
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).
The living believers receive glorified bodies without passing through death. Their perishable bodies put on imperishability. Their mortal bodies put on immortality.
They’re “caught up together” with the resurrected dead to meet the Lord.
Same End Result, Different Pathway
Whether you died centuries ago or are alive at the parousia, the end result is the same: you have a glorified, resurrection body, and you’re united with Christ in the new creation.
The pathway differs – one group goes through death and resurrection; the other goes through transformation without death – but the destination is identical.
The Wicked: Simply Not There (No Resurrection)
And what about the wicked?
They’re simply not there.
They were annihilated at death. They ceased to exist. There is no resurrection for them.
When Paul says, “the dead in Christ will rise,” he’s specifically referring to those who are in Christ. The wicked dead aren’t raised. They remain dead – permanently, finally, irrevocably.
This is why there’s no need for a final judgment scene where the wicked are raised, judged, and then sent back to destruction. They were already judged at death. They were already destroyed. They have no part in the resurrection or the new creation.
God remembers them. Their lives happened. But they no longer exist to participate in what’s coming.
The Final State – God All in All
Heaven and Earth Merge
At the Parousia, something extraordinary happens, heaven and earth become one.
This isn’t about heaven descending to earth while remaining distinct. It’s not about earth being taken up to heaven while the physical universe is discarded. It’s about the merger of the two – the timeless reality of God’s presence and the physical creation he made – into a unified whole.
John sees this in Revelation 21:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God'” (Revelation 21:1-3).
The new Jerusalem – the dwelling place of God – comes down from heaven. Heaven doesn’t stay separate. It merges with the renewed earth. “The dwelling place of God is with man.”
This is the consummation of everything. God and humanity, heaven and earth, spirit and matter, eternity and time – all brought together in perfect unity.
Not Replacement but Transformation
I want to be clear: this isn’t about the old creation being destroyed and replaced with something entirely new and unrelated.
The language of “new heaven and new earth” doesn’t mean brand new from scratch. The Greek word kainos means new in quality, renewed, transformed – not new in the sense of previously non-existent (neos).
Peter helps us understand this: “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).
The context is the renewal of creation, not its annihilation. Yes, Peter speaks of the elements being dissolved by fire (2 Peter 3:10-12), but this is purification language, not obliteration language. The fire refines, transforms, purges – it doesn’t reduce to nothing.
Paul says creation itself “will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). The same creation that’s groaning now will be liberated, transformed, glorified.
So, the new heavens and new earth are this creation – renewed, transformed, liberated from decay, caught up into the fullness of God’s presence.
Jesus Hands Kingdom to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24-28)
Here’s the passage that shapes my entire understanding of the final state:
“Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘all things are put in subjection,’ it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).
Let me unpack this carefully.
Christ reigns. He defeats every enemy. He puts all things in subjection. The last enemy – death itself – is destroyed.
And then, when everything is complete, when the victory is total, Christ hands the kingdom over to the Father.
This doesn’t mean Christ stops being King. It doesn’t mean the Son becomes less than the Father (that would be Arianism). Within the Trinity, the persons are co-equal and co-eternal.
But it does mean there’s a completion, a handing over, a final movement where Christ presents the perfected creation to the Father.
And the purpose of this? “That God may be all in all.”
Death Destroyed as Power and Reality
Before we get to “God all in all,” we need to deal with death.
Paul is explicit: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26).
Death is an enemy. An intruder. A corruption of God’s good creation. It came through sin (Romans 5:12), and it will be eliminated.
At the Parousia, death is destroyed.
Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Actually destroyed.
This is the “second death” we discussed earlier – death itself thrown into the lake of fire and eliminated from existence.
Revelation confirms this: “Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14).
And then: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
No more death. Not “death is defeated but still exists elsewhere.” No more death, period.
Death, as a power and reality, ceases to exist. It’s thrown into the lake of fire – the place of final annihilation – and is gone.
Satan/Evil One Destroyed
Along with death, the devil himself is destroyed.
“And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).
Now, this verse is often used to support eternal conscious torment. “See? Tormented forever and ever!”
But remember the genre. This is apocalyptic literature using symbolic imagery. The beast and the false prophet aren’t literal individuals – they’re symbols of oppressive empires and false religion. When they’re thrown into the lake of fire, it doesn’t mean they continue existing in torment forever – it means they’re utterly destroyed, their power eliminated permanently.
The same is true for the devil. He’s thrown into the lake of fire – the place of final destruction – and he’s gone. Permanently. Irrevocably.
The language of “tormented day and night forever and ever” is apocalyptic hyperbole emphasising the finality and completeness of his defeat. He will never rise again. His power is utterly broken.
Evil itself – personified in the devil – is eliminated from creation.
“God All in All”: The Ageless Purpose Realised
And now we come to the culmination: “that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).
What does this mean?
Honestly? I don’t fully know. And I don’t think anyone else does either.
We’re finite creatures trying to grasp an infinite reality. We experience four dimensions – three of space, one of time. We’re bound by matter and energy as we currently understand them. And we’re trying to comprehend a state where God – who exists outside all of this – is “all in all.”
What I can say is this: it means the complete fulfilment of God’s ageless purpose. The bride brought into perfect union with the Bridegroom. Creation caught up into the life of the Creator. No more separation, no more sin, no more death, no more anything that stands between us and God.
But what that actually looks like, what we’ll experience, how reality itself will be structured – Scripture gives us symbolic language (a city, a river, a tree, streets of gold) but these are metaphors pointing to something beyond our current comprehension.
People want to categorise my position here. Am I saying we’ll live on a perfected earth? Am I saying we’ll exist in some purely spiritual realm? Am I describing something like the Orthodox concept of theosis?
I’m saying I don’t know. Scripture is deliberately vague, probably because the reality is beyond our current capacity to understand.
Beyond Our Current Categories
Here’s what I am confident about: the final state transcends our current experience of reality.
We won’t simply be living in an upgraded version of the universe as we know it. We won’t be confined to four dimensions. The categories we use now – matter/energy, physical/spiritual, space/time – may all be inadequate or irrelevant in the final state.
Not Bound by Current Physics
Whatever resurrection bodies are, they’re not simply perfected versions of our current bodies operating according to current physical laws.
Christ’s resurrection body could eat (physical), but could also appear and disappear, walk through walls, ascend into heaven (transcendent). Our bodies will be like his.
Does this mean we’re physical? Spiritual? Both? Neither? These categories may not apply in the way we think they do.
The Universe as Limiting
The universe as we currently experience it – bound by spacetime, governed by entropy, limited by the speed of light and the constraints of matter – is limiting.
When God becomes “all in all,” I don’t think we remain bound by these limitations. Not because we escape matter into pure spirit (that’s Gnostic dualism), but because matter itself, energy itself, the fabric of reality itself is transformed into something we can’t currently conceive.
Humility About What We Don’t Know
Most eschatology fails because it tries to map the final state onto our current experience. Premillennialists imagine an earthly kingdom like current kingdoms, just better. Many amillennialists imagine a renewed earth like our current planet, just without sin and death.
But “God all in all” suggests something far more radical. Something that transcends our categories. Something we can only glimpse through symbolic language that points beyond itself.
I’m not going to pretend I know what that looks like. I’m not going to paint detailed pictures of Elysian fields or golden cities or perfected ecosystems.
What I know is this: we will be with God. We will know him fully and be fully known. We will participate in his life, his joy, his eternal purposes. We will be fully ourselves – not absorbed into God and losing our identity but fully actualised as the people he created us to be.
And that will be enough. More than enough. The details? We’ll discover them when we get there.
The next chapter is here.