Month: November 2024

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The New Heavens and the New Earth: Annihilation or Renewal?

As St. Paul shows in 1 Corinthians 15, the risen Christ is the prototype for the new humanity. He exemplifies the “spiritual body” (soma pneumatikon)1 that believers will enjoy after their resurrection and judgment in the new heavens and the new earth. What God has prepared for the redeemed transcends human comprehension (1 Cor. 2:9). Therefore. for the most part, we must take the Bible’s descriptions of life in the redeemed state as metaphorical or analogical language. 

Nevertheless, with regard to the resurrected body, we have a concrete example of what it will be like in the person of Jesus. Following the resurrection, Jesus displayed his glorified body and its capacities to the disciples, who then recorded these encounters in the Gospels. These accounts show that although the glorified body will remain physical, it will be mysteriously physical. Resurrected bodies will transcend the normal limitations of earthly bodies (1 Cor. 15:49). 

Annihilationism?

Since the time of Luther, Lutheran theologians have disagreed about the nature continuity between the old and new creations. Some believed the new heavens and new earth would be the result of the destruction of the old creation and its replacement by a new creation. Others believed renewal of the original creation would form the new heavens and new earth would be. 

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God’s Humbling Hiddenness and Revelation by Faith

Luther will guide our biblical explication of the God of the Gospel as both hidden and revealed.  As we observed in an earlier section, both the pre-modern Greek and Latin theological traditions relied on a dialectic of “negation” (apophatic theology, via negativa) and affirmation (kataphatic theology, via positiva).  Lowell Green has noted that Luther in his doctrine of God also relies on a form of affirmation and negation, albeit a radically different one.1  Luther’s affirmation is God hidden (negation) and God revealed (affirmation).  As we will also see, one could also add God’s appearance under the law as negation, and gospel as affirmation.  

It should be recognized that Luther’s concept of divine hiddenness is not just a matter of affirming that God is incomprehensible.  Of course, all orthodox Christian theologians have claimed this one way or another. Rather, following the biblical data (Isa. 45:15), Luther is clear that God actively hides from his people.2  Why and how this is the case is something we will explore below. 

Luther on Divine Hiddenness

How Luther talks about divine hiddenness is quite complicated because he applies the principle differently in different contexts.  The British historian of Christian doctrine B.A. Gerrish has thematized these disparate statements of Luther into two kinds of hiddenness: Hiddenness 1, where God is hidden in his revelation, notably in Christ.  Hiddenness 2, where God is hidden above and apart from revelation.3

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