This post is about our future hope, the anchor for our lives. First, think back to the Garden of Eden. Consider the callings (we could also refer to them as missions or commissions) that God gave to Adam and Eve. They lived in a paradise, but God did not want them to just sit and enjoy the scenery. Rather, he made them in his image and likeness giving them tremendous abilities and individual gifts so that they could expand the Garden of Eden and create beautiful societies in a beautiful world. Below are the eleven callings God gave to them; these are the purposes for our existence:
The Eleven Callings for Humans in the Garden of Eden
- Bear the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27)
- Be fruitful (Gen. 1:28)
- Multiply (Gen. 1:28)
- Fill the earth (Gen. 1:28)
- Subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28)
- Exercise dominion over animals (Gen. 1:28)
- Work the garden (Gen. 2:15)
- Keep the garden (Gen. 2:15)
- Live in a harmonious community (God established a marriage between different types of people) (Gen. 2:24)
- Live pleasurable lives in a garden (the name “Eden” (Gen. 2:8) means pleasure)
- Live in friendship with God (implied; God blessed them and conversed with them (Gen. 3:8)
We will fulfill all these callings which will fulfill our God-given desires. Our long difficult wait for fulfillment will be over. In our new lives we will be fruitful as we manage and develop God’s creation. We will be done with our “multiplying”, since our evangelization has already gathered all the people of God.[1] The millions of citizens of the New Earth will fill the earth with goodness and “subdue” it with their creativity. Assuming there are animals on earth[2] we will bless them and ensure that they flourish. The animals will finally be free of fear so we can befriend them as God first designed. In these ways we will work and keep the New Eden-Earth for our own prosperity and for the glory of God. Our understanding of the natural world will be infinitely beyond anything on the old earth. The saints will reign on earth in a harmonious community as God originally intended in the Garden of Eden. We will have no crime, no neglect, no conflict, and no war. Together we will produce wondrous works never possible on the old earth.
In these ways, we will work and keep the New Eden-Earth for our own prosperity and for the glory of God. Our understanding of the natural world will be infinitely beyond anything on the old earth. The saints will reign on earth in a harmonious community as God originally intended in the Garden of Eden. We will have no crime, no neglect, no conflict, and no war. Together we will produce wondrous works never possible on the old earth. Just as God guides this world with love and power so too will we since we will bear his pure image. We will live in the New Eden, a new garden of pleasure. We will live in friendship with God and be married to the God-man Jesus Christ. Finally, God’s original callings for earth and humanity will be fulfilled; he will not be defeated.
[1] Jesus said: “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30, NIV). We will have no need to reproduce.
[2] I lean toward the belief that God will fill the New Earth with animals because animals were so integral to the first Earth he created. God has a special place in his heart for animals and they bring him joy. This fits with Isaiah 65 which mentions a new heavens and new earth in verse 17 then in verse 25 states: “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox” (NIV). (However, there are other statements in Isaiah 65:17-25 that don’t fit with the idea of an uncorrupted new earth in which death and decay will be gone.) This idea also fits with the general statement in Romans 8:22 that all creation groans as in childbirth. This leads us to think that the birth would be a perfection of the present type of creation because this present creation is in a process of birth.
