I suspect most people in this country, if you asked them what Christians believe is going to happen to us when we die, would say that we believe that our immortal souls leave our bodies behind and this world behind and go to live eternally with other spirits in heaven. I expect the majority of Christians in this country would say something like that. For my part, I don’t believe a word of it. I don’t, because the Bible doesn’t. That’s not what God promises, because he’s not interested in writing off the world like that. The Bible doesn’t tell us we have immortal souls that will live eternally as spirits; it tells us God is going to raise us physically from the dead, and that those who love him will live eternally with him in a world made entirely new.
This isn’t just going to be sitting on clouds playing harps, either—which is a good thing, because I don’t think I’d make much of a harpist. For that matter, it won’t just be what we think of as a “natural” setting, with trees and flowers and friendly animals. Look what John says: the centerpiece of the new creation won’t be a garden, it will be a city. That’s a really important thing. What is a city? It’s a human creation. You might even say it’s a little human world, in which you can spend your whole life surrounded only by things either made or processed by human beings. (Except for the rats and the bugs, anyway; but even the weather is affected by the city, if not in ways that we can control.) It’s the highest example of human mastery of the natural world.
And when God makes all things new, it won’t just be things that only he can make; right at the center of it, made new right along with everything else, will be a city—the human place, the human achievement. I think that’s a very big deal. I think that tells us that what we do, and what we make, and what we build, matters. I believe that tells us that God cares about our work and our production, and that when he remakes the world, he’s going to keep the best of what we’ve done. I don’t say everything good; a good artificial hip is a noble and beautiful thing, truly a work which honors God, but it simply won’t be needed in the new creation. But everything that belongs will be there—our music, our buildings, our art, and the rest. I don’t just mean stuff that was made by Christians, either; I believe God will preserve the great gifts of all our civilizations.
Nothing that is truly good in itself will be lost. No beauty, nothing of honor, no joy will be lost; they will be transformed. When God makes the world new, free of sickness, sorrow, pain, and death, full of his presence of love and peace, it won’t be only his world; it will be our world, too, with our gifts included with his delight. What we do, what we make, what we build, matters to God, because we matter to God, because he loves us.