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What do Christians hope for? To leave this wicked world and go to ‘heaven’ For the ‘kingdom of God’ to grow gradually on earth? What do we mean by the ‘resurrection of the body’, and how does that fit with the popular image of sitting on clouds playing harps? And how does all this affect the way we live in the here and now? Tom Wright, one of our leading theologians, addresses these questions in this provocative and wide-ranging new book. He outlines the present confusion about future hope in both church and world. Then, having explained why Christians believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus himself, he explores the biblical hope for ‘new heavens and new earth’, and shows how the ‘second coming’ of Jesus, and the eventual resurrection, belong within that larger picture, together with the intermediate hope for ‘heaven’. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise. Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation – and if this has already begun in Jesus’ resurrection – the church cannot stop at ‘saving souls’, but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God’s kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life. Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life not only after death but before it.
N. T. (Tom) Wright is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews. Prior to that he was Bishop of Durham (2003-10), Canon Theologian of Westminster (2000–3), Dean of Lichfield (1994–99) and Fellow, Tutor and Chaplain of Worcester College, Oxford (1986–93).
Professor Wright is the author of over eighty books, including The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Scripture and the Authority of God, Surprised by Hope, Virtue Reborn, How God Became King, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Paul and His Recent Interpreters, The Day the Revolution Began, Paul: A biography and (with Michael F. Bird) The New Testament in its World.
