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Bringing Heaven Down To Earth
Connecting This Life to the Next
by Nathan L.K. Bierma

Chapter 3
Theater of Glory: Heaven on Earth

• Synopsis
• Discussion Questions
• Quotation Citations
• Further Reading

Synopsis
The first verse of Revelation 21 puts in place an important piece of the heavenly puzzle: heaven will be on earth, this earth. Heaven will be terrestrial . Heaven will not be airy and detached, but rather a very earthly resolution of this current era. The first element of daily hope for heaven is simply to do away with any literal picture of eternal life as an irrelevant existence in a remote place, and instead recognize the continuity of the creation story--paradise lost and paradise regained. To live with this awareness on this Earth now means to see signs of the curse of sin in nature and to live lives of stewardship, demonstrably anticipating the final removal of the curse of sin by seeking the restoration of nature.

Discussion Questions
• What do you find surprising, and what do you find appealing and comforting, about Revelation's image of eternal heaven on earth?
• What natural setting can you easily imagine being on the new earth?
• What does the chapter mean when it says, "What we need instead is a holy awareness—what pscyhologists call cognitive dissonance—of the fact that we are living in a world that is in many ways wrong"? Why makes it hard for us to do this?
• How can environmental stewardship be an expression of Christian faith?

Quotation Citations
• Dyrness, William A. The Earth is God's: A Theology of American Culture. Orbis Books, 1997. p. 26.
• Fred Van Dyke et. al, Redeeming Creation: The Biblical Basis for Environmental Stewardship. InterVarsity Press, 1996. p. 160.
• Griffiths, Jay. A Sideways Look at Time. Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2004. pp.5-6.
• Gushee, David P. “When Marriage Brings Suffering.” Books&Culture. September/October 2004. p. 23.
• Hoekema, Anthony. The Bible and the Future. Eerdmans, 1979. On "enjoying its beauties, exploring its resources," p. 274. On neos and kainos, p. 280. On "Satan would have won a great victory," p. 281.
• Wolters, Albert. Creation Regained: Biblical Basics of a Reformational Worldview. Eerdmans, 1985. On"the works of the craftman's art," p. 25. On revelatio naturalis, p. 33.

Further Reading
Bouma-Prediger, Steven. The Greening of Theology: the Ecological Models of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joseph Sittler, and Juergen Moltmann. Scholars Press, 1995.

DeWitt, Calvin. Caring for Creation: Responsible Stewardship of God's Handiwork. Baker Books, 1998.

Gunton, Colin. Christ and Creation. Eerdmans, 1992.