The Complete Rob Bell: His Seven Bestselling Books, All in One Place. Rob Bell
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the belief that God not only hadn’t given up on creation but was also actively at work within it, bringing it back to how he originally intended it to be. The prophets had a way of talking about this restoration movement of God’s. They spoke of God reclaiming the earth and restoring the world. They did not talk about people going somewhere else at the end of time. They talked about God coming here at the end of time.9
Notice what Jesus says about the end of the world in Matthew: “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne . . .”10
Jesus uses an important word here: renewal.
Jesus describes his return as a rebirth, a regeneration, a renewal.
Remember, when God made the world, he called it good. Why would God destroy something he thinks is good?
Notice what Peter says in the book of Acts about the same event: “Heaven must receive [Jesus] until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.”11 Big word Peter uses here: restore. To restore is to make things how they once were. To renovate, to rebuild, to put back together the parts that are broken.
As Paul put it in Colossians, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”12 Paul uses another significant word here: reconcile. To make peace where it has been lacking. To bring back together. To mend what is torn and to fix what is broken. And Paul wants us to make sure we grasp that this is a much larger issue than just human souls. He uses the phrase “all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven” because he wants us to see that this is all of creation. “All things” really means “everything”—every bird and tree and mountain and star and every single square inch of the physical creation.
In Jesus, God is putting it all back together.
To make the cross of Jesus just about human salvation is to miss that God is interested in the saving of everything. Every star and rock and bird. All things.
And God isn’t just interested in reclaiming his original dream for creation; he wants to take it further. Imagine if you took all the sin and death out of the Bible. You would be left with a short book. It would have four chapters to be exact: Genesis 1 and 2; Revelation 21 and 22. In Genesis 1 and 2, we are told of a garden, but in Revelation 21 and 22, we are told of a city. A city is more advanced, more complicated than a garden. If a garden is developed and managed and cared for, it is eventually going to turn into a city. If there was no sin or death, creation would still move forward because God doesn’t just want to reclaim things; God wants to see them move forward.
A New Culture
Let’s return to the garden, to Jesus rising from the dead, having conquered death. The early community of Jesus’s followers saw in his resurrection the moment their people had been waiting for: God continuing, but in a new and significant way, the restoration of the world. Paul goes so far as to say that Jesus’s resurrection was the firstfruits— a very Jewish way of saying, “Hang on, there’s more to come.”13
In the first century, this claim of restoration had numerous social, political, and economic dimensions to it. The world was ruled by the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire was ruled by a succession of emperors called the caesars. The caesars claimed they were sent by the gods to renew creation. Caesar Augustus believed that as the son of god, he was god incarnate on earth, the prince of peace who had come to restore all of creation. He inaugurated a twelve-day celebration called Advent to celebrate his birth. Sound familiar? His priests offered sacrifices and incense to rid people of their guilt. One of his popular slogans was “There is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved than that of Caesar.” Another phrase they used often was “Caesar is Lord.” Throughout the Roman Empire, the caesars called on people to worship them as the divine saviors of humankind, and a city that acknowledged Caesar as Lord was called an ekklesia.14
Being a citizen of the Roman Empire was significant. It was membership in the most powerful kingdom ever. All of society, for that matter, was ranked and ordered. Roman citizens were higher status than non-Roman citizens. Men were ranked higher than women. Slave owners and those who were free were ranked above slaves, who were seen as property to be owned. And then there were the masses—the majority of the population who weren’t the elite, ruling class. Everybody had their place in society.
It was at this time, in this world, that the Jesus movement exploded among an ethnic minority in a remote corner of the empire. These people claimed their leader was a rabbi who had announced the arrival of the kingdom of God, had been crucified, and had risen from the dead and appeared to his followers. One of their favorite slogans was “Jesus is Lord.”15
Take a minute to reflect on the political dimensions of that claim. If Jesus is Lord, then what does that say about Caesar? These first Christians were subverting the entire order of the empire, claiming that there was a Lord, and he wasn’t Caesar. And what did they call their gatherings? Ekklesias.16 A word that translates in English as “church.” Another of their favorite slogans was “There is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved than that of Jesus.”17 Shocking. They took political propaganda from the empire and changed the words to make it about their Lord. To join up with these people was to risk your life. And not only this, but they made claims about the whole way society was structured.
In a letter to a church in a region called Galatia, one of the first Christians, Paul, claimed that “in Christ”—the phrase Christians used to describe this new reality—there was “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female.”18 He is calling the entire culture into question, insisting that through this risen-from-the-dead Jesus, the whole world is being reorganized. And in this new reality, every person is equal. Everybody. Paul is the first person in the history of world literature to argue that all human beings are equal.19
Not only were these first Christians subverting the dominant power structures of their world, but they were confident that the resurrected Christ was working in them and through them to reclaim God’s dream for the world. The writer Luke gives us insight into what this confidence looked like in their everyday lives. He wrote that they were witnessing the resurrection, “and God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.”20 What was the result of the resurrection, according to Luke? “No needy persons among them.”
Remember, the caesars claimed they were the ones who provided for everyone and saved everyone and made the world a better place. For these first Christians, the question was, Who is Lord? Jesus or Caesar? Who orders society? Who provides for you? Who puts food on your table? Who brings peace to the world?
To be a part of the church was to join a countercultural society that was partnering with God to create a new kind of culture, right under the nose of the caesars. These Christians made sure everybody in their midst had enough to eat. They made sure everybody was able to pay their bills. They made sure there was enough to go around. The resurrection for them was not an abstract spiritual concept; it was a concrete social and economic reality. God raised Jesus from the dead to show the world that Jesus is Lord,