This is a sample chapter from my Systematic Theology project "Theology for Thriving". 📎MORE TO THE STORY notes are not part of the main text of the book, but additional resources, charts, or other materials from Biblical Theology class resources.
Romans 8.28-29, 35-39 [28] We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. [29] For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family... [35] Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [36] As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” [37] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. [38] For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
🗝️ Key Concept: Apokatastasis
We have at last reached the final End of our Journey, the closing chapter in the Story of God. Here we finish the work of Eschatology, the study of the "last things." This is not about deciphering complex timelines or predicting the end of the world with newspaper headlines. Rather, eschatology is the study of our ultimate hope, the final destination on our theological map. It gives meaning to the entire journey by revealing where we are ultimately going.
We arrive now at the ultimate horizon of Christian hope, a concept the early church called Apokatastasis. The word is Greek, from apo ("again") and kathistemi ("to establish"), meaning a "restoration to the original or optimal condition." It appears in the book of Acts, where Peter speaks of Jesus remaining in heaven "until the time of the apokatastasis of all things, which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago" (Acts 3:21). It is the breathtaking vision that God's Love is ultimately irresistible and that nothing— no sin, no rebellion, no darkness— can ultimately thwart God's desire to heal and reconcile every person and all of creation.
This is the hope of a New Heaven and a New Earth, a vision that echoes from the prophet Isaiah to the final chapters of Revelation. In this vision, the lion and the lamb lie down together in peace, the knowledge of God will cover the Earth, all of nature is healed and restored, and there is no more suffering or weeping or death (see Isaiah 11, 65, 66, and Revelation 21-22). It is this bold hope that we strive for, the conviction that the Author of our story is writing a conclusion that is more glorious than we can imagine. In the words of Star Trek, "we boldly go" into the future, sustained by the grace of God. But what will we have to go through to get to that future?
📎MORE TO THE STORY: See this chart on how to read the Bible and History as a Trajectory toward Christ.
🔎 Why do some understand prophecy as a "Highway to Hell"?
For many, the map of the future looks like a one-way road to ruin. This view is often called Premillennialism, because it states we are living in an evil age prior to the perfect thousand year (Millennial) reign of Jesus in Revelation 20. This view reads biblical prophecy as a meticulous, secret codebook forecasting a future of certain destruction. Adherents dive into the books of Daniel and Revelation, dividing time into complex ages and stages and dispensations, attempting to match ancient symbols with modern headlines. The problem, of course, is that this method has been 100% wrong, 100% of the time. For two millennia, every generation has confidently identified the Antichrist and predicted the date of Jesus's return, only to be proven spectacularly wrong.
This approach always forecasts a dystopian future. It insists that we are living in a time of ever-increasing "Great Tribulation"— a period of escalating wars, plagues, and disasters— that must occur before Christ can return to establish his perfect reign (the "Millennium"). The truth, however, is that some have always lived in times of Great Tribulation. For countless people throughout history, their world has already ended in plagues, disasters, famines, genocides, and wars. The Bible shows us that someone's world is always ending, while other worlds are always beginning.
So it is naive to say the Great Tribulation has not happened yet, when people have experienced such suffering, seen their worlds destroyed, and died in the end. And not only is it historically naive to put all of humanity on an inevitable "Highway to Hell". It is also theologically dangerous. It fosters a cynical nihilism that removes our moral agency. If the world is destined to burn, why bother trying to put out the fires of injustice, poverty, and ecological devastation? This fatalistic map encourages us to be passive spectators of a horror film, rather than active co-creators in God's drama of healing.
📎MORE TO THE STORY: Check which shows the three most common ways Christians have interpreted the End of the World.
🔎 Why do some understand prophecy as a "Stairway to Heaven"?
In reaction to this pessimism, others have swung the pendulum to the opposite extreme. This view, known as Postmillennialism, argues that we are living in or after the Millennium. Christ is reigning through us now, guiding progress in an inevitable way to the end of history. This sees history as a "Stairway to Heaven": An inexorable, upward march of progress where everything is getting better every day in every way. This was a popular view in Europe before two world wars and a holocaust shattered its optimistic naivete.
This utopian vision provides a false comfort, suggesting that the future is a guaranteed success and that we need only let it unfold. Like its pessimistic counterpart, this inevitable "Stairway to Heaven" also strips us of our agency. If progress is automatic, our struggles, sacrifices, and courageous choices for justice become meaningless. It stops us from the difficult work of co-writing the future with God, replacing it with a complacent confidence in the machinery of history.
So which is it? Does the Bible say we are hurtling toward a guaranteed dystopia, or gliding toward an effortless utopia? Is history a Highway to Hell or a Stairway to Heaven?
📎MORE TO THE STORY: Check which shows the three most common ways Christians have interpreted the End of the World.
🔎 How can we understand prophecy in a way that gives us agency?
Perhaps the reason prophecy can be interpreted in these two radically different ways is because the future is largely open to us. It seems this duality was inspired and intended by God as an invitation to co-author this story with him. We have genuine, meaningful agency in Christ. In the words of Deuteronomy 30: God has set before us life and death, blessings and curses, so that we may choose life. To see why this is important, we must review what we have learned about why people accept more simplistic and naive views of the future:
On one hand, people of faith rightly reject the simplistic and nihilistic view of the future where all is random chaos with no ultimate justice or hope. This view imagines the future as a scattershot, as events are blown out into the void with no rhyme or reason. This chaotic view leaves us without purpose, without meaning, and without a goal. It is also naive: It claims to know for certain there is no certainty, and that ultimate meaning is meaningless. So, people who have set their hope on Divine Love rightly reject this nihilistic future.
But in fleeing nihilistic chaos, some have often opted for a false certainty, viewing the future as a road we cannot change, whether it leads up or down. This view is also naive and simplistic. It doesn't take seriously all of the Biblical material which states God co-operates with us, and gives us genuine choices and real moral agency. It doesn't do justice to Jesus when he tells us there are at least two paths (not one!) that lay open before us: The way of life and the way of death (Matthew 7).
But we know there is a third way beyond this false dichotomy: the future as a trajectory. God is the master artist, patiently nudging and working through the probabilities and ripples of history, guiding the whole cosmic story toward its final destination of apokatastasis. Some call this view "Amillenialism", from the Greek words for "not 1000": There is no literal 1000 year reign of Christ, but rather 1000 is a "perfect" number (10x10x10, perfection^3), which is symbolic for Christ reigning in heaven for the "perfect" amount of time until all Creation is brought to completion. In this heavenly reign, Christ is providentially at work behind the scenes, as his saints intercede for those on Earth, to steer and maneuver the events of history gradually toward final healing.
Yet how we get to this final healing is very much in our hands. The field of possibilities is scattered across spacetime, but God skillfully works with our every decision, weaving even our failures into a pattern that bends toward fulfillment in Christ. This dynamic view is rooted in two profound scriptural truths. First, the Bible consistently presents us with a choice between two paths: The way of righteousness that leads to life, and the way of wickedness that leads to death (Deuteronomy 30, Psalm 1).
Second, it reveals a God who is radically responsive to our choices. God's stated intentions are not unchangeable fate, but part of a dialogue where our repentance or rebellion can lead to a change in the divine response. This is seen in the stories of Moses pleading for Israel (Exodus 32), the city of Nineveh repenting at Jonah's preaching (Jonah 3), and God's promise to change his mind based on our decisions (Jeremiah 18). The future is like a "choose your own adventure" book. God promises to lead us to ultimate reconciliation in Christ, but whether we get there after we have destroyed ourselves, or after we have fulfilled God's dream for us, will depend on how we live. We have genuine choices, but the Author is skillfully guiding the narrative toward a hard earned happy ending where all will "live happily ever after".
📎MORE TO THE STORY: Check which shows the three most common ways Christians have interpreted the End of the World. Also see all three ways of viewing Divine Providence.
📖 Scriptural Reflection: Romans 8.28-29, 35-39
This passage from Paul's letter to the Romans is the ultimate anchor for a hopeful, trajectory-based eschatology. Paul makes the audacious claim that "all things work together for good for those who love God." This is not a naive promise that bad things won't happen. On the contrary, Paul has just described a creation "groaning in labor pains" and acknowledges that we suffer all kinds of setbacks and failures in life.
The promise is that God, the master weaver, is able to take every thread of our existence— even the darkest threads of hardship, distress, persecution, and peril— and weave them into a final design that is good. Christ will unite all things with God's Love eventually, but we decide whether that is after total self destruction, or after cooperating with grace to heal the world, or somewhere in between.
The ultimate goal of this divine artistry is our "predestination" to be "conformed to the image of his Son." As we've seen, this is not about God pre-selecting a few winners. It is about God's unwavering intention to bring all of humanity to its intended, Christ-like destiny. This hope gives Paul the confidence to ask the ultimate rhetorical question: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ?" His answer is a thunderous, poetic crescendo: Nothing. Neither the tragedies of life nor the finality of death, neither the spiritual powers of angels nor the political powers of rulers, neither the anxieties of the present nor the uncertainties of the future, nor anything else in all of creation, "will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
This is our final End. This is our Goal. This is our Purpose: United forever with the Love that made us, the Love that saves us, and the Love that completes us. And that is why we end this book not with a conclusion, but with a prayer Paul wrote nearly 2000 years ago. This prayer for the Ephesians (3:16-21) is really a prayer for theologians everywhere, that our theology would help us thrive as we experience the fullness of the Love of the Trinity:
I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in Love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the Love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
📚 Topical Scriptures
Here are some Scripture passages which explore and elaborate on the themes of this chapter. As you look them up and study them, think about how they relate to the Key Concept and Guiding Questions.
Isaiah 11:1-9
Look for the prophet's vision of a restored utopian world under the reign of a messianic king. Notice how universal peace extends not just to humanity but to the entire natural order, where predators and prey dwell together in harmony.
Isaiah 65:17-25
This passage describes God's creation of a "new heavens and a new earth" where the former things are forgotten. Pay attention to the themes of joy, longevity, security, and peace that characterize this restored reality.
Deuteronomy 30:11-20
This is a classic expression of the "two ways" tradition in scripture. Observe how God sets before the people a clear choice between life and death, blessing and curse, urging them to "choose life" through obedience and love.
Jeremiah 18:1-12
In the famous parable of the potter and the clay, God demonstrates sovereignty over the nations. Note how this passage shows God's willingness to "change his mind" about disaster or blessing for a nation, depending entirely on their repentance and actions.
Daniel 2:31-45
This passage recounts how a stone "cut out by no human hand" strikes the statue, shatters it, and then grows into a "great mountain that filled the whole earth," symbolizing God's eternal kingdom that will ultimately triumph and have no end.
Matthew 24:3-14
In this passage, often called the "Little Apocalypse," Jesus describes the "birth pangs" that will precede the end of the age. Note the catalog of tribulations— wars, famines, persecutions— that must be endured before the final deliverance.
1 Corinthians 15:20-28
Paul describes the ultimate cosmic scope of Christ's resurrection and reign. Focus on the conclusion where Christ, having subjected all enemies, including death itself, hands over the kingdom to God the Father so that God may be "all in all."
Philippians 2:5-11
This early Christian hymn traces Christ's journey from divine glory to humble obedience and finally to supreme exaltation. The climax of the passage is the universal confession of Christ's lordship by every being "in heaven and on earth and under the earth."
Colossians 1:15-20
Here, Christ is presented as the agent of all creation and the agent of all reconciliation. Note the expansive language stating that God's purpose is to reconcile "all things, whether on earth or in heaven" to himself through the cross.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11
Paul addresses the church's questions about the end times, offering hope in the resurrection and the return of Christ. He also warns that this final "Day of the Lord" will come unexpectedly, like a "thief in the night," bringing sudden destruction upon the unprepared.
Revelation 20:1-15
This is the foundational vision of the Millennium: The 1000 year reign of Christ. There has always been tension in how to interpret it: Spiritually? Literally? In the future? In the present? The view taken here is that 1000 = 10x10x10 = numeric perfection. It refers to Christ ruling in eternity.
Revelation 21:1-22:8
John's vision of the New Jerusalem provides a powerful image of God's final utopian purpose. Contrast the promise of God dwelling with a renewed humanity, where there is no more death or mourning, with the "second death" reserved for those who persist in rebellion.
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