At Pentecost, the apostles realized that the new Creation that had been revealed in Jesus was now being revealed in the lives of Jesus’ followers. In this passage in Romans, Paul mixes an extraordinary number of metaphors together. We are freed (think Exodus) from slavery to sin and death, and filled with the Spirit (think Zion), therefore we are being made into the image of the Son (think Eden), and we will never again be separated from God (think Exile).

The final scenes of the Bible look like a remix of the first scenes, but with some significant details. God descends to Earth to live with his people in a garden city, out of which rivers flow, lined with the tree of life, and the chaotic seas of uncreation are not there. The symbolism is rich, and clear: God has renewed his Creation. Heaven has come to Earth, and the people of God are now free from sin and death through Jesus, who is both Human and God.

Christian hope is the hope that the human story does not end with death, but rather with resurrection.

The book of Hebrews goes through the list of themes and hopes that made up the Jewish worldview, and claims that each of them has found fulfillment in Jesus. He is greater than the angels, and is the final Word of God, seated at the right hand of the Father.

We therefore are glimpses of the new Creation.

Just as Israel’s prophets had looked for a time when God would do something to bring their story to fulfillment, so Peter tells us to look forward to the day when God will reveal himself. Just as evil was exiled from the Earth in the Flood, so now fire will expose the new Earth. Fire is an Old Testament image for God’s judgment that burns away impurities.

The end of the story of redemption is only possible because a person has been found who is worthy to open the scroll, and to reveal the new Creation: Jesus, the slain lamb, the sacrifice that Isaac could never be (Genesis 22), that Aaron could never offer (Leviticus 3 – 4), and that Cain and David’s sins could not take (Genesis 4; 2 Samuel 12).

In the story of Noah, we have a very early echo of where the whole story is going. Sin will be cleared off the face of the earth, but through fire. God has offered a way of salvation for all humanity through one man.

The book of Ezekiel closes with an extended vision of a new Temple presented as a new Eden. At the end of Revelation, John reuses a lot of this imagery, but making it clear that now the whole Earth is God’s Temple, and our new Eden.

The prophets looked for the day when God would judge not just Israel, but all the Earth, and would reveal himself to the Gentiles. The claim of the New Testament writers is that this has already been seen in Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and will finally be seen in the future.

Throughout Israel’s story, the idea of God revealing himself on a mountain is important. We see it at Sinai, in Psalm 2, and in Mark 9. We also see it at the crucifixion. Similarly, John’s Revelation of the New Jerusalem occurs on “a great, high mountain.”

Israel’s prophets looked forward to the time when God would fulfill the second part of his promise to Abraham, that through them the nations of the world would be blessed.

Finally, Paul, writing in Galatians, pins all his hopes not on the signs of the old covenant, but on the sign of the new, the death of Jesus, and resurrection into a new Creation.