Revelation depicts the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven as “the Bride that the Lamb has married”858. This is currently the “heavenly Jerusalem” described in Hebrews859, for that is where Christ is installed as King with His angels and saints who are in mystical union with His Pilgrim Church on earth. The New Jerusalem is to be the inhabitation of all the elect, whilst the nations outside will come to its light and the kings of the earth will bring it their treasures860. So, there are to be principalities and powers in the next age as well as this861 which Christ will still be heading, the difference being that everyone will know about it. Given such indubitable physicality, not everyone once resurrected can be in intimate communion with the Lord of glory; some must admire from afar. An eternal egalitarianism, apart from being unbiblical could only function in an environment in which disembodied souls became, as it were, absorbed into God or are in a permanent dream-like state. The latter may be the case for disembodied spirits currently said to be “sleeping in Christ” or “resting on Abraham’s bosom” but it cannot be so after the resurrection, for each will be as physically substantial as the resurrected Jesus before His ascension862. For He is the “first fruit of them that sleep” just as His people are currently a kind of first fruit for the human creation, most of whom are yet fully to be made alive863.
852 Phi3:11-14
853 1Cor9:24; Jn6:54
854 4:15-17
855 Mt13:41; 2Thes1:7-9; Rev3:10
856 Rev1:7
857 20:5-6
858 21:2
859 12:22
860 Rev21:24
861 Eph1:21
862 Cf. Lk24:42
863 Jam1:18; 1Cor15:23
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Mankind is to share in God’s divinity yet will remain distinct from the Father in His essence. Man obtains intimate communion with the Godhead through the mediation of the Son. The Christian is already described as being in the Son, whilst the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son864. But after resurrection there will have to be an order as there is in the angelic realm865, yet in due course every soul shall be fulfilled in accordance with its
established capacity. Hence the importance of life in this body; hence the value of anything by which that capacity might be enlarged; hence the value of temporary human suffering: the grist for glory.