DAY 100
CHALLENGE
“Christianity proposes that a number of implausible things will happen
at the end of time: Everyone who ever lived will be resurrected (John 5:28– 29); the faithful from all history will be gathered to Christ (1 Thess. 4:16– 17); the New Jerusalem will be a cubic city 1,500 miles long, tall, and
wide (Rev. 21:16). The math for these claims doesn’t add up.”
DEFENSE
These objections falsely presume that the world will continue to operate the way it presently does.
Paul compares the difference between our present bodies and our resurrected bodies to the difference between a seed and the plant that grows from it (1 Cor. 15:37–44). He also suggests we will not need to eat (1 Cor. 6:13–14).
At the end of time there will be a renovation of the world order that is comparable only to its original creation. Thus Scripture speaks of there being “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1). We should not assume the new order will be subject to the same limitations of space and time the present order is. Even now, God is not bound by these limitations, as shown when Jesus’ body appears in many locations at once in the Eucharist or passes through physical barriers (John 20:19). In the next age, everyone’s bodies will be similarly free of limitations (Phil. 3:20–21).
The general resurrection will be a major miracle, but God is omnipotent and his infinite (unlimited) power is not taxed by the size of a particular miracle. If he could create the entire universe, he can fundamentally restructure its laws and contents to accomplish these things.
The next age transcends what we can imagine, and we should recognize the symbolic nature of the images used to describe it. They are hints meant to convey a much greater reality (see Days 198, 201). In particular, numbers in Revelation are symbolic, as shown in the case of the 12,000 stadia by the fact that the next verse says the wall of the city is 144 cubits (216 feet) high (Rev. 21:17). Why would a city 1,500 miles tall need a wall only 216 feet tall to protect it?