The Nicene Creed begins with the God who created heaven and earth before time began. It concludes with a promise of life with God after time has ceased: "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." And between the Creator who brought time out of nothing, and the Life-Giver who gives new life when the world of time is no more, stands Jesus, Saviour and Lord, "whose kingdom will have no end."
The verb translated look for means literally think towards. It has nothing to do with searching, and not a lot to do with waiting or expecting. It is wrong to see this life as a vale of sorrows, to be endured rather than enjoyed, with nothing to look forward to except a resurrection at the end of time, and we will find no support for this view in the words of the Creed, just as we will find no support in the words of Jesus in the New Testament. This final resurrection is not something we are sitting around waiting for, but something we know will take place at the end of time. It may well be something better than we can ever know in this world, but we are not only citizens of the next world - we are citizens of this world too!
What is "the resurrection of the dead"? It does not mean anything like "When Aunty Mary dies she will go to heaven." It is a belief that at the end of time, all the dead will be raised to share in a new and changed life. It is a belief tied up with Jesus' coming again. But in this last section of the creed, the stress is not on judgement, but on hope, on new life, on what the future is for us who believe. The last section of our creed is about the work of the Spirit, and if we believe and trust in the Holy Spirit, then we can be sure that, even after Christ's final judgement, we shall be raised again.
What does it mean to be raised again? Both Jesus ("They are like angels in heaven" (Mark 12:25)) and Paul ("We shall all be changed" (1 Cor 15:51)) are clear that the life of the world to come is different to this one, but not so different as to be unrecognizable.
People have speculated through the ages as to how and when this resurrection will happen. Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 portray Jesus' reflections on how the world will end - but they also portray Jesus' warning not to speculate, not to draw conclusions. If we read the parables, we learn that nobody knows when these things will take place - we should all be prepared. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians and John's Apocalypse say nothing about when, and give only a limited, human vision of how things will happen - what sort of trumpet would strike terror into the hearts of people in 2006?
Nor can we hurry the day along, except perhaps by prayer. People who have disregarded Jesus' warning have thought that by "preaching the Gospel to all nations" (one possible translation of Mark 13:10) they will magically bring forward the time of God's coming. Others believe that the establishment of the modern state of Israel is a step towards a final conflict where God finally come to reign. These views come from reading the Bible in the wrong way, a way that ignores that it speaks to Christians everywhere, and in every age. It speaks to us in 2006, but not in language that would have made no sense in 1906, in 1506, or in 1006!
So the Creed ends in mystery. The walls of jasper and streets of gold described in Revelation 21, the river of the water of life and the tree with the twelve kinds of fruit in Revelation 22, are no more than hints of something which, because it is from another world, is beyond our earthbound experience. We know little of "the world to come" (or "the age to come", to use another word) - merely that it will be different, a world of joy, a world in God's presence. Thy Kingdom come!
HD