The hope of heaven … on earth

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 1999 by Walter Brueggemann

Abstract

This paper asks about the substance and practice of hope in First Testament faith. The paper was prepared for a conference on the Christian "hope of heaven." In such a context, it is evident that hope in the First Testament is principally a this-worldly act. It is suggested in the paper that (a) Israel's memory of God's miracles permits Israel to expect miracles in the future, (b) Israel's speech practice in complaints is an act of hope, as the complaints characteristically move to affirmation, and (c) the fissure of the exile is the matrix of Israel's hope. Out of these affirmations, Israel can hope for a new community of shalom, a new creation of well-being, and eventually a new personal destiny as a gift of God. Every dimension of hope is hope in the God who is able to do a new thing.

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Te First Testament provides some of the materials out of which firmer convictions on the subject of hope were later reached. It is important that we have some good sense about the gift of those materials themselves, before tracing later usage of them. It is equally important to recognize that the First Testament itself does not sponsor or subscribe to all the hopes that subsequently have been derived from the text. This is not because the First Testament is primitive or underdeveloped or inferior. It is rather that it goes about the "human predicament" very differently from our usual religious way of thinking. This very different way is of immense importance in the modern world. Thus our task is to reflect upon the discontinuity and difference in this tricky act of hope, so that we may appreciate the rich continuity without falling into a one-dimensional homogeneity.

Hope in the Present

Our lead phrase, hope of heaven, is a suggestive beginning point. The First Testament, I suggest, majors in hope. It is this ancient faith that intrudes into a Greek world of rationality with new possibility that is not extrapolated from what is and has been. In all parts of this Scripture, Israel attests to its conviction that YHWH, creator of heaven and earth and deliverer from Egypt, is indeed governor of the future and will bring into every present tense an inexplicable newness that is beyond all present categories.

At the same time, I am bound to say that this textual tradition has almost no interest in "heaven" as a place of hope in our usual sense, almost no speculation beyond the present space-time ordering of things. Indeed, "heaven" appears nowhere in the text as a place of appeal for "life after death," nowhere as a place where the dead go.

We shall immediately sense the oddness of the faith of the First Testament if we recognize that heaven is not a place for the dead, but a place where the government of God (= Kingdom of God = Kingdom of Heaven) is seated. In a world of polytheism, this is where "the divine council" of the gods meets on a regular basis to determine the policies to be implemented on earth (see Mullen). In a more rigorous monotheism, YHWH is so superior to all other members of the divine council, variously termed "angels," "messengers," "sons of God," that they are subordinate figures who keep attendence on YHWH, sing praises to YHWH, and run, even to the earth, to do the bidding of YHWH. Thus, in the narrative dream of Jacob the fugitive, there is a ladder of angels--messengers--going down and up connecting heaven and earth (Gen 28:12). In the temple in Jerusalem, prayers petition God, "Hear thou in heaven" (1 Kgs 8:30), and the prophet has visions of YHWH high and lifted up and surrounded by adoring seraphim (Is 6:1-4). And in the end, the church prays daily, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In that prayer, the church knows that God's wondrous rule is fully and gladly in effect and without challenge in the zone of heaven. The church knows that; it hopes as deeply as it knows that soon or late the good governance of God will be established in the earth when all impulses to the contrary are defeated or nullified. This hope is deep and vigorous and resilient; it is a hope rooted in heaven, not about going there, but about heaven--God's wondrous rule--coming here on earth, where God's full rule is not yet in effect. This hope is undeterred by circumstance, but is at the same time deeply candid about circumstance. The voice of Israel's faith makes clear beyond dispute that other powers still have a voice in our earthly governance, voices of death and disorder ... and so we wait!

Israel's hope of heaven come to earth is not at all speculation or fantasy, but is rooted in the daily, concrete realities of Israel's present life. Hope is an action of faith here and now, with eyes wide open about the concrete realities of life. I will identify four resources available to Israel out of which it dared to hope lyrically and daringly. These resources focus upon the problematic and the possibility of the earth, and consider the possible incursions of the transformative power of heaven upon earth.