Our Hope
Where this is all going: what happens when we die, the return of Christ, the resurrection, and the new creation.
Our Hope
What happens when I die?
For the believer, to die is to be with Christ: Scripture speaks of departing to be with Him as far better, and of being at home with the Lord. Then at His return comes the resurrection of the body. For those who reject Christ, death is separation, and judgment awaits.
Our Hope
Will Jesus return literally?
Yes. The New Testament promises that the same Jesus who ascended will return visibly and bodily, with power and great glory, to gather His people, raise the dead, judge the world, and bring the kingdom in full. Until then, we wait, watch, and work.
Our Hope
What is the resurrection of the body?
The resurrection is God's raising of the believer's body to eternal life on the last day: a body like Christ's glorified body, imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual. Because Christ rose as the firstfruits, those who belong to Him will rise too.
Our Hope
What is the new heaven and new earth?
At the end of the story, God does not abandon creation: He renews it. The new heaven and new earth are the redeemed creation where God dwells with His people, sin and death are gone, every tear is wiped away, and the dwelling of God is with man forever.
Our Hope
What signs should we look for before Jesus returns?
Jesus gave signs of the age, not a date: the gospel preached to all nations, wars and troubles as 'birth pains,' and false christs who would deceive many. Yet He was just as clear that no one knows the day or hour. The call is not to calculate but to watch, to be found faithful, and to live ready for His coming.
Our Hope
What will we do in the new creation?
The new creation is not an endless rest with nothing to do; it is the healing and renewal of all things. Scripture shows God dwelling with His people, every tear wiped away, the curse gone, and His people serving Him, reigning with Him, seeing His face, and living in a world of righteousness, abundance, and joy without end.
Our Hope
What does the Bible say about animals and heaven?
The Bible never promises that a specific animal is raised or restored in heaven, and it is honest about that silence. What it does say is clear: God made the animals and called them good, He cares for them and keeps covenant with them, the animal world shares in the groaning of a fallen creation and will be set free with it, and the healed new creation ends the violence of the animal kingdom, so that every creature can praise God together.
Our Hope
What is the rapture?
The word 'rapture' comes from the Latin for 'caught up' in 1 Thessalonians 4: the Lord descends, the dead in Christ rise, and believers who are alive are caught up together with them to meet Him in the air. The Bible's emphasis is not the timing but the certainty and the comfort: we will be with the Lord forever, and we are not appointed to wrath. Whatever the precise schedule, the point of the promise is hope, readiness, and an unmovable union with Christ.
Our Hope
What is the great tribulation?
Jesus warned of 'great oppression' such as the world has never seen, drawing on Daniel's 'time of trouble,' and tied it to the abomination of desolation and the coming of the Son of Man. Bible readers differ over when this period falls in relation to Christ's return. What the texts make certain is that it comes, the saints are called to endure and be watchful, the chosen are kept, and the Son of Man will appear in glory at its end.
Our Hope
What is heaven like?
Heaven is not a distant fog of floating spirits: it is the presence of God, and it leads to the new heaven and new earth where God dwells among His people forever. The Bible paints it in pictures, a city, a garden, a feast, a river, a wedding, because it is too good for plain words, and at its center is always the Lamb on the throne, not the scenery.
Our Hope
Will we recognize each other in the resurrection?
The Bible never answers this question with a single proof-text, and honest study starts there. But it gives strong grounds to answer yes: resurrection is renewal, not replacement; the risen Jesus was recognized by His friends; Moses and Elijah appeared known on the mountain; and Scripture's picture of the new creation is people gathered, not souls dissolved. Our knowing deepens in glory, it does not dissolve.
Our Hope
What is the abomination of desolation?
The abomination of desolation is Daniel's phrase for a desecration that leaves the holy place desolate. Jesus took it up as the sign of Jerusalem's destruction and as a pattern for the last days. It calls us to watch, to flee when the sign appears, and to stand in faith, rather than to build confident timetables out of a phrase the Bible itself does not decode completely.
Our Hope
Is there a second chance after death?
Scripture treats death as a fixed threshold: it is appointed for people to die once, and after that comes judgment. Believers enter Christ's presence at once, the lost face separation already fixed, and the Bible nowhere pictures a stopover where souls are purified or a door reopened afterward. Today is the day of salvation, and it ends at the grave.