Matthew Wright’s Reviews > Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church > Status Update

The two parables that appear to address this question directly are, we should remember, parables, not actual descriptions of the afterlife.

The most common New Testament word sometimes translated by hell is Gehenna. Gehenna was a place, not just an idea: it was the rubbish heap outside the southwest corner of the old city of Jerusalem.

Paul makes it clear here and elsewhere that it's the present life that is meant to function as a purgatory. The sufferings of the present time, not of some postmortem state, are the valley through which we have to pass in order to reach the glorious future.

we must say that all Christians, living and departed, are to be thought of as saints and that all Christians who have died are to be thought of, and treated, as such.

bodily death itself is the destruction of the sinful person.

Death itself gets rid of all that is still sinful; this isn't magic but good theology. There is nothing then left to purge.

In first Corinthians 15:58: the resurrection means that what you do in the present, and working hard for the gospel, is not wasted. It is not in Vain. It will be completed, will have it, fulfillment, and God’s future.

We sometimes speak of someone who's been very ill as being a shadow of their former self. If Paul is right, a Christian in the present life is a mere shadow of his or her future self, the self that person will be when the body that God has waiting in his heavenly storeroom is brought out, already made to measure, and put on over the present one-or over the self that will still exist after bodily death.

With Jesus, the future hope has come forward into the present. For those who die in faith, before that final reawaken-ing, the central promise is of being "with Jesus" at once. "My desire is to depart," wrote Paul, "and be with Christ, which is far better?"

Resurrection = life after life, after death

What does Jesus mean when he declares that there are "many dwelling places" in his father's house?

the word for “dwelling places" here, monai, is regularly used in ancient Greek not for a final resting place but for a temporary halt on a journey that will take you somewhere else in the long run.

justification by faith is what happens in the present time, anticipating the verdict of the future day when God judges the world.