ESCHATOLOGY AS TRANSFORMATION: A TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF ISAIAH 65:17-25

摘要

The doctrine of Christian eschatology has received countless treatments from various point of views over the years; ranging from both OT and NT perspectives. Yet, it’s apparent that none of the approaches considered eschatology as transformation. Therefore, this essay in response to the need for a newer perspective on Christian eschatology used a textual analytical methodology in the study of Isaiah 65:17-25 and using the text as a pre-eschatological picture and a type of Revelations 21 argued that eschatology is exclusively about transformation. The textual analysis reveals that creatio ex-nihilo is not going to take place again as did in Genesis 1, rather at the eschaton, God would transform the heavens and earth, transform the past, transform the human person, transform labor, transform the divine human relationship and transform the interaction between nature. The paper further maintained that God’s act of transforming man and his abode is a gradual process beginning from the spiritual transformation through Jesus Christ and finally the eschatological transformation at his second coming. Finally, eschatology as transformation gives hope to the suffering Church that at the eschaton, all persecution would neither be remembered nor would they come to mind, for God would be reunited with His transformed people for a transformed divine-human interaction in the transformed heavens and earth.