The new creation lives in an unusual position. They are fully and finally in Christ — justified, sanctified in process, sealed by the Spirit, positioned in heavenly places. Every spiritual blessing in heavenly places is already theirs (Ephesians 1:3). The old has passed away; all things are become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Their standing before God is complete and unassailable.
And yet the world in which they live this new-creation life is not the world as it will be. The body is still mortal. Creation still groans under the weight of the Fall. The enemy still operates. The fullness of what God has prepared has not yet arrived. The new creation lives between two moments — between the moment of new birth, when all things became new in spirit, and the moment when all things will be made new in totality:
The return of Christ.
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” — Titus 2:13 (KJV)
Looking for. Not merely believing in. Not merely affirming as a doctrinal statement. Looking for — the posture of active, daily expectation, of a creation that knows where history is going and orients every dimension of its life in light of that destination.
Parousia — Presence, Not Merely Event
The primary Greek word the New Testament uses for the return of Christ is parousia — and its meaning reveals something that most eschatological teaching entirely overlooks.
Parousia means, literally, presence — the arrival and sustained presence of a person of significance. In the first century, the word was used for the visit of a king or emperor to a city — the official presence of the sovereign in person. It was not a brief appearance or a fly-past. It was the coming of the person themselves, in their full person, to be genuinely present with those they came to visit.
When the New Testament speaks of the parousia of Christ, it is not describing primarily a sequence of events — wars, judgements, resurrections, though these attend the parousia. It is describing the coming of the Person — the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in His full person, in His glory, no longer veiled by the circumstances of the incarnation but manifested in the fullness of who He is:
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” — 1 John 3:2 (KJV)
We shall see him as he is. The new creation’s ultimate experience is not the resolution of a geopolitical programme. It is the face-to-face seeing of the One in whom they have believed — Christ, as He is, in His full glory, with nothing between. The parousia is a relational event before it is anything else. The King is coming to be with His people.
“The Blessed Hope” — Titus 2:13
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” — Titus 2:13 (KJV)
Paul calls it the blessed hope — and both words carry weight.
Blessed — Greek makarios, the same word Jesus uses in the Beatitudes: blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek. It is the word of deep, settled happiness — the happiness that comes not from circumstances but from the reality of what God has provided. The hope of Christ’s return is not an anxious hope, uncertain of its outcome. It is a blessed hope — the happiness of a person who knows what is coming and is genuinely glad about it.
Hope — the Greek elpis — in the New Testament is not the ordinary English word hope, which often conveys uncertainty: I hope it will work out. The New Testament elpis is confident expectation — the certainty of a future reality that has not yet arrived but is as sure as the One who promised it. The blessed hope is not wishful thinking. It is the confident expectation of a specific, certain, glorious event: the appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
The practical force of this: the new creation does not merely believe in the return of Christ as a doctrinal article. They look for it — actively, daily, with the orientation of one who expects something they know is coming. This expectation is not passive waiting. It is active living in the light of what is coming.
“He Shall Appear the Second Time” — Hebrews 9:28
“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” — Hebrews 9:28 (KJV)
The first appearing of Christ was in humility — taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men — to deal with sin at the cross. The second appearing will be in glory — without sin, because the sin has been dealt with, and the work that required that first coming is fully accomplished. The second appearing is not another atoning work. It is the completion of the salvation whose price was already paid.
And notice who it is that He appears unto: them that look for him. The second appearing is for those whose posture is one of expectation — those who have oriented their lives toward His coming, who are watching, who are not so absorbed in the present age that the coming age has ceased to matter to them.
The new creation that is genuinely looking for the return of Christ lives differently. Not with less engagement in the present world — the ambassador who carries the ministry of reconciliation must be deeply engaged in the present world. But with a different orientation toward the present world: everything they do in it is done in the light of the day that is coming.
The Purifying Hope — 1 John 3:2–3
The most practically transforming statement about the hope of Christ’s return is the one John makes immediately following his declaration that we shall see Him as He is:
“And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” — 1 John 3:3 (KJV)
Every man that hath this hope purifieth himself. The hope is not merely an intellectual belief in a future event. When it is genuinely present in the heart — when the new creation is truly living in the expectation of seeing Christ face to face — it produces a spontaneous, natural movement toward purity. Not the compelled obedience of one who fears punishment, but the voluntary, love-driven desire of one who is going to see the One they love, and wants to be found in a manner worthy of that meeting.
This is the sanctifying power of eschatology — a dimension of Christian living that most contemporary teaching has largely abandoned. The early church lived in the daily awareness that Christ might return at any moment — and this awareness was not a cause of anxiety but a cause of purity, of urgency, of serious engagement with the life they had been given. What you do today, you do on the day of His possible return. What you leave undone today, you leave undone on the day He might appear.
Peter draws the same connection explicitly:
“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.” — 2 Peter 3:11–12 (KJV)
What manner of persons ought ye to be. The eschatological certainty is the basis for the ethical urgency. The new creation that holds the hope of Christ’s return is not holding it as an abstract theological position — they are allowing it to shape their manner of persons: how they live, how they speak, how they prioritise, how they love, how they serve.
The Catching Up — 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
Paul’s most detailed description of the sequence of the Lord’s return is in 1 Thessalonians 4 — written to comfort believers who were grieving over those who had died before the return:
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18 (KJV)
The Lord himself shall descend. Not a representative. Not an angelic visitation. The Lord Himself — the One who ascended, who is seated at the right hand of the Father, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever — descending in person.
Caught up together — the Greek harpazo, to seize, to snatch, to take with sudden force. From which the Latin rapio, from which the English word rapture derives. The catching up is not a quiet slip away. It is the decisive, powerful, sudden gathering of the whole people of God — those who have died in Christ and those who are alive — into the presence of the Lord.
And so shall we ever be with the Lord. This is the culmination — not the events leading to it, not the sequence of what precedes it, but the final state: with the Lord. Forever. The parousia is not an event that passes. It is the permanent establishment of the new creation’s face-to-face relationship with Christ.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words. The hope of the return is not a speculative topic for theological debate. It is a comfort — a present, daily comfort for grieving hearts, for weary spirits, for the new creation that is in the thick of the struggle and needs to be reminded of where it is all going.
Maranatha — The Prayer of the First Church
The Aramaic word maranatha — used in 1 Corinthians 16:22 and Revelation 22:20 — is the earliest recorded prayer of the Christian community:
“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” — Revelation 22:20 (KJV)
It is simultaneously a declaration and a prayer: Our Lord, come. The early church spoke this word in their gatherings — at the breaking of bread, in their assemblies, in their daily lives. It was the verbal expression of the community’s eschatological orientation: we know You are coming, we expect You, we want You to come.
This posture — maranatha — is not resignation to the present world. It is not a wish that the present were different. It is the deep desire of a people who have been so thoroughly met by Christ in the present that they want the fullness of His presence: the parousia, the face-to-face, the ever with the Lord. The new creation that prays maranatha is the new creation that has tasted enough of what Christ is that they want all of it — and they know that all of it arrives when He does.
The Return’s Urgency for the Ambassador
The hope of Christ’s return and the commission to be ambassadors of reconciliation are not in tension — they are inseparable. The imminent return of Christ does not reduce the urgency of the mission. It intensifies it.
“We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)” — 2 Corinthians 6:1–2 (KJV)
Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Not indefinitely. Not with unlimited years before the moment when the door closes. The same Lord whose return is the blessed hope is the Lord whose return closes the window of the age of salvation. Between now and that return, the ministry of reconciliation remains open. The ambassador who truly believes Christ is coming soon does not slow down their ambassadorial activity. They intensify it — because they know what the moment of His return means for those who are still outside the reconciliation He has accomplished.
What Comes Next
The hope of Christ’s return is the horizon of the entire series. But between now and that horizon, the new creation lives its daily life in a specific tension: the tension between what they already are in Christ and what they are still becoming — between the positional and the experiential, the accomplished and the progressive. In the next article, we examine the process of growing to maturity — what the Bible says about spiritual growth in the new-creation life, how it happens, what threatens it, and what the new creation who is pressing toward the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ looks like in practice.
“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” — 2 Peter 3:18 (KJV)
Grow. Not a suggestion. Not an optional extra for the spiritually ambitious. The command of the Word to every new creation: grow. The new creation that is not growing is not standing still — they are declining. Growth is the normal condition of new-creation life.
Bible Verses Cited: Titus 2:13; 1 John 3:2–3; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18; 2 Peter 3:11–14; Hebrews 9:28; Philippians 3:20–21; Revelation 22:12, 22:20; Acts 1:11; Ephesians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 2 Corinthians 6:1–2; 1 Corinthians 16:22; Romans 8:22–23 (KJV)
Series: New Creation in Christ Jesus — Article 32 of 35
Author: Joseph Olarewaju | FaithBibleStudy.org
