Theological Journal – February 10 Moltmann Monday

"The cross is not something historically fortuitous which might not have happened. God himself is nothing other than love. Consequently Golgotha is the inescapable revelation of his nature in a world of evil and suffering." (The Trinity and the Kingdom)


Do you ever wonder what life will be like then and there and how different it will be from the here and now? I do. And what I’ve come to realize Moltmann captures in this quote. It’s this: “in a world of evil and suffering.”


What will be different then and there is not how we will act and behave or what we will be expected to do. Everything required of us here and now will be required then and there.

-loving still means serving others

-their interests remain more important than our own

-“dominion” over the creation (Gen.1:26-28) remains “tilling and keeping“ (or “protecting and serving”) it (Gen.2:15)

-“glory” means “fastening our belts, bidding those other and less than us to sit down to eat, and going and serving them their feast” (Lk.12:37)

In other words, life then and there will be nothing other than life as it should have been here and now minus the evil and suffering. The latter are not the cause of a life of cross-bearing and suffering servanthood; rather they determine its form and consequences. The cause lies in the nature of God who created us and redeemed us to live anew and for the first time the life we were created for. What drove Jesus to the cross here and now will drive us as well then and there. Not to a cross, to be sure, but to the same serving and pouring ourselves out for one another willingly and without reserve that was Christ’s. This will be our way of life, our joy, our crown. Our complete and forever conformity to the image of Christ (Rom.8:29).