Buku A New Heaven and a New Earth (J. Richard Middleton)

 A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology

 Winner of the Word Guild Award for best book in Biblical Studies (2014).

 In recent years, more and more Christians have come to appreciate the  Bible’s teaching that the ultimate blessed hope for the believer is not  an otherworldly heaven; instead, it is full-bodied participation in a  new heaven and a new earth brought into fullness through the coming of  God’s kingdom. Drawing on the full sweep of the biblical narrative, J.  Richard Middleton unpacks key Old Testament and New Testament texts to  make a case for the new earth as the appropriate Christian hope. He  suggests its ethical and ecclesial implications, exploring the  difference a holistic eschatology can make for living in a broken world.

 “Richard Middleton plunges boldly into a most-treasured misreading of  the Bible. He shows the way in which ‘other-worldly’ hope of ‘going to  heaven’ is a total misread of gospel faith. In a demanding, sure-footed  way he walks the reader through a rich deposit of biblical texts to make  clear that the gospel concerns the transformation of the earth and not  escape from it. Middleton summons us to repentance for such a mistaken  understanding that has had disastrous practical implications. This is a  repentance that he himself avows. When his book catches on, it will have  an immense impact on the way in which we think and act about our common  future in the gospel, a common future with important socioeconomic,  political derivatives.”
—Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary