What will it be like on our resurrection day, when we return with Christ to this old Earth, when we are given new bodies in the knowledge that we will together colonize a New Earth (whether that is immediately, or after a thousand years)? At the end of my novel Safely Home, I tried to catch a flavor of what it may be like:

The battle cry of a hundred million warriors erupted from one end of the heavens to the other. There was war on that narrow isthmus between heaven and hell, a planet called Earth. The air was filled with the din of combat—the wails of oppressors being slain and the joyous celebrations of the oppressed, rejoicing that at long last their liberators had arrived.

Some of the warriors sang as they slew, swinging swords to hew the oppressors with one arm and, with the other, pulling victims up onto their horses.

The long arm of the King moved with swiftness and power. The hope of reward that kept the sufferers sane was vindicated at last. No child of Heaven was touched by the sword this day, for the universe could not tolerate the shedding of one more drop of righteous blood.

Heaven released fury. Earth bled fear. It was the old world’s last night.

At the Lion’s nod, Michael raised his mighty sword and brought it down upon the great dragon. His muscles bulging at the strain, Michael picked up his evil twin and cast the writhing beast into a great pit. The mauler of men, the hunter of women, the predator of children, the persecutor of the righteous shrieked in terror. The vast army of Heaven’s warriors cheered.

The battalions of Charis gazed upon the decimated face of the earth, the scorched soil of the old world. Nothing had survived the fires of this holocaust of things. Nothing but the King’s Word, His people, and the deeds of gold and silver and precious stones they had done for Him during the long night since Eden’s twilight.

Soldiers dropped their weapons, the crippled tossed their crutches and ran, the blind opened their eyes and saw. They pointed and shouted and danced, throwing their arms around each other, for each knew that any now left on earth were under the King’s blood and could be fully trusted. The King gathered children upon His lap. He wiped away their tears. . . .

The sound of a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and loud peals of thunder, shouted, “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” . . .

All eyes turned to the King. The entire universe fell silent, anticipating His words.

“I will turn the wasteland into a garden,” the King announced. “I will bring here the home I have made for you, my bride. There will be a new world, a life-filled blue-green world, greater than all that has ever been. The Shadowlands are mine again, and I shall transform them. My kingdom has come. My will shall be done. Winter is over. Spring is here at last!”

A great roar rose from the vast crowd. The King raised His hands. Upon seeing those scars, the cheering crowds remembered the unthinkable cost of this great celebration.

Warriors slapped each other on the back. The delivered hugged their deliverers, enjoying a great reunion with those once parted from them.

The multitudes innumerable began to sing the song for which they had been made, a song that echoed off a trillion planets and reverberated in a quadrillion places in every nook and cranny of the creation’s expanse. Audience and orchestra and choir all blended into one great symphony, one grand cantata of rhapsodic melodies and sustaining harmonies. All were participants. Only one was an audience, the Audience of One. The smile of the King’s approval swept through the choir like fire across dry wheat fields.

When the song was complete, the Audience of One stood and raised His great arms, then clapped His scarred hands together in thunderous applause, shaking ground and sky, jarring every corner of the cosmos. His applause went on and on, unstopping and unstoppable.

Every one of them realized something with undiminished clarity in that instant. They wondered why they had not seen it all along. What they knew in that moment, in every fiber of their beings, was that this Person and this Place were all they had ever longed for . . . and ever would.

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