Summary

A major new study of what the Bible teaches about the future. The chief note sounded is one of hope. ‘The future is bright because it is full of promise, the promise of God’s Word’. The Promise of the Future fills a gap in Reformed theology in the area of eschatology. For too long the last things have been understood to be only about the Parousia and the final judgement. Cornelis Venema has written an exhaustive treatment of the subject with the view that eschatology began with the birth of Christ, continues at the present time, and will be finally consummated at the restoration of the heavens and the earth. This is completely correct, and his handling of the subject is wide-ranging and very good. I believe that this book could very easily become a standard work on eschatology from the viewpoint of Classical Reformation theology.

What is refreshing is to see printed the historic view that the future of the world and the human race is not in some abstract realm beyond time and space, but in the transformed and gloriously restored creation. For too long a neo-Platonistic model of salvation as post-mortem disembodied bliss has occupied the minds of believers, instead of the biblical and apostolic vision of the resurrection to a glorious bodily immortality in a restored earth without end.