I saw a great white throne.

My goal is to hit publish on this book later today (Saturday). 

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After the Millennium, Satan is released one last time (Rev. 20:7). This is rather puzzling. Rome was defeated 1000 years earlier. Christ has been reigning for 1000 years. Why is Satan being released again? This is where, by the way, the book of Revelation fits in the picture of Magog from Ezekiel (Rev. 20:8).

Speculative thoughts begin to go through my head. What if the beginnings of the book of Revelation were during the crisis of the Jewish War? We have seen reason to think the nucleus of Revelation in the days just after Nero (e.g., Rev. 17:10-11). But what if the book did not reach its current form until the time when it is traditionally dated, during the reign of Domitian?

This is very speculative, but we actually might see some basis for the postmillennial interpretation. John of Patmos certainly hoped for the destruction of Rome, but Rome survived. In fact, Rome won. Now we must look for some time in the future when the decisive earthly battle is won. In this sense, the Millennium creates a space for the 2000 years that have passed with us still waiting for Christ's return. Christ already reigns from heaven, but we still await his kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

Taking Revelation as a whole, Christians throughout the centuries have rightly favored the amillennial position. The final form of Revelation pushes us to see these figures and images in terms of the ongoing struggle between Christ and the forces of evil. But each of the positions has an element of truth in it. The premillennialists are right that the full reign of Christ on earth has not begun yet. The postmillennialists may capture some of the early struggle to make sense of the destruction of Jerusalem and the still continued victories of Rome after tribulation.

But in the end, taking Revelation as a whole, the struggle between good and evil continues. The names and empires change, but the fight and tribulation continue.

The Judgment

2. After the brief intermission with Satan's final kick, Revelation 20:11-15 gives us a picture of the final judgment. This time all the dead are raised (Rev. 20:12-13). In the first resurrection in Revelation, only those who had been martyred for their faith are raised. Now, everyone rises -- the good, the bad, and everything in between. The sea gives up its dead. Death and Hades give up their dead.

Both great and small are resurrected. In our modern egalitarian world, we could easily miss the significance of this statement. The small who serve the Lord might have wondered if they were good enough to be counted. They are. The smallest who served the Lord will be resurrected for eternal life. We could say for the unnoticeable person with an evil heart. Their heart against God was noticed too. Everyone will be part.

Even the sea gives up its dead (20:13). Perhaps someone might think God cannot retrieve them. God is very good at what he does. If our body can be located, God will start resurrecting there. But even if our bodies have been parsed to the winds, he will reconstitute us.

Everyone is judged according to what they did during their lives. John does not use the language of "justification by faith." Nevertheless, Jesus the Lamb of God is clearly the only path to God. Those who have not taken the mark of the beast have instead the name of God on their foreheads (22:5). Again, this is probably not a visible mark or tattoo. The mark, whether it be of the beast or of God, is a spiritual designation. God sees it, so to speak.

We Protestants should not gloss over the fact that this judgment looks at our deeds. Interestingly, we find this sense in Paul's writings as well (2 Cor. 5:10). We may find our place in the kingdom of God based on our faith, but our works are also part of the equation. Those who recanted their faith during the great tribulation were not accepted into the new Jerusalem. Rather, they have the mark of the beast on them. Their deeds have disqualified them at the same time that their deeds reflect their hearts.

However, the ultimate qualifier or disqualifier is whether their names were in the Book of Life (20:15; 21:27). Although it may be somewhat foreign to our thinking, there is some biblical basis for thinking that there can be varied rewards even to those who are saved (e.g., Luke 19:12-27; 1 Cor. 3:12-15). Could there be varying punishments for those whose names are not in the Book of Life, as in Dante's Inferno? This passage could be taken to imply that. 

3. Matthew 25:31-46 give us another picture of final judgment. A throne is involved there as well. Jesus, the Son of Humanity, sits on a throne and judges all the peoples of the earth (25:32). He divides them into two groups, the sheep and the goats.

It is interesting that the dividing characteristic in Matthew is neither a confession of faith nor one's name being in the Book of Life. The criterion is how one has treated others.
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Then the King will say to those on his right hand, "Come, those who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me [something] to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a foreigner, and you brought me in. Naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.

Matthew 25:34-36
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It is natural for us to assume that faith is assumed in this equation, especially given the rest of the New Testament. But we should also sit with this passage a little before we go there. The only distinguishing criterion in the passage is one's disposition toward those in need. 

Lake of Fire

4. The Bible uses different images for the final destinies of both the saved and the damned...

6.2 Loving Neighbor

What does it mean to love our neighbor? Jesus himself summed it up when he said, "do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matt. 7:12). This is of course the Golden Rule. To love your neighbor is to do things that benefit them and not to do things that harm or hurt them.

Love is a matter of intent even more than action. It means that you actually intend others well and act accordingly. It is a matter of the heart.  Jesus says, "it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come" (Mark 7:21). And it is from the heart that truly good thoughts and actions come.

Jesus of course goes one step further. We are not only to love our friends, but our enemies as well (Matt. 5:44). No one is left. We are to love everyone, both our friends and our enemies. We will look at Matthew 5 a number of times in this chapter, but the overall point is summed up in its last paragraph (5:43-48).

You have heard to love your neighbor, but the general sense was also that we hate our enemies (Matt. 5:43). Indeed, if we are honest with ourselves, not a little of the Old Testament certainly feels hateful toward Israel's enemies. One psalmist says of the Babylonians, "Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks" (Ps. 137:9). A whole collection of psalms, the "imprecatory psalms" call on God to destroy the enemies of Israel (e.g., Pss. 7, 58, 109). The prophets Nahum and Obadiah seem to rejoice in the impending doom of Assyria and Edom respectively.

Certainly these are not the only attitudes toward enemies in the Old Testament. The book of Jonah indicts the prophet Jonah for his unwillingness to abandon a prophecy like the book of Nahum. Jonah strikingly extends perhaps the core description of God in the Old Testament to the enemies of Israel: you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity" (Jonah 4:2). [1]

Jesus says that while they have heard it was okay to love their enemies, they must be complete as their Father in heaven is complete (Matt. 5:48). They must love not only their neighbors, but their enemies as well. Look at how God acts. He sends the precious rain that waters the earth not only to those who serve him but to the unrighteous as well (5:45). He gives the warmth and light of the sun not only on Israel, but on the Romans and other nations as well. So we are to love everyone, including our enemies.

When we are formulating a biblical theology on a topic, the New Testament provides a more complete understanding than the Old.  And we don't have to decide between the message of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, for the New Testament is unanimous in its teaching on loving one's enemies (e.g., Rom. 12:17-21). God will take care of judgment...

[1] This description of God appears across the Old Testament. Cf. Exod. 34:6; 2 Chron. 30:9; Neh. 9:17; Ps. 86:15, 103:8, 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2)

The Christian Purpose of Judgment

Very busy week and no time for a full post. But I thought I would share the outline I'm currently using on how God's love and justice properly fit together.  Here's my list.

1. First, God's justice is a function of his love. This is important because the two are usually seen in tension with each other, with justice being the primary.  So someone might in effect say, "God finds a way to be loving within the framework of his justice." I disagree.  "Mercy triumphs judgment."

2. Many biblical models people latch on to here are "not fully cooked." For example, the high point of Scripture on collective judgment is Ezekiel 18--"The person who sins is the one who will die"... not the people or group of the one who sins.  That is not to negate corporate consequences or corporate correction. It is to say, however, that OT thinking that sees an entire people as defiled and worthy of direct punishment because of the sins of a few is incomplete biblical thinking.  Any biblical theology of judgment must start with Ezekiel 18 and Jesus as the center point, "clear" scriptures.

Which leads me to the function of judgment as I see it:

1. To redeem the individual so judged.

That is to say, justice and judgment from a Christian standpoint is often intended to form and redirect the individual so judged.  It is not for punishment but for training and discipline (Hebrews 12).

2. To protect or redeem a broader group of which an individual is a part.

I thought here of the man in 1 Corinthians 5 who is removed from the Corinthian church for two reasons: to try to drive him to repentance (number 1 above) and to protect the church from his corrupting influence. That is this second function of judgment.

3. As a final act of removal, when a person is not redeemable, with the accompanying terror of complete removal from God's presence.

This is what we call hell.

Jesus and Gehenna (7)

... continued series on Jesus and judgment.
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So Jesus preached that judgment was coming for those living on the earth, including the wicked within Israel.  My hunch is that Jesus did not emphasize this judgment in his teaching, even though it was always there in the background.  It makes sense that it may have featured more prominently in Jesus' final days on earth than it did in the bulk of his ministry. In this last section, I want to discuss another element in Jesus' equation of judgment, namely, resurrection and hell.

Again, Jesus probably didn't speak very much on either topic.  For example, we don't have too many statements by Jesus in the gospels about the resurrection. There is his well known debate with some Sadducees in Mark 12:18-27.  The Sadducees were "conservative" when it came to the subject and sided with the silence of the bulk of the Old Testament. They rejected the fairly new idea of resurrection and its sometimes revolutionary implications. [1]

Jesus disagreed. The gospels remember him teaching that there would be a resurrection involving Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (e.g., Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:28).  Certainly he also speaks of his own resurrection at points in the gospels.  Interestingly, this is surprisingly little from Jesus on a subject that is a core item of our faith. But of course the resurrection had not begun yet at that point.  Jesus was the beginning of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20), and so the resurrection has now started.

The gospels have more to say about hell, especially Matthew. We saw a couple passages earlier in the chapter where Jesus talked about those who die in the judgment being cast, body and soul, into Gehenna (e.g., Matt. 10:28; Mark 9:47). It is tempting for some to see Jesus only referring to the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. [2] It is where they burned trash so that its fire never went out and its worms always he something to fee on (Mark 9:48).

The word ge-hinnom in Aramaic originally meant "Valley of Hinnom"--this is where the word "Gehenna" originally came from. At first, some time before Jesus came to earth, the word perhaps was used of the place where the bodies of those who died in the final conflict between good and evil would be burned. However, words usually do not stand still in their meanings, and this word went on to refer to a place of eternal torment for the wicked beneath the surface of the earth...

[1] The only place in the Old Testament that all agree refers to resurrection is Daniel 12:2-3, although there are other possibilities (e.g., Isa. 26:19).  Other passages explicitly deny a meaningful afterlife (e.g., Job 3:16-19; 7:9-10; 14:14, 21; Ps. 6:4-5; 30:9; 88:3-6; and Eccl. 3:19; 9:4-5). The idea of resurrection probably did not really gain force within Judaism until the 100's BC.  There it was perhaps first associated with those who die a martyr's death out of faithfulness to the Law (e.g., 2 Maccabees 7).  It meant that those who stand up to foreign powers out of devotion to God will come back and see the judgment of their adversaries.  Cf. J. H. Charlesworth, ed. Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2006).

[2] Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (San Francisco: HarperOne), 67-68.

Judgment of Israel (5)

... continued from last year. ;-)
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Some have suggested that Jesus' action in the temple meant to enact its coming destruction symbolically. [1]  No doubt at least looking back many Christians understood it this way.  The Synoptic gospels remember Jesus predicting the temple's destruction.  Whether it was entirely clear to them at the time is another question.

The key passage here is Jesus' "end times" sermon in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21.  These gospels all present Jesus' teaching on coming judgment in the context of the Jerusalem temple and a prediction that its stones will all be torn down (e.g., Mark 13:2). Jesus begins to tell of a coming distress and then of the coming of the Son of Man.

The first part of the sermon is about a distress that is coming on Israel.  Given the way Mark introduces this teaching, we know that it involves the destruction of the temple.  In fact, Luke 21:20 paraphrases Jesus' teaching to make it clear that the destruction of Jerusalem is the desecration Jesus is predicting.  The way Mark puts it is much more ambiguous: "when you see 'the abomination that causes desolation' standing where it does not belong" (Mark 13:14).

So there may be some element of hindsight in the way the gospels present Jesus' teaching here. The sermon itself does not actually mention the temple's destruction--only its desecration is implied. [2]  The Jerusalem Christians in Acts worship in the temple without much of a sense of its impending doom, and Paul's enigmatic teaching in 2 Thessalonians 2 only speaks of a man of lawlessness setting himself up in the temple as god (2:4).

The second part of the sermon concerns the coming of the Son of Man and presumably the final judgment (e.g., Mark 13:24-31).  We know now--as the early Christians came to know--that there is a significant gap of time between the first and the second part of the sermon.  The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in AD70, but we still wait for Christ's return. Luke in particular seems to bring out this distinction in the way he paraphrases the teaching.  He speaks of a "times of the Gentiles" that intervenes (Luke 21:24).

How should we as Christians today appropriate this teaching? ...

[1] E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism...


[2] So John Kloppenborg, "Evocatio Deorum and ***) JBL.

Jesus in the temple (4)

... continued from yesterday.  This series is on Jesus and Judgment.
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3. Judgment of Israel
So far in the chapter, I've argued that Jesus did likely teach that judgment was coming to those alive on the earth, even if it was not the focus of his preaching.  Additionally, Jesus seems to have had a prophetic message of judgment against the temple leadership of Israel, at least in the final week of his ministry.  The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all understood Jesus' words and actions in this regard to predict the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

More than anything else, it was probably Jesus' action in the temple during passion week that set in motion the concrete political mechanisms that ended in the crucifixion.  Jesus certainly came into conflict with various people during his ministry, as we saw back in chapter 4.  But it doesn't seem likely that he tangled much with the temple leaders or chief priests until that day he walked into the temple courts and overthrew the tables of those who were changing money and selling animals for sacrifice.  More than anyone else, these were the people who had the kinds of connections with the Romans that could get a person killed.

On the one hand, it was generally necessary to have such a service. [1] It simply wasn't practical for someone to bring a goat or lamb with them for sacrifice from half way around the Mediterranean.  And to buy such things, money was needed (again, bringing something with you to trade from around the world wasn't practical) and it would need to be exchanged to the right currency.  Clearly something about the scene angered Jesus, but it surely was not the practice of buying and selling itself. Surely it was the way they were doing it--or where--that angered him.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all link Jesus' action to two Scriptures.  The first is Isaiah 56:7, "My house will be called a house of prayer."  Instead, what Jesus saw was Jeremiah 7:11: "a den of robbers."  Some focus primarily on the first verse to explain what angered Jesus.  The context of Isaiah 56:7 is all the nations of the world coming to worship at the temple.  In fact, Mark 11:17 gives the part of the quote that says the temple should be a house of prayer for all nations.

So some see Jesus angry primarily because of where they were selling things.  Foreigners who might otherwise worship God in the temple courts were instead confronted by buying and selling there.  At the same time, it is surely significant that neither Matthew nor Luke give the part of the quote that says, "for all nations."  They were likely using Mark as a source and yet seem to have deliberately left this part of the quote out.  Also, the Gentiles were arguably not the focus of Jesus' earthly ministry (cf. Matt. 10:5).

So others might focus more on the second Scripture from Jeremiah.  It comes in the context of the approaching destruction of the temple in 586BC.  There is of course a striking similarity here in the sense that Jesus is also remembered as predicting the destruction of the temple, which took place in AD70.  Jeremiah's complaint is the the priests of his day had made the temple into a "den of robbers."  Jeremiah accused the leaders of day of hiding their injustice behind the temple.  They were murderers, adulterers, thieves, perjurers, idolaters, and yet somehow thought the fact that they ran the temple would protect them from coming judgment (Jer. 7:9-10).

This second focus does indeed fit the emphases of Jesus ministry very well, as we have seen. Of course the gospels are not video recorders. They are unpacking the event.  One may or may not talk too much when you are angrily overturning tables and chasing people.  And the kinds of things that spark anger are usually more complex and emotional than a matter of logical argument and ideas.

Accordingly, both the answers above may have some truth to them.  Jesus is confronted by a scene of merchandising when the temple should be for worshiping God.  And it should be for everyone, not just for those who have the coinage necessary to buy sheep and doves.  The situation evokes key elements of his prophetic message for Israel, especially the way those who are rich and powerful couldn't care less about the vast majority of the people, the lost sheep of Israel...

[1] So E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism ***.

Son of Man (3)

Yesterday I jotted down a few thoughts on Jesus and the judgment of the earth.  By the way, I edited the last couple paragraphs of yesterday's to fill out my impression a bit.  Today I continue that train of thought.
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... Perhaps the best evidence for a judgment on earth comes from the "Son of Man" imagery of the first three gospels.  There is a remarkable agreement among even many who are very skeptical that Jesus used this phrase as a way of talking about himself.  Take Luke 9:58: "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."  There is no special meaning to the phrase "Son of Man" here.  It just seems to be the way Jesus often referred to himself as if to say, "I have no place to lay my head."

And Jesus is almost the only one who calls himself "Son of Man" in the New Testament.  The phrase is almost never found outside Matthew, Mark, and Luke and even then it was not a title by which others referred to Jesus.  No one seems to get upset that Jesus calls himself this name, which probably means it was not a phrase widely used at the time for anything.  It is a puzzle.

However, it gets even more puzzling when we get to some of the connotations the phrase has in some parts of the gospels and some contemporary Jewish literature.  Take what Jesus says to the high priest when he is on trial in Mark 14:62, "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."  This verse is a clear allusion to Daniel 7:13, where someone like a "son of man" comes with the clouds of heaven.  This figure receives power and authority from God so that all nations and peoples worship him and he brings a kingdom that will never be destroyed.

We find a lot of potentially troubling verses when we get to this topic.  What does Mark 7:1 mean, which says that some standing there with Jesus will not die before the kingdom has come with power?  What does Mark 13:30 mean when it says that generation will not pass before things like the coming of the Son of Man takes place?  It sounds similar to what Jesus tells the high priest: YOU will see it. What I want to point out here is merely that these pictures of things that are coming seem to involve the living on the earth.

One of the most striking Son of Man passages is in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25:31-46).  The Son of Man comes, the nations are gathered for judgment.  There is no mention of resurrection.  The picture is of the Son of Man coming from heaven to earth and gathering all those of the earth to be judged, with the kingdom of the Son of Man immediately commencing thereafter.  I mentioned this picture back in chapter 3 on Jesus and the Poor.

What is interesting is that the imagery here is very similar to something found in another Jewish book of the period, 1 Enoch. [1] In 1 Enoch 62, the "Son of Man" sits on a throne and judges the world as well.  It is such a strikingly similar picture that some connection seems almost certain.  Was Jesus alluding to this tradition when he called himself the Son of Man?  Did those who wrote this part of 1 Enoch know about Jesus?  Did Matthew paraphrase this passage because he knew this tradition or did those who wrote this part of 1 Enoch know Matthew?

These are difficult questions to answer.  On the one hand, the tradition of 1 Enoch could not have been widely known at the time of Jesus or it would have provoked more of a reaction and Jesus wouldn't have used the phrase casually so often.  Does Jesus' use of this expression fall in the category of hiding his messianic identity from the crowds?  The inner circle would know what Son of Man meant, but it would be an ambiguous phrase to most outsiders.

I merely want to draw two conclusions.  The one is that Jesus was remembered as preaching that a judgment was going to come to the earth.  The other is that at least the gospel writers compared Jesus' role in that judgment to the role of the Son of Man in the traditions of Enoch.  Jesus would be God's agent of judgment when he returned from heaven, the king-judge of Daniel 7.

[1] In particular, a section of 1 Enoch called "The Parables of Enoch."  This part of the book was not present among the Dead Sea Scrolls, leading most experts to think it was written later than the other scrolls, perhaps as late as the first century AD.

Coming Judgment 2

Yesterday I wrote on Judging Others.  Today I want to look on what Jesus likely preached about the coming judgment.
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Way back in chapter 1 I argued that John the Baptist's baptism of repentance was not only in preparation for the coming restoration of Israel but also to ensure salvation in a coming judgment.  I don't think Jesus' message to the crowds focused on this judgment nearly as much as John's did, but it was almost certainly part of his message.  After all, Jesus endorsed John's teaching when he was baptized, and we do find this teaching in the gospels.

It makes sense to think that most of Jesus' teaching on the coming judgment took place in his final days, particularly in Jerusalem.  This is how the first three gospels remember it. [1]  They connect Jesus' action in the temple with the impending destruction of Jerusalem and each includes a final sermon on coming judgment in Jesus' final week.

In fact, the Gospel of Mark is arranged so that it has a turning point just before Jesus heads for Jerusalem at the end of his ministry. Up to that point, the tone is optimistic and Jesus tells good news to the crowds that flock to him.  After Mark 8, however, Jesus looks toward Jerusalem and the gospel takes on a tone of foreboding.  Jesus seems to withdraw more from the crowds and spend more time privately with his key followers.

So what was this coming judgment?  The next section looks at Jesus and the judgment of Israel.  In this one, I'm arguing that Jesus focused on the coming judgment of the earth.  The final section of this chapter looks at what Jesus might have said about the afterlife.  But I don't think that Jesus actually preached much on that topic.  Rather, like the rest of the New Testament, he focused on something that was going to happen on earth.

Some of the verses I most enjoy in the Bible are the weird ones.  The reason is because I suspect that these are the passages that most expose the spots where our own assumptions are slightly off, where our own glasses make it difficult for us to see the original meaning as it actually was.  Take Mark 9:47: "If your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell."  A couple things strike me about this verse.

First, will the kingdom really involve one eyed people?  To be sure, Jesus is not speaking literally here.  It's hyperbole--making a point with exaggeration.  Paul makes it clear that we will have transformed bodies in the kingdom (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:50).  But the very concept of entering into the kingdom with one eye sounds like my body is entering in right here from earth.  It doesn't sound like I'm going up to heaven to enter it and it certainly doesn't sound like something that happens after I die.

In other words, the judgment sounds like an event that will take place on earth.  I get the same impression from the other person with two eyes who is thrown into hell, into "Gehenna." It reminds me of another verse in Matthew where Jesus says that his followers should not fear the person who can only kill their bodies.  Rather they should fear the God who can destroy both their souls and bodies in Gehenna (Matt. 10:28).  We at least get the impression that the judgment starts right here on earth and involves the physical bodies of the wicked. [2]

[1] John does not have an "end times" sermon like Matthew, Mark, and Luke do.

[2] Most translations rightly translate Gehenna as hell, but it is interesting to wonder if any of Jesus' audience thought of the valley gehinnom just outside Jerusalem, where they burned the trash of the city.  This is the place from which Gehenna in fact got its name.

Paul the Christ-Follower 2

... continued from the previous post.
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At least initially, Paul seemed to expect Christ to return within his lifetime.  We who are alive and remain will be caught up in the air, he tells the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:17).  He advises the Corinthians that it is best not to marry because "the time is short" (1 Cor. 7:29).  The question of what happens to believers who die does not even seem to have come up in the months he was at Thessalonica (cf. 1 Thess. 4:13).  He must have focused almost entirely on escaping the coming judgment on the living (e.g., 1 Thess. 1:10) and hardly mentioned the dead. His focus was thus almost the opposite of many today, emphasizing Christ's return to the earth rather than what happens after you die.

Language of "salvation" in Paul thus focused overwhelmingly on an event that was coming rather than on some internal experience.  The gospel was also the positive truth that God had enthroned Jesus as king and that God's kingdom was coming--it did not focus on some individual experience.  Believers would still on the Day of judgment give an account for how they had lived, even after God had forgiven their sins (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:10).  While there was no promise of salvation if a person did not continue in faithfulness (e.g., 1 Cor. 9:26-27; Phil. 3:11), other believers might only get a bit burned in that judgment, while still making it into the kingdom (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:13-15).

On the day when Christ returned, the material creation, including our physical bodies, would be transformed to become like Christ's body after he was resurrected (1 Cor. 15:49; Phil. 3:21).  Currently, the creation is enslaved to corruption and decay (Rom. 8:20), probably since the time of Adam's sin.  Our physical flesh, because it is a part of the creation, is also in its default state in subjection to the power of Sin.  This is why those without the Spirit cannot do the good, even if they want to do so.

However, the Spirit frees us now from this power of sin, and when Christ returns the whole creation will be liberated.  Paul likely located eternity on this renewed earth.  This eternal kingdom of God on earth, where Christ would reign would thus not be a matter of "flesh and blood" (1 Cor. 15:50), but of transformed bodies.

In the meantime, believers live on earth as the "body of Christ" (1 Cor. 12:12-31).  We each have different roles to play, but each is important.  The Spirit lives in the local assemblies (churches) collectively as the temple of the Lord (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:16) far more importantly than within each person individually.  Collectively as well as individually, a church presents its bodies to God as a singular living sacrifice (Rom. 12:2).  Together as well as individually, the God of peace sets us apart and makes us his, "sanctified" and blameless (1 Thess. 5:23).