"The Hope of Eternal Life" is a human yearning that is both deeply personal and widely shared. For Christians, that hope is confessed regularly. As we declare in the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." Likewise, in the Nicene Creed, we and the whole church confess, "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."
Christian faith hinges on the belief that death is not the end of life for the individual, for humanity, or the universe. This hope is not only for ourselves but for all things: "For creation will be set free from bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:19, 21).
In the midst of our culture's mixture of messages on death and the future, the gospel proclaims that life is the destiny of humanity and of the world.
Romans 8:23 "And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us."
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