The Birth of the Eschaton

In his classic work Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ T.F. Torrance muses on the eschatological significance of the cross of Christ[i]:

“By his cross Jesus Christ has made a past—once for all he has put something completely behind him. On one side of the cross there is set the old Adam, the old aeon and all that belongs to them, and they will never be resurrected. ‘Old things are passed way,’ as St. Paul put it, but on the other side of the cross, ‘all things are becoming new’ [II Cor. 5:17]. The cross created a past, but only because it creates a new future, or a ‘better hope’ as the epistle to the Hebrews puts it [Heb. 7:19].

That is what Christ has done by his redemption: opened up an eschatological vista for faith in which we are already planted in Christ, and with Christ already enter through the veil into God’s presence. It is because Christ ever lives as our redeemer, our surety, our atonement, that our life is set on a wholly and eternally new basis. As such Christ is the head of all things, the head of the new age, the messianic king, to whom the whole of the world to come belongs [Eph. 1:10, 19-23; Col. 1:15-20, 2:10; Acts 2:33f.; cf. Rev. 1:5, 17-19, 11:15f., 17:14].”

In an earlier work, Torrance further discusses Christ’s function as the “head of all things.” Here, he picks up on one of Irenaeus’ favorite images[ii]:

“As the early Fathers used to express it, when a baby is born it is usually born head first, but when the head is born the whole body follows naturally, for it is the birth of the head that is the most difficult part. Now Christ, the Head of the Body, is already resurrected, the First-born of the New Creation, and as such he is the pledge and guarantee that we who are incorporated with him as his Body will rise with him and be born into the new creation in our physical as well as our spiritual existence.”