Appearing Quote by N.T. Wright

““when heaven and earth are joined together in the new way God has promised, then he will appear to us—and we will appear to him, and to one another, in our own true identity. This is, in fact, remarkably close to a key passage in the first letter of John (1 John 2:28 and 3:2): Now, children, abide in him; so that, when he appears [ean phanerōthē], we may have confidence and not be shrink from him in shame at his presence [parousia]…. Beloved, we are now God’s children; and it has not yet appeared [oupōephanerōthē] what we shall be; but we know that when he appears [ean phanerōthē], we shall be like him, because we shall see him just as he is. Here we have more or less exactly the same picture as in Colossians, though this time with appearing and parousia happily side by side. Of course, when he “appears” he will be “present.” But the point of stressing “appearing” here is that, though in one sense it will seem to us that he is “coming,” he will in fact be “appearing” right where he presently is—not a long way away within our own space-time world but in his own world, God’s world, the world we call heaven. This world is different from ours (earth) but intersects with it in countless ways, not least in the inner lives of Christians themselves. One day the two worlds will be integrated completely and be fully visible to one another, producing that transformation of which both Paul and John speak. Of””

— N.T. Wright