Prophetic and Apocalyptic

I wrote a post a day or two ago about Changes -- how some people want change which is innovation and some want change which is renovation. Completely new or rebuilt.

I was looking through the journal I keep while I read my devotional each day, and I found an entry which talks about change. The Disciplines writer says that the following two scriptures present different views of change:

1. Psalm 85:8-9 -- Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts. Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.
2. 2 Peter 3:10-13 -- But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening* the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

One of the scriptures is prophetic. The prophetic view states that if we are faithful and repent, God will "restore our land." In other words -- reformation. The other scripture is apocalyptic. In this view, the world needs destroyed and replaced with a new one. Innovative change.

It started me thinking about transformation. The changing of who we are, by God, into who we were meant to be. It is impossible to do, and yet God does it -- he begins it now and finishes it in the not yet. Thinking about how I have changed -- am changing, I hope -- is it not true that I have been (and am being) recreated? Is transformation so all-encompassing that the result is actually apocalyptic, in a way? Have I not (and am I not being) replaced by something new?

On the other hand, is that something new what I was intended to be all along? And is that not prophetic, in a way?

Changes. God changes. Transformation from what we are to what we will become and were created to be all along.

Image: Sunset on the way home from work.