Summary Of When The Kings Come Marching In By Richard Mouw

Richard Mouw’s book, When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem, provides a perspective of what heaven will look like. It is a Biblically correct, proposal of how we, as Christians, should perceive our heavenly destination. By following Isiah 60, a visual passage of heaven, the author portrays an idea and image of heaven through the descriptive writings of Isaiah. Mouw connotates, gives perspective and meaning to the phrases in Isaiah 60, with intent to give the readers a better understanding of the afterlife. Mouw’s thesis is that “it is extremely significant that when Isaiah looks to the fulfillment of God's promises, he envisions a community into which technological artifacts, political rulers, and people from many nations

Mouw states that he believes “that we are meant to make this portrayal central to our understanding of the heavenly condition” (Mouw 17). He is concluding that the way the Holy City is described and portrayed, is what we refer to as “heaven”. The imagery of the afterlife was based predominately in our language about the future. Through this chapter, we are reminded that the Bible assures us that after death, when we are away from our body, we are at home with the Lord. Mouw states that there is a short period of time, a condition that is labeled as an intermediate state, in which believers who have died are waiting for the Resurrection. He believes that the Christian’s bodiless presence with God is not the final state of blessedness. Our ultimate mission is to be brought to new resurrected life in which we understand our true destinies as followers of Christ. These ideas come from the New Testament in which we are told there are two stages of afterlife that we must

are transported in to serve God and his people. This relates to the transformation of human culture. God’s feelings toward the instruments of human culture is unsure. They can be tools of rebellion and idolatry. The original cultural mandate is fulfilled in God’s changing the objects of culture to His service: “the Holy City is the Garden-plus-the-‘filling’.” When Mouw addresses the references of the kings of the earth march into the city as a suggestion that there will be a settling of political accounts, in which the kings of the earth admit to their misuse of power. Thirdly, people fof all nations, without distinction are converted and assembled to the city; and lastly light pervades the city. The author concludes by questioning how we must to live taking this into consideration. We can be sure that Christ will transform culture, is this our responsibility, as Christians to take part in the transformation? Mouw argues that we should, but transformation is not clearly instructed in scripture. So, we are to wait for the transformation that is to come. We are told to “seek the city that is to come.” We fulfill this through