Throughout the Gospels, we encounter moments when Jesus heals the sick, restores the blind, raises the dead, and calms the storm. These events feel like cracks in the fabric of reality where the rules of the world give way to something more profound. But beneath these miracles lies a process—one that stretches across time and space, where the future breaks into the present, where the life of the new creation seeps into a world still marred by decay and death.

What if these moments weren’t just divine actions within the here and now but were tied to a much larger unfolding of God’s future kingdom? A process where Jesus was drawing power from the future—the same future the prophets glimpsed in their visions of the enthroned Lord and the restored creation.

In the visions of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, we see God revealed in his glory, reigning over a reality where all things have been made new. These prophets were given a glimpse of the future Christ, seated in glory, reigning over the completed new creation. It was not just a symbolic vision—it was a window into the future, a reality already secured in Christ, stretching across time to reveal itself to them.

The Prophets’ Vision of the Future

Isaiah saw the Lord seated on a throne, his robe filling the temple, surrounded by seraphim who cried, “Holy, holy, holy.” Ezekiel witnessed the throne of God carried by living creatures, with wheels full of eyes, a vision so overwhelming that he fell facedown. Daniel, too, saw a vision of the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, brought before the Ancient of Days to be given an everlasting dominion.

What if these prophets, separated by time and circumstance, were all granted visions of the same reality? What they saw was not a vision of their present but of the glorified Christ, reigning in the future. Their vantage points were different, but their vision was unified—they saw the same Lord, the same throne, the same kingdom, already established.

This future reality wasn’t some distant hope for them. It existed beyond time, and they were given access to it through their visions. In those moments, they weren’t just predicting what was to come; they were gazing into a future that was fully present in God. The power they witnessed is the same power that would later work through Jesus during his ministry. The new creation they saw was already alive, waiting to be revealed, waiting to break through into the world.

Jesus Drawing from the Future

In his ministry, Jesus wasn’t just working miracles within the boundaries of the present world. He was reaching into that same future the prophets had seen—the perfected creation, the resurrection life—and bringing it forward into the present. When Jesus healed the blind, restored life to the dead, and multiplied loaves, he was pulling from the fullness of the new creation, allowing it to touch the brokenness of the current world.

Jesus didn’t merely heal bodies; he was bringing the life of the resurrection into those bodies. The blind man’s restored sight wasn’t just a repair—it was a foretaste of the future reality where blindness no longer exists. When Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb, it was more than a resuscitation—it was an echo of the resurrection power that would one day make all things new. Every miracle was part of a larger process, where the future reality of the new creation began to leak into the present, showing glimpses of what was to come.

And this wasn’t just a temporary phenomenon. The future kingdom was always alive in Jesus. As the God-man, he was fully connected to both the present world and the future new creation. The power he drew upon wasn’t a display of isolated divinity; it was the power of the future world, flowing through him. The prophets had seen it in their visions, and Jesus carried it in his very being, channeling it into the present through his actions.

The Spirit and the Flow of New Creation

The presence of the Holy Spirit was key to this process. The Spirit, who descended upon Jesus at his baptism, wasn’t simply there to mark him as the Messiah—it was through the Spirit that the life of the future flowed into him. The Spirit is the active agent connecting the future reality of the new creation to the present, making it possible for Jesus to draw from that future life and manifest it in the here and now.

The miracles of Jesus were not momentary disruptions in the natural order; they were moments where the natural order was touched by the new creation. The Spirit facilitated this connection, allowing the future to break through into the present. The power that the prophets saw in their visions of the future kingdom—the life and glory of the throne room—was the same power the Spirit made available to Jesus in his ministry. Through the Spirit, the life of the future became a present reality, even if only in glimpses.

Jesus’ Resurrected Body: A Glimpse of the Future Creation

After his resurrection, Jesus’ body took on a new nature. It wasn’t bound by the same limitations as before. He could appear in rooms behind locked doors, vanish from sight, and yet he was still physical—he could be touched, and he ate with his disciples. His body was not merely spiritual, nor was it purely physical as we understand it now. It was something more—a new creation body, fully integrated with the life of the future kingdom.

This resurrected body was a glimpse of what is to come. It operated within a different framework, where the laws of time and space no longer applied in the same way. Jesus’ resurrected body was not subject to decay or death. It was a body fully alive in the new creation, and through it, we see the future leaking into the present. This is the future that the prophets had seen, the future that Jesus carried with him and revealed through his life, death, and resurrection.

The New Creation and the Church

This process of the future breaking into the present didn’t end with Jesus. Through the Spirit, the Church is now connected to that same future reality. Paul speaks of the Spirit as a “deposit,” a guarantee of what is to come. The new creation is already alive in us because the Spirit is alive in us. We are fragile vessels, but the treasure we carry is the life of the future, the life of the resurrection that will one day transform the entire cosmos.

The Church is not just waiting for the kingdom to come; we are part of the process by which the kingdom is already breaking into the present. Through the Spirit, we are mediators of this future life, bearing the fruit of the new creation even in a world still marred by sin and death. As Jesus drew from the future to heal and restore, so too does the Spirit work in us to bring the life of the new creation into the world around us.

Speculation: The Process of New Creation Breaking Through

If we venture deeper into theological speculation, we might ask, what is the mechanism behind this process? How does the new creation “leak” into the present? The prophets saw visions of a reality beyond time, a future where God’s glory was fully revealed. Jesus, in his ministry, was already connected to that future, drawing from its life and power.

Could it be that the Spirit serves as the conduit through which this future life flows? The Spirit connects us to the reality of the new creation, allowing its life to touch the present world. The miracles of Jesus were not isolated events—they were part of a larger, ongoing process, a process that continues today through the Spirit. The new creation is leaking into the present, and we, through the Spirit, are participants in that process.

Through the Spirit, the life of the future kingdom is breaking through, one moment at a time, giving us glimpses of the world to come. The process that began with the prophets’ visions, that was embodied in Jesus, and that continues through the Church, is the unfolding of the new creation. It is a reality that is already established, already alive, and it is drawing the present world toward its ultimate renewal.