Eschatology

"Invisibly, history has fundamentally changed; visibly, it is still the same, for the Kingdom of God is already at hand, and yet, as an eschaton, still to come. This ambiguity is essential to all history after Christ: the time is already fulfilled and yet not consummated....On account of this profound ambiguity of the historical fulfilment where everything is "already" what it is "not yet," the Christian believer lives in a radical tension between present and future. He has faith and he does hope. Being relaxed in his present experience and straining toward the future, he confidently enjoys what he is anxiously waiting and striving for." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 34