Thanks, Andrew, for your substantial reply to my comment. My main point was to point out the sad irony of MacArthur’s eschatology—namely, that Jesus the Savior becomes a destroyer. I used Eugene Boring’s comments to help make this point. His comments resonate with me, especially the line, "God does not make ‘all new things’ but all things new." His preceding line—"This world, God’s good creation, is not replaced but redeemed"—is somewhat fuzzy (perhaps it was the lure of alliteration that made him decide to put it this way). Read in context, however, I think what he is attempting to convey is that the new (whatever it ends up being) will be in continuity with the old. If so, then his comment may guard against notions that "God’s good creation" should be dismissed as something that will simply be destroyed and replaced.

I agree that "the church is [not] primarily here to redeem the world." (I have McLaren’s Everything Must Change, but have not yet read it.) I would say that the church (which is certainly God’s "new creation," though I am hesitant to limit this creation to the church) bears witness to the world’s redeemer—namely, Jesus. God in Christ has redeemed (through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus), is redeeming (by the power of the Holy Spirit), and will redeem (at the eschaton) God’s creation; the church, as the body of Christ, witnesses in word and deed to this reality. This witness is a preview (or, to use more traditional language, a foretaste) of the coming kingdom. I do believe that Revelation (not to mention human history) makes clear the need for a "cosmic eschaton, an absolute transformation, when death and evil will be finally destroyed." If I am reading you well, then by "progressively redeemed" you mean gradual transformation. I certainly doubt that God’s kingdom will be built gradually by human efforts. I am hopeful, however, that the Spirit will use the church in transformative ways in the world toward clearer glimpses of what is to come.