Category Archives: Resurrection

Raised with Christ: Review part 1

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I thank Adrian Warnock and his publishers, Crossway, for sending me a complimentary copy for review of Adrian’s new book Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything. Long time readers of this blog will know that I have had many disagreements with Adrian. But I am very pleased that he has put his Bible knowledge and his sharp mind to good use in writing about the neglected subject of the resurrection and its implications.

Anyway, I had better be nice to Adrian as, in an endorsement on the cover, Mark Driscoll calls him “my friend”. I wouldn’t want to meet Mark Driscoll on a dark night after being nasty to one of his friends! 😉

I propose to review this book in a number of posts, as I read through it. So far I have read the Foreword by Terry Virgo, the Preface, and the introductory Chapter 1.

In the Preface Adrian notes that he writes “as an ordinary Christian, and not a theologian” (p.15). Indeed he writes for a popular audience. But of course that is no excuse for making theological errors. I suppose I wonder, as I start reading, how well he will do, without formal theological training, at avoiding doctrinal pitfalls. Well, I will see – and point out in this review anything serious that I find.

Here is how Adrian starts chapter 1:

“WHAT! DID JESUS COME BACK to life again?” This was the surprised reaction when a young Englishwoman heard about the resurrection of Jesus. (p.19)

It is indeed amazing that a woman, old enough to be a mother and living in a country so full of Christians, could be so ignorant of basic Christian teaching.

She hadn’t rejected the gospel. No one had ever told her about it! (p.19)

Well, indeed. But perhaps she had heard a presentation of the gospel not including the resurrection. Such presentations are produced not only by liberal Christians who have doubts about the resurrection, but also by good conservative evangelicals who strongly affirm its truth – but only when someone else brings up the subject!

See for example this version of The Bridge – A Gospel Illustration, attributed to Bill Hybels & Mark Mittelberg, which mentions Jesus “coming to earth as one of us, and dying on the cross to pay the death penalty we owed”, but not his resurrection. Someone could be taken through this presentation and told that they had become a Christian, “immediately adopted into His family as His son or daughter”, without hearing even a word about the resurrection.

Adrian continues his first chapter by explaining “HOW THIS BOOK CAME TO BE WRITTEN”:

I was asked to preach on Easter Sunday 2007. … Preachers don’t often talk about how they decide what to speak about. … I woke suddenly in the night. A simple phrase was burning in my mind: “Adrian, preach about the resurrection.” (p.21)

I must say I am amazed. In what other Christian tradition would it take a voice from God (at least that’s what Adrian implies this was) to get a preacher to choose the resurrection as his or her sermon topic for Easter Sunday? Some of us Anglicans may not have much to say on the subject, but at least it is the default theme on this one Sunday of the year. One wonders whether in New Frontiers (Adrian’s church grouping) this doctrine ever gets a mention, barring divine intervention.

Adrian goes on to consider the current state of the church, which he sees as “general decline” but with “many encouraging signs”. I would agree. I might not agree on exactly which signs are encouraging, but I do accept the one example Adrian names: Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church in Seattle. However, I have a problem with how Adrian divides the churches which are attracting growing numbers of younger people into “Two distinct groups”:

One group, calling itself the “emerging church,” is willing to change everything about church to better fit in with postmodern, informal, twenty-first century culture. By some, even the message is adapted for increased appeal.

The second group, the “young, restless, and reformed,” is also willing to change many aspects of church organization, worship meetings, and the style of music. However, they seek, if anything, a more traditional message than their parents … (p.25)

It is clear that Adrian prefers the latter group. But I wonder if it is helpful to make this kind of distinction. If we leave aside those by whom “the message is adapted”, whether “for increased appeal” or just to be “more traditional”, what really is the difference between a relatively conservative “emerging church” and one like Driscoll’s Mars Hill? They would probably disagree about women in leadership, but not much else. Is this the unmentioned shibboleth which separates Adrian’s two groups?

Anyway, if Adrian is writing primarily to those who neglect the resurrection in a misguided attempt to hold to “a more traditional message than their parents”, then I can only wish him well, and hope that his readers understand that their message needs to be not so much “more traditional” as closer in its overall balance to the teaching of the New Testament.

Continued in part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 and conclusion.

Jesus is alive!

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Easter is coming up, and I have been invited by Slipstream, which is the Evangelical Alliance’s leadership resource, to post about the resurrection of Jesus, and what it means to me. This is supposed to be part of a synchro blog, whatever that means. I admit that I have not listened to the Gary Habermas and Tim Keller podcast to which the synchro blog is linked, although I have read the tasters. So these are just my own thoughts. Anyway, here goes…

1. Validation

My first point about the resurrection is that it validates Jesus’ ministry. It is this that proves decisively that he was not just a good teacher, or a crazy one, but the one sent by God, indeed more than just a man.

Yes, the miracles Jesus performed also validated his ministry, but it is hard to prove that these are genuine especially after two thousand years. However, there is one miracle which cannot be doubted: that a man officially executed and formally declared dead by the Roman authorities, and buried by Jewish leaders, rose again and was seen alive by hundreds of witnesses. Even in modern times sceptical lawyers who have examined the evidence have been forced to conclude that there is no other explanation for the records, that Jesus must have truly risen from the dead. And if this can be accepted, then there should be no problem with all the other miracles.

From this evidence we are also forced to believe that Jesus really was sent by God, not just as a teacher of truth but also, according to the content of his teaching, as the one who would save us from our sins and bring us to eternal life.

2. Victory

Jesus’ resurrection was far more than a validation of his ministry. It was also the culmination of his work of bringing salvation to humankind.

God sent his Son into the world to defeat the powers of evil which had taken over so much of it, which had brought men and women down to the depths of sin and despair. God’s purpose, which is still being worked out, is to bring the world fully into his own Kingdom, where evil and sin would no longer have a place. He sent Jesus to fight and win the decisive battle to achieve this purpose.

Throughout Jesus’ time on earth he was attacked by evil, in demonic and human form. Eventually the devil thought that he won the victory, by having Jesus put to death on a cross. But he had no idea what was really happening on that cross, that Jesus’ death as a sacrifice for sins was, in a way which is beyond human as well as demonic full comprehension, a key tactic in the final defeat of evil. Three days later the powers of evil were taken completely by surprise when Jesus rose from the dead, and it became clear that they had been completely defeated. The resurrection of Jesus is both the final act and the public demonstration of his complete victory over death, sin and all forms of evil.

3. Vision

It was hard to find a third “V” to summarise this third aspect of what the resurrection of Jesus means to me, not just as a past act but also as a living reality today. But certainly one aspect of it is that he gives me vision for what to do with my life.

After Jesus rose from the dead, he didn’t die again, as Lazarus presumably did. His resurrection was not just the resuscitation of a corpse. His resurrection body was taken up into heaven and so is no longer visible to us today. But he is still alive, as we celebrate every Easter. And this means that I can and do have an ongoing daily relationship with him.

In that relationship I mustn’t forget that Jesus is not just an ordinary man, not even as he was when he walked in Galilee. He is still filled with the power of his resurrection life. And, amazingly, those of us who are “in Christ”, who are Christians with that same relationship with Jesus, are also, through the Holy Spirit, filled with this resurrection life and power. In the words of a recent worship song from Hillsong (the link is to an MP3 of just one chorus):

The same power that conquered the grave
Lives in me, lives in me.
Your love that rescued the earth
Lives in me, lives in me.

Because Jesus is alive and working, demonstrating his love, in and through me, I can do even greater works than he did when he was on earth. And the same is true for you, if you truly believe in Jesus. We can do more spectacular miracles than he did, healing and even raising the dead – as long as this is not just as a public spectacle but to show God’s love and bring him glory. But probably more importantly we can continue and bring to completion the work of Jesus in reconciling the world to God.

Yes, Jesus in rising from the dead won the great victory which made this reconciliation possible. But we still see a world far from God as people allow themselves to be dominated by evil. The kingdom of God is here, but it is not yet here in its fullness. Jesus as one man on earth could only reach and bring his personal touch to a few people. But now he has a community spread throughout every nation, and he calls every one of this community, that includes you and me, to bring that touch of love in one way or another to needy people, those far from God, all around the world. This is the purpose which God has for us, his people, and the vision which he sets before us.

Of course, in our own strength we can do little to solve the great problems of the world. But as we are filled with Jesus’ resurrection power there is no limit to what we can achieve, to bring about God’s great purpose of bringing the world fully into his Kingdom.

I didn’t really mean to write a sermon, and I won’t be preaching this as one, at least this Easter. But if anyone reading this still needs an Easter sermon and wants to use this material, you are welcome – but I would prefer if you let me know.

The Naked Dead Arise!

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Nearly two years ago I caused some controversy by raising the question Does the risen Jesus have blood? This also referred more generally to resurrection bodies. Now a new question on the same lines has arisen at the blog Singing in the Reign: Will the Dead Be Raised Nude? In this Brant Pitre examines

the Jewish tradition which identified the resurrected body with the “garments of glory” that Adam and Eve had lost in the fall but would be restored to the righteous in in the messianic age

– a tradition which he sees reflected in 2 Corinthians 5:3. But he notes that Michelangelo, in his Last Judgment scene reproduced in the post, as well as Mel Gibson depicted naked resurrection bodies.

I don’t think there is any clear biblical teaching on this one. Presumably the risen Jesus appeared in appropriate clothing, even immediately after the resurrection when Mary Magdalene mistook him for a gardener (John 20:15). But that is not necessarily a precedent for the general resurrection. As for 2 Corinthians 5:2-4, surely the clothes mentioned here are a metaphor for the body, not to be understood literally.

Brant refers to “garments of glory” supposedly worn by Adam and Eve in the garden. But the biblical text makes it clear that these, if they existed at all, were not literal clothes:

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Genesis 2:25 (TNIV)

The resurrection life is more than a restoration of Eden, but not less than it. In it there will again be no shame, as all sins will be forgiven and everyone will have an unrestricted relationship with God (Revelation 21:3-4). The reference to robes (22:14) is surely symbolic. So, as I understand it, in the reurrection we will not be clothed in any literal sense, but only in the glory of God.

Was Jesus' work finished on the cross?

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I was made to think by part of a comment here by Bud Press. Bud listed a number of what he called “serious problems” with the teaching in Todd Bentley’s book The Reality of the Supernatural World (which I haven’t read) including this one:

– Jesus’ act of redemption was not completed on the cross, but when he ascended into heaven.

Now why does Bud consider this a problem? I know that it is a commonplace in certain strands of evangelicalism to refer to Jesus’ finished work on the cross. And his final word before he died, as recorded by John, tetelestai “It is finished!” (19:30) is often understood as a triumphant declaration that Jesus has finished his work. But is this understanding correct?

The word tetelestai in itself, introduced simply by eipen “he said”, does not necessarily imply anything triumphant. Indeed it can equally be interpreted as a dying man’s cry of despair, John’s equivalent of the words “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” recorded by Matthew (27:46) and Mark (15:34), but not by Luke (who has “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”, 23:46) or John. The interpretation of tetelestai as a shout of triumph is based not on the word itself but on a broadly based theological understanding of Jesus’ work.

But does this broader theological understanding in fact support the concept that Jesus’ work was finished, completed, with his death on the cross? I think not. While much evangelical theology has relegated Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to being not much more than an afterthought in God’s plan, these subsequent events have always been given much greater importance in many strands of theology, especially in Eastern Orthodoxy where they tend to be given more emphasis than the cross.

There are certainly some aspects of Jesus’ work which are specifically linked to the cross alone and so were complete at Jesus’ death. This would include his sacrifice and satisfaction for sins, according to the substitution and satisfaction model of the atonement. On the rather different model presumed by Bud’s (or was it Todd’s?) use of the word “redemption”, that of slaves being bought and given their freedom, the price of this redemption was already paid on the cross. So in a rather narrow sense I might be able to agree with Bud’s implicit position that Jesus’ act of redemption was completed on the cross.

But there are other important senses in which Jesus’ work could not be completed without the subsequent resurrection and ascension. Concerning the resurrection, Paul writes to the Corinthians:

if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

1 Corinthians 15:17-18 (TNIV)

So, although in principle sins had been dealt with on the cross, it took the resurrection to apply the benefits of the cross to individual believers, so that they would not remain in their sins and be lost when they die, but be forgiven and attain eternal life.

As for the ascension, this may not be essential for believers’ salvation, but it does seem to be essential for the Christian life. For, in ways which I do not claim to understand, it was necessary for Jesus to ascend back to his Father before the Holy Spirit could be poured out fully on humanity, as happened on the Day of Pentecost just days after Jesus ascended. Before he died he had said:

But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

John 16:7 (TNIV)

And Paul wrote, quoting Psalm 68:18:

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.”
… 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, …

Ephesians 4:7-8,11 (TNIV)

So, if Jesus had not ascended, it might have been possible for individuals to be saved, but they would not have received the power and gifting to bring others to that salvation and to come together as a community, to live as God’s people in the world.

So I must conclude that Todd Bentley (as reported by Bud Press) is right to teach that the work of Jesus, his “act of redemption” in the full sense of the word as redeeming for himself a people for his own possession (Ephesians 1:14), “was not completed on the cross, but when he ascended into heaven.”

Did Jesus say Christians will not marry?

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I was startled this evening by a Bible passage quoted by ElShaddai Edwards, even though it is taken from my current favourite Bible translation:

Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. …”

Luke 20:34-36 (TNIV)

I was startled by what this appears to be saying. The contrast is between “The people of this age” (more literally “the sons of this age” but intended to be gender generic) and “those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead” (RSV “those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead”). This sounds at first like a contrast between worldly, sinful people and faithful Christians. After all in Luke 16:8 the same phrase in Greek, literally “the sons of this age”, seems to refer to dishonest people. So this passage would appear to be Jesus teaching that good Christians will not marry. Could that be what Jesus, or Luke, was really saying? Could this be the same teaching, but in stronger form, as Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 7:25-35?

The question cannot be resolved from the parallel passages as they omit this contrast and give much simpler readings:

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Matthew 22:30 (TNIV)

When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Mark 12:25 (TNIV)

But it seems to me that there is a clear but subtle indication that Jesus’ meaning is not what I have suggested. It can be found only in the original Greek, not in English translations. I have checked all the versions of these verses at Bible Gateway and not one of them makes this point clear. The Greek word rendered in TNIV as “considered worthy” is an aorist or past participle, indicating an event preceding what follows. So an accurate rendering of the first part of verse 35 would be “But those who have been considered worthy of taking part”, or more pedantically “But those who will have been considered worthy of taking part”. The Greek clearly means that first they have been considered worthy and only then they do not marry. And the phrase “considered worthy of taking part” cannot be divided up temporally; if they have been considered worthy of taking part, that means that they have already attained this and are taking part in it. Luke uses a similar phrase in Acts 5:41, with the same main Greek verb, which implies that the apostles had suffered disgrace, not that they might do in future.

So, despite the possible misunderstanding in almost any English translation, Jesus’ words as recorded for us in Greek seem unambiguous. The ones who do not marry are not Christians who are looking forward to “taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead”, but those who are already taking part in them, in other words those who have been raised from the dead. Thus Luke teaches the same as Matthew and Mark.

As for “The people of this age”, the ones who do marry, the implication is that this phrase refers to everyone alive in this world, Christian or not. That may have implications for the understanding of the enigmatic passage in which Luke 16:8 appears – although we then have to ask, who are “the people of the light” in this verse?

Heaven is not our home – another shock from another Wright

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Brian of the blog sunestauromai – living the crucified life has the good fortune to pastor a church at a place which in some ways must be heaven on earth: the rim of the Grand Canyon. But is it in fact the nearest he will get to heaven? I don’t mean the altitude, although from there it must be unusually easy to imagine what it would be like to fall into hell.

Brian has been reading what Bishop NT Wright has had to say about heaven, in a new Christianity Today article (from where I have taken my post title) and a slightly older interview in Time Magazine. To these Brian has written a response, with a follow-up. I am sure he is not the only Christian, not even the only pastor, to be a little confused by the way in which Wright seems to be undermining the traditional understanding of the Christian hope, that we go to heaven when we die and that is the end of it.

So I will take a break from explaining the Reverend Jeremiah Wright to explain the Right(!) Reverend NT Wright, as I understand him.

In fact I am completely with NT Wright on this issue. The understanding which he is undermining, even if according to Nick Norelli it is not in fact widespread, is not biblical teaching but a distortion of it. Bodily resurrection – of every Christian in future, as well as of Jesus on the first Easter Sunday – is central to the Christian hope as explained by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15: Continue reading →

At the Last Supper, did Jesus know he would rise again?

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An interesting question has come to my mind in the renewed discussion on whether the risen Jesus has blood. To a slightly off topic question about the Last Supper from Rick Ritchie I gave an answer on which I am now expanding.

Rick thought it strange that Jesus would ask his disciples to do something in memory of his death before that death actually happened. I disagreed, writing:

I don’t see an inherent contradiction in the disciples being asked to repeat this in remembrance of him. I can quite imagine for example a dying old man taking his children to his favourite place and asking them to gather there regularly to remember him after he has gone. Similarly with Jesus’ Last Supper, on the understanding that he knew he was about to die.

But this question then occurred to me:

Would Jesus have said this if he had been sure at the time that he would rise again?

That is, would Jesus have asked his disciples to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of him if he had known that his death was only a temporary matter, for a few days? Continue reading →

Official: the risen Jesus has blood

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Last year I was surprised by the controversy generated by my post asking Does the risen Jesus have blood? Somehow it seemed obvious to me that he did, that his risen body was made up of flesh, bones, blood etc like normal human bodies.

So I was interested to read today John Richardson quoting from Article IV of the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England:

CHRIST did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature, wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to judge all Men at the last day.

(Corrected to the capitalisation printed in the Book of Common Prayer, also “wherefore” corrected to “wherewith”.)

So (reading “wherewith”) it is the official doctrine of the Church of England that the risen and ascended Jesus has a body “with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man’s [sic] nature”. Now blood, especially the blood of Jesus, is certainly not a part of the evil sinful nature, and so is a thing “appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature”, and so is included in the risen and ascended body.

Of course I realise that not all my readers accept this Anglican formulation. I myself do not consider it binding in any sense, certainly not if it goes against Scripture. But this formulation shows that the 16th century divines who wrote these articles shared my opinion on this matter.

Also, it continues to be strange to me that Doug Chaplin, and Anglican priest, expounded this article and continued the discussion with denials that the risen Jesus had real material body parts. If Jesus was raised from the dead not as a body but only as some kind of immaterial ghost, what does that do for our faith?

What was so good about Friday?

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I took a break from blogging on Good Friday – although my last post was after midnight on Thursday and so dated Friday. But others did not, and here I am linking to some of their posts relevant to the day.

My friend Lingamish, David Ker, was busy. First he posted a moving Cyber-Psalm, a poetic meditation on the tension between sadness and celebration on Good Friday. Then he posted on What’s so good about Friday?:

Is it a corruption of “God’s Friday” …? Is it good in the sense of having good effects for those who are redeemed by the sacrifice of God’s son?

Jim West (who has seen sense about the photo in his blog) takes up the same theme when he writes:

It certainly wasn’t a very ‘good’ day for Jesus …

Good Friday is good only for those who believe that Jesus’ suffering and death is somehow beneficial to them. …

‘Good’ Friday? Indeed. But to use the phrase is to confess something profound.

Thanks, Jim. You reminded me of these words I just read, written by J.I. Packer in 1958 and quoted by Paul Helm:

Heretical notions may occupy Christian men’s heads, leading to error of thought and practice and spiritual impoverishment; but these notions cannot control their hearts. As regenerate men, it is their nature to be better than the unscriptural parts of their creed would allow.

Sally of Eternal Echoes has also been busy, with four posts, of which this is the last. Today, Saturday, she has also posted this moving meditation for the day, in the character of Mary Magdalene, and the following from the President Of Methodist Conference’s Easter Message:

Our Easter faith is not death or resurrection, it is death and resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus is not a reversal of death. It is much more than that. The risen Jesus is known by the scars of crucifixion. He is the Living One Who Died. But now he is alive forever. And, marvellously, he stands today with this needy world in the reality of death and the promise of new life. This ministry he shares with us, his Easter People Church, a people bearing the marks of both death and new life. A people who know and live out the profound truth that death and resurrection life both lie deep in the purposes of God, in whom all things will be well. Alleluia!

More theologically, Brant Pitre offers Thomas Aquinas’ perspective on
Five Reasons the Cross was the Most Suitable Way for Our Redemption. It is interesting that the great mediaeval theologian by no means limited himself to just one model of the atonement.

Today I have also discovered the new Biblical Coins blog, from which I have gleaned the interesting information that the 30 pieces of silver which Judas received was probably worth 40% of the 300 denarii (or a year’s wages, the TNIV rendering) which he wanted to steal from the proceeds of selling Mary’s jar of ointment (John 12:4-5). Sadly Bibles don’t usually make this relationship clear, although it would probably have been clear to the original readers.

Meanwhile John Meunier offers a more light-hearted piece: Teen-ager exegesis.

Yes, Jesus really did rise from the dead

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Ruth Gledhill asks Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Or perhaps she is simply reporting the question, as asked of Rowan Williams by a friend of Father Geoffrey Kirk (no relation). No doubt Williams’ answer would have been deep and philosophical, maybe not even comprehensible. But I prefer the answer of her commenter “A Renegade Priest”:

Yes He did; I spoke to him this morning, he’s alive and well, reigning in glory, and he sends his love, to you and to everyone.

Indeed! If we can’t give this kind of answer for ourselves, the deep and philosophical answers are never going to be convincing.