This is part 4 of the review I started here – part 2, part 3.

In chapter 6 of his book Raised with Christ Adrian Warnock starts a survey of what the Bible teaches about the resurrection. He begins in the Old Testament, looking at passages in every part of it which describe or at least hint at this concept. He acknowledges that

I am deliberately writing from the perspective of a New Testament Christian, looking back at these accounts with the benefit of hindsight. It is not clear how many Old Testament believers truly had a full-orbed view of the resurrection. In many of the verses we will examine, a different interpretation is possible. (p.81)

Well, this is something of an understatement! It is clear to me how many Old Testament believers had this view: none at all. The only passages Adrian looks at which clearly refer to resurrection proper, as opposed to long life, survival as a disembodied spirit, or resuscitation of a corpse, are the ones from Isaiah, Daniel and Ezekiel. And since these authors knew nothing of the resurrection of Jesus Christ they clearly did not have “a full-orbed view of the resurrection”. Also Adrian ignores many critical issues about text and translation in the passages he quotes.

But at least Adrian realises that he is not doing proper exegesis but instead reading the New Testament back into the Old. And he has some basis for doing this in that the New Testament itself uses some of these passages to support its teaching on the resurrection. Nevertheless Adrian has by no means made his case, in general terms rather than about a few writers, that “in the Old Testament people did believe in God raising the dead” (p.94).

In chapter 7 Adrian continues his run through the Bible, looking briefly at the Deuterocanonical books with one citation of 2 Maccabees, and then going on to the gospels and references to “Resurrection before the Cross”. He shows how Jesus predicted his own resurrection and also confirmed what was at that time the hope of many Jews, of a general resurrection at the end of time. Again Adrian ignores critical questions and assumes that all words attributed to Jesus were actually uttered by him “before the Cross”. This is of course what his popular evangelical audience would expect, but is likely to leave his book less than fully acceptable to more sceptical or scholarly readers.

Then in chapter 8 Adrian looks at the Acts of the Apostles. He starts this with a quote:

What have the Romans ever done for us? (p.103)

which would once have been highly controversial in a Christian book, as these words are from the 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which was widely condemned as blasphemous at the time. Standards of acceptability change from generation to generation – but Adrian, or his publishers, chose not to give a precise source for these words.

The point of the quotation is to lead into the question which is the title of chapter 8, “What Did the Resurrection Ever Do for Us?” Adrian discovers by looking through Acts that, according to the early apostolic preaching, what the resurrection did for us includes our salvation, forgiveness and assurance, the sending of the Holy Spirit, physical healing, our own resurrection, and final judgment. It is almost shocking to find Adrian agreeing with G.E. Ladd’s words

The whole gospel is encapsulated in the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus. (p.115)

Indeed Adrian adds that the cross must not be neglected. But he accepts that at least in Acts it is the resurrection which has the greater prominence.

In chapter 9 it looks as if Adrian is going to continue his look through the Bible with the letters of Paul, starting with Romans. But in fact this chapter, “Raised for Our Justification”, consists almost entirely of the exegesis of these words taken from Romans 4:25. Perhaps he is deliberately transitioning here into the more theme-based second half of the book. Although he starts by quoting N.T. Wright, he entirely fails to engage with the insights on justification offered by the “New Perspective on Paul”. Instead he cites Puritan and Reformed comment on this verse to make his case that the resurrection prompts faith in us, vindicates Jesus, and makes it possible for him to actively bring us salvation. Thus Adrian can conclude:

If we too quickly say it is the combined work of Jesus that saves us, there is a real danger we will make the resurrection a mere auxiliary to the cross. It is helpful to consider the work of the cross and resurrection and what they contribute to our salvation. However, the message we should take away is that it is union with Jesus himself, the one who died and was raised, that saves us. (p.131)

Continued in part 5.

This is part 3 of the review I started here – part 2.

In chapter 4 of Raised with Christ Adrian Warnock considers why the resurrection has been neglected. His heading “The Resurrection Has Missed out on the Beneficial Effects of Controversy and Heresy” (p.62) seems an odd claim, at least to me, as an Anglican who remembers well the controversies about David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham. Remember how (as I mentioned here) he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and how three days after he was consecrated bishop in York Minster, in 1984, that famous building was struck by lightning?

This sub-section gives Adrian the chance to digress into condemning Steve Chalke for his view of the atonement, an aside which will endear him to some readers but infuriate others.

Another of Adrian’s suggestions, that “Our Neglect of the Resurrection Could Be Part of a Satanic Strategy” (p.65), may well be true, but doesn’t offer us humans an excuse. And is it really true that “The Bible Appears to Rarely Mention Resurrection” (p.66)?

More to the point surely is the first of these sub-sections, “The Resurrection Could Be Eclipsed by the Prominence of the Cross”. Indeed, in many Christian circles the crucifixion, and very often just one interpretation of its significance, has been given such an overwhelming prominence that all other doctrines have been eclipsed. In some churches, I suspect, every sermon is about some aspect of the cross. While I am not much of a supporter of church calendars and lectionaries, at least they ensure that a preacher following them gives the congregation a reasonable balance of different topics.

However, as Adrian points out, the resurrection has not been completely ignored even among Reformed evangelicals. He praises Spurgeon for preaching on it regularly, and quotes Mark Driscoll on the importance of giving a proper balance of attention to the crucifixion and the resurrection.

In chapter 5 Adrian seeks to demonstrate “The Importance of the Resurrection in the Bible”. He starts by arguing that even in a cross-centred chapter like 1 Corinthians 1 teaching about the resurrection is implicit. From this he leads into an interesting argument that

New Testament writers … so presuppose that the death and resurrection of Jesus are intertwined that they refer to either one of them and intend for us to understand that they mean both of them. (p.74)

He defends himself from any accusation of novel teaching by quoting Calvin saying much the same. Thus, for example, concerning the phrases “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2) and “Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18),

both descriptions of Paul’s preaching mean essentially the same thing. Without the resurrection, the cross was just another senseless death …, and without the cross there would be no need for a resurrection. Both must be preached, and they must be preached together. (p.76)

Thus he comes to a conclusion which may startle some of his “Reformed” readers:

It is only through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that salvation is possible. … Christ Jesus himself is our salvation. (p.77)

Indeed. In some circles the cross is given such overwhelming prominence that anyone who put anything else on the same level as it would immediately be suspected as “unorthodox” because of “downplaying of substitutionary atonement” (words used here about Brian McLaren, apparently for calling the atonement “a facet of the gospel” and noting that “for Jesus, the gospel seemed to have something to do with the kingdom of God”). I hope that Adrian’s readers don’t at this point entertain suspicions like this, but instead allow their own thinking to be restored to a more biblical balance.

One might expect Adrian to conclude the chapter with something like my last sentence. But perhaps he was afraid to – although as I mentioned Mark Driscoll got away with such a call. Instead Adrian digresses into a homily about human mortality and the hope which each one of us can have (but for which he has not yet given the biblical basis) of personal resurrection.

Continued in part 4.

This is a continuation of the review I started here.

In chapter 2 of Raised with Christ, “The Empty Cross, the Empty Tomb”, Adrian Warnock looks at the evidence for the resurrection. But I am a little confused about how he justifies doing so:

Human reason alone cannot prove to anyone that Jesus rose from the dead. … To persuade our intellect to believe in the resurrection requires not only rational arguments but a gift of faith from God. Christianity is, however, a reasonable faith. So we need to study the evidence for the resurrection and be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). (p.31)

I wonder, if we can’t persuade anyone unless God gives them faith, and since presumably (at least in Reformed thinking) any faith God might give them is entirely effectual, what is the point of rational arguments which cannot help the matter? A better “reason for the hope that is in you” might be a personal testimony. Or perhaps faith is not simply a gift of God, as I recently argued elsewhere.

As Adrian starts his discussion of the actual evidence he touches on a subject he is sometimes thought to be obsessed with. But what he writes is not what some might expect:

[Jesus] was no mere conservative follower of the culture of his day. Jesus gave great dignity to women. He treated them as friends and was willing to sit with them and teach them, defying all traditions of the day. … Here was a teacher who did not despise women. He did not see them merely as servants to wait on the men. … It was in the events of the resurrection that Jesus gave the highest honor to women. … To then appoint [women] as the first messengers of the good news … shows the total absence of prejudice in Jesus. (p.34)

Well, I can’t help wishing that the Christian leaders that Adrian approves of would follow Jesus’ example here, being “no mere conservative follower[s] of the culture of [our] day” but showing “total absence of prejudice”, going out of their way to give “great dignity to women” and “not see them merely as servants to wait on the men”. But for Adrian, writing last week on his “blog”, the role of a wife seems to be “helping to shape [her husband], all the time doing so in a submissive and honoring way” – which sounds to me rather like a servant role.

Adrian then retells the biblical accounts of the resurrection, based on a rather standard harmonisation of the four gospels. He passes on a strange suggestion from Ralph Martin and Peter Davids, for which he quotes no evidence, that during the following 40 days “Jesus makes frequent journeys between heaven and earth” (p.37). (Good for his frequent flier points, no doubt!) He shows that the resurrected Jesus had a real physical body, but without discussing whether it had blood.

Thus in this chapter Adrian manages to put together, from the biblical accounts, a coherent narrative of what actually happened on that first Easter Sunday and in the following weeks. The problem at this point is that this narrative will only seem at all convincing to those who already accept the Bible as a true account of ancient events. And most of those people are already Christians.

So Adrian needed to continue with his chapter 3, “Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?” Most of this is given over to brief discussion and rejection of seven possible alternative explanations of the biblical evidence. This follows a pattern of Christian apologetics familiar at least since Frank Morison’s 1930 classic Who Moved the Stone? (not referenced by Adrian). The only new insight here is into hallucinations, based on Adrian’s experience as a psychiatrist (p.51). The chapter closes with a summary of early extra-biblical evidence supporting the resurrection.

The main weakness of the argument in these two chapters is its failure to engage properly with critical scholarship. Adrian begins and ends chapter 3 by quoting claims by apologist Gary Habermas that “critical scholars have even admitted” (p.56) that none of the alternative explanations are tenable. But has he read what any of these critical scholars are actually saying? He has at least interacted with N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God, and refers to how in that book Wright “counters six conclusions that liberal scholars have come to about the resurrection” (p.56). Nevertheless I suspect that anyone well trained in critical methods in theology would be able quickly to demolish Adrian’s arguments here.

Early in chapter 3 Adrian quotes some words which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put on the lips of Sherlock Holmes:

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (p.44)

No doubt Adrian intends that by proving all the alternatives impossible he can demonstrate the “improbable” resurrection to be true. The problem for him, and for this whole line of argument, is that in our materialist society, as indeed in ancient Greek society (compare Acts 17:32), most non-Christians presuppose that the bodily resurrection is impossible – and so conclude that one of the alternatives, “however improbable, must be the truth.” Unbelievers will change such presuppositions not in response to logical argument but only by undergoing a paradigm shift. Perhaps that can only happen if they receive “a gift of faith from God” – but I do know of people who have been pushed into such a shift through personal testimony of God working in power today.

Nevertheless, these chapters should be useful for strengthening the faith in the resurrection of young Christians and of those whose churches have neglected to teach on this subject.

Continued in part 3.