Wolfhart Pannenberg, The Apostle Paul, and Son Lux Prove God

Ever since I read volume one of Wolfhart Pannenberg's Systematic Theology, I have been drawn to his approach to apologetics. He argues that the gods are best known through their respective religions, and that the gods "prove" themselves as the claims of their religions come true in history. The prototypical example of this would be the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal to see whose god could bring down fire and thus justify himself as the true god. YHWH brought fire and He proved himself to be the true god.

Thus, Christianity can be evaluated without bias by people outside of the faith. Christians claim that YHWH is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, and that history is unraveling according to his purposes.

Can we prove that?

How would we prove that? What would be sufficient evidence?

First, the soft postmodern/critical realist apologist would say up front that it is impossible to prove 100% that God is, but he would also add that 100% certainty is not an appropriate standard for "knowledge" or "proof." We don't have 100% knowledge of anything, and yet we live our lives relatively free of anxiety about the unknown. Thus, 100% knowledge is not the standard we use in everyday living, so it's not the standard to which we should judge our knowledge of God. Like everything else, we cannot know for sure, but we can know.

Of course, this will not be the case forever. Some day, the dwelling place of God will be with men once again, and we will know for sure that God is. When the dead are raised; YHWH will be vindicated as Lord and God. But until then, we don’t know for sure. But that doesn't help us believe here and now. How can we believe now?

The Apostle Paul thought that God had intervened in human history in two radically conclusive ways during his lifetime: (1) the death and resurrection of Jesus, and (2) the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the people of faith. To Paul, these two events were the "proof" that YHWH was at work in the Christian community.

Now, I think we have good historical evidence for the truth of proposition (1). However, Jesus' resurrection happened 2000 years ago and we can't recreate it. It remains a one-of-a-kind event, and its historicity isn't much comfort to those who were born long after it happened.

But what about proposition (2)? Can that be the proof of God's existence? I think so.

To me, the "proof" that YHWH is Lord and God is the work of the Holy Spirit in the community of faith. As the church keeps in step with the Spirit and lives out Jesus' command to love one another, we prove to the world (and to ourselves) that God is.

I was reminded of all of this I was listening to Son Lux yesterday. He has a great song called "Raise." The music is so powerful that the lyrics by themselves don't do the song justice, but here they are:

Raise a living thing from nothing.
Then I will know for myself who you are.
Clothed in skin a pile of dry bones.
Then I will know for myself who you are.

I will feel breath come into my body.
Then I'll know just who you are.

Raise a living thing from nothing.
(simultaneously) Clothed in skin a pile of dry bones.
Then I will know for myself who you are.

Raise a living thing from nothing.
(simultaneously) Clothed in skin a pile of dry bones.
(simultaneously) I will feel breath come into my body.
Then I will know for myself who you are.
(repeat)

Will know for myself
You are who you say you are.

Then I will know for myself.
Then I will know.
Then I will know who you are.

Then I will know for myself.

Stephen Colbert is Surprised by Hope

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 15)

N.T. Wright concludes Surprised by Hope in style, discussing the relevance of the Christian hope to the mission of the church. He covers three areas--the redemption of time, space, and matter; the resurrection and mission; and the resurrection and personal devotion.

N.T. Wright reminds us of the importance of the traditional forms of Christianity as they relate to resurrection. With regard to the redemption of space, he says that too many people have discounted the value of "holy places," i.e. churches. While he sees the wisdom in avoiding undue worship directed at "holy places," he says that there is something valuable in feeling that church is a place where one is on holy ground. (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 260.) But redemption extends beyond just space to encompass time as well. To this, Wright warns us not to discriminate against those who have gone before us. Honoring tradition respects God's redemption of time--that we are all part of God's story. (261) Finally, redemption affects matter itself. To this, Wright speaks of the importance of the sacraments of eucharist and baptism. In these sacraments, heaven and earth intersect in the realm of matter. (262) Wright says that the sacraments describe heaven in ways that language can't. He writes, "Remember the ballerina who, asked to say what a particular dance meant, replied, 'If I could have said it, I wouldn't have needed to dance it.'" (263)

In addition to it's effect on time, space, and matter, the resurrection also affects the mission of the church. Wright says that the mission of the church should be to be the "already but not yet" to the world. He writes:

"The world of space, time, and matter is a place where real people live, where real communities happen, where difficult decisions are taken, where schools and hospitals bear witness to the 'now, already' of the gospel while police and prisons bear witness to the 'not yet.' The world of space, time, and matter is where parliaments, city councils, neighborhood watch groups, and everything in between are set up and run for the benefit of the wider community, the community where anarchy means that bullies (economic or social as well as physical) will always win, where the weak and vulnerable will always need protecting, and where therefore the social and political structures of society are part of the Creator's design." (265)

Finally, Wright says that the resurrection gives new meaning to personal holiness. In order for the church to bring heaven to earth, heaven has to break into the lives of the individuals of the church. Thus holy living is motivated by our future hope. He writes:

"The point of 1 Corinthians 13 is that love is not our duty; it is our destiny. It is the language Jesus spoke, and we are called to speak it so that we can converse with him. It is the food they eat in God's new world, and we must acquire the taste for it here and now. It is the music God has written for all his creatures to sing, and we are called to learn it and practice it now so as to be ready when the conductor brings down his baton. It is the resurrection life, and the resurrected Jesus calls us to begin living it with him and for him right now. Love is at the very heart of the surprise of hope: people who truly hope as the resurrection encourages us to hope will be people enabled to love in a new way. Conversely, people who are living by this rule of love will be people who are learning more deeply how to hope." (288)

In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, N.T. Wright makes scholarship practical. This is the thing I love about him--he has one of the sharpest minds in New Testament scholarship, but his heart is in the church.

The church in America seems split into two camps, represented by "Pastor Gospelman" and "Reverend Smoothtongue" in the appendix to Surprised by Hope. Many, like Gospelman, focus on the "truth" of the resurrection and all of the theology that this entails. "Because Jesus is raised," they say, "we are going to heaven when we die." Others, like Smoothtongue, belittle to Scriptures as antiquated and irrelevant, and focus instead on the moral clean-up of society. "What really matters," they say, "is that Jesus is resurrected in our hearts and in society." I've been looking for some middle ground for a long time. I'm conservative like the fundamentalists, but I think the church needs to get out there into the culture to "bring heaven to earth," as Wright says. Hopefully there will be movement in America--one that takes the historic doctrines of the faith seriously, but one that isn't afraid to put legs on their faith to make a difference.

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 14)

In the last 2 chapters of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright is going to "reshape the church for mission," beginning in chapter 14 with the biblical roots of this mission.

Wright argues from the Gospels, Acts, and Paul that the message of the kingdom of God is "Jesus is Lord and Caesar [or, insert world ruler here] is not." Wright writes:

"The resurrection is not an isolated supernatural oddity proving how powerful, if apparently arbitrary, God can be when he wants to. Nor is it at all a way of showing that there is indeed a heaven waiting for us after death. It is the decisive event demonstrating that God's kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 234.)

The obvious objection to this is, "If Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not, why does Caesar seem to have all of the power?" Wright answers:

"The difference between the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of God lies exactly in this, that the kingdom of God comes through the death and resurrection of his Son, not through naked displays of brute force or wealth." (245)

This leads one naturally to ask the question, what does Jesus's reign look like, if not brute force and wealth? Wright writes:

"The revolutionary new world, which began in the resurrection of Jesus--the world where Jesus reigns as Lord, having won the victory over sin and death--has its frontline outposts in those who in baptism have shared in his death and resurrection. The intermediate stage between the resurrection of Jesus and the renewal of the whole world is the renewal of human beings--you and me!--in our own lives of obedience here and now." (249)

Wright concludes:

"Heaven and earth, I repeat, are made for each other, and at certain points they intersect and interlock. Jesus is the ultimate such point. We as Christians are meant to be such points, derived from him. The Spirit, the sacraments, and the scriptures are given so that the double life of Jesus, both heavenly and earthly, can become ours as well, already in the present." (252)

I think Wright perfectly articulates what is going on in the church. God is renewing the world, and He is doing so by renewing individuals. I think Paul's language of the Holy Spirit being a "downpayment" of the world to come means that the Spirit's work in the community of faith is the world becoming "on earth as it is in heaven."

I started this blog to explore what effect "already/not yet" theology would have on Christian living and the mission of the church, and I think Wright has perfectly articulated a lot of this in Surprised by Hope.

What are some things that the church in America can do to make our communities "on earth as it is in heaven"?

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 13)

Having warmed the reader up with history and theology, Wright decides to call down the thunder and start preaching in chapter 13 of Surprised by Hope. Given that resurrection is about "life after life after death" and not "going to heaven when you die," what should the mission of the church be? According to Wright, the church is to build for the kingdom of God.

Wright starts chapter 13 with a clarification of what he means by building for the kingdom. He criticizes those who would say, "We can't bring in the kingdom, only God can," saying that while this might sound pious, it is little better than "keeping one's head well down when the boss is looking for volunteers." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 207.)

Wright grants that only God can bring in the kingdom. That is why he says the church doesn't "build the kingdom of God," it "builds for the kingdom of God." (208) Ultimately, God will bring the kingdom to consummation, but what we do here and now will have some continuity in eternity. Wright then explores the implication of this in the areas of justice, beauty, and evangelism.

Wright argues that the church should be working for social justice. He points out that the church has typically erred in two extremes on this issue. The first extreme is the social gospel, which sees Jesus as primarily a revolutionary and tries to build the kingdom through social, political, and cultural revolution. (215) He says that these folks are "fighting with one arm tied behind their back" because they neglect the theology of resurrection. (213) The other extreme is to say that nothing can be done until the Lord returns. (215) Wright compares this to the view that trying to live like Christ is pointless since we will never be fully sanctified until Christ returns. (221)

Having addressed the church's responsibility to work for justice, Wright moves to talk about beauty. He points out that humanity's first job was to create, or at least procreate. (223) He applauds the progress that the church has made in the arts in recent years.

Having addressed justice and beauty, Wright concludes chapter 13 by talking about evangelism. He writes, "Much evangelism has, of course, consisted of taking the traditional framework of heaven-and-hell expectation and persuading people that it's time they consider the heaven option and grab it while they still have a chance." (226) While Wright doesn't fully condemn this approach, he does say that it is less-than-perfect because it doesn't accurately communicate the gospel. According to Wright, the gospel is "the good news that God (the world's creator) is at last becoming king and that Jesus, whom this God raised from the dead, is the world's true lord." (227)

Finally, I love what Wright says about the effect that preaching this gospel would have on evangelism. He writes:

"Putting evangelism and conversion within the context of new creation means that the convert, who has heard the message in terms of the sovereign and saving lordship of Jesus himself, will never be inclined to think that Christian behavior--saying no to the things that diminish human flourishing and God's glory and saying yes to the things that enhance them--is an optional extra or simply a matter of wrapping your head around some rather strange rules and regulations. Some kinds of evangelism in the past implied that the main thing is to sign on, to pray a particular prayer, which results in the assurance that one is safely on the way to heaven--and failed to mention, to the frustration of pastors and teachers who then tried to look after such converts, the fact that following Jesus means just that, following Jesus, not just checking a box that says 'Jesus' and then sitting back as though it's all done. To speak, rather, of Jesus's lordship and of the new creation, which results from his victory on Calvary and at Easter, implies at once that to confess him as Lord and to believe that God raised him from the dead is to allow one's entire life to be reshaped by him, knowing that though this will be painful from time to time, it will be the way not to a diminished or cramped human existence but to genuine human life in the present and to complete, glorious, resurrected human life in the future. As with every other aspect of new creation, there will be surprises on the way. But Christian ethics will only gain from being understood as one expression of Christian hope." (229–30)

I love that. Wright gets to the heart of what it means to have "faith." It's not just about checking a box, it's about following Jesus. If we were to do a better job at remembering this, the world would look much different than it looks.

What do you think about Wright's version of "the gospel"? What about his views on "faith"? Do you think most churches in America do a good or poor job at "preaching the gospel"?

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 11)

Abandon all hope all ye who enter here.

'Cause N.T. Wright is going to talk about hell.

In chapter 11 of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright addresses the questions of purgatory, paradise, and hell. Needless to say, he is not drawing a lot of his conclusions from Dante's The Divine Comedy.

First, Wright addresses purgatory and rejects it on three (or perhaps four) grounds. First, resurrection is still in the future, so there is no "church expectant" purging itself of sin to be allowed into heaven. Second, in no place does the New Testament suggest that there are various gategories of believers--some to go straight to heaven and some to go to purgatory. Third, Romans 8 says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. (He also implies a fourth reason--the leading Roman Catholic scholars, including Pope Benedict XVI, are abandoning, or at least significantly modifying, their views on purgatory.)

Second, Wright briefly addresses paradise. Whatever can be said about paradise, it is not the ultimate destination of believers. Perhaps Philippians 1:23 implies that the dead "depart to be with Christ," but at most that can be interpreted to be a temporary state of bliss while we await resurrection.

Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for, Wright addresses hell. Honestly, I didn't know where he was going to go. Originally, I thought that he would go the traditional rout, but from some of his statements in Surprised by Hope about the extent of redemption, I thought he might go the rout of the universalist. As I should have expected, Wright opts for C:) none of the above.

Wright writes:

"Part of the difficulty of the topic, as with the others we have been studying, is that the word hell conjures up an image gained more from medieval imagery than from the earliest Christian writings. Just as many who were brought up to think of God as a bearded old gentleman sitting on a cloud decided that when they stopped believing in such a being they had therefore stopped believing in God, so many who were taught to think of hell as a literal underground location full of worms and fire, or for that matter as a kind of titure chamber at the center of God's castle of heavenly delights, decided that when they stopped believing in that, so they stopped believing in hell." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 175. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211661261&sr=8-1.)

But Wright reminds us that we cannot escape the language of judgment that is in the New Testament. He writes:

"God is utterly committed to set the world right in the end. Thsi doctrine, like that of resurrection itself, is held firmly in place by the belief in God as creator, on the one side, and the belief in his goodness, on the other. And that setting right must necessarily involve the elimination of all that distorts God's good and lovely creation and in particular of all that defaces his image-bearing human creatures. Not to put too fine a point on it, there will be no barbed wire in the kingdom of God. And those whose whole being has become dependant upon barbed wire will have no place there either.

For 'barbed wire,' of course, read whichever catalog of awfulnewsses you prefer: genocide, nuclear bombs, child prostitution, the arrogance of empire, the commodification of souls, the idolization of race. The New Testament has several such categories, functioning as red flashing lights to warn against going down a road that leads stright to a fenceless cliff." (179)

He adds:

"I find it quite impossible, reading the New Testament on the one hand and the newspaper on the other, to suppose that there will be no ultimate condemnation, no final loss, no human beings to whom, as C.S. Lewis put it, God will eventually say, 'Thy will be done.' I wish it were otherwise, but one cannot forever whistle 'There's a wilderness in God's mercy' in the darkness of Hiroshima, of Auschwitz, of the murder of children and the careless greed that enslaves millions with debts not their own. Humankind cannot, alas, bear very much reality, and the massive denial of reality by the cheap and cheerful univeralism of Western liberalism has a lot to answer for." (180)

So, what is hell, if not a subterranean world of worms and fire? Wright says that the primary root of sin is worship of the created rather than the Creator (Romans 1). This, in turn, causes people to behave "sub-humanly," in behaviors we would typically label "sinful." Wright says that people become what they worship, so that over time it is possible for someone to so worship the created and live sub-humanly that "after death they become at last, by their own effective choice, beings that were once human but now are not, creatures that have ceased to bear the divine image at all." (182) Their final destination is death.

Wright's view certainly has a lot going for it, and I have pondered along these lines before. After all, Paul says that the wages of sin is "death," not "hell." If the reward of the righteous is resurrection, then the "punishment" of the wicked would be denial of resurrection. However, his view is not without it's difficulties. I think 2 Cor 5:10 is one--everyone, including the unjust, must stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Revelation 20:13–15 implies a resurrection to judgment of the wicked.

So, where do I stand on hell? I agree with Wright, you can't escape the language of judgment in the New Testament. I think universalism is a product of a Western culture that has been the source of oppression and injustice in history more often than it has been the victim of it. But every now and then, something like Auschwitz or Hiroshima comes along and reminds us that there really are evil people in the world. On the other hand, most of the language about hell occurs in parables and apocalyptic language. It's tough to take any of it literally. That doesn't mean that there isn't a concreate reality behind the figurative langauge, it just means that I am not sure hell involves worms.

All I think I can say now is that hell is real and that it is bad.

What do you think about N.T. Wright's idea that people can lose the image of God through a life of sin? Keep in mind that Colossians 3:10 implies that this image has been marred in all people but is being renewed in Christians.

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 10)

In chapter 10 of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright begins to draw the discussions of heaven and the resurrection to a close before he starts to talk about the mission of the church. (There is one more chapter on God's future plan.)

Wright answers the question, "What will the redemption of our bodies look like?" He writes:

"Resurrection itself then appears as what the word always meant, whether (like the ancient pagans) people disbelieved it or whether (like many ancient Jews) they affirmed it. It wasn't a way of talking about life after death. It was a way of talking about new bodily life after whatever state of existence one might enter immediately upon death. It was, in other words, life after life after death." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 151. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211477244&sr=8-1.)

In other words, when we die, we may go to some kind of intermediary state (or, we might just sleep; Wright doesn't commit). We could call this intermediary state "life after death." But some day, when Christ returns, we will be resurrected to new bodily life after life after death.

To this point, N.T. Wright has argued that resurrection does not mean "going to heaven when you die"; it means "life after life after death." This is what the ancients believed and this what happened to Jesus. God's plan in history is not about a slow improvement of the already good or a radical destruction of the hopelessly bad, but a drastic renewal of the corrupted. The world, in a sense, is waiting for heaven to break into earth. The process began with Jesus, who ascended to heaven (not like a space man) and will one day return. When he does, the world will be redeemed and those who have fallen asleep will be resurrected to life after life after death.

(I came up with the name for this blog after reading Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God. I like the idea that we are awaiting redemption.)

Thoughts on Wright's construction of the Christian hope? His main texts are 1 Cor 15, Romans 8, 2 Cor 5, and Col 1:15–20. (He uses a ton of others, but he often returns to these.)

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 9)

I was impressed when N.T. Wright compressed all 738 pages of The Resurrection of the Son of God into chapters 3 and 4 of Surprised by Hope. However, he outdid himself by compressing the New Perspective on Paul into the 9 pages of chapter 9.

Chapter 9 of Surprised by Hope is about Jesus the coming judge and the meaning of the term "justification." Wright rightly writes:

"The word judgment carries negative overtones for a good many people in our liberal and postliberal world. We need to remind ourselves that throughout the Bible, not least in the Psalms, God's coming judgment is a good thing, something to be celebrated, longed for, yearned over. It causes people to shout for joy and the trees of the field to clap their hands. In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, and oppression, the thought that there might be a day when the wicked are firmly put in their right place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be. Faced with a world of rebellion, a world full of exploitation and wickedness, a good God must be a God of judgment." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 137. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211389421&sr=8-1.)

This judgment, according to Wright, will be on the basis of works (Rom 14:9–10, 2 Cor 5:10). The idea of justification by faith does not negate this future judgment by works, as Wright notes:

"Justification by faith is what happens in the present time, anticipating the verdict of the future day when God judges the world. It is God's advanced declaration that when someone believes the gospel, that person is already a member of his family no matter who their parents were, that their sins are forgiven because of Jesus' death, and that on the future day, as Paul says, 'there is now no condemnation' (Romans 8:1)." (140)

What does all of this mean for us, who are anticipating our future justification? Don't be too quick to grab the spacesuit.

"In his appearing we find neither a dualist rejection of the present world nor simply his arrival like a spaceman into the present world but rather the transformation of the present world, and ourselves within it, so that it will at least be put to rights and we with it. Death and decay will be overcome, and God will be all in all." (143)

I really like Wright's view of justification. I don't know that I have bought in completely to the New Perspective, but Ed, Tom and Jimmy make some good points. I especially like the idea that our "justification" is justification in the already/not yet sense. We anticipate a future justification, but in some way are "as good as justified" based on what Jesus did and our faith in Him.

How do you like this statement: "God is making the world right, and He is starting with us (the church)"?

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 8)

So, I am starting to get a little frustrated with N.T. Wright. I love his work on the historical Jesus. He stuff on Paul is really good, too. But his eschatology is a bit squirrelly. He has a major axe to grind against the idea that Jesus might literally descend from the sky. He compares the view that Jesus will return in the clouds to "a primitive form of space travel." It was funny the first time I read it, but it's getting old. I think I might have an idea for a new drinking game--read a book by N.T. Wright on eschatology and take a drink every time he says "flying cloud," "space," "spaceship," "spaceman," or "space travel." Seriously--he says it that much.

At the same time, I have been thinking long and hard about where I disagree with Wright, and I do not think we are too far off. (I tell you what, though, if the "trumpet" spoken of in 1Thess 4 and Mat 24 plays the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey, I will remind Wright of his demeaning comments.)

In chapter 8 of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright harps on the meaning of the Greek word parousia and how it has been misused in American eschatology. The word is most famously used in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18:

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming (parousia) of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend (katabaino) from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up (harpadzo) together with them in the clouds to meet (apantesis) the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words." (NIV)

Wright notes that the Greek word parousia does not mean "coming" as in the NIV, but "presence." Wright writes, "The second meaning emerges when a person of high rank makes a visit to a subject state, particularly when a king or emperor visits a colony or province. The word for such a visit is a royal presence: in Greek, parousia. In neither setting, we note, obviously but importantly, is there the slightest suggestion of anybody flying around on a cloud [take a drink]. Nor is there any hint of the imminent collapse or destruction of the space-time [take a drink] universe." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 129. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211305732&sr=8-1.) A quick glance at a lexicon validates Wright's claim, that the primary meaning of the term parousia is "presence," not "coming."

Thus, to Wright, the "Second Coming" of Jesus is not about cloud spaceships, but about God being present on earth. He writes, "The reality to which it refers is this: Jesus will be personally present, the dead will be raised, and the living Christians will be transformed." (133)

However, while the word parousia can mean "presence," it can also mean "arrival." This is the sense that Paul uses it in 2 Cor 7:6, "But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus." BDAG classifies the usage in 1 Thess 4 in this second sense, "arrival," and even under a technical use of the term referring to the "arrival" of Christ. I think that there is good reason for this. Specifically, the use of the term apantesis, "a going out to meet," in verse 17. Wright even mentions in his book that this word is used of people going out to greet a royal dignitary at his arrival. Note also that it says that the Lord will "descend" and that believers will be "caught up." There is a lot of language of movement in this verse for parousia just to mean "presence." It more likely means "arrival."

I can't wait to see the cloud spaceship. I hope its piloted by something that looks like a cross between an angel, an oompa loompa, and a klingon.

However, I am willing to grant that whatever the "Second Coming" language means, the point is this--God will be present with His people and we will be transformed. On this, Wright and I agree.

Thoughts on the cloud langauge? Do you think Jesus will literally descend from the sky, or is this just metaphor for "heaven breaking in to earth."

Surpised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 7)

Having refuted the idea that history is about a radical redemption of the already existent, N.T. Wright moves on in chapter 7 of Surprised by Hope to talk about the meanings of the Ascension and Second Coming of Christ. As he did in chapters 5 and 6, in chapters 7 and 8 Wright first describes what is not true, and then moves on to what is true.

Wright refutes two extreme positions with regard to the Ascension and Second Coming of Jesus. The first view is that Jesus flew up into the clouds like a space man into another dimension called heaven and that He will one day return in the same way, riding the clouds like a space ship. Wright says that this is a "category mistake" based on a Platonic view of the cosmos, not a biblical one. The second view that Wright refutes is that the Ascension is just a metaphor for Jesus' spiritual filling of all believers, so that Jesus is more or less present now in the form of His church. The problem with this view, according to Wright, is that it more or less makes the church into God. he writes:

"If Jesus is more or less identical with the church--if, that is, talk about Jesus can be reduced to talk about his presence within his people rather than his standing over against them and addressing them from elsewhere as their Lord, then we have created the high road to the worst kind of triumphalism." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 112. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211224174&sr=8-1.)

Wright concludes:
"The mystery of the ascension is of course, just that, a mystery. It demands that we think what is, to many today, almost unthinkable: that when the Bible speaks of heaven and earth it is not talking about two localities related to each other within the same space-time continuum or about a nonphysical world contrasted with a physical one but about two different kinds of what we call space, two different kinds of what we call matter, and also quite possibly (though this does not necessarily follow from the other two) two different kinds of what we call time." (115)

Further:
"What we are encouraged to grasp precisely through the ascension itself is that God's space and ours--heaven and earth, in other words--are, though very different, not far away from one another." (116)

Therefore, to Wright, the Second Coming is not about Jesus returning in his pimped out cloud spaceship, but about his healing of the current world--making it more like heaven.

I like Wright's theology, but I do question his abandonment of the cloud language. I have seen him ridicule that kind of thinking in several of his works, but I don't think you can escape the language that when Christ ascended, He went up into the sky. Acts 1:10 says that after he ascended, the disciples were looking into the sky. Now, I am willing to grant that such an exit was more for the disciples than it was an illustration of the reality of the cosmos. I don't think you can escape the idea that heaven is somehow this world in the sky where God lives.

Perhaps Wright wrestles with the question of how the human Jesus can exist in another dimension, but I think the same mystery is true of the whole trinity--God is somehow distinct from His creation and yet eminently present within it. How does that work? I don't know, but it does.

I love the point behind Wright's theology, though. We need to move the beyond the Left Behind escapist mentality. This is our world. This is where we will live for eternity. Yes, it will be renewed, but it will be the same world nonetheless.

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 6)

Having explained the two ways in which the early Christians did not view history in chapter 5 of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright moves on in chapter 6 to describe how he thinks the New Testament does describe history.

I am going to interact with Wright a bit here before I ask for comments because I am not sure that I understand where he is going.

Wright starts by affirming the goodness of creation and the reality of evil. Wright says that evil is not "created things," "things other than God," "physical things," or "things prone to decaying." Wright says that evil "consists not in being created but in the rebellious idolatry by which humans worship and honor elements of the natural world rather than the God who made them." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 95. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211064818&sr=8-1.) Wright adds that the result of evil is "spiritual death," the dominant metaphor for which is "exile."

Thus, to Wright, "redemption doesn't mean scrapping what's there and starting again from a clean slate but rather liberating what has come to be enslaved." (96) He adds, "Redemption is not simply making creation a bit better, as the optimist evolutionist would try to suggest. Nor is it rescuing spirits and souls from an evil material world, as the Gnostic would want to say. It is the remaking of creation, having dealt with the evil that is defacing and distorting it." (97) In other words, redemption is not about improving what's already there and it's not about starting over--it's about recreating or transforming what is already there.

Having explained redemption, Wright goes on to show from some key New Testament passages that redemption applies to all of creation, not just "those human beings who believe the gospel and thereby find new life here and hereafter." (97)

The key passages Wright explains are 1 Corinthians 15, Colossians 1:15–20, Philippians 3:3:20–21, Romans 8, and Revelation 21–22. I think the two most significant are Colossians 1:15–20 and Romans 8:20–23.

Romans 8:20–23 (NIV) reads:
"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

Not that Paul says that creation is awaiting its redemption and we, too, are awaiting our redemption.

Colossians 1:15–20 (NIV) reads:
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

Notice that Paul says "all things" were created through Christ and "all things" were/will be reconciled through him.

I might add Colossians 1:13–14 to show that the context of the above is redemption:
"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

I like what Wright gets at here that the effects of the cross transcend just humans--that all of creation is being redeemed. However, I have questions about Wright's views on evil, death, and the effects of redemption on those who do not believe.

Wright says that death in the sense of transience (i.e. "physical" death) was part of the original creation (94–95). He says that transience points to God as the eternal. The "death" that was brought into the world as a result of sin is "spiritual" death (95). Wright does not define "spiritual" death, but he says that it is most often illustrated as exile. Thus, when God tells Adam and Eve that they will "die" when they eat the fruit, they are exiled from the garden (95).

What, then, does it mean to be "exiled" or "dead"? Is it just an existential feeling that God is distant? That would imply to me that a key part of redemption is the reversal of that feeling, i.e. the warm fuzzies that God is with me. Obviously, Wright believes that redemption means more than that. I have always read Romans 5:17 to mean that whatever "death" Adam brought on humanity, Christ brought the opposite, "life." Thus if the only "death" that Adam brought upon humanity was spiritual exile, then the only "life" that Christ would bring would be spiritual redemption. Since Wright argues that Christ is bringing eternal life in the sense of freedom from "decay and death" (107), that would imply to me that the introduction of "decay and death" were a part of what we traditionally call "the Fall."

Further, I wonder where Wright is going to go with the extent of the effects of redemption. He says that redemption affects more than just "those human beings who believe the gospel and thereby find new life here and hereafter." (97) And in Colossians 1:15–20, the "all things" that will be redeemed are the same "all things" that were created. Does this mean that "all things," including those who do not believe, will be redeemed? If so, what will that look like for those who do not believe? We'll see where he goes.

Any thoughts on Colossians 1:15–20 and the extent of the effects of "redemption"?

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 5)

In chapter 5 of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright describes two views of history that he thinks are not the Christian view. He points out that many Christians have held these views of history, and that aspects of them resemble the Christian view of history. Ultimately, however, they both fail to do justice to what God is doing in history.

The first view that Wright describes and rejects is the optimists' view that the world is getting better and better. This view dominated the modern western age, but has been called into question in the last 60 or so years. Permutations of this view are liberal secularism, the social gospel, and social Darwinism. Wright writes:

"'The real problem with the myth of progress is, as I just hinted, that it cannot deal with evil. And when I say 'deal with,' I don't just mean intellectually, though that is true as well; I mean in practice. It can't develop a strategy that actually addresses the severe problems of evil in the world." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 85. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210958875&sr=8-1.)

Wright claims that optimism cannot handle evil on three levels: (1) It cannot stop evil (scientific progress brings us cures for diseases, but it also gives us Hiroshima and the Gulag), (2) it cannot address the moral evil that has already happened (if utopia came today, what would we say about the evil that happened yesterday? Is there justice?), and (3) it underestimates the power and nature of evil itself.

The second view of history that Wright rejects is the view that the world is completely evil, it's getting worse and worse, and Christians need to be "rescued" from it. Wright rightly points out that this view is essentially Gnostic. Wright writes:

"A good many Christian hymns and poems wander off unthinkingly in the direction of Gnosticism. The 'just passing through' spirituality (as in the spiritual 'This world is not my home/ I'm just a'passin' through'), though it has some affinities with classical Christianity, encourages precisely a Gnostic attitude: the created world is at best irrelevant, at worst a dark, evil, gloomy place, and we immortal souls, who existed originally in a different sphere, are looking to returning to it as soon as we're allowed to." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 90. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210958875&sr=8-1.)

Where is N.T. Wright going to go next? What is the Christian's relation to the world? If the world isn't getting better and better, and it is not hopelessly evil, what is to become of the world? What role does the church play in the consummation of history?

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 3)

In chapter 3 of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright describes the ancient pagan, Jewish, and Christian beliefs about life, death, and resurrection. First, Wright shows that both the Jews and the pagans believed that death was a one-way street. Once you died, you were dead and there was no coming back. Second, he shows that they both believed that the term "resurrection" meant "dead people coming back to life," not, "disembodied spirits going to heaven." Although pagans and Jews agreed about the meaning of the term "resurrection," the pagans denied any kind of a resurrection, while the Jews anticipated a future resurrection. Wright argues these points at length in his 2003 book The Resurrection of the Son of God.

Having established the meaning of the term "resurrection," Wright explain seven ways in which the Christian notion of the resurrection differed from the Jewish notion. (I found points 5 and 6 most interesting. My first exposure to N.T. Wright was watching him debate John Dominic Crossan in 2005 after he published The Resurrection of the Son of God. Crossan argued that "resurrection" was a metaphor for "God's moral clean-up of the universe," modeled after the idea of resurrection in Ezekiel 16. Wright argued that "resurrection" meant "Jesus died, and then He came back to life." It seems that Wright has now adopted some of Crossan's ideas, although I am sure he would say "the metaphorical use of 'resurrection' is grounded in the literal use, and most New Testament usages of 'resurrection' refer to the literal use.") The seven ways in which the Christian notion of resurrection differed from the Jewish were:

1. Christians were remarkably united in their view of the resurrection.
2. Although resurrection was peripheral in Jewish theology, it was central to Christian belief.
3. Resurrection involves a transformed (i.e. "glorified") body.
4. The resurrection has been split into two events--the resurrection of Jesus and then of everyone else.
5. Resurrection is a metaphor for the moral clean-up of society.
6. Resurrection is a metaphor for individual ethical transformation.
7. Resurrection is vindication of Jesus as the Son of God.

Rather than arguing about points that Wright has spent his life forming, I thought it would be interesting to compare his thoughts on resurrection to 1 Corinthians 15. It's a lot of text, so I am not going to paste it (for both readability and copyright reasons). How do Wright's 7 point about resurrection compare to what you read in 1 Cor 15?

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 2)

In chapter 2 of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright argues that most Christians' ideas about heaven and hell are influenced more by popular culture (i.e. Dante's The Divine Comedy) than they are the Scriptures. He writes:

"My own church, the Church of England, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, declares that it finds its doctrine in scripture, tradition, and reason, taken together in their proper blend. I suggest that a good deal of our current view of death and the life beyond has come from none of these but rather from impulses in the culture that created, at best, semi-Christian informal traditions that now need reexamined in the clear light of scripture." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 27. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210282973&sr=8-1)

For example, Wright quotes the hymn, "How Great Thou Art":

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.

To Wright, the future is not about "taking people home" to another dimension called "heaven," it is about resurrection and re-creation of this world. So, Wright has put out a challenge. Are there any verses that specifically state that our eternity will be spent sitting on clouds with the saints, playing harps and singing, Holy, Holy, Holy? Or is the "kingdom of God," "kingdom of heaven," and "paradise" language about a new creation of this world?

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 1)

To this point, this blog has been limited to my thoughts on various books, devotions from various biblical passages, my thoughts on American evangelicalism, and updates about my life. Since I know that people actually read this blog occasionally, I have decided to introduce a new aspect. Instead of reviewing an entire book, I am going to pick one of the books that I am reading and offer up a thought from it for reflection and/or discussion.

The first book about which I want to do this is N.T. Wright's book, Surprised by Hope. If I haven't mentioned it on this blog before, N.T. Wright is my hero. In my opinion, he is the premier New Testament scholar today. He is a brilliant communicator and has superb research and analysis skills. I like British biblical scholarship better than American because Americans try to get cutesy and creative, while the Brits are more realistic and, in my opinion, relevant. (There are some notable exceptions to this blanket condemnation of American scholarship. Further, in a lot of ways American evangelical scholarship is ahead of mainstream American scholarship in that evangelicals take seriously things like authorial intent and external evidence.)

I like Wright's book already. It has two major themes: eschatology and politics. What do we believe will happen in the future? How should that affect what we do today? I love those questions. So, here is the thought from chapter 1.

"This book addresses two questions that have often been dealt with entirely separately but that, I passionately believe, belong tightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we see Christian hope in terms of 'going to heaven,' of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated. Indeed, some insist angrily that to ask the second one at all is to ignore the first one, which is the really important one. This in turn makes some others get angry when people talk about resurrection, as if this might draw attention away from the really important and pressing matters of contemporary social concern. But if the Christian hope is for God's new creation, for 'new heavens and new earth,' and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together. And if that is so, we find that answering the one is also answering the other." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by the Voice of Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: Harper One, 2008], 5. http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Hope-Rethinking-Resurrection-Mission/dp/0061551821/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210181042&sr=8-1)

The Left Behind, Dispensationalist eschatology gets hated on by a lot of contemporary authors (Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, for instance). Is this justified? Does the "escape" mentality keep us from social consciousness?