Tag Archive - resurrection

How Physical Is the Future? (3 of 3)

August 2, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 6 Comments

Over the weekend, I posted the first two parts of a reply I made to someone who wrote to me with this query: “what would be some good new testament verses that I can use to explain how physical our eternal lives would be?  How about on the subject of our culture continuing?” (part 1, focusing on 1 Corinthians 15; part 2, focusing on Romans 8). Here’s part 3:

I think that the last part of your question is the most difficult. What can we say about “culture”? Here, the hints are more faint but I think we have some trajectories set in the NT that we can follow. In general, I think we can anticipate that the beneficial aspects of culture will carry over into the age to come because the picture we get of new creation is not an obliteration of the old to make way for an entirely new one. Instead, it’s a picture of God redeeming and renewing the creation he has already given us.

Perhaps this is an aside, perhaps not, but either way: it seems to me that if God had to entirely wipe out the old creation in order to give us an eternal dwelling place that this would be an ultimate victory for Satan–that the powers of darkness could so take hold of God’s world that God would be incapable of freeing that same world and bringing it into conformity with its original, God-given intentions.

Building on what we’ve already talked about, I think it’s important that in Romans 8 not only do we groan while we await our resurrection-redemption (verse 23), and not only does the Spirit groan on our behalf, asking for things we don’t even know how to ask for (verse 26), but the creation itself groans, awaiting its redemption which will come when we are raised from the dead (verse 22). The created order is not waiting around to be abolished in favor of a better creation, it’s waiting to be redeemed. This says to me that there will be carry-over even of some aspects of creation that seem to us to be physical and/or transient.

Another hint we get of a continuity in the area of culture is in Revelation 21:26 (a passage that Rich Mouw discusses so well in When the Kings Come Marching In). There, we read of the glory of the nations being brought into the New Jerusalem as gifts that God receives to himself. This raises the question in my mind of what could possibly be brought into the city of God from those surrounding pagan environs–places and peoples that the rest of Revelation might lead us to think had been obliterated in the final judgment!

I string this together with a couple of Old Testament passages that, to me, point us in the direction of recognizing that God’s glory is not merely about the things God himself does, but is strongly tied to the things his image-bearers do as they fulfill their primordial calling to rule over and to fill the earth. In Isaiah 6, the angelic beasts sing to each other “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” An alternative translation is, “… the fullness of all the earth is His glory.”

This latter reading makes me wonder if the reason that the nations can bring their glory to God at The End is because this is their contribution to the earth’s fulness, their manifestation of a deep-seated primordial calling to fill the earth and cultivate it as God’s stewards.

With questions of culture, and with music in particular, I see a possible eternal destiny because the New Creation is in some continuity with the Old (even though it is purified through “judgment fires”) and because we get these hints that human activity even outside the bounds of what is done by the people of God has some purchase in the full expression of the glory of God.

What is “the glory of the nations”? This will always remain speculative, but it seems that facets of cultural development such as art, music, science, etc. might qualify. I don’t think there is an easy verse to point to so as to say, “culture continues,” but there is a theological trajectory that might lead in such a direction.

O.k. I’ve gone on far too long!

If you’d like a little more, here’s something I wrote up for Christianity Today this spring: “A Resurrection that Matters.“

And if you want a lot more, there’s always Unlocking Romans. :)

Grace & Peace,
Daniel

No Paper Required

August 1, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Book Reviews, Kindle Reading with 2 Comments

At long last, Unlocking Romans is available on Kindle. You may go download it now.

I should point out to all my friends with iPads, Macs, iPhones, Blackberries,and Androids, that one can get a free Kindle reader and use said devices to read this wonderful treasure and myriad other books.

How Physical Is the Future? (2 of 3)

August 1, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 4 Comments

Yesterday I posted part 1 of an e-mail I wrote in response to one I received asking about the physicality of the future: ““what would be some good new testament verses that I can use to explain how physical our eternal lives would be?  How about on the subject of our culture continuing?”

Here’s the second part of my reply:

Romans 8 is a great place to go to see how all these things hold together. As in 1 Corinthians 15, in Romans 8 our identity as God’s people derives from our union with the resurrected Jesus. We have the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, that’s the Spirit that cries out Abba, Father within us and enables us live new lives here and now (Romans 8:9-11).

But even while this Spirit allows us to know that we’re God’s children (Romans 8:14-17), it also creates a deep longing for us to know fully what it is to be God’s child–we wait for our adoption, the redemption of our body (i.e., our resurrection) (Romans 8:23).

Interestingly, if you follow the line of argument from “We are God’s children” in verses 14-17, through “We await the time when we’ll be fully adopted into God’s family” in verse 23, you have to go through a passage that speaks of creation itself groaning, longing for redemption and deliverance from decay.

For Paul, the fact that there is a new human, who creates a new humanity, means that the entire creation has a new representative before God. As the first Adam’s disobedience had ramifications not only for humans’ relationship with God but also for the entire created order, so too Christ’s obedience as the last Adam has ramifications for the whole created order. A new creation has dawned with Jesus’ resurrection.

The idea that our souls only are saved is too small an idea for God’s work of salvation. Not only are our bodies included, but the whole created order is made new. This is why Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 5: “If anyone is in Christ–New Creation! The old things have passed away! Behold! New things have come!” It’s not simply that we are made new creatures, but that our personal newness is one piece of a cosmic puzzle that God is putting together.

Paul gives us some of the clearest indications of this, but I don’t want to pin it all on him. The final scene in the Bible is the arrival of the Kingdom of God upon the earth. The cosmic geography of the last couple of scenes in Revelation is important: it is not a scene of people flying up into heaven to be with God, but of the holy city descending from heaven to the earth so that God now makes his dwelling place among us. New Creation.

There are also hints in the Gospels, such as when Jesus at the last supper says that he will not drink fruit of the vine again until he drinks it new in the Kingdom of God (Mark 14:25). Apparently, the future to which Jesus looks is one in which there will be eating and drinking–even in our transformed bodies.

Tune in tomorrow, same storied time, same storied station, for the rousing conclusion!

How Physical Is the Future? (1 of 3)

July 31, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 1 Comment

Today I got an e-mail asking what the Bible has to say about the physicality of our future: “what would be some good new testament verses that I can use to explain how physical our eternal lives would be?  How about on the subject of our culture continuing?”

You’ll be happy to know that I was able to begin answering this question without immediately trying to sell my book or defer to my article in Christianity Today (I saved those for the end). In fact, here’s what I said (Part 1 of 3).

Hi, XXXX,

Thanks for your note. I happily defer to my Old Testament colleagues on Isaiah 25–I went into New Testament so that I wouldn’t have to answer the REALLY hard questions about the Bible!

I do think that there are clear, strong indications that our ultimate destiny is very much physical, albeit with new kinds of bodies.

But before surveying those indications, I should say one word of qualification. Predicting the future is always a precarious business. As I look through the Old Testament, for example, I find that even the most vibrant pictures of the coming reign of God are but shadows of the reality that dawns in Christ. I anticipate that even expectations of the coming future that are solidly built on New Testament data will be in some ways transformed by the reality that God has in store.

The New Testament contains much more extensive and clear indication of the embodied nature of our eternal future than we find in the Old Testament, and the principal reason for this, it seems to me, is Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. When the New Testament writers start to talk about Jesus holding our future in himself, they not only mean that his work for us enable our souls to be right with God, but that we will be raised up with new bodies just like he was (see, for example, the quick discussion in 1 Corinthians 6:12-14).

Paul makes this same point in several places. One of the most extensive discussions is in 1 Corinthians 15. That chapter is, in fact, a lengthy answer to this very question: Is there a bodily resurrection of the dead? It begins with Jesus’ own resurrection as a foundational component of Christian confession (1 Corinthians 15:1-15).

Paul then makes the argument that Christ determines the destiny of all who are “in him”: “For as by a man came death, so also by a man came the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” People who are “in Christ” (by the Spirit, faith, and baptism) will share in the new, resurrection life that Christ brings about (1 Corinthians 15:16-28).

The latter half of the chapter Paul spends exploring what kind of body it might be that would be an eternal, resurrection body. He concludes that it’s a different kind of body, a Spiritual body that comes from above. We will have bodies, but they will be transformed.

For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Jesus is the new Adam, the firstborn of God’s family, the firstborn of a new humanity. And, if there is a new Human representing a new humanity, the New Testament is also convinced that there will be a new creation to host this future life. The ultimate hope in scripture is not my soul flying off to heaven to be with God forever, but God coming down from heaven to dwell with us on a renewed earth forever.

(cont’d…)

Basil on the Spirit

May 25, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 4 Comments

Hmmm… the title of this post seems like something my wife would make for us to drink with appetizers. But that’s not what I’m on about.

On Sunday, the person who prepared our worship service introduced the Pentecost-inspired service with this:

Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, led back to the Kingdom of heaven, and adopted as children, given confidence to call God “Father” and to share in Christ’s grace, called children of light and given a share in eternal glory.
– St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto

As we read that passage together, what struck me most of all is that the Spirit is the Spirit of the resurrected Christ.

Through the Spirit we are restored to Paradise. The restoration to paradise is a participation in the new creation. If anyone is in Christ–new creation! Those who are Spiritual are those to whom the world has been crucified, and vice versa. The Spirit who unites us to Christ in his death to the Old World is the same Spirit who unites us to Christ in his resurrection into the new. Through the Spirit of the resurrected Son we are restored to Paradise.

Through the Spirit we are led back to the kingdom of Heaven. The Spirit who anoints Jesus as king propels him forth to proclaim and enact the kingdom’s arrival. This same Spirit, poured out on Jesus’ followers, leads them out not to have the kingdom restored to them but to proclaim and enact the kingdom of which they have been made heirs. The resurrected Christ pours out the promise of the Father, and through the Spirit of this resurrected Christ we are led back to the kingdom of Heaven–the kingdom whose king has been enthroned, when raised, at God’s right hand.

Through the Spirit we are adopted as children. Jesus himself was the first adopted Son of God, by the Spirit of holiness, at the resurrection (Romans 1:4). We share in the Spirit of adoption as we share in the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 8). Through the Spirit who appointed Jesus son of God we, too, are adopted as sons and daughters of God.

Through the Spirit we are given confidence to call God “Father”. The Spirit who leads us to call God “Abba, Father,” is the Spirit of Christ who himself cried Abba, Father in the garden. This is the Spirit who, in our suffering, draws us to God to find our deliverance and new life. Through the Spirit we cry “Abba,” and this is proof that we who are suffering with Jesus will also be glorified by the same spirit who glorified the firstborn of God’s large family. Through the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ we, too, cry out “Abba, Father.”

Through the Spirit we share in Christ’s grace. We share in Christ’s grace as he becomes for us what Adam was for us all: the one through whom the benefits of the one act of righteousness abound to those whom he represents. We become sharers in his grace as we are joined to his body and participate in all the gifts that are given there. We share in Christ’s grace when the Spirit baptizes us into one body–the body of Christ who is enthroned above.

Through the Spirit we are called children of light. The God who said, in his original act of creation, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s own glory–in the face of Christ. We are children of light as we shine the light which is Christ’s; when we reflect the image and glory of God that is recreated in the firstborn, resurrected Son. We are called children of light as we reflect the visage of the Child of light.

Through the Spirit we are given a share of eternal glory. The Spirit who makes us children, as it made Jesus Son, makes us heirs also–heirs of God and fellow heirs with our older brother Christ, if indeed we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Our eternal glory is his eternal glory, the Spirit that makes us Son-heirs is the same Son that made Jesus Son-heir–heirs of the eternal glory of the resurrected son.

Life After Life After Death?

May 24, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 13 Comments

Since watching many of the videos from the Wheaton Theology Conference from last month, I have been pondering the issue raised by Markus Bockmuehl about “resurrection”. The question, if I recall correctly (which I may not be) is this: Is “resurrection” for a Christian what we experience/are led into immediately after our death (life after death)? Or is it, instead, something that the dead in Christ await, something that will be consummated on a final day of judgment (life that is given to us afresh after our life after death)?

N. T. Wright has made a lengthy case for the latter: resurrection is something that will be given to the faithful when the earth is fully and finally renewed. It is an embodied existence that comes to us after we have spent however long in heaven with Jesus after we die.

Bockmuehl was making the opposite point, namely, that heaven isn’t a holding tank where we wait in anticipation of something more, but the place where we go and immediately receive the gift of life in our new bodies.

What do you think?  Is resurrection life after death? Or life after life after death? Why?

Three things are rattling around in my head about this.

(1) In Bockmuehl’s favor is the fact that whatever this “heaven” is, where Jesus is, it must be the kind of place that can hold resurrection bodies–because Jesus has one and that’s where he is.

(2) It seems to me that Bockmuehl’s case is problematic for a couple of reasons. For one, it makes Jesus’ resurrection categorically different and unlike the resurrections of everyone else. For me, if Jesus’ body is found, the jig is up. His resurrection means that his body has been transformed and is no longer with us. “A ghost does not have flesh and blood as you see I have.” “Put your fingers in my hands and in my side.”

But, the people whom Bockmuehl says are raised, now, with Christ are still “lying dead in their tombs.” Whereas discovering Jesus’ corpse would invalidate his resurrection, MB wants to say that our ability to see the corpses of our dearly departed is no proof for their not being raised, now, with Christ. This disjunction is too much, in my opinion, for MB’s position to be correct.

(3) In addition to the problem of the analogy, I shared NTW’s dissatisfaction with MB’s method of argument. “The NT doesn’t teach NTW’s position, and we know this because the church fathers said something else.” This simply adds fuel to my fire that the early church is a dubious guide when it comes to understanding the New Testament.

For all that earlier generations overestimated the differences between Jew and Gentile ways of thought, I repeatedly find that the move of Christianity beyond the pale of Judaism creates an almost instant rereading of words and concepts such that the church fathers become witnesses to a very early recontextualizing and transformation of the Christian message into their own world’s idiom. This is not a bad thing, but it does add to the case that the early church is a helpful guide for understanding the history of interpretation, but that this is a different thing than helping us understand what the ideal authors of our texts intended their ideal readers/auditors to understand.

When the NT speaks of the resurrection of believers, the idea that the dead are transformed at a future, one-off moment seems to be almost the univocal position. Resurrection comes with the consummation of the eschaton, at the final judgment, when the heavens and earth are made new. To quote my beloved church fathers: “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

Those are my two cents. What about you?

Deliverance of God Wrap Up: The Good–Pt 3, Abraham

May 11, 2010 in Book Reviews with 2 Comments

I keep trying to finish my review comments on Douglas Campbell’s The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul. This is the next-to-last installment, in which I will be singing its praises for the last time. Next time, I will be summarizing some of my hesitations about the project.

Campbell begins his chapter on Romans 4 with a discussion of how it fits together with Rom 3:27-31, in particular, the way that these verses at the end of ch. 3 entail a diatribe in which Paul’s position is set out against an opposing one. Significantly for interpretation of Rom 4, the end of Rom 3 outlines the argument Paul then takes up. (In general, this is nothing new–it has been recognized by numerous commentators, especially over the past 30 years.)

The substantive point that Campbell makes here that needs to be more widely recognized than it sometimes is comes to this: “Paul simply overrules the… gospel of works in 3:28″ (718). In other words, Paul doesn’t argue based on its failure that this “other gospel” doesn’t work; nor does he argue based on scriptural precedent; instead, he argues based on what he simply knows God to have done in Christ (which Paul explained in 3:21-26). In other words, Paul’s refutation of “works” is thoroughly Christological and a posteriori. Ed Sanders couldn’t have said it better himself.

Campbell counters some traditional readings of “reckoning righteous” with his own interpretation (though it’s not as devastating to most Reformed readers of Rom 4 as he intimates): “… in view of Abraham’s trust God promised to do something for him in the future; a divine check was written to the patriarch that in this case had clearly not been worked for or earned” (732).

When Abraham’s faith comes more fully into view, in Rom 4:13-16a, Campbell says the following:

…we receive here a hint that the state characterized by πίστις is far more complex and powerful than an emphasis simply on πίστις itself might suggest if it is read in terms of an individual’s decision! It somehow denotes a new reality–and presumably through involvement in the narrative of Christ. (735)

The pay-off of taking the subjective genitive reading becomes increasingly clear as the volume goes on.

But the heart of the argument is the latter half of Romans 4, which Campbell says has been “generally neglected by the interpretive tradition” (735; of course, dutiful readers will know that “generally” isn’t “entirely”).

In dealing with Abraham as father, Paul says in Rom 4:17 that he placed his trust in God who gives life to the dead and can call the things that are not so that they are, and he goes on to underscore that this “predication corresponds directly to the statements of v. 19 that Abraham’s loins and Sara’s womb were dead” (737). Or, if you prefer Kirk:

The particular predication of God that Paul employs to describe the object of Abraham’s faith corresponds exactly to the nature of the plight that God’s promise to Abraham was intended to solve:… Abraham was dead… Abraham believed these promises despite the condition of his body, which “had already died” (ἤδη νενεκρωμένον, v. 19) and despite the “deadness” (νέκρωσις, v. 19) of Sarah’s womb. (Unlocking Romans, 72)

Looking forward to the end of the chapter, Campbell argues that this resurrection faith, focused on Isaac’s birth, is the linchpin for Paul’s connection with Christian faith as articulated at the end of the chapter (Romans 4:24-25). They, too, will be justified when they believe in the God who gives life from the dead (738). Or, in case anyone out there really does prefer Kirk, “In v. 24 Paul indicates that the means by which the group declared righteous is determined is belief in God who has raised Jesus, just as Abraham believed in the God who would raise him from death by means of his seed [i.e., Isaac]” (Unlocking Romans, 75).

Campbell highlights two key narrative dynamics for making sense of Rom 4. They are Abraham’s πίστις and the resurrecting God. These are “the interpretive keys to Genesis 17″ as Paul reads it (743). “Paul substantiates [his] claims by casting Abraham’s faith in such a way that it, like Christian faith, is resurrection faith” (Unlocking Romans, 80).

Campbell wraps up the exegetical portion of his study of Rom 4 by giving apt attention to Rom 4:23-25, especially its focus on the place of resurrection in Paul’s argument.

These verses reach back to 3:21-16, as well as 1:16-17, and 1:2-4 (746; cf. Unlocking Romans, 81-83). Christ’s fidelity is met by life, Hab 2:4 declares–this is what Campbell refers to as the “matyrological narrative” of Paul’s gospel, and it is reiterated in 4:25.

Resurrection is especially important in extending salvation: it offers deliverance from a realm characterized by transgressions and death (747). Here, Campbell is clearly paving the way for joining Rom 4 with the remainder of the letter.

Throughout, I am once again happy to find that Campbell has continued to work out with exacting detail the importance of the Christological narrative of Jesus’ death and resurrection for Paul’s argument–especially the emphasis on the latter. I hope that my cheeky juxtaposition of our books indicates that the positive arguments of the two reinforce each other to a considerable extent, and that the centrality of resurrection is not something to be lightly brushed aside. It is a crucial component to a gospel narrative that testifies to the revelation of the righteousness of God.

Deliverance of God Wrap Up: The Good–Pt 2, The Delivering God

May 7, 2010 in Book Reviews with 0 Comments

As I indicated yesterday, I am doing a final wrap-up of my impressions of Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul.

Once again, I’ll summarize with what is sure to be a huge disappointment to my readers: I agree with everyone else. The book is fantastic in its positive program of the apocalyptic reading, especially from Romans 3:20 onward, and unpersuasive in what precedes.

Today I want to cover two topics: the connotation of δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ (righteousness of God) and Campbell’s discussion of Abraham in Romans 4. Unfortunately, however, this “want” is not fulfilled. Only the first is covered!

1. δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ

Campbell begins by suggesting that the notion of God’s righteousness is simultaneously a statement about God’s being and God’s action–and that the action tied to God’s righteousness in this case has to do with Christ (680). Taking this angle, Campbell is able to argue that there is little significance in the shift from “righteousness of God” and “righteousness from God” inasmuch as both pertain to Christ. God’s righteousness is a single, saving, liberating, life-giving and therefore eschatological or resurrecting act.

(Once again, the affinity between Campbell’s work an my own is evident, as the sub-title of my book, Resurrection and the Justification of God, indicates such a connection between the eschatological, life-giving act of God in Christ and the righteousness of God. Though Campbell will take this in a somewhat different direction. The affinity is particularly seen when Campbell talks about the importance of ζάω and its cognates as indications of “resurrection life,” especially throughout Rom 5-8 [686], and when he ties the notion to Rom 1:4 and a Christological reading of Hab 2:4 in Rom 1:17 [686]. Indeed, when Campbell goes on to say, “If interpreters approach Paul and Romans with ears freshly attuned to the importance and integration of Jesus’ messiahship, resurrection, and exaltation to lordship, then the textual surface of the letter begins to shift in some interesting new directions,” once an imagine that I nod in hearty agreement.)

As he works this out, Campbell appeals to Rom 1:1b-4 as the signal Paul gives as to his intention to connect such themes as God’s action and kingship throughout the letter: this is the story of Paul’s gospel (695-6). At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I say, Yes, this is what I’m on about–and why I argue that we need to take more seriously the function of letter openings in laying out the thesis/themes of Romans. These themes are then linked with God’s reconciliation of the world (Rom 5:1-11; cf. Unlocking Romans, 84-97); our own adoption as God’s children (Rom 8:15-17; cf. Unlocking Romans, 133-38); and Isaiah’s proclamation of Jesse’s seed in Rom 15:12 (cf. Unlocking Romans, 49-55) (696-7).

After combing through the letter as a whole, Campbell comes back to the messianic reading of Hab 2:4 in Rom 1:17b. Picking up on “the gospel” as defined in 1:1-4, and this Christological reading, “The letter’s auditors are thereby prompted to find some connection between the gospel (i.e., the announcement of the divine King’s good news through his appointed representative), Jesus’ resurrection, and God’s δικαιοσύνη (698).  Or, for those of you who prefer Kirk, “This conjunction of Paul’s gospel message, the resurrection of Jesus, and the justification of God is not a complex that we are left to assemble on the basis of Rom 1:2-4… We have as corroborating evidence what has often been read as the letter’s thesis statement [Rom 1:16-17]… There, Paul works out some further descriptions and implications of his gospel message–a message whose content he has already parsed in terms of Jesus’ resurrection-kingship… We therefore meet in 1:16-17 a parallel claim to that of 1:1-4: the gospel reveals God’s righteousness… God’s righteousness is unveiled, not in a general resurrection of the just… but in the resurrection of the one who showed his justice by becoming faithfully obedient unto death (Unlocking Romans, 46, 47).

Because in Rom 1:17 God is not judging or condemning Christ but raising him from the dead, Campbell suggests that “deliverance of God” is a nice approximation of Paul’s “righteousness of God” language.

Campbell does much in these passages to connect God’s own kingship with the kingship of God’s human representative. I think that this is well done and important, but perhaps overdone for the context in Romans. Yes, God is king, but is God’s deliverance tied to working out the function of saving, kingly power? Further, I think that Campbell too quickly skips past something like “covenant faithfulness” by not wrestling with the connection between raising Jesus from the dead and the scriptures of Israel. Ok, so maybe “covenant” is too specific, but “Israel-faithfulness” or “scriptural-faithfulness” seems to be a necessary component. Of whom is God king? What does it look like for this particular king to act justly? There are some under-developed angles of the context that I think shade the data in a slightly different direction.

As is clear from this discussion, Campbell’s reading and my own are on much the same track. One of the reasons I appreciated his reading of Romans so much is that he takes seriously the Christological narrative that determines the content of Paul’s descriptions of faith, righteousness, God, etc. His perception of the resurrection as a key component means that many of his arguments correlate well with ones I made or attempted to make in my own work. Thus, when I think of the reviewer who rather dismissively asked of my argument, “Does Hab 2:4 really refer to Jesus’ resurrection?” I can now say, “Yes, and now you have two of us to deal with.” I, of course, like that!

Next up: father Abraham.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Deliverance of God from the publisher, but with no stipulation either that I would review it or review it positively. I also received a free copy of Unlocking Romans, but you probably already knew that.

Resurrection as Enthronement?

April 14, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 10 Comments

In my CT article on Jesus’ resurrection, I claimed that the resurrection was a moment of Jesus’ enthronement. When Jesus says in Matthew 28, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go…” that seems to indicate that he is now fully king in a way that he wasn’t previously.

Some folks gave a bit of push-back on that idea, suggesting that he becomes king at his ascension instead. I think that’s really neither here nor there–just depends on who you’re reading in the NT.

But the position that took me somewhat off guard was the notion that Jesus doesn’t actually become king until some point in the future. Since he sits at God’s right hand “until all things are subjected under his feet” (1 Cor 15), he’s not yet enthroned as king. That’s still future.

It seems to me that this is a bit of an under-realized eschatology. When we say “Jesus is Lord,” the idea would be that Jesus is enthroned as king. But maybe I’m missing something in the NT? Or maybe that’s part of a contemporary eschatological system that’s foreign to me? Thoughts?

“A Resurrection that Matters”: Now online

April 1, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 11 Comments

My article, “A Resurrection that Matters” is now online at Christianity Today.

I’d love to have a substantive discussion of the article ensue in the comments. See you there!

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