“Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church” (N. T. Wright)
I’ve been binging on N.T. Wright of late–reading several of his books, listening to mp3 lectures from the ntwrightpage.com, etc. etc. I’ve read and heavily underlined his latest book, Surprised by Hope, annotating in the margins over and over “wow, is that true?, amazing, etc. etc.” It has rocked my theological categories in significant ways. Fearful that I might be walking into theological peril, I’ve read this book in one hand and several systemic theologies in the other. Now, looking back, I finding it my top read for 2008. Read this book, you wont regret it!
As Tom (those who are N.T.’s friends call him Tom — and so, as a product of my “binging” I’m granting myself “friend” status) describes, his unpacking of the resurrection does not challenge orthodox Christian belief, it simply reminds Christians what “the orthodox Christian belief about the resurrection is” and how many of us have replaced it with a more gnostic, Platonic dualism that sucks out the power of Jesus’ bodily resurrection and its implications for hope and for mission.
Tom argues very persuasively that the Christian hope, built upon the foundation of Jesus’ bodily resurrection for the dead, has never been about ‘life after death.’ It’s always been about ‘life after life after death.’ (see: 1 Cor 15, Phil 3) In other words, going to heaven when you die (understood in our thinking as our disembodied spirit in the presence of Jesus) has never been the Easter hope.
The ultimate destination–the heart of the Christian hope:
is not “going to heaven when you die” but being bodily raised into the transformed, glorious likeness of Jesus Christ. . . [This bodily, physical resurrection will take place] when Jesus comes to set everything right. Our salvation then is not going to heaven when we die, but “being raised to life in God’s new heaven and new earth.”
Now, the implications of this orthodox belief–recalled and rethought—are manifold. I couldn’t put Tom’s book down as I read chapter after chapter of how Jesus’ bodily resurrection and ascension affect both my understanding of salvation, the kingdom of God, and the full-orbed mission of the church. Recapturing the New Testament teaching about the resurrection, for example, argues that salvation is:
1) about whole human beings, not merely souls
2) about the present, not simply the future;
3) about what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us.
In one of his other books, “For All God’s Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church”, Tom explains:
You see, just as that early Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus was a belief about something that actually happened within this real world, not simply a belief about a transcendent dimension, a spiritual or other-worldly reality which leaves this world behind, so the continuing message of the resurrection is precisely not that ‘there is a life after death’. There is, and all God’s people will inherit it; but the point is that it won’t be what most modern Westerners think of as ‘life after death.’ It will involve God’s people being given new bodies, like Jesus’ body, to share in the new heavens and the new earth that God will make. The message of the resurrection is that this present world matters; that the problems and pains of this present world matter; that the living God has made a decisive bridgehead into this present world with his healing and all-conquering love; and that, in the name of this strong love, all the evils, all the injustices and all the pains of the present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice and love have won the day. That’s why we pray ‘Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven’. Make no bones about it: Easter Day was the first great answer to that prayer.
You see, if Easter faith is simply about believing that God has a nice comfortable after-life for some or all of us, then Christianity becomes a mere pie-in-the-sky religion instead of a kingdom-on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven religion. Or, if Easter faith is simply about believing that Jesus is risen in some ‘spiritual’ sense, leaving his body in the tomb, then Christianity turns into a let-the-world-stew-in-its-own-juice religion, instead of a kingdom-on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven religion. If Easter faith is only about me, and perhaps you, finding a new dimension to our own personal spiritual lives in the here and now, then Christianity becomes simply a warmth-in-the-heart religion, instead of a kingdom-on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven religion. It becomes focused on me and my survival, my sense of God, my spirituality, rather than outwards on God, and on God’s world that still needs the kingdom message so badly. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes what the New Testament insists that it is: good news for the whole world, which warms our hearts precisely because it isn’t about warming hearts. The living God has in principle dealt with evil once and for all, and is now at work, by his own Spirit, to do for us and the whole world what he did for Jesus on that first Easter day.
(pg 64)
I could unpack more of Tom’s case for the resurrection and the implications of this broader understanding of salvation, but I want to get this posted and out as soon as I can. All I can say is this: understanding the implications of Jesus’ resurrection has ignited this feeling in me: “I am more excited about following Jesus now than I have been in 30 years.”
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