Schlagwort: Hope

By Christian / Tom Wright

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This series takes up the main ideas from the book by Bible scholar N. T. Wright Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (German Von Hoffnung überrascht – Was die Bibel zu Auferstehung und ewigem Leben sagt).

I read the book in the German translation. So the quotes are from the German translation and retranslated into English. The quotes will therefore differ from the English original.

Purgatory, paradise, hell

In the last part, we clarified the meaning of our present and future bodies in the section „The redemption of our body“. Now the question naturally arises: And what is in between?

As far as purgatory is concerned, it is basically a Roman Catholic doctrine that is not held by the Orthodox Church and was rejected by the Reformation. It is interesting to note that even Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) and other important theologians withdrew very strongly from what the Catholic Church taught on the subject for a long time. However, this teaching also goes hand in hand with the belief that the „saints“ are already in heaven and everyone else … just not yet.

N. T. Wright questions this idea on four points.

1. The majority doctrine of all orthodox theologians is that the resurrection has not yet taken place. Resurrection is not the same as life after death; it refers to life after life after death.

2. The New Testament contains no reason to believe that there are any different categories of Christians in heaven while waiting for the resurrection.

3. N. T. Wright „does not believe in purgatory as a place, a time, or a state. Purgatory was in any case a late Western invention that has no biblical basis, and its alleged theological foundations are now, as we have seen, being questioned even by leading Roman Catholic theologians.“

4. „I thus arrive, fourthly, at the following view: all deceased Christians are substantially in the same state, a state of restful happiness.“ (p. 201) „However, neither in the New Testament nor in the very early Church Fathers do I find any indication that those who are presently in heaven or (whoever prefers) paradise are actively engaged in praying for us here in this life.“ (p. 202) „In particular, we should be suspicious of the medieval notion that the saints function like friends at court: We may shy away from approaching the king himself, but we know someone who is one of us, so to speak, to whom we can speak openly and who might put in a good word for us.“ (S. 202)

What N. T. Wright probably does not know is how much the so-called ‚anointed ones‘, the remnant of the 144,00 who see themselves as the saints, demand precisely this role in Jehovah’s Witnesses today and in the future. All other Jehovah’s Witnesses – the so-called ‚other sheep‘ – will only survive and live if they obey and honour this group of saints.

The idea of hell is no different. „The word hell conjures up images that are more strongly characterised by medieval imagery than by early Christian writings.“ (p. 204) „The most common New Testament word sometimes translated as hell is Gehenna. Gehenna was a place, not just an idea: it was the rubbish dump outside the south-west corner of Jerusalem’s Old City. To this day, there is a valley called „Ge Hinnom“ at the site. This word is also found in the original text, for example Luke 12:5, but is often translated as hell: „I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after he has killed, has the power to cast into hell Gehenna. Yes, I say to you: Fear him!“ (Züricher) But what Jesus repeatedly emphasises in this and other passages is „that what counts is what happens on earth, not anywhere else.“ (p. 205) And therefore, according to Luke 13:3, he said, „No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.“ (Zurich)

Even the parable – parable! – of Abraham and Lazarus says nothing about a hell. „Taking the scene with Abraham, the rich man, and Lazarus literally makes about as much sense as trying to track down the name of the prodigal son. Jesus simply didn’t say much about the future life; after all, he was primarily concerned with announcing the coming of God’s kingdom, „on earth as it is in heaven.“ (p. 206) When we consider that Jesus was rebuking Jews here, it is not surprising that he cited Abraham, whom they regarded as their father.

On the other hand, the hope may be surprising to some because it does not include an all-reconciliation or a liberal overlooking of all sin and evil. Even though we consistently find in the translations of 1 Timothy 2:4 that God „wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.“ (NIV). So this translation corresponds to a conviction, but not to the text of the New Testament. It is clear from many passages of the New Testament „that he does not mean „all individual people“ but „all kinds of people.““ (S. 213). For example, Paul clearly states:

But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.

Romans 2:8 NIV

In the description of the New Jerusalem in chapters 21 and 22 of the Revelation of John, it is also clear that some categories of people remain outside. But before we hastily have „an image of two beautiful and orderly categories in our minds, we should also remember that the river of the water of life flows out of the city; that on each side the tree of life grows, and not a single tree, but many; and that „the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations“. This is a great mystery that all our talk about God’s ultimate future must make room for. This is in no way to doubt the reality of the final judgement on those who have resolutely worshipped idols and served that which dehumanises us and distorts God’s world. It is only to say that God is always a God of surprises.“ (S. 213)

Conclusion

Truly, we have been „surprised by hope“. At least that’s how I felt on some points. As N. T. Wright draws on his decades of experience and backs this up with many examples, this is the case for most Christians.

Based on my personal life story as someone who grew up in the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses, served for decades in an ‚exemplary manner‘ and finally consciously left this church, I realise that this hope will also come as a surprise to many former Jehovah’s Witnesses.

What many former Jehovah’s Witnesses have to deal with is not only the consequences of indoctrination and the treatment by the leadership and members of this cult. Nor is it just the realisation that many teachings specific to Jehovah’s Witnesses were inventions by people who have no basis in the Bible. And which are also increasingly being abandoned, watered down or concealed by the current ‚Governing Body‘ of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Perhaps the most difficult thing for former Jehovah’s Witnesses is to read the Bible in a completely new way and also to accept findings in which the statements and teachings of their former religion were not entirely wrong after all. You probably believed that as the ‚other sheep‘ you had an earthly hope and could only survive Armageddon with the greatest effort and then live forever on earth after 1000 years and another final test. Okay, the few ‚anointed members of the remnant‘ have it easier – they die and, according to the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, are immediately endowed with super-power and immortality in heaven. Then you realised that this was a hoax. There is only one hope for all Christians in the New Testament. And so you were of the opinion that you would go to heaven like all God’s children – just like the 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses or all Catholics and Protestants. Now you’ve been surprised by ‚the hope‘ that heaven might not be your final destination after all. Or at least your hope is quite different from what you thought.

If you, as a former Jehovah’s Witness, recognise which teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses are not based on the Bible but are a fake, you are only halfway there. The house of faith has collapsed and is almost completely demolished. Now it’s time to build up your faith. It’s not easy to learn something new. It is even more difficult to correct something you have learnt incorrectly. I would like to make a contribution to this with this series.

Rethinking things is an important task for everyone. That is why N. T. Wright’s book contains a third part: Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. However, I will not be looking at this in this series. I hope you enjoy reading and reflecting on it.

By Christian / Tom Wright

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This series takes up the main ideas from the book by Bible scholar N. T. Wright Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (German Von Hoffnung überrascht – Was die Bibel zu Auferstehung und ewigem Leben sagt).

I read the book in the German translation. So the quotes are from the German translation and retranslated into English. The quotes will therefore differ from the English original.

Jesus, the Judge to come

Another aspect of hope – which may also surprise some – is this: „The image of Jesus as the coming judge is the central feature of another absolutely crucial and non-negotiable Christian belief: that there will indeed be a judgement in which the Creator God will set the world right once and for all.“ (p. 167) Here, too, we must be careful not to associate the term „judgement“ with what we call and associate with judgement today. The biblical context of the term „judgement“ is decisive and this is not condemnation, but a consistently good thing, as we also find in the Psalms: Everything rejoices because God brings things to good.

After Jesus‘ resurrection, the first disciples of Jesus were convinced that he was the Messiah. „Their belief in Jesus‘ messiahship could have been a decisive factor in the emergence of the belief in his ultimate coming as judge. This belief was already well established at the time of Paul’s appearance.“

This reveals another widespread but false assumption about Paul’s teachings: „Because Paul taught justification by faith, not by works, there is no room for a future judgement „according to works“. But this only shows how much many people misunderstood him.

The future judgement according to works, a judgement that Jesus will hold on his „judgement seat“, is clearly taught, for example, in Romans 14:9-10; 2 Corinthians 5:10 and answerswo. …. This image of future judgement according to works is indeed the basis of Paul’s theology of justification by faith.

Justification by faith is what happens in the present time, awaiting the judgement of the future day when God will judge the world. It is God’s anticipated declaration that the person who believes the gospel is already a member of his family now, no matter what their parents were, that their sins are forgiven because of the death of Jesus and that on that future day, as Paul says, „there is no condemnation“ (Romans 8:1).

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 169, 170

That should have been enough interesting thoughts to think about for now. Perhaps you too are now „surprised by hope“. And that will probably be no less the case in the next paragraph and next episode, when it will be about the redemption of our bodies, purgatory, paradise and hell.

The redemption of our body

What happens after death? The views of people – even Christians – differ widely. But the hope in the New Testament is crystal clear, if perhaps surprising:

Not only that, 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.

Romans 8:23 BSB

What is supposed to be surprising about that? Please read the text again carefully. What idea did you have? This one: „we are waiting for the redemption of our body„. Or this one: „we are waiting for the redemption from our body„? But that’s not what the text says! In this text, Paul does not say that we will be redeemed from our bodies, but that our bodies will be redeemed. Surprise!

N. T. Wright looks at many passages from the New Testament in chapter 10. I will only mention a few here. If you want to know more, I recommend that you read the book at your leisure.

„The clearest and strongest passage, which is often ignored, is Romans 8:9-11“ (p. 178):

You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

Romans 8:9-11 NIV

But how then is Jesus‘ statement according to John 14:2 to be understood?

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?

John 14:2 NIV

This is often understood to mean that one goes to heaven after death, where Jesus has already provided a place. However, we must not read the texts with our understanding of the English words. „The word for „place“ in this passage, monai, is not usually used in Greek for a final resting place, but for a short stop on the journey that will take you somewhere else in the long run.“ (S. 179)

„This fits in well with Jesus‘ words to the dying criminal in the Gospel of Luke: „Today you will be with me in paradise.“ Despite a long tradition of misunderstanding, paradise here, as in some other Jewish scriptures, is not a final destination but the blissful garden, the parkland of peace and tranquillity where the dead are refreshed as they await the dawn of the new day. The main point of the sentence lies in the apparent contrast between the criminal’s request and Jesus‘ reply: „Remember me“, he says, „when you come into your kingdom„, implying (whether ironically or not is irrelevant now) that this will be in the distant future. Jesus brings this future hope into the present, implying of course that the kingdom will indeed come with his death, even if it doesn’t look like what had been imagined. „This very day you will be with me in paradise.“ There will, of course, still be a future fulfilment that includes the ultimate resurrection; Luke’s overall theological understanding leaves no doubt about this. After all, Jesus was not raised „today“, i.e. on Good Friday. Luke must have understood Jesus to be referring to a state of being-in-paradise that would come true for him and the dying man next to him immediately, on the same day – in other words, before the resurrection. With Jesus, the hope of the future has moved into the present. For those who die in faith, before that ultimate resurrection, the central promise is to be „with Jesus“ immediately. „My desire is to die,“ Paul wrote, „and to be with Christ, which is far better.““ (S. 179,180)

Referring to 1 Peter, N. T. Wright emphasises what we must imagine by the term „soul“: „The word psyche here, like the Hebrew nephesh, seems to refer not to an incorporeal inner part of man, but to what we might call the person or even the personality.“ (S. 181)

For the translations have often caused confusion here, as in 1 Corinthians 15:44

It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

1 Corinthians 15:44 NRSV

„Several common translations, especially the Revised Standard Version and its offshoots, translate Paul’s key terms as „a physical body“ and „a spiritual body“. In view of the Greek words Paul uses, this cannot be correct. The technical arguments are overwhelming and clear. The contrast is between the present body, which is perishable, corruptible and doomed to die, and the future body, which is imperishable, incorruptible and will never die. The key adjectives that are quoted endlessly in discussions of this topic do not refer to a physical body and a non-physical body. Yet this is exactly how people in our culture will hear the words physical and spiritual.

The first word, psychikos, in no way means anything like „physical“ in our sense. For Greek speakers at the time of Paul, the word psych, from which the word comes, referred to the soul, not the body.

But the deeper, subliminal point is that adjectives of this kind, Greek adjectives ending in ikos, do not describe the material from which things are made, but the force or energy that animates these things. It’s about the difference between the question: „Is this a wooden or an iron ship?“ (the material it is made of) and the question: „Is this a steamship or a sailing ship?“ (Paul is talking about the present body, animated by the normal human psyche (the life force we all possess here and now, which gets us through the present life, but which is ultimately powerless against sickness, injury, decay and death), and he is talking about the future body, animated by God’s pneuma, God’s breath of new life, the driving force of God’s new creation“. (S. 184, 185)

In this sense, „flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God“. „‚Flesh and blood‘ is a technical term for that which is transitory, passing and approaching death.“ (S. 185)

I think it is becoming increasingly clear why the title of the book is: Surprised by Hope.

By Christian / Tom Wright

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This series takes up the main ideas from the book by Bible scholar N. T. Wright Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (German Von Hoffnung überrascht – Was die Bibel zu Auferstehung und ewigem Leben sagt).

I read the book in the German translation. So the quotes are from the German translation and retranslated into English. The quotes will therefore differ from the English original.

When he comes

However different the Christian faiths may be, believers often have a desire to go to Jesus. However, the main truth that the early Christians insisted on again and again is that Jesus is coming back to us.

Coming, appearing, revealing and the royal presence

Interestingly, the concept of the ’second coming‘ or the ‚return of Christ‘ is often the subject of discussion today, although this term only occurs very rarely in the New Testament.

It may therefore come as a surprise to some to hear that „despite the widespread opinion to the contrary, Jesus said nothing about his return during his earthly ministry“. (S. 154)

‚Wait a minute‘, you may think and want to refer to texts such as Mark 13:26: „Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with power and great glory.“ (NEÜ) Or Mark 14:62: „It is I,“ Jesus replied. „And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Almighty and coming with the clouds of heaven.““ But here Jesus is quoting from Daniel 7, which is why Jesus is not talking about his return but his rehabilitation after suffering. „The „coming“ is an upward movement, not a downward movement. In their context, the key texts mean that although Jesus goes to his death, he will be vindicated by events that take place afterwards.“ (p. 154) And this is also how the early church saw it.

And what about the parables of a king who goes away, leaving his subjects to manage the economy in his absence until he returns? Even if these parables were also interpreted in this way early on, they „belong to the Jewish world of the first century, in which everyone will have heard this parable as a story about God himself, who had left Israel and the temple at the time of the exile and who finally returned, as the post-exilic prophets had said, back to Israel, back to Zion, back to the temple. … In their original situation … they do not deal with the second coming of Jesus, but with his first.“ (S. 155)

Even if Jesus did not teach about his return, this does not mean that it is not true. With this topic, it is particularly important not to jump to conclusions. We have to be careful because the parables do not quite fit the Second Coming.

If the texts that speak of the „coming of the Son of Man on clouds“ refer to the year 70 AD, which according to my reasoning they do (in part), then that does not mean that 70 AD was the „second coming“ because the „Son of Man“ texts are not texts about the Second Coming at all.“

The return of Christ has not yet taken place.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 156

But if we read nothing in Jesus‘ words in the Gospels about the return of Jesus, where does this teaching come from? From the rest of the New Testament after Jesus‘ resurrection: „This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come again just as you have seen him go into heaven.“ (Acts 1:11 NEÜ)

In Paul’s letters in particular, we find thoughts on the return of Jesus. And also a Greek word that has misled both laypeople and scholars: parousia. „It is usually translated as ‚coming‘, but literally it means ‚presence‘ – that is, presence as opposed to absence. It appears in two key passages in Paul (1 Thessalonians 4:15 and 1 Corinthians 15:2,3).

In particular, 1 Thessalonians 4:17 has fired the imagination: „After this we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And then we will be with him forever.“ (NEÜ) But it doesn’t say anything about people going to heaven after the ‚encounter‘!

In fact, parousia had two meanings in the non-Christian world at that time.

The first was the mysterious presence of a deity. „Josephus sometimes uses this word when he speaks of YHWH coming to save Israel.“ (S. 158)

„The second meaning occurs when a high-ranking personage pays a visit to a subject state, especially when the king or conqueror visits a colony or province. The word for such a visit is royal presence: in Greek, parousia.“ (S. 158)

„It should be noted that in none of these contexts do we find even the slightest suggestion that anyone is flying around on a cloud. Nor is there any hint of the imminent collapse or destruction of the universe.“ (S. 158)

What were Paul and the rest of the early church trying to say?

That Jesus, whom they worshipped, was close in spirit but physically absent, but that one day he would be physically present and that then the whole world, including themselves, would recognise the sudden transformative power of this presence.

A word that lends itself naturally to this would be parousia.

They wanted to say that Jesus, who had been raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God, was the rightful Lord of the world, the true ruler before whom all other rulers would tremble and before whom they would bow their knees in fear and amazement.

And they wanted to say: just as the emperor might one day visit a colony like Philippi or Thessalonica or Corinth (the normally absent but ruling ruler who now appears and rules in person), so one day the absent but ruling Lord of the world would appear and rule in person within this world, with all the consequences that would have.“

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 158

N. T. Wright explains 1 Thessalonians 4 in much more detail in his book. Let’s look again at 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NIV

First of all, it should be emphasised once again that this text clearly states that the resurrected do not meet Jesus in heaven. We deduce this from the last part of the verse, because the Lord will be in heaven. But that is not what this text says. „The main point to note about these tricky verses is that they are not to be understood as a literal description of what Paul says will happen. They are simply another way of expressing what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:23-27 and 51-54 and Philippians 3:20-21.“ Where the NIV translation says „will be caught up“ in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Paul uses the term „transformed“ in 1 Corinthians 15:51, which is translated as „transformed“ in the Züricher translation for example. Philippians 3:21 also speaks of this transformation as „transforming“.

It is interesting that Philippians 3:20 is translated in the Züricher version as follows: „For our home is in heaven, from where we also await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour“. And the King James Bible has: „For our conversation is in heaven.“ No wonder if someone then thinks that they are going to heaven. But this translation unfortunately reflects a religious persuasion and not the original text. The original text reads πολίτευμα (politeuma), which means citizenship: „But we have our citizenship in heaven.“ The Neue Evangelistische Übersetzung translates this correctly. Also the NIV: „But our citizenship is in heaven“

What did Paul mean by this? It was certainly not a literal description, because in the next chapter, 1 Thessalonians 5, he speaks of „the thief coming in the night, so that the woman will have labour pains, so that you should not get drunk, but stay awake and put on your armour.“ (p. 161) If these are methaphors, then we are also dealing with a metaphor in chapter 4.

In fact, three stories in one metaphor. Paul was good at linking things so compactly. Paul links the story of Moses coming down from the mountain (a trumpet sounds here too) with Daniel 7. He links this to Daniel 7 and then adds a situation from the life of the Philippians.

If the emperor visited a colony or province, the citizens of the city would go and meet him at some distance outside the city gates. It would be disrespectful to actually let him arrive at the city gate, as if his subjects had no desire to greet him properly. If they met him, they would not remain outside in the open field; they would accompany him royally into the city. When Paul speaks of the „meeting“ with the Lord „in the air“, he is not talking about the saved believers remaining floating somewhere in the air, away from the earth, as we find in popular rapture theology. It is about the following: After they have gone out to meet their Lord, they will accompany him royally into his domain, i.e. back to the place from which they came.

Even if we note that this is a significant metaphor, not a literal description, the meaning is the same as in the parallel passage in Philippians 3:20. As the Philippians knew, being a „citizen of heaven“ did not mean expecting to return to the hometown, but expecting the ruler to come from the hometown to give the colony its full dignity, to rescue it if necessary, to defeat enemies, and to set everything right.

The reality to which the rhetoric refers is this: Jesus will be personally present, the dead will be raised, and Christians who are then alive will be transformed.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 162

And so it is no longer surprising when an Aramaic expression suddenly appears at the end of 1 Corinthians. Mind you, an Aramaic expression in the Greek text. Some translations leave it in and you don’t even understand what is meant by it. In 1 Corinthians 16:22 we find „Marána thá – Our Lord, come!“ (Einheitsübersetzung 2016), which goes back to the very early Aramaic-speaking church.

In Colossians 3:4, by the way, Paul uses the word „appear“ and not „come“. „Jesus does not have to float down from heaven like a spaceman. … When heaven and earth are joined in the new way that God has promised, then Jesus will appear to us – and we will appear to him and to each other, in our own true identity.“ (S. 164)

By Christian / Tom Wright

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This series takes up the main ideas from the book by Bible scholar N. T. Wright Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (German Von Hoffnung überrascht – Was die Bibel zu Auferstehung und ewigem Leben sagt).

I read the book in the German translation. So the quotes are from the German translation and retranslated into English. The quotes will therefore differ from the English original.

Jesus, heaven and the new creation

1. Ascension

For the followers of Jesus in the first century, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus were two completely different things: „Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.“ (John 20:17 NIV). And Paul also makes a distinction (Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20,2:6).

However, when John 20:17 speaks of „ascended“, we must understand this in the context of biblical cosmology:

Basically, in biblical cosmology, heaven and earth are not two different places within the same continuum of space or matter. They are two different dimensions of God’s good creation.

Heaven is indirectly related to earth, so that someone who is in heaven can be present anywhere on earth at the same time. Therefore, the ascension means that Jesus is available and accessible without having to travel to a specific place on earth to find him.

Heaven is, so to speak, the control room for the earth; it is the office of the CEO, the place from which all instructions emanate. „All authority has been given to me,“ said Jesus at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, „in heaven and on earth.“

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 139

According to the text of the New Testament, Jesus did not go to heaven at his resurrection, nor did his soul. What idea does the text of the New Testament convey?

The idea of the man Jesus, who is now in heaven, in his thoroughly embodied resurrection state, is a shock for many people, including many Christians.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 139

He explains why this is the case immediately afterwards:

Sometimes this is because many people think that Jesus was divine, then stopped being divine and became human, only to stop being human again after a while in order to return to the divine mode of existence (at least that’s what Christians supposedly believe according to many people).

More often, however, this is because our culture is so accustomed to the Platonic idea that heaven is by definition a place of „spiritual“, not material reality, that the idea of a real body that is not only present in heaven, but thoroughly at home there, seems to them like a confusion of categories, i.e. philosophically defined forms of state.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 139

And if you too are now surprised: „The Ascension invites us to rethink all these things; and anyway, why did we assume we knew what heaven was?“ (N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, p. 139)

When thought through in this way, the idea of the return of Christ makes sense:

But the New Testament, on the contrary, insists that the one who has gone to heaven will return. Nowhere in the Gospels or in the Acts of the Apostles is there a sentence even remotely like this: „Jesus has gone to heaven, so let’s make sure we follow him there.“ Rather, it says: „Jesus is in heaven, he rules the world, and he will return one day to establish his reign in perfection.“

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 145

2. What is the return of Christ all about?

Are we now heading towards ideas that have become widespread since the millenarian movements of the 19th century? Behind this is often the idea that Jesus has somehow been ‚gone‘ for almost 2000 years and will then return in a dramatic end time. And that „this return is part of a scenario in which the present world is doomed to destruction, while the chosen few are swept away to heaven.“ (S. 148)

However, we have already seen that this idea does not correspond to the biblical cosmology and the first-century idea that we find in the New Testament. Even in the Psalms, the judgement of the world had a positive meaning: „For God, the judgement of the world means that he will set it right in the end, that he will bring it into order and thus not only cause a sigh of relief on all sides, but shouts of joy from trees and fields, from the sea and the floods.“ (Psalm 96, Psalm 98)

So what is meant by eschatology?

The word eschatology, which literally means „the doctrine of the last things“, refers not only to death, judgement, heaven and hell, as commonly thought (and as the word is still defined in many dictionaries). The term also refers to the passionately held belief of most 1st century Jews and almost all early Christians that history was going in a certain direction under the direction of God, and that this direction consisted in the new world of God, the world of justice, healing and hope. The transition from the present world to the new world would not be a matter of destroying the present spatio-temporal universe, but a matter of radically healing that universe.

So when I (and many others) use the word eschatology, we don’t simply mean the return of Christ, much less a particular theory about that return; we mean the whole meaning of God’s future for the world, and we mean the belief that that future has already begun to meet us in the present.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 151

By Christian / Tom Wright

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This series takes up the main ideas from the book by Bible scholar N. T. Wright Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (German Von Hoffnung überrascht – Was die Bibel zu Auferstehung und ewigem Leben sagt).

I read the book in the German translation. So the quotes are from the German translation and retranslated into English. The quotes will therefore differ from the English original.

The strange story of Easter

As announced at the end of the previous part we will only briefly look at why we can believe the reports in the Gospels about the resurrection of Jesus.

On the one hand, N. T. Wright argues that discrepancies on the surface do not mean that nothing happened. Just as discrepant testimonies do not. He also explains four features of these narratives that are so extraordinary that they urge us to take them seriously as very early accounts, not as later inventions, as is often claimed.

1. The Bible is hardly quoted at this point

Until the resurrection, „all four evangelists rely heavily on biblical quotations, allusions and echoes to make it clear that Jesus‘ death is „scriptural“. … Even though these stories were written down much later, they go back to very, very early oral traditions that were shaped and moulded in the memories of various storytellers before there was time for biblical reflection.“

2. Women as the first witnesses

Women were not regarded as credible witnesses in ancient times. Later, unfortunately, women were also dropped from Christian writings and church life – but they appear in all four gospels and are at the centre of everything. So why would anyone invent this of all things?

3. The portrayal of Jesus

If a Messiah had been invented to fit the existing scriptures, he would have been portrayed differently. The resurrected Jesus should have been a shining star – but „the resurrected Jesus is portrayed as a human being with a body that is in some ways quite normal and could be mistaken for a gardener or a fellow traveller on the road. Yet the stories also contain clear indications that this body has been transformed. … This kind of account has no antecedent.“

4. The resurrection accounts never contain the Christian hope for the future

Almost everywhere else in the New Testament the resurrection of Jesus is mentioned in connection with the ultimate hope that those who belong to Jesus will one day be raised as he was raised, and it is added that this must be anticipated in the present in baptism and behaviour.“

Each gospel has its own theological interests. You could compare it to four artists portraying the same person. With different accents, but the person is recognisable as the same.

But the accounts of the resurrection have a common „meaning related to the present age: Jesus is risen, so he is the Messiah and therefore the true Lord of the world; Jesus is risen, so God’s new creation has begun – and we, his followers, have a job to do!“

But what is ‚God’s new creation‘ and what job do we have to do?

Part II God’s plan for the future

The future of the cosmos: progress or despair?

Doesn’t everyone realise what the future of the cosmos consists of? This is not an astrophysical question. It’s about what God intends to do with his creation. And our cultural context could stand in our way.

Over the last two hundred years, Western thought has overemphasised the individual at the expense of the bigger picture of God’s creation. What’s more, in much of Western piety, at least since the Middle Ages, the influence of Greek philosophy has been very pronounced. This led to an expectation of the future that bears much more resemblance to Plato’s vision of souls entering an incorporeal bliss than to the biblical image of the new heaven and the new earth.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 108

This has given rise to two major movements:

1. The myth of progress
   Originating in the Renaissance and fuelled by the European Enlightenment, there is the utopian dream that there will always be more progress and that the world will always be better. In addition to the social gospel, there were also other Christian movements whose aim was to make the world better and better until God was satisfied. The real problem with the myth of progress, however, is that it cannot cope with the existence of evil.
   „The optimist, the evolutionist, the school of the myth of progress all say that these are just the growing pains of something bigger and better.“
2. Souls in transit
   The Platonist, the Hindu, the Muslim and, following Plato, the Gnostic, the Manicheans and countless other variants within the Christian and Jewish traditions all say that these are signs that we were created for something completely different, for a world that is not made of space, time and matter, a world of pure spiritual existence in which we happily leave the shackles of mortality behind us once and for all.
   „This Platonic trait entered Christian thought very early on, not least with the phenomenon known as Gnosticism.“

What the whole world is waiting for

The early Christians did not believe any of this. „Since most people who think about these things today lean toward one or the other of these views, it is something of a surprise when they discover that the early Christians held a rather different view. They believed that God would do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter.“ What on earth does that mean? We will now work through this step by step.

Basic structures of hope

The hope of the oldest Christianity known to us is characterised by some basic structures.

Firstly, the disciples were convinced of the goodness of creation. At no point was a cosmological dualism accepted, i.e. a separation into a created world, which is not really good and is not given by God, and a good spiritual world. „The world is good as creation, not as independent or self-sufficient „nature“. There is no evidence of pantheism or panentheism.“ Then N. T. Wright makes a point that we will look at in more detail in another video series:

At the climax of creation, which according to Genesis 1 consists of the creation of human beings, creation was intended to reflect God, to reflect God back to God in worship and to reflect Him into the rest of creation. The latter is to happen in man’s stewardship of creation.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 122

Secondly, there was a certain conception of the nature of evil. „Evil is real and powerful within a biblical theology, but it exists neither in creatureliness nor in otherness to God. … Nor does evil consist – this is decisive! – in transience, in decay. … Transience functions as a sign given by God that does not point away from the material world to a non-material world, but from a world as it is to a world as it shall be one day – in other words: it points from the present to the future that God has prepared.“

What counts is eschatological dualism (the present age and the age to come), not ontological dualism (an evil „earth“ and a good „heaven“).

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 123

Thirdly, the hope contained an idea of God’s plan of redemption.

Redemption does not mean a „scrapping“ of what is present in order to start anew, liberated from all that, but rather liberation of what has become enslaved. If evil is now understood not as materialism but as rebellion, the enslavement of people and the world does not consist in embodiment. Redemption from embodiment would mean: Death of the body and the subsequent release of the soul or spirit. However, the enslavement is rather in sin. Redemption from sin must ultimately include not only the goodness of the soul or spirit, but also a new physical life.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 123, 124

Jesus played a central dual role for his disciples, which can be found in lyrical form in Colossians 1:15-20. This is a revealing passage, but it would go too far to discuss it here. What we should note, however, is that „redemption is the new creation of creation, after the evil that disfigured and deformed creation has been reckoned with. And it is brought about by the same God who is now recognised in Jesus Christ, through whom creation was created in the first place.“

N. T. Wright breaks down the basic structure and cosmic dimensions of Christian hope into six themes:

Sowing and harvesting

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul uses the image of the firstfruits. Jesus is the first to be resurrected from the dead. The first fruits are about the fact that there will be many more fruits.

The victorious battle

In 1 Corinthians, Paul continues with a completely different image that has many biblical antecedents: the image of the king who establishes his kingdom by subduing all enemies. „Paul is clearly articulating a theology of the new creation“. „The gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims that what God did for Christ at Easter, he will do not only for all who are „in Christ“, but also for the entire cosmos. It will be an act of re-creation, parallel to and derived from the act of re-creation when God raised Jesus from the dead.“ And this brings something that has already been said into view: „Jesus was raised bodily from the dead, contrary to the view that says that after his death he began to exist in a new, non-corporeal mode. … If Jesus had passed into some kind of immaterial existence after his death, then death would not be defeated. He would remain intact; he would only be described anew. … But that is precisely what Paul denies. Death as we know it is the last enemy, it is not a good part of the good creation; and therefore death must be defeated if the life-turning God is to be honoured as the true Lord of the world. When this is done, and only then, will Jesus, the Messiah, the Lord of the world, hand over the rule of the kingdom to his Father, and God will be all in all.“

Citizens of heaven on earth

Another royal image is found in Philippians 3:20,21, which is important for our hope because it uses a term that leads many to think that they are going to heaven. Once again, it is important to keep the historical context in mind: „Philippi was a Roman colony. Augustus had settled his veterans from the battles of Philippi (42 BC) and Actium (31 BC) there. Even if not everyone had it, everyone knew what Roman citizenship meant. It was Roman citizenship, but they did not live in Rome. Augustus had given it to them so that they would stay in Philippi.

„So when Paul says: „We are citizens of heaven“, he does not mean that we go to heaven to live there after we have lived this life. What he means is this: The Saviour, the Lord, Jesus, the King – all of which were of course imperial titles – will come from heaven to earth to change the present situation and condition of his people. The key word here is transformation: „He will transform our present humble bodies so that they will become his glorious body.“

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 128, 129

Jesus will transform the present human body.

God will be all in all

In 1 Corinthians 15:28 we find one of the clearest statements about the absolute centre of the future-oriented New Testament worldview: God will „be all in all“ as the goal of all history. „God ultimately intends to fill all creation with his own presence and love.“

The world was created good, but incomplete. One day, when the forces of rebellion are defeated and creation responds freely and joyfully to the love of its Creator, the Creator will fill creation with Himself so that it remains both an independent being, other than God, and suffused with God’s own life.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 131

A new birth

In Romans chapter 8, Paul takes up another image: The image of the new birth. Creation is in a state of slavery, like the children of Israel in Egypt (Romans 8:21). „God’s plan was to govern creation with life-giving wisdom through his images, the human creatures. However, this was always a promise of the future. …. Meanwhile, creation was subject to corruption and decay.“ How does creation emerge from this state? In Romans 8:22, Paul uses the image of a new birth for the whole cosmos itself.

The wedding of heaven and earth

Finally, Revelation 21 and 22 use the image of a wedding: „The New Jerusalem comes down from heaven like a bride who has adorned herself for her bridegroom. We immediately realise how different this image is from all the supposedly Christian scenarios that end with the Christian going to heaven as a soul, naked and unadorned, to meet his Creator with fear and trembling.“

„The end of Revelation describes the final answer to the Lord’s Prayer, that God’s kingdom will come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Paul also talks about this in Ephesians 1:10: God’s plan and promise was to bring all things together in Christ, both heavenly and earthly things.“

Here we have a sign of the future task that ultimately awaits the redeemed in God’s new world. Far from the often popular idea of sitting on clouds and playing the harp, the redeemed people of God in the new world will be the mediators of God’s love, which will flow out in new ways to fulfil new creative tasks in order to celebrate and spread the glory of his love.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 134

Conclusion

Why are all these images and metaphors used in the New Testament? Because we can only form a certain idea with their help. „What we can say about the future is like a series of signs pointing into a bright mist. We have no photograph of what we will find when we arrive.“

In the next part of this servies we look at some of these ’signs‘ that we find in the Bible.

By Christian / Tom Wright

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This series takes up the main ideas from the book by Bible scholar N. T. Wright Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (German Von Hoffnung überrascht – Was die Bibel zu Auferstehung und ewigem Leben sagt).

I read the book in the German translation. So the quotes are from the German translation and retranslated into English. The quotes will therefore differ from the English original.

The surprising nature of early Christian hope

It turns out that the early Christian belief in a hope beyond death was demonstrably based on Judaism and not paganism. N. T. Wright then lists seven important core statements in which early Christian hope clearly differs from that of Judaism.

First of all, „the resurrection formed the centre of the early Christian hope for the future.“ This sentence is perhaps easy to read over. You probably don’t recognise the implications. N. T. Wright now summarises much more detailed reasons:

The first Christians did not simply believe in life after death; they more or less never spoke of going to heaven after death. But when they spoke of heaven as a destination waiting for you after death, they seemed to have seen this heavenly life as a temporary stage on the way to the ultimate resurrection of the body. When Jesus told the thief on the cross that they would meet in paradise on the last day (Luke 23:43), paradise clearly cannot be the final destination, as Luke makes clear in the next chapter. Rather, paradise is the glorious garden in which God’s people rest before the resurrection.

When Jesus explained that there were many dwellings in his Father’s house, he used the word mone for „dwelling place“, which means temporary accommodation. (John 14:2)

When Paul says that his desire is to „die and be with Christ, which is far better“, he is indeed thinking of a blissful life with his Lord immediately after death, but this is only a prelude before the resurrection. (Philippians 1:23;3:9-11;3:20-21)

In the terminology of the discussion in the previous chapter, the first Christians held to a two-stage belief in the future. First comes death and whatever comes immediately afterwards; then there is a new physical existence in a newly created world.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 67

I wouldn’t be surprised if that was quite surprising for you too. And it was at the time. „There is nothing in paganism that comes even remotely close to this belief. This belief is as Jewish as it can be.“ But the first Christians made modifications, all of which can be found in authors as diverse as Paul, John of Patmos, Luke and Justin Martyr, Matthew and Irenaeus.

1. Within early Christianity, there is more or less no range of beliefs about life beyond death

„In this respect, Christianity looks like a variety of Pharisaic Judaism. There is no trace of a Sadducean worldview or one that belongs to the Philo’s school of thought.“ „Only in the late second century, a good 150 years after the time of Jesus, do we find people who assign a completely different meaning to the word resurrection than what it meant in Judaism and early Christianity, namely a spiritual experience in the present that leads to an incorporeal hope for the future.“

2. In early Christianity, the resurrection moved from the periphery to the centre

„One cannot imagine Pauline thinking without it. Nor should we imagine Johannine thought without it …. Resurrection is of enormous importance in Clement and Ignatius, Justin and Irenaeus. It is one of the key beliefs that enraged the pagans in Lyons in 177 AD and drove them to slaughter several Christians, including the bishop who preceded the great Irenaeus. Belief in bodily resurrection was one of two key things the pagan physician Galen noted about Christians (the other was their remarkable sexual reticence). Take away the resurrection and you lose the whole New Testament, as well as the theology of most of the second-century church fathers.“

3. The resurrection of a transformed body

„Within early Christianity, it was part of the core belief in the resurrection from the beginning that the new body would certainly be a body in the sense of a physical object occupying space and time, but that it would also be a transformed body, a body whose material would be created from the old material but would have new properties.“

But what about Paul in 1 Corinthians 15? An often misunderstood passage. Actually, he explains it quite well and most later writers look back on it. „But unfortunately, many translations completely misunderstand Paul here and use wording that leads to the widespread assumption that Paul is speaking here of a spiritual body in the sense of a non-material body.“ But then Jesus would not have left an empty tomb. „It can be shown in detail, philologically as well as exegetically, that this view is exactly not what Paul meant.“

The contrast he sets up is not between what we understand by a present physical body and what we understand by a future spiritual body, but between a present body animated by the normal human soul and a future body animated by God’s Spirit.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 70

„His point is that the future body is imperishable. The present flesh and blood is perishable, condemned to decay and death. That is why Paul says, „Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.“ The new body will be imperishable. The entire chapter, one of Paul’s longest continuous discussions and the decisive climax of the entire letter, is about the new creation, about the Creator God who renews creation and does not abandon it, as Platonists of all colours, including the Gnostics, would like.“

„But this transformed physicality … does not include a transformation into the light form. This is another point where many go astray and misunderstand the word glory as implying a physical shining rather than a status within the world that belongs to God. This is all the more remarkable because the most famous of the biblical resurrection texts, Daniel 12, says of the righteous who are resurrected that they will shine like the stars. Surprisingly, this text is not quoted anywhere in the New Testament when it comes to the resurrection body, apart from the interpretation of a parable. Where we do find the text, it is used metaphorically for the present Christian witness in the world.“

4. The resurrection is a two-part event

This is also centrally evidenced by 1 Corinthians 15 and this aspect is consistently accepted throughout the first two centuries. „No first-century Jew before Easter expected the resurrection to be anything other than the large-scale event that would happen to all God’s people, or perhaps even to all humanity. It would be part of the sudden event during which God’s kingdom, as in heaven, would ultimately come on earth.“

Since this is the context in which Jesus, the apostles and others said and wrote the words handed down to us, it is also the key to interpretation: „Resurrection, we must always remember, did not mean going to heaven or escaping death or having a glorious existence after death, but coming back to new bodily life after bodily death.“

Therefore, this becomes a central feature of the surprising hope of the first Christians: „The belief that the beginning of the Kingdom of God consisted in the resurrection itself, which reflected a single person in the midst of human history, in anticipation of the great, final resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus already guarantees and points to that final resurrection of the people of God at the end of history.“

5. Our task between the resurrection of Jesus and the general resurrection

The first Christians believed that the resurrection had begun with Jesus and would be completed in the last great resurrection on the last day. They therefore also believed that God had called them to work with him in the power of the Holy Spirit to realise what Jesus had achieved and thereby foreshadow the final resurrection. „It was not merely that God had already heralded „the end“, his kingdom; if Jesus, the Messiah, was the end in person, God’s future arrived in the present, then those who belonged to Jesus, followed him and were empowered by his Spirit, had the mission, as far as they were able, to change the present in the light of that future.“

6. The resurrection as a methaphor

„Within Judaism, resurrection could be used both as a metaphor and a metonymy for the return from exile. … So when resurrection is used metaphorically in Judaism, it refers to the restoration of Israel; but from the earliest days of Christianity – and this is all the more remarkable when one considers how Christianity began as a Jewish messianic movement – this meaning has disappeared;“

The new metaphorical meaning had already taken strong root in Paul’s time: resurrection as a metaphorical reference to baptism (a dying and rising with Christ), and resurrection as a reference to the new life in untiring ethical obedience, empowered by the Holy Spirit, the life to which the believer commits himself.

7. Resurrection and Messianity

The link between the resurrection and Messiahship was completely new. „In Judaism, no one expected the Messiah to die, and therefore of course no one imagined that the Messiah would rise from the dead.“

„But from the earliest beginnings, attested in texts that may be pre-Pauline fragments of very early creeds, the first Christians claimed that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, precisely because of his resurrection.“

In connection with the actual task that Israel had been given at Sinai (see serie Bearing God’s Name – why Sinai still matters) and the prophecies about the Messiah, the resurrection of the Messiah made perfect sense. It was the fulfilment of what God had planned and intended – even if people had imagined it very differently.

„This means that we can already rule out the revisionist positions on the resurrection of Jesus that so many authors have advocated in recent years. Many suggest that the first disciples were so overcome with grief at the death of Jesus that they picked up the idea of resurrection from the surrounding culture, held on to it and convinced themselves that Jesus had been raised from the dead, even though they knew, of course, that he had not been resurrected.“

„Due to the early Christian belief in Jesus as the Messiah, the belief developed very early on that Jesus is Lord and therefore the emperor is not. But even for Paul, both Jesus‘ resurrection and the future resurrection of his people are the basis of Christian loyalty to another king, another lord. Death is the tyrant’s last weapon.“ And so for Christians, the resurrection is not just about ‚life after death‘.

Resurrection is not a new description of death; it is the overcoming of death and thus the overcoming of those whose power depends on death.

Despite the scorn and derision of some modern scholars, those who were burned at the stake and thrown to the lions were people who believed in bodily resurrection. Resurrection was never a way to get cosy and gain prestige; … It was the Gnostics who translated the language of resurrection into a private spirituality and a dualistic cosmology, more or less turning the meaning of resurrection into its opposite. It was also the Gnostics who escaped persecution. What ruler would have sleepless nights worrying about his subjects reading the Gospel of Thomas? The resurrection was always predestined to get you into trouble, and it did so regularly.“

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 77

II think you are beginning to realise why N. T. Wright spoke of a surprising hope. Not only because it was surprising in the first century. But probably also for you – even if you consider yourself a Christian. So even with this topic, you may well realise when reading the Bible that it was not the textual or historical context that was decisive in the interpretation of some passages, but rather assumptions and ideas that we or others put into them – in other words, eisegesis. Take time to think about this.

So, since the resurrection has a much broader meaning than just that Jesus lived again, it is good to briefly look at whether we can believe these reports. We will then look at what surprising hope there still is in relation to God’s plan for the future. And both in the next part 4.

By Christian / Tom Wright

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This series takes up the main ideas from the book by Bible scholar N. T. Wright Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (German Von Hoffnung überrascht – Was die Bibel zu Auferstehung und ewigem Leben sagt).

Therefore, in this series I would like to present only the main points and encourage everyone to read the book for themselves and check the arguments against the Bible.

I read the book in the German translation. So the quotes are from the German translation and retranslated into English. The quotes will therefore differ from the English original.

Well prepared, but no goal in sight

This is how N. T. Wright describes what this book is about:

This book deals with two questions that have often been treated completely separately, but which, I passionately believe, belong very closely together. Firstly, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Then: What hope is there for change, for salvation, for transformation, for new possibilities within the present world?

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 21

Today, there is a vast number of different answers to this question – all of which more or less claim to be based on the Bible. And which one is right? Wrong question. It is better to ask ourselves which view is closer to what the text says. Tom Wright has a good tip on this:

And since good theology is never based on the opinion of the majority: What does the Bible teach on this subject? What do Jesus and the apostles say?

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 31

I’m afraid that unfortunately only a few people are really interested in this. But we are all influenced by what we have read, heard and seen since childhood. Ultimately, this is reflected in the behaviour of each individual. If we are living in the end times and will soon be taken to heaven by the Lord and the earth will be scorched with fire anyway, what do we care about environmental problems or climate change now? Not my thoughts, but those of quite a few evangelicals in the USA. And quite a few try to make spiritual contact with the dead. Even certain customs indicate that the conception of many differs significantly from that of Jesus‘ first disciples:

Funeral customs, new or re-emerging today, bring out the same kind of confusion. The gesture of placing objects next to the deceased in the coffin to comfort or help them in their future lives was until recently described by cultural observers as an interesting custom that has now been abandoned in modern Western society. Meanwhile, gifts for the deceased are making a comeback, with photos, jewellery, teddy bears and the like being placed in the coffin. Nigel Barley recounts stories from a crematorium employee; stories of widows placing a packet of wholemeal biscuits or the deceased’s second pair of glasses and dentures in the coffin. In one case, a widow placed two aerosol cans of glue in the coffin. Her husband had always used it to glue his toupee on. The spray cans caused an explosion, bending the door of the crematorium’s combustion chamber.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 35

There is probably no better way to summarise the situation than this:

Most people simply do not know what the Orthodox Christian faith actually consists of.

Frankly speaking: What we have today is not „the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead“, as the old liturgies say, but the vague and fuzzy optimism that things will somehow be all right in the end.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 36, 51

Therefore, we will now need to address some key issues relating to our hope based on Scripture:

1. How can we know anything at all about all these things?
   The Church of England says: In Scripture, tradition and reason. And in an appropriate mixture. „I submit that a good proportion of our present view of death and the afterlife derives from none of these sources, but from cultural impulses which have generated at best semi-Christian informal traditions.“ (S. 53)
2. Do we have immortal souls, and if so, what are they?
3. Jesus‘ own resurrection must be the starting point for all Christian thinking on the subject of hope.

To do this, we have to go back two thousand years in history.

Early Christian hope in its historical context

The resurrection of Jesus is described in the New Testament in the Gospels and the letters. However, with certain deviations. If the accounts were exactly the same word for word, it would be said that one source had merely copied from the other. Now, however, we are dealing with eyewitness accounts that differ from one another. This may be a problem for someone who advocates literal inspiration (See video The Canon of the New Testament – Part 9: Inspiration). But is that so unusual? You can see the same thing with eyewitness accounts today. But only in the rarest of cases would one conclude that the event described never took place. So why was the report of Jesus‘ disciples so spectacular?

Resurrection and life after death in ancient paganism and Judaism

Tom Wright summarises it like this:

The ancient world – with the exception of the Jews – insisted that the dead do not resurrect; and Jews did not believe that anyone had already resurrected or that anyone would do so by their own power before the resurrection of the dead.

As far as the ancient pagan world was concerned, the path to the underworld was a one-way street. Death was omnipotent; you could not escape it and you could not break its power once it had occurred. The ancient pagan world was therefore roughly divided into those who, like Homer’s shadows, would have liked to have a new body but knew they would not receive one, and those who, like Plato’s philosophers, did not want a body because an incorporeal soul was far better.

Within this world, the word resurrection in its Greek, Latin or other equivalents was never used to refer to life after death. The term resurrection was used to denote new physical life, after life after death, however that was imagined.

In terms of content, resurrection referred specifically to something that happened to the body; hence the later debates about how God would bring about a resurrection – whether he would work with the existing bones or create new bones etc. Such debates could only occur when it was fairly clear that something tangible and physical would be the end result.

N. T. Wright, Von Hoffnung überrascht, S. 60, 61

According to Mark 6:14-16 and the parallel passages, „Herod the Great is reported as saying that he thought Jesus might be John the Baptist, who had risen from the dead – but he did not think it was a ghost.“

„When the first Christians said that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, they knew that they were saying that something had happened to him that had never happened to anyone else and that had not been expected at all. They did not say that Jesus‘ soul had entered heavenly bliss.“ (p. 63)

What was the situation in the Jewish world? Some Jews – like the Sadducees – „agreed with the Gentiles who denied any afterlife, especially a physical afterlife. Others agreed with the pagans who thought of a glorious, albeit incorporeal, future for the soul. Here the philosopher Philo is the obvious example. But most Jews of the time believed in the eventual resurrection of the dead – that is, that God would take care of the soul after death until he would give new bodies to his people on the Last Day, when he would judge the whole world and make it new.“ John 11:24 „I know that he will rise again – at the resurrection on the last day.“

But didn’t Jesus say in Mark 12:18-27, Matthew 22:23-33 and Luke 20:27-40 that we become angels in the resurrection? Here, too, you have to read the texts carefully (preferably in the original languages): He said to be like (Matthew, Mark) or equal to (Luke) angels. And that was a discussion with the Sadducees, who completely denied a resurrection.

„Apart from this discussion, the more or less only reference to the „resurrection“ as a whole within the Gospels appears in Matthew 13:43″. And thus quotes Daniel 12:3 and thus the usual view in the Jewish world.

And what about the isolated reference in John 5:28, 29?

Do not be amazed at this; for a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come out: those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the bad deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

John 5:28,29 NASB

On this Tom Wright writes: „Up to this point he remains squarely on the map of first-century Jewish belief. In contrast to his redefinition of the kingdom and messianicity, he seems to have had little or nothing new to say on the question of resurrection. Except that he then begins to tell his followers that he himself will be killed and then resurrected three days later. …. But the Gospels insist again and again that the disciples simply could not understand what Jesus was saying.“ (p. 65) They discussed among themselves, somewhat confused, what this „rising from the dead“ could mean (Mark 9:10; interestingly reported only in Mark)

This was not because these disciples simply didn’t know their Bible well enough or were even a little slow on the uptake. The resurrection of a single person before ‚that time‘ was simply beyond their imagination.

So for them, Jesus‘ crucifixion was the end of all their hope. „Nobody dreamed of saying: „Oh, that’s okay – he’ll be back in a few days.“ Or: „Well, at least he’s in heaven with God now.“ According to Luke 24:21, they were thinking, „We had hoped he was the one who would redeem Israel.“ In other words, „the crucifixion meant that the kingdom had not come, not that it had come. The crucifixion of a „would-be Messiah“ meant that he was not the Messiah, not that he was. When Jesus was crucified, every single disciple knew what that meant: „We backed the wrong horse. The game is over.“

So this is the context in which early Christian hope was proclaimed. If we keep this in mind, we understand much better the surprising character of early Christian hope, which we will look at in the next part.