Introducing The Problem
A fair number of people in the church do not believe in the resurrection.
Many who say they do, actually have some idea of a watered down version –
resurrected in spirit form
resurrected in the minds of his followers
resurrected in the life of the church organisation he left behind.
But many do not believe in the Resurrection in the New Testament sense – Jesus truly coming alive again, in a physical body that was as real as those around him.
Jesus coming alive again in a real body that could be physically touched, and yet strangely a body that could pass through walls.
Jesus coming alive again in a real body, and not dying a second time, leaving us with the awkward situation of recognising that somehow, he's still got that body. Somehow, being now with the Father, in a heaven which therefore has to be the kind of place that can accommodate that kind of physical body.
That journey from life, through death, to resurrection, to what now, is very confusing for many Christians.
Many Christians are not just confused about what happened after Jesus died, but are just as confused about what is going to happen when they die.
During life, all this faith stuff, all this bible stuff, and belief stuff, can be just a comfort blanket for when we are feeling unloved or alone or guilty. But at death, this faith/bible/belief/Christianity stuff is the only boat leaving the shore.
It's the only way to get across the river Styxx! It's the only escape. And that's uncomfortable. But given that I, for one, will almost certainly be making that journey sometime in the next 15 year, I prefer not to be confused about it.
Some follow the popularly held line – if you're good you'll go to heaven, if you're bad you'll go to hell. Some say, if you are a Christian, you'll go to heaven, if not, you won't. Some say, if you are a follower of Christ, you'll go to heaven, if not then something else will happen, we're not quite sure. But where, and how, does RESURRECTION fit into this?
And what has Jesus' resurrection got to do with whether I end up in heaven or hell. And for many, who have never been able to see a connection, they believe that it is okay to doubt the veracity of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Getting It Consistently Wrong
Unfortunately, over the centuries, the church has been a bit like a sponge, soaking up popular culture and integrating it into it's theology. And perhaps the most significant idea that has found it's way into the Christian mindset, is that when we die, we go to heaven!
That idea, that the earth is just rubbish to be tossed in the bin without a second thought, as we all rapture away to a wonderful floaty spiritual existence in heaven, was born not out of biblical Christianity, but out of Greek Platonism.
The Greek Platonists, took the view that everything physical was doomed, as intrinsically evil, and the real good stuff existed in a special spiritual plane, of which this physical world is a kind of poor shadow. And the shadow would just disappear, when the spiritual reality showed up.
So beware of taking your theology from the songs of Jim Reeves, who sang “Some sweet morning, when my life is through, I'll fly away”
Beware of letting such hymns as “Abide With Me” shape your thinking! When we sing the line “Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee”, I can imagine the cloud of witnesses shaking their heads in frustration. Witnesses like the ancient Jews whose views are clear in the Old Testament, like Paul who clarified it further in his letters, like John who wrote reams about future cosmology, and Jesus who spelled it out in the Gospels.
We've got this wrong idea that all we really need to value is heaven, because earth is a kind of temporary disposable commodity. And it has taken root so deeply that we interpret everything we read in the bible based on that idea. Which leads to the most unhelpful misunderstandings – especially when we read the words of Jesus.
This error crept into your psyche very early on! As a young child, you sang “Away in a Manger”. Every child, even today, surely knows the words. And the phrase which the small child is left with, impressed upon his young brain is “and fit us for heaven, to live with thee there!”
Let me say this unequivocally – you are not going to end up living in heaven! It's not your destiny.
You know, we stand and sing that fabulous hymn “How Great Thou Art”, we work up to the crescendo of the last verse, and sing “When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation, and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.” Or we listen to that old gospel song “This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through”.
Even Charles Wesley (I'm currently a Methodist!) in that hymn that probably 50% of Christians sing on Easter Morning – Christ The Lord Is Risen Today – has the wrong emphasis in the line “ours the cross, the grave, the sky”. Believe me, fellow Christians, the sky is not where you and I are going to end up.
Hymns and songs are particularly powerful at planting ideas. So it is unfortunate that so many of them have got it plain wrong! The more you read your Bible, the more you have to ask yourself, where on earth does it say that in here? If you were able to pick up the Bible for the first time, and read it through, you may end up various ideas about the future, but the notion that at death, you will be transported away to heaven, to live there eternally with God, wouldn't be front runner. Of course, you could if you ignored the whole of Revelation, significant chunks of Paul's letters, and a number of very significant things that Jesus himself said about the Kingdom of Heaven.
So What Does Happen When We Die
We have to approach this with due humility. Of course, we don't know! At best, we're looking through dark glasses at a very dim picture. But Jesus gave us some very significant clues in his parables. Consider Lazarus and the Rich Man – a much misunderstood story – not helped by consistently bad translation over the years in a wide variety of Bible versions.
People will often take this story as proof that after death, the bad, however they are defined, go to Hell, and the good, however defined, go to Heaven. And that's it!
But beware. First, note Jesus is telling a parable about the contrast between one's lot in life on earth, versus one's position on a spiritual dimension. So we can never try to draw specific theology from the side details! Because that ignores the point of the story.
In the same way, when you hear a preacher tell a joke about a lawyer who arrives and has a difficult conversation with St Peter at the pearly gates, you don't take away from that the idea that Peter really does stand there, or the gates are really pearly! You get the main point of the joke and the rest is context, to set up the main point. So let's take care here.
But what we do know is that at the time, those who listened to Jesus, had the idea that at death, you went to a hidden place, a covered place.
In the OT, we find that everyone goes there – it's called Sheol in the Old Testament. Good and bad. Samuel said that he and Saul would be there together. David talked about going there, Moses went there, so did Josiah, Hezekiah, etc, etc. It was a one-place-fits all location.
In NT times, the Greeks had a concept called Hades, which was similar, but had more mythological baggage. In Greek mythology, Hades has a variety of different zones, ranging from Elysian Fields (a good place for good people to go!), the Asphodel Meadows (a totally neutral place for those whose good balanced their evil), and finally Tartarus (a really bad place for really bad people). And the Romans in NT times had a similar bunch of ideas.
The Jews in NT times had continued to believe in this hidden or covered place too, but it had morphed a bit, with a separation in Sheol / Hades. Now it's divided by a chasm, with good people on one side (and they used the metaphor of Abraham's bosom or Paradise), with bad people on the other side (and they used the metaphor of flames of punishment). And by this time, the Jews understood that this was a temporary holding place, until Judgement Day.
And Jesus did not contradict or redefine the contemporary view. But note, this conversation between Lazarus and the Rich Man is taking place, while others are still alive on earth – the rich man talks about his brothers – still alive. So this is clearly not AFTER JUDGEMENT DAY! This is undoubtedly a direct reference to that temporary holding place, it is not anybody's final destiny. That is why it is so unhelpful for this to be translated as the word Hell. In fact, I believe the word Hell should not appear in the Bible at all. It carries too much mediaeval baggage, and it is used to translate a variety of different words that mean different things.
So when we die, we are in that temporary resting place.
In this letter to the church at Corinth, Paul is trying to spell out the essential crucial part that Jesus resurrection plays in the plan of God. At the resurrection, Jesus defeated death, it could not hold him.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
When Jesus Christ appears/returns (the word parousia means both), we who have died will have a real physical resurrection, in exactly the same way that Jesus did.
Then what happens … let's ignore what the hymns say, and what our traditions say, and let's see what the Bible says …
Look, creation is watching and waiting, groaning like a woman in childbirth (it says later), and when it sees those who have died in Christ coming back to life, it knows that soon it's going to be set free.
And again, lets check out ...
We, who get resurrected, just like Jesus, have a new earth to live in. But then – look what happens – God comes to live with us!
It happens in a new world, which is joined by a new heaven. And the new world comes out of the old world somehow. Don't believe for a moment that because the Bible says “all the elements will melt in fervent heat” that somehow this world does not matter. Hold that verse in tension with this other picture of a woman pregnant with a child. This world is somehow pregnant with the new one.
Do you think for a minute that green and pleasant Dorset is not going to be redeemed, that the majesty of the Grand Canyon will not have a place in God's new earth, that the detail of the butterfly's wing will somehow be missing. Every good thing that he has made will be made anew, better, stronger, purer, and yet, like you and I, each good thing still quintessentially itself.
And let me tell you something even more breathtaking than that – God has started it already. He has millions of seeds of the New Creation already hidden deep but growing each day, stronger and newer. You know what the tiny seeds of life in this old world are?
You know don't you!!
Jesus said “I am going to prepare a place for you”
Let me ask you, what is Jesus doing right now?
… the actual work involved in preparation is the creation in this world of people made new. Paul said “I am a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come”. It was shown to John, recorded in Revelation, that God said, “Look, I'm making everything new”.
When Jesus came out of the grave, things began to get made new that day. It carries on inside you and me today. And it will end up with the entire cosmos remade. From the crash of thunder to the dischords of jazz, from the spinning of galaxies to the folding of proteins, from the kiss of young love to the birth of a new life, it always has been jaw-droppingly good right from the start, but remade, it's going to be … [ok, I'm out of words].
So please don't think "I'm going to wave goodbye to this old place – what does it matter – what does it matter what I think or do about communities, nations, political systems, commerce, industry. My spiritual destiny is disconnected from all that."
No, we're living in a rebel colony, there's an absent master, who is coming back, to establish his rule and his reign – HERE! And in the light of that, we are called to say to both the human and the demonic ruling class, “this present world is not your plaything, not yours to abuse any way you want to. Jesus Christ is Lord, and his rule and reign is already here, in some people, in some lives, in some relationships, and his rule and reign are coming, and you are accountable to Him. Take care!”
And what we do matters. Every single thing we do and say in Jesus name, will not be destroyed, but it will last for eternity! Every word, every glass of water, every organisation bettered, or institution reformed, every person refreshed or helped.
What's more important, the future or the present? I believe the present. The focus of the gospels is what we do today, but what we do today on earth, can be gold, silver, precious stones, which will survive and grow and flourish in that great transformation when God makes the whole cosmos new.
You and I are part of God's huge plan to redeem creation. May we be faithful as he calls us to play our part.
(Especial thanks to Bishop Tom Wright for doing such a sterling job at crystallizing some of this for a lot of people. Although I personally had to take recourse to a dictionary rather too often!!)
