Getting back to that visitor who got angry with me for referring to “C.T.” He got SO angry that he subscribed to another magazine on my behalf, which is similar in nature, but far more conservative, and far more expensive. Unfortunately he left the church and decided that I was incapable of appreciating it, so he didn’t renew it. I wish that I was still getting it, but alas… (By the way that gentleman is not the only person who gets mad at “Christianity Today,” because I do too.)
For every message I have preached from Romans thus far, there is at least one other I could have preached. So don’t feel sorry for yourself thinking that I’m overloading you with more material than you can use. Like the cartoon in last week’s bulletin, we could split far more hairs than we are.
I thought I was through with the first part of this chapter, until I read an article in a recent “Christianity Today.” It was titled: “Heaven is NOT our home.” It was written by a Mr. N.T. Wright, a bishop of the Church of England. It was from his book entitled, “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church.” The editors of the magazine made no comments about the article, so I must assume that they are in basic agreement. But I am not in agreement – basic, precise, remote, casual, or any other kind of agreement.
This evening, I’ve decided to critique this man’s heresy in order to point you toward the truth. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” As I said the article was written by N.T. Wright. With just a slip of the pen I could say that it was written by “NOT Right.” Mr. Wrong was writing about something entirely different from the Apostle Paul.
This man goes on to say, “Yet the New Testament is crystal clear on the matter: In a classic passage, Paul speaks of “the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). There is no room for doubt as to what he means: God’s people are promised a new type of bodily existence, the fulfillment and redemption of our present bodily life.” I agree with that statement, but are we thinking of the same thing?
Wrong writes, “The traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage, postmortem journey represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope. Bodily resurrection is not just one odd bit of that hope. It is the element that gives shape and meaning to the rest of the story of God’s ultimate purposes. When we talk with biblical precision about the resurrection, we discover an excellent foundation for lively and creative Christian work in the present world – not, as some suppose, for an escapist or quietist piety.” By “quietist piety” the man is referring to some sort of useless life of meditation awaiting the annihilation of the physical aspects of our existence. This man is saying that his hope is a resurrected body and life to lived in an earthly garden of Eden. He is saying that those whose hope is Heaven are only trying to escape this earth. There is a sense in which the Christian does want to escape the corruption of the curse, but our hope is not a form of escapism.
The man says, “When Paul speaks in Philippians 3 of being ‘citizens of heaven,’ he doesn’t mean that we shall retire there when we have finished our work here. He says in the next line that Jesus will come from heaven in order to transform the present humble body into a glorious body like his own.” While I agree that is not precisely what Paul is saying in that particular chapter, that is taught elsewhere. And where is the home of glorious Person of Christ with Whom we shall live for eternity? Heaven. He goes on, “Similarly, in Colossians 3:1-4, Paul says that when the Messiah appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.” That author, Mr. Wright, and I disagree on what is meant by “appear with Christ in glory.” It means both that we will be glorified, and that we will begin to abide in the glorious presence of Christ.
The article quotes some modern version of the Bible saying, “The hour is coming, indeed, it is already here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man, and those who hear will live; when all in the graves will come out, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.” In this man’s opinion the Christians’ hope of glory means a glorified body to be lived forever on earth. But, on the other hand, he doesn’t explain what the resurrection of judgment entails for the wicked. Will it too be spent here on earth? Although he doesn’t get into the subject, it appears that he doesn’t believe in a literal hell. No wonder then that he doesn’t believe in Heaven.
Although there a great many verses that this man fails to mention, he does bring up John 14:1-3 – “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
“Here we must discuss what Jesus means when he declares that there are “many dwelling places” in his Father’s house. This has regularly been taken … that the dead (or at least dead Christians) will simply go to heaven permanently rather than being raised again subsequently to new bodily life. But the word for “dwelling places” here, monai, is regularly used in ancient Greek not for a final resting place, but for a temporary halt on a journey that will take you somewhere else in the long run. This fits closely with Jesus’ words to the dying brigand in Luke: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Despite a long tradition of misreading, paradise here means not a final destination but the blissful garden, the parkland of rest and tranquility, 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 brigand’s request and Jesus’ reply: “Remember me,” he says, “when you come in your kingdom,” implying that this will be at some far distant future. Jesus’ answer brings this future hope into the present, implying of course that with his death the kingdom is indeed corning, even though it doesn’t look like what anyone had imagined: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” There will, of course, still be a future completion involving ultimate resurrection; Luke’s overall theological understanding leaves no doubt on that score. Jesus, after all, didn’t rise again “today,” that is, on Good Friday. Luke must have understood him to be referring to a state of being-in-paradise. With Jesus, the future hope has come forward into the present. For those who die in faith, before that final reawakening, the central promise is of being “with Jesus” at once. “My desire is to depart,” wrote Paul, “and be with Christ, which is far better.” Resurrection itself then appears as what the word always meant in the ancient world. It wasn’t a way of talking about life after death. It was a way of talking about a new bodily life after whatever state of existence one might enter immediately upon death. It was, in other words, life After life after death.
He continues, “Then what about such passages as 1 Peter 1, which speaks of a salvation that is “kept in heaven for you” so that in your present believing you are receiving “the salvation of your souls”? Here, I suggest, the automatic assumption of Western Christianity leads us badly astray. Most Christians today, reading a passage like this, assume that it means that heaven is where you go to receive this salvation–or even that salvation consists in “going to heaven when you die.” The way we now understand that language in the Western world is totally different from what Jesus and his hearers meant and understood. For a start, heaven is actually a reverent way of speaking about God, so that “riches in heaven” simply means “riches in God’s presence.” But then, by derivation from this primary meaning, heaven is the place where God’s purposes for the future are stored up. It isn’t where they are meant to stay so that one would need to go to heaven to enjoy them. It is where they are kept safe against the day when they will become a reality on earth. God’s future inheritance, the incorruptible new world and the new bodies that are to inhabit that world, are already kept safe, waiting for us, so that they can be brought to birth in the new heavens and new earth.”
From here this man goes on to what he calls the Christian Mission. “The mission of the church is nothing more or less than the outworking, in the power of the Spirit, of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. It is the anticipation of the time when God will fill the earth with his glory, transform the old heavens and earth into the new, and raise his children from the dead to populate and rule over the redeemed world he has made.” Then at that point this man returns to the old-fashioned, false doctrine of the social gospel. He appears to expect an a-millennial type of Heaven on earth. And if asked, he’d probably say that we are in it now, if we’d serve the Lord properly.
We don’t disbelieve in resurrection – we very much believe in a literal resurrection. We believe in the resurrection as taught particularly in I Corinthians 15. We quite literally believe verses 51-54 – “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” Not only do we believe these verses, we also believe their preceding context.
Let’s read I Corinthians 15:34-50 – “Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
Right now I live in an earthly body in an earthly world. But the Lord has promised me an heavenly body, which for the most part will be lived in a glorious heaven. “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.” This is the declaration of the Word of God. And “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” My hope is my immediate translation to Heaven either at death or at the return of the Lord. At that point I will be with Christ and I shall always be with Him. At some point my body will be resurrected, but my eternity will still be centered around Christ. Where he is there will I be also.