NT Wright on Heaven

NT Wright has a new book out (by the way, how does this guy do it? I'm in awe!) called, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. My copy is on its way from an Amazon.com warehouse to my door as I type!

Here's an really interesting article and interview with Wright from Time magazine. I highly recommend this short piece from Time. I'll let you know about the book after I read it, but as some of you know, NT Wright is something of a hero with me so I'm predisposed to agree with him. He's one of the top 5 people I'd like to meet someday.

Here's a short quote to whet your appetite. It has interesting resonances with Adventist theology of the nature of people, death, resurrection, heaven and hell.

Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom.

Comments

[Chad Stuart]

Let me know if he continues down this line of thought. I wonder if the subtle wording is to slowly transition people to the perspective on death that "we" share or if it is to help facilitate a way around the tough texts about sleeping, and thus still keep the same stance that the soul lives on?

[Chad Stuart]

Ryan, did you see his interview with TIME? Very interesting. His last comment is challenging to us thinking we have shared the "hope" we have.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html

Chad

[Ryan Bell]

Did you see the first sentance of my second paragraph above that says, "Here's a really interesting article...from Time magazine?"

But I guess I'm still not getting your last comment. I seem to me be reading the wrong quote. What exactly are you referring to.

I would also say that Adventists have conveniently avoided the texts that do seem to suggest that people are "with the Lord" after they die. In what sense? We can talk about that. But it doesn't do any good to pretend those concerns aren't there. I like the way Wright describes his view -

TIME: Is there anything more in the Bible about the period between death and the resurrection of the dead?

Wright: We know that we will be with God and with Christ, resting and being refreshed. Paul writes that it will be conscious, but compared with being bodily alive, it will be like being asleep. The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish text from about the same time as Jesus, says "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God," and that seems like a poetic way to put the Christian understanding, as well.

[Steven Carr]

'John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves."

That is pretty much the message of Paul, who teaches the destruction of the body in 2 Corinthians 5

It was also why the converts to Jesus-worship in Corinth were 'idiots'. They were baffled by the idea of God choosing to raise corpses, not realising that God was going to give them new bodies to replace the destroyed ones.

These early converts were wedded to the concept of resurrection as a corpse rising from the grave, and so naturally scoffed at the idea.

Paul calls them 'idiots' because their whole picture of a resurrection was fundamentally wrong. Their bodies were bodies of death from which they had to be rescued.

[Chad Stuart]

I am sure I did read your reference to the TIME article...please forgive my short term memory loss.

[Alex Carpenter]

Listened to Tom Wright hold forth at AAR in Nov and then listened to and chatted with Marcus Borg on Thursday night. I just started reading their joint book on Jesus.

With all the ex-Adventists calling us heretics regarding debatable points of salvific emphasis, I wonder why we don't get much attention for believing in soul sleep and the no real hell. It seems that, frankly, more and more thoughtful Christians are starting to believe this as well -- I guess, this is a case of Adventism being progressive ahead of the pack.