I’ve often heard people say, “I’m going to heaven soon, and I won’t need this stupid body there, thank goodness.’ That’s a very damaging distortion, all the more so for being unintentional.
TIME: How so? It seems like a typical sentiment.
[Bishop of Durham Tom] Wright: There are several important respects in which it’s unsupported by the New Testament. First, the timing. In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet. Secondly, our physical state. The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies. And finally, the location. At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, “Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven.” It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.
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.
TIME: But it’s not where the real action is, so to speak?
Wright: No. 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.
Amen Bishop Wright. This understanding of “life after life after death” has a tremendous impact on how we live our lives now from how we take care of our bodies to how we steward the creation, as they are things that God loves enough to redeem in the end of all things.
I remember when I first learned all of this, and realized that this is not only the biblical picture of life after death, but also the *patristic* picture of life after the death. It resolved all of the problems I had had with the picture of life after death I had been presented as a child. Thank you, Bishop Wright, for setting the record straight. The *real* biblical view is so much more beautiful than the pie-in-the-sky view most of us are given.
Does anyone remember “The Church Triumphant”? That phrase used to sum up what Christians mean about the ultimate state of being and doing – transcending this world of matter, time, and space – to which the faithful look forward. It infuriates those with minds corseted by the “epistemological correctness” of the Enlightenment, but we keep them in our prayers along with all others who suffer in more physical ways.
It is much more present in Burial Office BCP 1928.
So what about the saints, the Blessed Mother, the miracles required for sainthood by the RCC? Some level of activity is presumed there. Did St. Therese scatter rose petals after her death, or did someone do it for her? Did the Blessed Mother appear at Lourdes? Fatima? +Wright’s comments fit with what I’ve heard from the 7th Day Adventists, but wouldn’t go very well with the RCC or the Orthodox, who also have a history of visions of the holy ones who have fallen asleep in Christ.
[blockquote]St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet.[/blockquote]
Obviously St Paul was writing prior to the Assumption of the BVM.
It would be interesting to do intensive research on the patristic view(s) of heaven and hell which (with the Bible) inform Catholics and Orthodox regarding these matters.
For me, the money quote is:
What the New Testament really says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, and his resurrection was the opening bell. And when he returns to fulfil the plan, you won’t be going up there to him, he’ll be coming down here.
What’s a nice fella (at least to see this small portion of his thought) like this doing in a church with Rowan Williams, Schori and Spong?
[i] So what about the saints, the Blessed Mother, the miracles required for sainthood by the RCC? Some level of activity is presumed there. Did St. Therese scatter rose petals after her death, or did someone do it for her? Did the Blessed Mother appear at Lourdes? Fatima? +Wright’s comments fit with what I’ve heard from the 7th Day Adventists, but wouldn’t go very well with the RCC or the Orthodox, who also have a history of visions of the holy ones who have fallen asleep in Christ. [/i]
Time and eternity are two different things. A saint can be in the grave here and still alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Right or wrong, one day I will get there and find out for myself. In the words of Keith Green and Phil Keaggy: “What a day that will be! O, what a day that will be!”
For what it’s worth — Bishop Wright’s comment about Dante is straight up wrong. At every stage along the way, there is a clear distinction between hell, purgatory, and paradise as Dante is being shown them and the last day. Granted we’re talking about popular misconception, but the whole interview hangs on the correct reading of the New Testament.
Nice to have some real theological discussion to spend energy on.
These insights are more difficult for Catholics than Protestants. It is clear in Scripture that resurection the door to our future life, not something tacked on at the end to reunite our spirits and our bodies for reasons unknown.
I Cor 15 is the a main text on this subject.
Verse 20 says, “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.â€
. Our Lord’s resurection is not just a symbolic act and we partake in another. It is the act of new creation.
It seems to be that Wright often falls victim to the “correspondence” theory of truth that seems to be involved in his so-called “critical empiricism”. Thus: the Gospels give us information about the resurrection; Paul gives us information about the life after life after death. Please — I’m not about to head off into relativism and reductionism. Actually, Spong and ilk make pretty much the same mistake, except that the information is taken to be false not true.
There is mystery when we render the categorical and unconditional as narrative — which is what everything having to do with the resurrection does. In this special case, it seems to me affirmation (there is a new creation; the whole creation groans; we shall be changed, etc; all the theology that Wright so correctly lifts up) is more fundamental than information.
Again, this is not an appeal for relativism. Spong actually comes up with an absurdly reductionistic version of the resurrection (Peter had an “experience” of forgiveness) that empties it of any real witness or content. The point rather is that we are making an unconditional affirmation in faith and we have to reckon with mystery rather than schemata of timelines, sequences, etc.
Do I know what happened in the days of the resurrection? No. But I know that God was in Christ and it began when he appeared to Peter. What did he say? I can’t imagine a better answer than John 21 — in my mind or in my heart. And that’s enough.
J Champlin,
I am not sure where you disagree with Wright. I Cor 15 seems meaningless outside of providing narrative.
I guess I am unclear on your position.
In what ways are ‘these insights more difficult for Catholics than Protestants?’ Seems like plain ol’ Magisterial teaching to me.
As a matter of fact, my own experience was that it was more difficult for Protestants to take this in. As an Episcopal priest, trying to teach the difference between immortality and resurrection, you’d have thought I had taken away all hope of Heaven, since I pointed out that it isn’t immediate after all.
I may be entirely wrong if this is more difficult for one group or the other. I was thinking about the previous comments about the saints and the appearances of Mary.