The Wright View of Resurrection
July 22nd, 2008 by Sean
In April of this year, 2008, Veritas Forum brought N.T. Wright to Emory University. His talk was titled, Why Does Jesus’ Resurrection Matter? Considering Its Relevance for Today. If you would like to watch or listen to these two lectures click on the appropriate links below or go to the Veritas website to get them.
| part one: [audio] [video] |
| part two: [audio] [video] |
I found the following statement so amazing that I typed it out so those of you who don’t have the time to listen to this can rejoice with me over this remarkable truth.
The good news is that one day the thin veil that separates heaven and earth will be drawn aside and the Jesus who Christians believe is personally present though hidden in the heavenly dimension at the moment will be the central figure of that new world. That’s why some of the New Testament writers don’t talk about his coming they talk about his appearing. He is present but hidden and will one day appear. And when he does it will be in order to set everything right–all those prophecies about God doing justice at last will come true through him–and all because of the resurrection. That’s what Paul said was the climax of his speech in Athens before all the skeptical philosophers of his day. They were not really up for this stuff at all. He said God has fixed a day on which he will judge the world, in other words, call the whole world to account, and put it right. And he will do it through a man whom he has appointed and of this he has given assurance to all people by raising him from the dead. That is the center of the Christian message.
And then, of course, it goes on, that in that new world those who are in Christ will be given new bodies. The resurrection of the body–it’s a totally strange doctrine to many devout Christians who really do think that the name of the game is to get their soul into a disembodied place called heaven. And when they say, “I believe in the resurrection of the body,” in the creed, they think, “but I don’t really mean that, we actually know it’s the immortality of the soul.” Well, that’s just being fooled by the incipient Platonism of much Western culture. But, if you have that vision of creation and that vision of justice then resurrection, as I’ve said, is where you get. And the point is this: the physicality that we are promised in the future is an immortal physicality. Immortality doesn’t mean disembodiment, that’s a Platonic lie. It is, Paul said, an immortal physicality; it will go through death and out the other side. It is not a resuscitation; it’s a different body but in continuity with the present one.
Hi Sean,
you typed N.T. Wright’s comment
It seems that Mr. Wright thinks that “immortalitiy of the soul” and a resurrected life throughout the ages in heaven (the spiritual realm, the presence of God) are one and the same ? but are they one and the same? I don’t think so!!
Being raised with a new “spiritual body” and thereafter living in the spiritual realm in the presence of God throughout the ages is NOT the same as the sould being immortal, is it? To make such equation only shows a lack of understanding of the nature of the resurrection as being “spiritual”, which most likely is due to the (incorrect) assumption that the dear are raised with a “PHYSICAL body” rather than a “SPIRITUAL body”? Furthermore, who says that the creeds he refers to are divine truth and not human tradition?
Cheers,
Wolfgang
Wolfgang,
In that comment, Dr. Wright was describing what many Christians think. Then he critique that common belief about the immortality of the soul by saying that to believe this way is to be “fooled by the incipient Platonism of much Western culture.”
I have no idea. They sound the same to me because I think you are using the word “spiritual” in contrast to the word “physical,” which is not necessarily always correct.
I think when it comes to the question of NT Wright and his understanding of the resurrection, we need to tread quite carefully. He is one of the top scholars in the world on what 1st century people thought about their dead and also what they thought about resurrection. If I were to guess at what his response would be to you it would be, “what would be more spiritual than a transformed physical body?” Wolfgang, we’ve been down this road before and I would suggest that though you don’t believe in gnosticism, your comments sound like that’s what you are advocating–that matter is evil and disembodied spirits are good, etc. Jesus’ resurrected body was physical, people could touch it. We are to be like him when we are resurrected, that is why he is called the first fruits.
Whether or not the creeds are true was not his point. He was saying people are forced to say they believe in resurrection because the creeds say so, but that is uncomfortable for them because they don’t really believe in resurrection.
I had just found that presentation a couple of days ago and had started listening to it a little bit. But I have read [a good chunk of] his book on The Resurrection of the Son of God. My take on some of the things he has said concerning this issue is that he still believes in one’s “soul” going to heaven (in some sort of not fully conscious state) when one dies ala Lazarus and the rich man but then the BODY is resurrected to once again join the soul. He uses the expression “life after life after death” to express his idea. And he definitely speaks to the idea that this is the point of emphasis that the Scriptures make about our hope. What I appreciate about his work is that it opens the door to get folks to reevaluate their understanding on this topic. For him to come to the conclusion of believing what we do about death and resurrection would take him from approaching the fringes of heresy to full blown heretic — not something I would expect to see from some one so high up in the Church of England.
Hi Brian,
you mentioned above concerning what you understood from Mr. Wright’s book
Now, would that not be promoting the immortality of the soul? If the soul does not die but continues to live in order to be embodied again with a new body, then the soul is in fact immortal and continues to be alive all along … !?! Now, I thought from what had been mentioned earlier that Wright was actually opposed to the idea of an immortal soul, and yet from you comment it seems he is actually believing in and promoting that the soul is in fact immortal, whereas the body is mortal and is resurrected.
I do not think that the Bible teaches such a concept …
Cheers,
Wolfgang
Hi Sean,
a few thoughts. You mention above
I am all in favor of treading carefully in order to arrive at a true understanding of the Scirptures … BUT I am no longer easily blinded by “top scholars” or “non-top scholars”, and have come to the point of regarding men’s understandings rather equally as being men’s opinions. Why would Mr. Wright know better what 1st century people knew and believed than other folks who read the same NT scriptures as he does?
You are correct that I do NOT believe in or hold gnostic ideas such as matter being evil and disembodied spirits are being good, etc … It seems however that you actually somehow hold the opposite idea that “a spirit being” (or what you call, “a disembodied spirit”) is evil or not good enough and therefore you dismiss the plain teaching of 1Co 15 which speaks of the resurrected person as being clothed with a SPIRITUAL body and replace it with the resurrected person being clothed with a PHYSICAL body …
I would say that we must consider the truth that Jesus was (a) raised indeed with a SPIRITUAL (non-physical, invisible) body and (b) was showing himself for the period of 40 days at specific occasions and events in a physical body resembling his former physical body with the wounds etc for the sole purpose of attesting and confirming to the disciples that it was indeed he who had been raised from the dead. Consider that Jesus was NOT seen ALL OF THE TIME during those 40 days by his disciples … Consider that he could seemingly “appear out of nowhere” (that is, being invisible he appeared in his physical bodyto be visible) … Consider that special emphasis is placed in Scripture on the truth that Jesus’ physical body was not left in the grave to corrupt, but that he was raised from the dead before corruption did set in …
Yes, he is the firstfruits of those resurrected from the dead, but let’s make sure we don’t get the wrong picture of taking what happened during the 40 days on earth during which he showed himself at various times in his physical body to his disciples after the resurrection to demonstrate and prove that he had indeed been raised from the dead as the “normal resurrected state” of a resurrected person … his “normal resurrected state” was in an invisible spiritual body!! And such a spiritual body all those who will be raised or changed to eternal life will also receive! BUT nowhere does Scripture teach that all will receive in the resurrection a new physical body to permanently live once again on planet earth.
Cheers,
Wolfgang
The point I was making is that Dr. Wright is a first class historian of the first century. He has not just read the New Testament, but everything else from the period (in the original source languages) and he really does know what he is talking about when it comes to the question of what 1st century people (both Jew and Gentile) believed about death and resurrection. The problem is that both you and I read the same biblical data and come to different views. You say that the resurrected person is in an immaterial body. I say that they are in the same body but transformed to be incorruptible and immortal. I think your idea of resurrection involves people being invisible. So, it may be helpful to understand what a 1st century person would have understood when he read 1 Cor 15.
I do not see a contradiction between spirit and physical. That was a gnostic distinction. They thought the goal was to escape the material (physical) universe and go to the Pleroma. When you say body, you mean two arms, two legs, head, etc. (consisting of all the body parts) right? So the word, “body,” assumes physicality. There is no such thing as an invisible or an immaterial human body right? So if we say spiritual body, it doesn’t change the body to be not a body, but describes how this body is uniquely transformed by the spirit of God to be incorruptible and immortal. If I say, “that is a spiritual book,” I don’t mean the book is invisible or immaterial, but that its content is related to spiritual matters or perhaps that its content is related to God.
Will you have a chance to watch the video? I think it may be helpful.
Brian,
Sorry to hear about your accident. Perhaps you’ll have time to read through the rest of Wright’s big book on resurrection and report all of your findings to us? You said:
I’m pretty sure that Dr. Wright believes the intermediate state is conscious (or semi-conscious) and that the person is in sheol/hades/paradise where they rest from their labors until resurrection when the real action begins to happen. I don’t think he actually believes anyone ever goes to heaven (except Jesus).
Wolfgang,
I agree that the Bible does not teach the immortality of the soul. Like many theological concepts, everything is interconnected — one’s understanding of resurrection is shaped by our understanding of body, soul and spirit, what happens when someone dies, what happened to Jesus when he died, what happened to Jesus when he was resurrected, etc. To understand what happened to Jesus when he died we need to have the correct understanding of who he is and who he is not. One thread pulls another which pulls another, etc., etc., etc.
My appreciation for NT Wright is that he reaches a LOT more people that I ever will and if he can get some of them to look more Biblically at this subject, I think that’s good. I appreciate many of your entries on this site, yet I think you are wrong about some things.
A point of clarification, I do believe Wright represents it as a semi-concious state, and at one point, if I remember correctly, analogized it as sleep!
I read NT Wright’s latest book, which is excellent, as well as the tome “Resurrection of the Son of God” (or something like that).
His views on “our state” between our death and resurrection are a little hard to pin down. He does believe, I think, that there is something about us that “exists” during that time. I think that he uses an analogy by John Polkinghorne that our soul is like software and our body is like hardware. When we die, the old hardware gets thrown into the dumpster, but not before the software is stored on that great disk array in the sky. At the resurrection our software is downloaded into our new hardware. (Apologies to the non-techies in this thread).
His point in his latest book is that it is destructive for our hope to be based on “going to heaven when we die.” Yes, something does go to heaven but that is not the point. We should view our physical existence as what God intended for us (not an existence as an immortal soul). This has implications for how we act as stewards today. We should care about the environment, the homeless, etc. (yes, there is a hint of political liberalism that comes through here).
I would highly recommend his latest book. It will not satisfy all conditionalists, but it is a very positive step in the right direction, in my view.
Boy, I comment for the first time in a while and Sean corrects me right off the bat. This is a tough crowd. I think you are right about NT Wright not speaking of going to heaven, although I think the comments made by you, John O, Tim and myself demonstrate it’s a little tough to nail down exactly what NT Wright believes about the (non existent) intermediate state. Maybe that goes to show that if you skip it altogether, your better off and have a more true Biblical understanding of death and the resurrection — the resurrection is not just of the body, but of the person. Sitting here with a busted foot anticipating weeks of recovery only whets my appetite more for that resurrection body that will not decay, get sick or have bones break. We, like creation “ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
Tim
I thought your comments were very insightful and captured my own thoughts about this subject
This seems great. I read the excerpt and almost jumped out of my seat as I sit here drowning in my mortality, dealing with sinus problems in the Far East. NOTE: The download links need to be updated.