Never at any point do the Gospels or Paul say that Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven. They all say, Jesus is raised, therefore the new creation has begun, and we have a job to do. In Revelation and Pauls letters we are told that Gods people will actually be running the new world on Gods behalf. The idea of our participation in the new creation goes back to Genesis, when humans are supposed to be running the Garden and looking after the animals. If you transpose that all the way through, its a picture like the one that you get at the end of Revelation. The idea of bodily resurrection is denied when people talk about their souls going to Heaven. If people think my physical body doesnt matter very much, then who cares what I do with it? And if people think that our world, our cosmos, doesnt matter much, who cares what we do with that? Much of traditional Christianity gives the impression that God has these rather arbitrary rules about how you have to behave, and if you disobey them you go to hell, rather than to heaven. 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 fulfill the plan, you wont be going up there to him, hell be coming down here. -NT Wright, in his interview with TIME magazine
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 19:58:09 +0000
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