After a lengthy google search, I managed to discover one Protestant church in the greater Kansas City area was having an Ascension Day service last Thursday. Overjoyed at finding my quarry, I happily drove the 20+ minutes to attend this service. Including myself and the other person who came with me, there were five people in attendance, including one person who arrived half way through. I guess this means that in Kansas City, approximately 4.5 Protestants celebrated Ascension Day this year. I wonder if this is an all time record low since the founding of Kansas City. Suffice to say, celebrating the Ascension of Jesus is not high on the priority list, let alone on the radar screen of the Protestant Church at large.

But why should it? The Ascension is one of those topics that seems to have slipped off the general theological grid in contemporary Christianity (nevermind the Presentation or Transfiguration). Both the ascension and session (“being seated at the right hand of the Father”) of Jesus are given prominent places in both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed (indeed, considering what is NOT said in the creeds, being mentioned at all is a place of prominence). The early church apparently considered the Ascension to be a critical component of true Christian faith. However, perusing through one of the most popular evangelical systematic theology books in print at present, the Ascension is squashed into the end of the chapter on the resurrection. In fact, the topics of providence, miracles, angels, satan and demons, the di/trichotomy of human nature, election and reprobation and the intermediate state EACH receive more coverage than the resurrection and ascension combined, though the early church didn’t perceive any of those topics to be crucial enough to be included in the creeds.

I am gathering that Ascension Day has come to such a low place of recognition because in the average evangelical consciousness, the possible meaning for the ascension is rather opaque. Perhaps, if at all, it is endowed with a negative meaning - Jesus is no longer with us in person. We are alone to do what he told us to do until he finally comes back. I hope in the following to merely in outline, amend this theological lacuna, which turns out to be significantly more practical and pastoral than one at first might imagine.

1) The Ascension means Jesus is the world’s true Lord.

The grand prayer in Ephesians 1 culminates with the statement that after God raised Jesus from the dead, he “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,   far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” To be in heaven is not to be “out-of-sight out-of-mind.” Rather, heaven in the Bible is thought of as the “control center” for the earth (cf. the parallelism in 2 Chr. 20:6; Job 38:33; Ps. 103:19). For Jesus to be seated in heaven, means that he is the world’s true lord and king over all.

2) The Ascension means heaven and earth are not as far apart as we might have thought.

It is funny how the way we think is often opposite to the way reality works. When we think of the ascension, we think of Jesus going away and not being with us. The exact opposite is expressed in Matthew 28. While this passage does not explicitly mention the ascension, it bears several features in common with the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts including Jesus taking his disciples to a mountain, teaching them and commissioning them to spread the gospel. It is not a stretch to think that they were the same event (though it technically doesn’t matter for what I am about to say). It is precisely here that he gives the promise, “I am with you always even to the end of the age.” How can Jesus ascend to heaven and be with us always? It is commonly assumed that this promise refers to the Holy Spirit. But what about the 10 days in between the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit? Where those days exempted from “always.” The only way this can be true is if Jesus can be “in heaven” and with us at the same time. My sense is that this promise implies something that we as contemporary Christians often fail to grasp – that early Judaism conceived of heaven and earth, not as discrete locations a long way off from each other – but as two overlapping and interlocking dimensions of God’s created world. Think about this one the next time you are shouting at God “up in heaven.”

3) The Ascension means that the restoration of the full destiny of humanity and the entire earth is not as far off as we might have thought.

Hebrews 2 quotes Psalm 8 in saying “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them. You have made them a little lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.” The Psalmist’s awe at God’s consideration of humankind has less to do with “feeling good about yourself” as much as it does with the role and destiny God gave human beings of ruling the earth (cf. Gen. 1). It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if humans are ruling the world, they are doing a terrible job, but more so it seems like the world is completely out of the control of humans. Lots of people seem desirous to do things right, whether in personal, familial, local, national or global contexts, be we can never seem to get it right, and often make matters worse either by our incompetence or intention.

The author to the Hebrews agrees with this in quite an understatement – “As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them (meaning humans).” He goes on to say, “but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.” How precisely is this an answer to the problem that God gave humans rulership over the earth, and as of yet it is completely out of control, full of death, decay and despair?  Because, Jesus as a human has been exalted to the heavens, he now sits in a place of rulership over the earth. Though we do not yet see the earth under the gracious rulership of humans intended by God, there is one human who has gone before the rest and is currently, as a token, fulfilling the destiny of the human race – Jesus the Messiah. The ascension of Jesus tells us that the restoration of humanity’s destiny — wherein our propensity towards destroying the creation would be healed and we exercise co-regency with God in establishing a gracious reign of justice, peace and life on earth — has begun in Jesus.

4) The Ascension means that we are to exercise this authority NOW

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” (Ephesians 2:3-6)

Apparently heaven and earth are not that far apart considering we can be in both places at once! I won’t try to explain exactly what I think this means now, but the immediate meaning is apparent – the authority that Jesus has at the right hand of the Father, we partake with him in the present. Jesus’ rule over the universe is something he already is sharing with those who are “in the Messiah.” The justice, peace, life and joy of the age to come is not something we are simply to wait for – it is something we have both the authority and responsibility to implement now. So much for the easy Christian life – we’ve got work to do!

Almighty God, who did raise your beloved Son from the dead and seated him at your right hand, so now restore your people from the mire of Death’s hold and the darkness of Sin’s night, that the light of his gracious rule might shine through our lives, growing brighter and brighter until the fullness of day, through Jesus the Messiah our Lord…

Related posts

• Will You Forget Me Forever? (1)
• Theology of Creation in Isaiah Part 3 – Isaiah 40.21-24 (0)
• Resurrection and New Creation (Part 2) – Whirlwind Tour of the Gospel of John (2)
• Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 4) – The Overarching Story of Scripture (14)
• Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 2) (13)

Any discussion of how Christianity relates to other religions must first begin with a clear and concrete articulation of what Christianity is centrally about. Much discussion on religious pluralism assumes or posits a universal notion of what is “central” to religions (a norm to which Christianity conforms) or that the content of Christianity is flexible (that which does not conform to the “center” is shed). For example, Paul Knitter explains that, “Every religion, it would seem, seeks to place its followers in contact with a Reality, or to provide them with an exercise, whereby they can break the bonds of ego-clinging in order to embrace and be part of and so be transformed by that which is other.”[1] John Hick, similarly, would locate this soteriological locus “as an actual change in men and women from natural self-centredness to, in theistic terms, God-centredness, or in more general terms, a new orientation centered in the Ultimate, the Real.”[2] Hick also points to the universality of something akin to the “Golden Rule” amongst the major traditions as indicative of this shared soteriological emphasis.[3] Once this center has been determined, Hick believes it is possible (indeed, necessary) to postulate a Christianity without a trinity of unique persons, a de facto incarnation of God in the flesh, or a substitutionary atonement (of any kind).[4] Perhaps if one is seeking to arrive at a general theory of religion, such abstract and vague generalizing is a necessary starting place. However, to address the relationship of  Christianity to the other world religions, one must first begin with an adequate expression of what Christianity is, in its own right, before determining potential areas of coherence and/or incoherence with the other great traditions.

The Biblical text begins (Genesis 1-2) with an account of God creating the world (which is oddly enough, a polemic against the leading, and of course the non-leading, accounts of cosmology and theology in the surrounding cultural milieu). This confession of God as creator finds expression repeatedly throughout the Bible.[5] The fact that Yhwh was recognized as the sole creator of the cosmos, means that at least four other religious options cannot be true: (1) henotheism (confession of Yhwh as creator affirms God’s ontological, not merely practical, superiority over the so-called “gods” of the nations); (2) pantheism (confession of Yhwh as creator affirms that God is ontologically distinct from the creation, having an existence both separate and prior); (3) deism (confession of Yhwh as the creator-God was frequently the basis for Israel’s belief that God would intervene in history, not that God was untouchable beyond it); and (4) Gnosticism (the world is the good creation of the one true God, not the bad creation of a foolish lower demiurge).[6] Chapters 3-11 recount the devastating downward spiral the creation takes directly on account of human decisions and behavior. In the opening chapters of the Bible themes are established which are maintained and serve as foundational throughout the rest of the corpus of Scripture: (1) Yhwh is the one true God; (2) the world is affirmed as the good creation of the creator God; (3) the pristine (though not necessarily perfect) created order is corrupted by human sin; and (4) human action repeatedly and progressively destroys the created order. As for this final point, David Clines aptly summarizes Genesis 1-11 in saying, “Humankind tends to destroy what God has made good. Even when God forgives human sin and mitigates the punishment, sin continues to spread, to the point where the world suffers uncreation. And even when God makes a fresh start, turning his back on uncreation forever, humanity’s tendency to sin immediately becomes manifest.”[7]

In chapter twelve of Genesis, God makes a covenant with Abraham and his descendents. They are to be the people through whom the blessing originally granted in Genesis 1, deconstructed in chapters three through eleven, would be mediated to the entire earth. “Abraham emerges within the structure of Genesis as the answer to the plight of all humankind…Abraham and his progeny inherit the role of Adam and Eve…[they] are to be the means of undoing primeval sin and its consequences.”[8] They will be God’s agents in restoring the corrupted and decaying earth.

Thus the nation of Israel is born. Nearly immediately however, and such becomes a recurrent theme throughout the Old Testament, the covenant people themselves are in peril, either through unelected circumstances (the barrenness of the matriarchs, oppression in Egypt, captivity in Babylon, etc.), interpersonal strife, or national sin which elicits God’s judgment. However, the calling to be the mediator of God’s blessing to the earth and the means by which the problem of sin would be dealt with was not rescinded. Even in the midst of the Babylonian captivity, the Book of the Prophet Isaiah calls Israel, “my servant [who] will bring forth justice to the nations” (Isa. 42:1), the “light to the nations” (Isa. 42:6), those by whom Yhwh’s “salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isa. 49:6), and those who are appointed to “restore the earth” (49:8).

To the prophets, who stood in the theological, emotional, intellectual and pastoral chasm between the unabashed calling of Israel to be God’s means of dealing with the sin of the world and the ever-precarious status of that same covenant people, it became understood that Israel’s calling would only be fulfilled by a dramatic intervention of God in history. Indeed, it would be history’s climactic moment, in which God would “bare his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isa. 52:9). This redemptive, restorative justice-effecting salvation would be a decisive act of God, through his people within the world, yet very much so from beyond the world. Within the Old Testmanent itself (Isa. 25:6-8; Daniel 12) but increasingly so in the intertestimental period, this expectation became understood in terms of resurrection, the post-mortem revivification of bodily life.[9]

It was as these expectations for God’s justice to break in upon the world reached, in many quarters, a feverish pitch, that Jesus, the one hailed Messiah, entered the world scene, announcing the Reign of God. This kingdom was understood by his Jewish followers to be in direct continuity with kingdom expectations  flowing from the Jewish prophetic writings about God’s justice and salvation coming to earth.[10] Though this has been the subject of numerous entire monographs, the life, message, ministry and actions of Jesus were meant, by him, to be understood in continuity with these messianic expectations. Of particular note are his actions at the temple (Mt. 21:12ff; Mk 11:15ff.; Lk. 19:45ff.) where he announced that it would be torn down and he would rebuild it, therein declaring himself to be Israel’s (and the world’s) messiah and king; and the Last Supper (Mt. 26:20ff; Mark 14:12ff.; Lk. 22:7ff.), where he interprets his impending death through the lens of the Passover, in which God will work to effect a New Exodus of freedom and liberation in fulfillment of his covenant with Abraham.[11] Jesus’ announcement of the nearness of the Kingdom, in conjunction with these “prophetic parables” indicate his belief that the long awaited time when God would decisively act to deal with the problem of sin and restore the entire creation in God’s salvific justice was happening through him. This great restoration was in fact inaugurated when God raised Jesus bodily from the dead as the firstfruits of the resurrection of the entire creation (cf. 1 Cor. 15:20). After his resurrection, he affirms that “all authority in heaven and on earth” had been given to him as the world’s true Lord and that the apostles were to go, in the spirit of Psalm 96 and Isaiah 52, announcing to all nations that God was bringing salvation, righteousness and wholeness near, putting the world to rights, and was simultaneously demanding their allegiance to Jesus as Lord and their submission to his kingdom proclamations (teachings).

The other New Testament writings, of Paul in particular, continue to implement the message and work of Jesus, in continuity with the story of Israel’s history.[12] They herald both the dawning new day of God’s kingdom of salvific justice upon the world,[13] yet at the same time acknowledging the lingering realities of the “present evil age,” including evil (Rom. 8:35-36), sickness (Phil. 2:26-27), suffering (1 Cor. 12:26), death (Rom. 8:10), decay (Rom. 8:20-21), and demonic powers (Eph. 6:12). Though God had decisively acted in and through Jesus, and makes his people agents of restoration, the earth still awaits a future moment of final salvation which will be brought by God to the earth (Rom. 8:18ff; 1 Cor. 15:23ff; Phil 3:20-21; 1 Thess. 4:13ff; 2 Thess. 1:6-8; 2:7-8; Rev. 21-22). This salvation, both its present downpayment and future fulfillment, is the possession of those who participate in the death and resurrection of the Messiah (1 Cor. 6:15, 10:16; 12:27; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 6:3-11; 8:1; 12:4-6; Gal. 2:19f; 5:24; 6:14; Phil 3:8f; Eph. 2:5; Col. 2:20; 3:1-4). Those who have given their allegiance to Jesus as Lord will participate in the full life of the Age to Come, while those who are not “in the Messiah” will perish (1 Cor. 1:18; 6:9ff; 2 Cor. 2:15; 4:3; Phil. 3:19). [14]

This articulation of Christian faith is, albeit, extremely abbreviated. What it hopefully makes clear is that Biblical Christianity, when expressed in concrete terms, cannot accept the soteriological proposals made by Hick and others. Of note is that the preceding articulation of Christianity did not even mention the common stumbling blocks of Trinity, Incarnation and Substitutionary Atonement, but focused on the Biblical framework in which a historically situated understanding of Christian salvation emerges. Christian salvation is not about a personalistic and moralistic attempt to move from “ego-centeredness” to “reality-centeredness.” Rather, Christianity affirms that existent reality is itself in need of salvation, both the constituent members and the greater whole. Although this salvation will certainly affect the internal orientation of individuals, its paramount feature is that it comes from God to the entire cosmos, for those who are of the faithfulness of Jesus (Rom. 3:26), those who have given believing allegiance to the world’s true Lord, Jesus (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). Christianity is thus incompatible with the major world religions, not because of certain distinctive doctrines, but because if its concepts of God, humanity, the earth and its salvation are true, then by nature, it does not allow for the truth claims of other religions in as much as they conflict with its own.

[2] John Hick, “The Theological Challenge of Religious Pluralism,” ibid, 164.

[3] ibid.

[4] John Hick, “The Non-Absoluteness of Christianity” in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Towards a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, ed. John Hick and Paul Knitter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987), 30-33.

[5] Genesis 1:1-28, 31; 2:1-25; 5:1, 2; 9:6; Exodus 20:11; 1 Samuel 2:8; 2 Kings 19:15; 1 Chronicles 16:26; Nehemiah 9:6; Job 9:8, 9; 10:3, 8; 12:7-9; 26:7-13; 28:23-26; 37:16, 18; 38:4-38; Psalm 8:3; 19:1, 4; 24:1, 2; 33:6, 7, 9; 65:6; 74:16, 17; 78:69; 89:11, 12, 47; 90:2; 95:4, 5; 96:5; 102:25; 103:22; 104:2, 3, 5, 6, 24, 30, 31; 119:90, 91; 121:2; 124:8; 136:5-9; 146:5, 6; 148:5, 6; Proverbs 3:19; 8:26-29; 16:4; 22:2; 26:10; 30:4; Ecclesiastes 3:11; 7:29; 11:5; Isaiah 17:7; 37:16; 40:12, 26, 28; 42:5; 44:24; 45:7, 12, 18; 48:13; 51:13, 16; 66:2; Jeremiah 5:22; 10:12, 13, 16; 27:5; 31:35; 32:17; 33:2; 51:15, 16, 19; Amos 4:13; 5:8; 9:6; Jonah 1:9; Zechariah 12:1; Mark 10:6; 13:19; Acts 4:24; 7:50; 14:15; 17:24-26; Romans 1:20; 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 11:12; 2 Corinthians 4:6; 5:5, 18; Ephesians 3:9; 1 Timothy 6:13; Hebrews 1:1, 2; 2:10; 3:4; 11:3; Revelation 4:11; 10:6; 14:7

[6] Nicholas Thomas Wright, New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 249.

[7] David J.A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentatuech (Sheffield: The University of Sheffield Press, 1978), 76.

[8] Nicholas Thomas Wright, New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 252, 262-3.

[9] Nicholas Thomas Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 146-206.

[10] Nicholas Thomas Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 202ff.

[11] Ibid, 406-428; 554-563.

[12] cf. Romans 1:2; 3:21; 16:26

[13] Acts 2:16-17; 26:16-18; Rom. 3:21; 14:17; 1 Cor. 4:19-20; 10:11; 2 Cor. 5:16-17; 6:1-2; Col. 1:12-14; 4:11; Heb. 1:1-2; 6:4-5; 9:25-26; 12:28; 1 Pet. 1:18-20; 1 John 2:7-8; Rev. 1:9.

[14] E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1977), 453ff., 473.

Related posts

• Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 4) – The Overarching Story of Scripture (14)
• Pentecost – The Coming of the Holy Spirit (0)
• Why Greek Matters (Part 7) – The Genesis of Jesus the Messiah (Genealogies Really Matter!) (0)
• Theology of Creation in Isaiah Part 3 – Isaiah 40.21-24 (0)
• Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 2) (13)

        Last night, I read an article in which the author asserted the notion that all suffering in the world has a divine purpose. This is not in the sense that God works good in all things (Rom. 8:28), but that God specifically plans and ordains all evil events as good, so far as to say that God is “behind Satan.” The Scripture used to validate this idea was Hebrews 12:7 (plus the surrounding verses):  “You must endure [your trials] as [divine] discipline, God is treating you as sons.1 The first interesting thing I noticed, as William Lane’s exhaustive commentary on Hebrews brought out, is that the words “trials” and “divine” are not actually in the Greek text of the Bible, but are added into the translations to help make sense of the passage. This is neither here nor there.
The underlying assumption in the author’s article was that this verse speaks to all forms of evil and suffering in the world and that these sufferings are meant by God to correct, discipline and punish us towards greater sanctification. Does the passage however speak universally? The commentary I read on the passage seemed also to be unclear. At one point he says, “Adversity and hardships are to be understood as firm correction attesting God’s love for his child.”2 Does this however, mean that since suffering is correction it is always in response to sin, or that only Christians who are in sin are persecuted? Further on the same page, he says “In this context, ‘discipline’ signifies the suffering that may have to be endured because of fidelity to God.”3  So are these sufferings correction for sin or are they because of faithfulness? It seems in context, that this passage is specifically about people who are enduring persecution for their faithful witness to the Gospel. Their being persecuted and their enduring in it confirms their standing that they are true children of God. Let’s say for argument’s sake (although it is questionable whether even this can be legitimately drawn from the text) that God specifically and intentionally ordains persecution against Christians to train them in righteousness. We can chart out the reasoning of the article’s conclusion by making a diagram.4

Even if we are willing to grant the evidence as expressed (although that in itself is possibly an oversimplified understanding of Hebrews 12), it still stands that Hebrews 12 cannot maintain an argument for a universal explanation of evil. There is no warrant for universalizing the evidence in the Scripture passage to support the claim that all suffering and evil has a divine reason. There is no justification for making the logical leap in the chart above that is necessary to come to the above mentioned author’s conclusion.
Hebrews 12 may give a divine explanation for Christian persecution and the suffering that is entailed in living a life faithful to the gospel. It does not however, give a universal explanation for evil. It does not speak to a multitude of events. In effect, it leaves unanswered the very circumstances that this type of thought attempts to give divine reason to:

•  Natural disasters
•  Physical illness
•  Poverty
•  War
•  Human trafficking
•  Child slavery
•  The inability of millions around the world to access clean water
•  Domestic violence
•  When a two-month-old child contracts a painful, incurable bone cancer
•  The rape and dismemberment of a young girl
•  Accidents that cause the sudden death of a loved one

Hebrews 12 does not teach that all of these events have a divine reason and are ordained  by God to teach the sufferers to grow in holiness. Instead we are still left wondering about why there is so much evil, so much pain. We are left without an ability to escape the gruesome realities of life to a heavenly bliss of “God’s perfect will.” We are left to grieve deeply over our own pain and the pain of others. In grieving deeply, we begin to shake off our apathy towards resisting evil and the denials of life. We get up and begin to unreservedly affirm what God has declared as good and boldly declare God’s hatred of all that is wrong. If this is where we find ourselves in response to suffering, we are in good company with the Psalmists of Israel, the apostolic company and the crucified Lord, who did not spend so much time explaining evil as they did mourning over it and resisting it.

———————————-
1 Translation from William Lane, Hebrews 9-13, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1991), 397.
2  Ibid, 421.
3  Ibid.
4  Adapted from Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (Cambridge: University Press, 2003) and David Zarefsky, Argumentation (The Teaching Company, 2002).

Related posts

• A Biblical Concept of God Gives Rise to Lament Not Apathy (2)
• Confronting the Sin of Despair – Hope as a Theology of Resistance (3)
• Being a Prophetic Voice in Times of Disaster (6)
• Will You Forget Me Forever? (1)
• The Surrender of the Son (0)