I know its easy to skip genealogies when reading to Bible. Loads of detail with little yield. Thought this might not be immediately apparent, the genealogies in the Gospels are rich with theological significance. Names such as Judah, Ruth, David, Uzziah, Hezekiah and Josiah that occur in the genealogy would surely have evoked many stories in the minds of readers and hearers in the first century, but none so much as the two names which head off the genealogy: Abraham and David. Altogether, Jesus is placed in the center of, so to speak; or perhaps more properly, at the end, of Israel’s history of covenant and blessing, deliverance and freedom, promise and expectation. Jesus is thus the heir of this lineage, the one who continues the story, sums it all up in himself and becomes the locus in which it reaches consummation. [Craig S. Keener, Matthew, 73-77].

However, under the surface, I suspect there is even more going on than identifying Jesus with Israel’s long history of patriarchs and kings. Perhaps Matthew is reaching back even further. The opening words of the Gospel, if I write out how the Greek letters sound for one of the words instead of translating it, are “The book of Genesis of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). In verse 18 he says again, “The genesis (γένεσις) of Jesus the Messiah…” It is pretty easy to pick up on John’s opening allusion to Genesis in the first words of his gospel, “In the beginning was the word…” Likewise, Luke’s genealogy goes all the way back to “Adam, the son of God.” Is it possible that Matthew intends for his hearers to perceive that he, along with John (and possibly Luke), is writing a “new book of Genesis” so to speak? Is he writing a story about God’s purpose to right the wrongs in the creation and be faithful to the promises he made to the patriarchs? Is the occurrence of this word yet another reminder that we are to interpret the life of Jesus within the larger drama of Israel and God’s plan to restore the blessing of Genesis 1 to planet earth? Did he understand the first coming of Jesus as the inauguration of the New Creation of all things? Of course, we could never prove such in this particular instance, but it is at least my strong suspicion…

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I am not from Texas. I am not from anywhere remotely in the South. I am a Yankee to the core. Nevertheless, I believe one of the primary deficiencies of the formal English language is the lack of a word like “ya’ll.”

The Greek language (like many languages) has (at least) two forms of the word “you,” a singular form and a plural form (akin to ya’ll). However, you would never know this reading an English Bible. The following verses (plus scores others) all use a plural form of “you”, but from the standard English translation you would never have any idea:

Matt. 5:13 - You (ya’ll) are the salt of the earth…You (ya’ll) are  the light of the world.

Matt. 7:2 – “For in the way you (ya’ll) judge, you (ya’ll) will be judged; and by your (ya’ll’s) standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

Rom. 12:2 – do not  be conformed to  this  world, but be transformed by the  renewing of your mind, so that you (ya’ll) may  prove what the will of God is, that which is good and  acceptable and perfect.

1Cor. 1:4    I thank  my God always concerning you (ya’ll) for the grace of God which was given you (ya’ll) in Christ Jesus…even as  the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed  in you (ya’ll), so that you (ya’ll) are not lacking in any gift…

1Cor. 3:16    Do you (ya’ll) not know that  you are a (singular) temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

This “plural you” has significant implications for how we interpret verses on almost every page of the Bible. For example, as in Romans 12, is Paul’s goal that each individual would be able to personally prove what is the will of God for their individual life? Or is this discernment process something that “ya’ll” do together in community? Are you individually the salt of the earth or the light of the world, or are the people of God collectively the salt and light?

Luke 17:21 is an oft quoted verse in which the KJV, NKJV and the NIV read, “the kingdom of God is within you.” This is frequently interpreted as the Amplified Bible has in its gloss “the Kingdom of God is within you [in your hearts]…” Is the Kingdom of God in our hearts? This was a strongly promoted idea in the nineteenth century as classical theological liberalism approached its height. It is precisely what Adolf von Harnack says in What is Christianity?:

“The kingdom of God comes by coming to the individual, by entering into his soul and laying hold of it. True, the kingdom of God is the rule of God; but it is the rule of the holy God in the hearts of individuals…From this point of view everything that is dramatic in the external and historical sense has vanished; and gone, too, are all the external hopes for the future.” [Adolf von Harnack, What is Christianity? Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1956, 56]

Ironically, when evangelical Christians talk about the Kingdom of God being “in their hearts,” they are in essence spouting off, not Christian orthodoxy, not something a first-century Jewish man credibly could have said, but word-for-word theological liberalism, the same theological liberalism which is ready to dispense with the deity of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the second coming of Jesus, the new creation of all things, etc. In Harnack’s mind, the notion of the Kingdom being “internal” was very much related to the way he jettisoned “all the external hopes for the future,” i.e., the New Creation of Heaven and Earth.

Because the “you” is plural, Jesus’ saying would be better translated (as the NRSV, TNIV and NASB do), “the Kingdom of God is in your midst.” The Kingdom is not a “spiritual” principle, but the demonstrable intervention of God in time and space to restore and renew life on earth. Thus the purpose of the saying is not to describe an “internal” reality of the Kingdom, but rather, the demonstration and experience of the Kingdom of God in the shared life and experience of God’s people in the public world.

A related verse is Colossians 1:27, which is often translated, “Christ in you, the  hope of glory.” I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that the “you” in this verse is also plural, although you would never know it from your English Bible. Paul is not saying that “Christ-living-inside-of-you” is the hope of glory. While of course he would not deny the reality of Christ living inside of us, this is not the point of the verse. Rather, it is Christ in the midst of the Church, the experience of the Messiah in forming a redeemed and redemptive community of self-giving love, forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, restoration and renewal, that is the hope of glory, namely, the sign in the present that gives us expectation for the fresh work of grace God will accomplish when he makes all things new at the end. The presence of Christ in the community of the redeemed is even now the present experience and advance pledge of the restoration of all things which fills our hearts with confidence and eager expectation of its certain consummation.

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It is not so much sin that plunges us into disaster, as rather despair (John Chrysostom)

Revelation 21:7-8 – “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. ⁸But as for the cowardly (timid, fearful), the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

“That which leads people to sin, seems not only to be a sin itself, but a source of sins. Now such is despair, for the Apostle says of certain men (Eph. 4:19): “Who, despairing, have given themselves up to lasciviousness, unto the working of all uncleanness and covetousness.” Therefore despair is not only a sin but also the origin of other sins.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 2.20

The Lord is wanting to confront the sin of despair. This woeful resignation to the status quo, this reconciliation with the deplorable condition of the present world order, is like a cancer in individuals and communities. Despair (with its corresponding lack of vibrant hope) destroys the uplifting, forward-looking, revolutionary aspects of the Christian eschatology and replaces it with an insipid acceptance of what is. “Whatever shall be shall be” becomes the mantra of a hope-less Christianity.  We guard our hearts from the pain of disappointment and disillusionment by burying our hopes under the spiritual guise of “contentment” or the philosophical guise of “realism.”

In such despair, especially when theologically or spiritually justified, we testify to a God who is not powerful, not loving, not faithful and not near. He is powerless in the face of the overwhelming forces of the present world. He does not care enough about humanity to create and lead us into a reality different than the present world of suffering. He is not faithful to come through to all the dramatic and seemingly “unrealistic” promises given in the Scripture. He is not near –he is so far off and disconnected to even consider the plight of fallen humanity.

In the name of “realism” we join with Camus in his goal of “thinking clearly and hoping no more.” To think clearly, to adequately assess our situation is to not hope for very much, to expect very little, to reconcile ourselves with the way all currently exists – to rescind to a “utopia of the status quo.” We then develop theological reasons as to why every bad event occurs. We do this in order to guard ourselves from the terrifying realization of the person we perceive God to be, or what kind of person to which the unfolding of history testifies. If there is not some “higher divine reason” for all the bane and blight of my life, and indeed the universal suffering around the world which at times becomes sickeningly grotesque and wicked, then there is no other conclusion to come to than that God is some combination of weak, cold, unfaithful and distant.

Such an admission would be so painful to the core of our being that we would rather live in the depression of theological despair. Everything is thus thought to be the way it was meant to be. Every act of evil, every event of suffering is thought as God giving to us as a wonderful and precious gift. In doing so, we move the conflict and tension from between our witness to the Kingdom and the contradictory present existing reality and make it into a conflict within God – God has two “wills” – he says he is the source of a good and perfect gifts, but then seems to be the source of all evil as well.

When we reconcile ourselves with the way things are, when we passively comply to a “utopia of the status quo,” nothing is required of us. We are never called up into anything great and grand, nothing other that which is and that which we already are. We never feel the need to embrace a valiance that shapes our present world by the power of the Gospel and the life of the Spirit.

We give up and give in. We surrender to the powers that be. In doing so we give credence and even allegiance to the powers of this age. We live safe lives, marked by mediocrity, complacency and dull indifference. With resignation we accept what is, while the Spirit is calling us up into something greater.

While “hoping no more” may sound like “thinking clearly” to Camus, an atheistic existentialist, for a Christian such borders on insanity if we take the testimony of Scripture to be serious. We do not need to give theological justification, and thereby give a state of permanence to the “sufferings of the present age.” We should not ask, in all things, “why did this happen?” Rather, we can answer the question Scripture does: “what will happen?” We then proclaim the Christian hope over and against the darkness of the present.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship. ²Do not conform to the pattern of this world [age], but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2

Throughout Romans, Paul has been calling the people to understand the work of new covenant and New Creation that God is effecting in Jesus. He is the New Adam. He breaks our solidarity with the family of Adam and the reign of sin and death that it entails (Romans 5:14ff). We are members of family of the Messiah, who frees humans from the powers of this age (Romans 6) and will one day liberate the entire creation from the curse of the fall (Romans 8:19ff).

In this famous passage, Paul urges the people that the manner in which we serve God in the present time is by living in non-conformity with the present age. The common translation “do not be conformed to the ways of the world” means literally, “this age,” the present evil age of sin, suffering, sickness and death. The way to offer our lives to God in light of His mercy is not to accept all that is, but to live in resistance to it, to refuse to go along with the sin, death and suffering that so often prevails. This begins with our personal lives but immediately then moves outward as the remain thrust of Paul’s letter the Romans focuses on the implications of thus in how one lives in community.

Hope as Theology of Resistance

“The messianic hope can act in two opposite directions.  It can draw the hearts of men and women away from the present into the future.  Then it makes life in the present empty, and action in the present empty – and of course suffering over present oppression too.  But it can also make the future of the messiah present, and fill that present with the consolation and happiness of the approaching God.  In this case what the messianic idea enforces is the very opposite of ‘deferred life’.  It is life in anticipation, in which everything must already be done and accomplished in a way that is final, because the kingdom of God in its messianic form is already ‘nigh’”[1]

The presence of the Messiah’s future also brings an awakened sense of the contradiction between that future and the brutal darkness of the present. Rather than minimize the tension, the brilliant colors of Messiah’s dawning reign bring the darkness of the present into sharper contrast. That evil which we had grown accustomed and indifferent to is now manifest as viciously unnatural and grotesque. After we encounter the resurrected Messiah, we cease seeing injustice as a social phenomenon, death as a phase of life and suffering as our inevitable lot. We see them as in opposition to God’s kingdom and as a betrayal of the Father’s name.[2]

Thus while in one sense, hope is a stabilizing force in our lives, empowering us through difficult circumstances, at the same time hope is a de-stabilizing force. Hope draws believers into the contradiction between the Kingdom of God and the anti-kingdom and issues forth from the deep heart as a protest against suffering, sin, injustice and death.

“If Paul calls death the ‘last enemy’ (1 Cor. 15:26), then the opposite is also true: that the risen Christ, and with him the resurrection hope, must be declared to be the enemy of death and of a world that puts up with death. Faith takes up this contradiction and thus becomes itself a contradiction to the world of death. That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promise future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.”[3]

To live in this contradiction by nature brings with it the experience of deep and profound pain, because we open ourselves to the concrete suffering and evil that pervades our age, the groan of creation and the tragedy of God in the midst of it.

This inexplicable mourning is not despair. Despair leads to reconciliation with that which is opposed to God’s Reign, the anti-kingdom. The acknowledgment of pain maintains the presence of the contradiction. If all is as it is supposed to be, there is no pain. Hence the presence of pain indicates the presence of at least an incipient resistance against darkness. It is by hope that we remain unreconciled to the world and yet maintain an “unresolved openness to the world” “until the great day of the fulfillment of all the promises of God.”[4]

[2] Carlos Bravo, “Jesus of Nazareth, Christ the Liberator,” in Systematic Theology, ed. Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuria (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 106.

[3] Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 21.

[4] ibid, 22.

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Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptised; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

John is baptising when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptiser; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.

The Baptist protests; Jesus insists. Then John says: I ought to be baptised by you. He is the lamp in the presence of the sun, the voice in the presence of the Word, the friend in the presence of the Bridegroom, the greatest of all born of woman in the presence of the firstborn of all creation, the one who leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of him who was adored in the womb, the forerunner and future forerunner in the presence of him who has already come and is to come again. I ought to be baptised by you: we should also add, “and for you,” for John is to be baptised in blood, washed clean like Peter, not only by the washing of his feet.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him. The heavens, like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open. The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin. The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that so long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honour to the body that is one with God.

Today let us do honour to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all humankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendour, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

From a sermon by St Gregory Nazianzen

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Inspired by 2 Cor. 4:6, Acts 4:2 and Rom. 1:16:

Almighty and Everlasting God, who caused the light of your glory to shine forth in the face of Jesus Christ, cause the light of your gospel to shine through your servants, that with great boldness they would testify that in Jesus there is the resurrection from the dead, thus without shame or hindrance making known the message wherein is the very power of God, through Jesus the Messiah our Lord, who is alive and and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God in glory everlasting.

inspired by Isaiah 35 and 1 Cor. 4:20:

Great Redeemer, whose Kingdom is not a matter of talk, but of power: now demonstrate the presence of your Kingdom through the lives of your people, restoring and reviving bodies, minds, relationships and communities, that with great boldness the Gospel of your Kingdom might be proclaimed, heralding the dawning of a new age, in which all things are made new, where everlasting joy will crown our heads and sorrow and sighing will flee away, through Jesus the Messiah our Lord…

inspired by Isaiah 49 and 2 Cor. 5:17-6:2:

Father of Glory, who through poets and prophets of old, announced the coming of a new Day, in which the One who has compassion on us would lead us to the restoration of all things: let the hearts of your people swell with joy and so without reserve announce that now is the Favorable Time, now is the Day of Salvation, if anyone is in the Messiah, the New Creation has come, the old order has passed away and the promised Newness has arrived, so that in the light of this breaking dawn, multitudes might be restored to you by the word of reconciliation committed to us, through Jesus the Messiah our Lord…

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Inspired by Isaiah 35 -

O God, who causes the wilderness and the dry land to rejoice, and whose very presence makes the desert blossom and burst into song: let that same power for the restoration of life overflow with compassion through your people, making the bodies of those sick well, those injured whole, those impaired strong, and those imperiled sound, that amidst the wilderness of this present age, streams might break forth in the desert, causing your creational intent for the experience of human life to rise to its fullest expression, through Jesus the Messiah, your Son, our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Inspired by 1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 5 and Revelation 21:

Creator God, by raising your Son from the dead, you have caused the firstfruits of the resurrection to burst into flower: even now, by the exceeding greatness of that same power, grant your Church to be the righteousness of God in Him, agents of your restorative presence, bringing freedom and healing to bodies oppressed by the powers of Sin and Death, that as the very Body of the resurrected Lord, we might bear witness to your triumph over darkness, testifying to the day when death will be vanquished in victory, and crying, mourning, sorrow and pain will forever cease, through Jesus the Messiah, your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Inspired by Isaiah 61 and John 20:

God of tenderness and patience, whose Son was anointed by the Spirit to bind up the brokenhearted and make the wounded whole: let this ministry never be lacking in Your Church but rather let it abound through your gracious favor, that we, being conformed to the image of Your Son, being sent as he was sent and indeed doing greater works than he, may see signs of your Kingdom’s nearness as lives are restored in anticipation of the new creation of all things, through Jesus the Messiah, your Son our Lord…

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When Jesus rose from the dead, splendor returned to the world. From the depths of death’s dark gloom, Jesus emerged triumphant and the light of new life shone out permeating the entire earth. God’s redemptive purpose to not abandon the earth to its decay, death and misery, but to restore, renew and indeed re-create it with greater glory than it possessed in its pristine state, though prophesied throughout the Old Testament, was enacted in and through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

In the last post I discussed the Jewish concept of “resurrection” as an expectation which was

bodily (entailing a return to the life of the physical body),

earthly (as opposed to other-worldly),

corporate (it happened to all the people of God),

simultaneous (all at one time), and

eschatological (as the transitional event between this age and the age to come in which all things would be restored).

In such, I began to assert the notion that the resurrection of Jesus was not simply a fantastic miraculous event, perhaps the best of all the miracles in Jesus’ career. Rather, the resurrection of Jesus, as understood in its Jewish context, marked the irruption of the life of the Age to Come into the present. This Age to Come, was heralded by the Hebrew prophets as a time when death would be no more (Isa. 25), when all areas of life would be renewed and restored, whether they be ecological, agricultural, physical, political, economic, relational, etc., and God’s people would forever rejoice with gladness (Isa. 35:10).  In short, the entire earth and all that is in it would be renewed and re-created. When Jesus was raised from the dead, this re-creation began. The restoration of all things had its inauguration. As Jesus stepped out of the tomb, the springtime of all creation started to blossom and the age-anticipated promises of God for life, righteousness and freedom began to find their fulfillment. This notion is termed inaugurated eschatology, meaning that eschatological realities of the age to come have been inaugurated, that is, they have begun, even now in the middle of the present age, while yet awaiting a future consummation of fullness (this is often discussed in terms of the Kingdom of God being both “already but not yet”).

To continue to demonstrate this idea of the resurrection of Jesus heralding the advent of God’s New Creation (i.e., inaugurated eschatology), I would like to quickly breeze through the Gospel of John – a whirlwind tour perhaps, and show how the notion of “new creation” is present in this work.

To begin with, the familiar opening words of John are “In the beginning…” What is strikingly obvious to us, would have been equally apparent to hearers/readers in the first century. John is intentionally mirroring the initial words of Genesis, the famed creation story. While this would not be conclusive in itself (but will be made much more clear as we proceed), why might John be intentionally beginning his Gospel with the first words of Genesis? He continues to speak of the incarnation in terms of “light shining in the darkness,” a further allusion to the first chapter of Genesis. Is it possible that John is setting us up for precisely what it sounds like – a second (new) creation story?

In John 5:24-25, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and  believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and  does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you,  an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

Three points are of note.

1)    The person who believes has, that is, currently possesses eternal life. This phrase translated “eternal life” literally means “life of the age” and was used in Jewish writings from or before the time of the New Testament to mean the “life of the age to come” (Dan. 12:2; Pss. Sol. 3:12; 13:11; 14:10; 1 Enoch 37:4; 58:3). Furthermore, in the Synoptic Gospels, the terms “eternal life” and “Kingdom of God” are used interchangeably on a number of occurrences (Mk 9:43, 45, 47; 10:17-30; Mt. 19:23-29; Lk. 18:24-30). Thus, when we come to the Gospel of John and see that the term “Kingdom of God” only occurs twice, it seems very likely that the often used phrase “eternal life” (i.e., “life of the age”) is John’s preferred way of referring to the same reality the Synoptic Gospels prefer to call the “Kingdom of God.”[1] This life of the age to come, this experience of God’s Kingdom is available in the present as the possession of those who believe in Jesus.

2)    This possession of eternal life entails “passing out of death into life.” Here we see clear resurrection language, as will be confirmed in the following verses. This further clarifies the reception of the life of the age to come. There is a sense to which the believer in Jesus transfers from the present evil age into the Age to Come, while yet remaining in the present age. Jesus uses a verb of motion, “passing out of,” to describe the believer’s participation in eternal life. This militates against the pure internalized understanding of these verses, as if Jesus is speaking mostly of an internal, immaterial, “spiritual” change in the believer. Jesus does not view this change as internal, but as external. It is not a “change of heart,” but rather a change of location for the entire person. Their “inner being” does not move, but “the one who believes” in their entirety of personhood moves beyond the realm where death has sway and into the resurrection life of the age to come.

3)    Finally, if this wasn’t already clear, Jesus emphasizes that the time in which this happens is now. This is significant because the resurrection events that will soon happen to Jesus in the narrative cannot be construed solely as an isolated incident for Jesus. We are meant to understand the dynamic connection between what happens to Jesus and what is available to the believer. As Jesus rises from the dead in the life of the Age to Come, so likewise all believers are able to participate in that life in the present.

In John 11 Jesus makes a remarkable statement: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

As Christians, we have heard this verse so often, I think it ceases to strike us as strange. Jesus claims to be the resurrection. But the resurrection is an event. How can a person be an event? Furthermore, how can a person be an event that properly belongs to the entire people of God at an eschatological transition between the Present Age and the Age to Come? It seems like Jesus is telling us that he is somehow God’s future in person. He is the personal presence of the life of the Age to Come. Here among us, in the midst of a world inundated with decay and death, the light of God’s New Creation is beginning to shine. It is walking among us in the person of God-himself made flesh.

However, is this New Creation life restricted to the person of Jesus, as in, he possesses the life of the Age to Come, but the rest of us need to wait until his return to experience it? Does this New Creation, resurrection life, Kingdom of God presence leave the earth when Jesus ascends to heaven? The previous passage addressed (John 5) expresses the contrary quite emphatically, but even in this verse, Jesus informs us of the participation of the believer in the same eschatological realities. Since “life” and “eternal life” are interchangeable in the Gospel of John[2],  and since “eternal life” means the “life of the Age to Come” (see above), it stands to reason that the phrase “resurrection and the life” is a hendiadys, in which the two words joined by “and” should be taken together as a single idea. If not, since “life” certainly means the “life of the Age to Come,” we should at least see “resurrection” as the event which initiates the “life”[3] In either case,”life” in verse 25 certainly means “resurrection life” and thus the occurrence of the same word in the next verse, the “everyone lives” in verse 26, would mean, “everyone who has the life of the kingdom of God.” This is further advanced by Jesus’ assertion that unless one eats of the bread of life they have no life in them (John 6:51), meaning they do not have the “life of the age to come.”[4] The one who believes is the one who truly lives, who shares the life of the resurrection that Jesus himself embodies in the present.

If we skip forward a bit, we come to Holy Week.

On the sixth day of the week (Friday), after flogging him, robing him in purple and crowing him with thorns, Pilate displays Jesus to the crowd with the words, “Behold the man!” (John 19:5). Note that in Genesis 1 (remember our previous discussion about John 1 quoting Genesis 1 – “in the beginning…”), on the sixth day of the week, God created the human beings, those who were meant to rule the earth. Now on the sixth day of this week, Jesus is displayed as the true human, as a mockery dressed in royal attire, yet refusing to retaliate to the false rulers, to those whose greed and violence had corrupted their humanity to the point of unrecognizability.

The power hungry inhuman forces of violence succeed in killing the one who truly embodied what it meant to be fully human. The rulers of this world put to death the world’s true Lord. After doing so, he was laid to rest in an empty tomb. It was here that Jesus spent the seventh day of the week. As God rested from his labors on the seventh day of the creation account, so too, Jesus spends the seventh day in a Sabbath rest – the utter stillness of death.

John 20 begins with the words, “on the first day of the week.” Is it possible that more is going on here than a mere temporal indicator? As we observed this Gospel starting by alluding to the Genesis 1 account of creation, saw how Jesus understood himself as embodying the life of the Age to Come and sharing it with those who believe in him, and walked through days six and seven of creation during the weekend proceeding the first Easter, are we meant to understand that the timing “on the first day of the week” signals something much bigger than we were expecting? As Jesus rises from the dead, we are beholding the advent of God’s New Creation life bursting forth from the tomb! The Jewish concept of resurrection and new creation seems sufficient in itself to indicate such, but there is more in text itself. In verse 15, John tells us that Mary, seeing the resurrected Lord, believed him to be a gardener. What an odd detail. Why would Mary mistakenly believe Jesus to be a gardener, unless they were actually in a garden? And does not being in a garden, yet again allude to the biblical creation account? As Jesus rises from the dead, he is the New Adam in a renewed Garden of Eden. Eden has been restored and humanity once again has been given access to this Paradise once Lost.

In verse nineteen, we are told that “it was evening on that day, the first day of the week.” Apparently we need reminding that this is not any day – it is the FIRST day of the week. John repeats himself in order to emphasize, however allusively, the full scope of what happened on that day. Though the doors were shut, Jesus comes and stands among them saying, “Peace be with you.” After showing them his hands and side, “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.” Just as God breathed the breath of life into an inert Adam and he became a living being, so now Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into his disciples at the dawn of God’s New Creation. Yet this new life of the Kingdom of God, is not merely for the disciples’ enjoyment. He charges them, “as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” As the Father sent Jesus to be the living presence of the life of the Age to Come, so now as the followers of Jesus share in that life by believing in him, they are commissioned likewise to be agents of God’s Kingdom and resurrection life.

Though not in the Gospel of John, one more verse bears mentioning. In Luke 24:30, Jesus is sitting at a table with two disciples with whom he has walked from Jerusalem. When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, Luke tells us that immediately “their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” Where else in Scripture do we have two people, who upon eating, have their eyes opened? Adam and Eve, after consuming the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, experience their eyes being opened into a shameful self-awareness of their nakedness. In Luke however, the resurrected Lord is reversing the curse of Adam’s sin. He is inaugurating the life of the Kingdom of God, the New Creation, whereupon partaking of blessed and broken bread (a clear allusion to the Church’s practice of the Lord’s Supper), eyes are opened from woeful disillusionment into a hope-filled recognition of the Risen Lord. After this experience, the two disciples immediately run out and announce the  Gospel: “Jesus is risen!” The experience of the life of the Age to Come, the initiation of overturning sin’s curse, in John’s Gospel results in being sent just as Jesus was sent, and in Luke results in the proclamation of the Resurrected Lord. The presence of God’s Kingdom is in our midst, inaugurated through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This new life is the very impetus behind the Church’s mission in and for the world. Through proclaiming the Gospel of the Risen Lord and the arrival of God’s Kingdom, we become those who share and impart the life of the age to come amidst a world embroiled in the challenging yet, for those who believe, inevitably triumphant conflict with death.

[2] ibid.

[3] George R. Beasley-Murray, John (Dallas: Word, 1999), 190.

[4] ibid, 191.

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Though resurrection was the central message of the early Apostolic Church and a central theme through the New Testament, resurrection is of such minor note in the Old Testament it cannot even warrant being called a theme. It only is literally discussed in two passages. If resurrection is not even a theme in the Old Testament, let alone a major theme, how can we explain the phenomenon that resurrection became a (if not the) central theme in the New Testament? The easy and immediate answer is that a resurrection had in fact occurred, to one person in advance of all others, such that this this shocking occurrence became the determining characteristic of the burgeoning new movement. It was believed that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, far from being an isolated event, hailed the inauguration of the renewal of creation, the restoration of all things, which the prophets and sages of eras past had proclaimed.

In this series I would like to discuss the notion that the resurrection of Jesus inaugurated the eschatological reign of God, in which the powers of Sin and Death themselves are defeated and the entire creation is being renewed. Not simply being a confirmation of what happened at the cross, the resurrection was the beginning of a new age for planet earth. Through the resurrected Lord, a door has swung open through which the power of life over death has begun to permeate a world long pining under the slow torture of decay and the inevitability of death. The springtime of all creation has begun, after the long era of winter’s curse, causing life to be born anew and future hope to slowly emerge from beneath the shadows of despair. This life is not only future, but amazingly, mysteriously and dynamically present.

Before I get specifically to addressing how the New Testament shows the startling truth of Jesus’ resurrection inauguration of New Creation, I would like to describe the Jewish concept of resurrection. First as a word of clarity, “resurrection” does not simply mean to “life-after-death.” Resurrection was a specific kind of expectation which would involve the revivification of bodily life on earth. For a person to have an existence as a “spirit” was not what anyone meant when they spoke of “resurrection.”

It comes as a shock to many that not only does the Old Testament very rarely speak of resurrection, but much of it holds out little or no hope beyond the grave. Just a few passages will show this:

Psalm 115:17 – “The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any that go down into silence.”

Isaiah 38:10-11, 18-19 – “I said: In the noontide of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years. I said, I shall not see the LORD in the land of the living; I shall look upon mortals no more among the inhabitants of the world. For Sheol cannot thank you, death cannot praise you; those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living, they thank you, as I do this day; fathers make known to children your faithfulness.”

2 Samuel 14:14 – “We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up.”

Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, 10 – “The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun… Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.”

(cf. Job 17:13-16; Psalm 6:5; 30:9; 88:3-7, 10-12)

Other passages show the end of human life as returning to the dust:

Genesis 3:19 – “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Job 34:14-15 – “If he should take back his spirit to himself, and gather to himself his breath, all flesh would perish together, and all mortals return to dust.”

Psalm 90:3 – “You turn us back to dust, and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals.’”

(cf. Psalm 104:27-29; Ecc. 3:20)

Many, many passages use “sleep” as a way of describing death, meaning this state of inactivity, which forms part of the cycle of our lives, was the nearest approximation they could use to speak of death. The phrase “and he slept with his ancestors” to describe the death of a person is used dozens and dozens of times (cf. 1 Kings 2:10; 11:21; 22:50; 2 Kings 14:22; 16:20; 2 Chronicles 9:31; 12:16; etc.)

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Today I am continuing in a series of brief snippets explaining why I find understanding the Greek text behind our English versions of the New Testament helpful. It is my hope to encourage some people who are either in the midst of or are considering learning Greek – that it really is worth doing.

If you don’t fall into that category, just consider this one of those “insights from the Greek.”

One of the funny phenomena of Greek grammar is that sometimes the verb in a sentence is omitted and you have to figure out what it is in context. Sometimes it is implied from earlier in the passage (often the last verb is meant to be repeated) or just a form of the verb “to be” is meant. An example of this is in 2 Corinthians 5:17, which most modern English translations render as something like, “if anyone is in the Messiah, he is a new creation.” However the Greek leaves out the verb “is” and the subject “he.” It simply reads, “If anyone is in the Messiah — New Creation!” Under the ordinary translation, the subject of the verb is the “anyone,” the individual who has been incorporated into the Messiah. Thus it would mean that the individual now has an opportunity to start their life over and to re-prioritize their life according to God’s ways, to re-channel their energies in obedience and holiness rather than sin. Of course this is all good, but is that what the verse is getting at?

Another option is that the subject of the verb is “new creation, giving us a translation like, “If anyone is in the Messiah, there is a new creation” (NRSV) or “if anyone is in the messiah, the new creation has come!” (TNIV). Supporting this interpretation is the observation that when Paul uses the term “creation,” he generally uses it in terms of the whole creation, not a part of it, or one individual within it.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20

“¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Romans 8:19-22

“…neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:39

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Col. 1:15

What does this mean then? If this latter translation is correct – then “being in the Messiah” is not simply an opportunity for a fresh start or a new chance to get things right (as great as that is). Being in the Messiah means that one is a participant in the eschatological life of the restored and renewed heavens and earth even now. Some way and some how, through the Messiah,  God’s future for the world, where peace, justice, life and joy reigns, has come forward and burst forth in the present time. This is not a “spiritualization” of eschatology. Rather, understanding the radicality of New Testament thought is grasping that the apostles believed this time of literal, cosmic, physical, eschatological fulfillment, the full restoration of heaven and earth, though yet remaining future, has nevertheless dawned in “the now.” This restoration is already tasted by those who are “in the Messiah.”

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I’ve decided to write a prayer for each of my “New Creation…Starting Now” posts. We’ll see how it goes…

Creator God, who is ever faithful to finish the work he started: so now continue through us the great harvest of new creation and expand through us the renewed humanity of reconciliation, that we might share with you in the joining of heaven and earth; by Him who is the first fruits of the resurrection and the firstborn from the dead, Jesus the Messiah our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

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