¶1Hello and welcome to the Ask Anti-Right Anything podcast. The program where we try to answer your questions about Jesus, the Bible, and the life of faith. I'm Mike Bird from Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia, joined by Tom Wright from Wikip Hall in Oxford, though currently in the north of Scotland. Now, Tom, I just saw the movie The Odyssey, and I got to tell people, if you go see it, you need to take in two pairs of socks because the first pair will get blown off. I really enjoyed it.
¶2In the same way that the winds blew Odessius, off course, they will blow your socks off. Is a great epic movie. And no, I am not sponsored by Hollywood. I say that. I really enjoyed it.
¶3But Tom, I've got to be honest with you. I'm now a little worried about you because if you read uh Homer's Odyssey, apparently Odessius got blown off into an island to the west of Britannia. >> And that's where you are. You are on an island to the west of Britannia. >> Precisely.
¶4Precisely. I'm not sure he got this north. I suspect it was Ireland they had in mind, but still same difference. >> Well, Tom, can I just say this? If a woman called Cersei offers you some stew or you come across a lady called Calypso, you run far and you run fast.
¶5That's all they'll say. Tom, if you're in those islands out where Odessius was, run far and run fast. And whatever you do, don't eat any cattle. >> I will remember that, Mike. Thank you very much.
¶6I haven't seen the movie, but I look forward to doing so. >> It is pretty good. It's pretty good. It's not It's not cheesy. It's It was an enjoyable watch, so I recommend it to people.
¶7>> But anyway, in today's episode, we've got to cover some big topics. We're going to cover neardeath experiences. Is Jesus always the son of God, or did he become the son of God? And and did Satan really have a chance at thwarting Jesus's plan? So our first question comes from Constantine Mikalidus from Lidum and it it it resonates very clearly with another question we got from a uh correspondent and Wood of Lmington in the United Kingdom about near-death experiences.
¶8And this is what Constantine asks. He writes, "I read about and see many videos on post death experiences that people have going either to hell or heaven. I'm struck by the consistency of these in both heaven and hell. For example, the experience of meeting Jesus, his love and acceptance, the new colors in heaven, the family members one meets, uh miscarried children waiting for their parents. Likewise, in hell, the darkness and hopelessness and stench and so on.
¶9My question to Dr. Wright relates to his understanding of the resurrection and these experiences. I cannot reconcile these experiences of heaven or hell with the scriptures which speak of Jesus's return to the earth at the end of the age and the resurrection. Yet these experiences seem so real and their spiritual content seems to be so in line with the values and spirituality that scripture teaches. These experiences seem to suggest that when we go to heaven or hell when we die, one cannot deny these life-changing experiences and they turn many people to Jesus.
¶10But are they real or are they deceptions? And we had a very similar question from Anne Wood uh about near-death experiences and what they mean and how we should understand them. Uh Tom, do you have any particular views on the reports of neardeath experiences? >> Um I don't have any particular views, but let me share what I have. First, I think it's important in view of that uh the opening question we had there to clear up that whatever you believe about where or what or how people are immediately after bodily death, that's not the same as the promise of new heavens and new earth at the end and of being raised to new bodily life at that time.
¶11Um, if you understand the resurrection certainly in the way that first century Judeans would and certainly in the way that the New Testament writers do, um, the resurrection, the final resurrection is going to be at the end when God renews the whole creation. And that therefore there will be an interval >> an interval of time between bodily death and bodily resurrection except for those whom Paul mentions interestingly in 1 Corinthians 15 who are still alive bodily alive at the time when the Lord returns and they he says will be transformed but that's kind of special exception because for them there won't be an interim but the clear implication is that for everyone else there will be an interim period between bodily death and the final day, whatever that consists of. And we just don't have very good language for what the final day will be eventually like, except the the imagery the New Testament gives us, like a great birth in Romans 8, like a marriage in uh Revelation 21 and like the vic wonderful um resounding victory in 1 Corinthians 15. Putting all those together, something very dramatic is going to happen at the end. And where we are after death or what state we're in after death is a different sort of question.
¶12And it has to do then as well with what sort of people we are, what sort of characters or creatures we are when our body has ceased to function. And of course at that point many Christian teachers down the years have reached for the category of the soul which is basically a platonic category not a biblical category. Unfortunately the word suk is regularly translated soul and people and and that's in the New Testament and people assume that it means the platonic soul whereas it regularly refers to the Hebrew nephesh which is the whole person the whole living breathing person. And so that when we're talking about an interval between bodily death and bodily resurrection, what we're talking about is that the Holy Spirit who has indwelt a Christian during the present life will continue to sustain that person's spirit in the nearer presence of Christ and of God. That's according to Paul in uh Philippians 1 for instance until the time when they're then raised from the dead.
¶13So that that's just to clarify the ground on which we're standing. And then the question is when people have this what is called a near-death experience when technically they may have died for a minute or 10 minutes or half an hour or something and then astonishingly they come back. They then tell stories about what they saw, experienced, imagined, etc. which are very interesting. I don't know very many of them.
¶14I once had a student when I was teaching in Montreal um a man in his late 40s I think who had come in in to train for the ministry because he had been um a young very young um plane pilot during the Second World War and was shot down and was um was technically dead and uh when he was technically dead before then astonishingly he came back he had wonderful experiences of the love presence of God. And though when he came back from that he was determined that he would have to um look after his family etc. he knew from then on that one day he was going to go into Christian ministry and he'd come to us to train. So he told me that story and and I was I was very moved and still am very moved by that and similar things. But I think part of the problem here is that the literature as far as I understand it and it's not something I've researched in any great detail.
¶15The literature suggests that um the continuence of somebody's imagination, the the the continued mental life that people have after they are technically dead can go on in all sorts of ways. People say that um the hearing is one of the last things to go and so that music can still get through to people and so on and so on. Um but that granted that uh people have sometimes experiences which correspond to the sort of things that they would have thought anyway. So somebody who had imagined going to heaven, meeting Jesus, whatever might have like a dream of doing exactly that. And it might well be a wonderful dream.
¶16You know, we could all have wonderful dreams um during the present life as well. Um but whether one can then build anything on that in terms of what the interim state is actually like I would be very very cautious. Um uh I don't think anything rests on it. I think if when somebody dies, if God wants to give that person as they are making this awesome transition, a sense of beauty, of love, of new new creation, if you like, then that's entirely God's business. But we cannot and should not base any of our beliefs about future and future uh life whatever it is on such experiences because of course um we don't have good psychological analyses of these.
¶17we don't know medically very much about them and because um there are many different cultures and many different experiences and people write about all sorts of things and it's very hard to say right therefore because so and so had this experience this must mean such and such the important thing is to cling on to the ultimate hope of new creation and resurrection and to say whatever happens in between whiles the Christian hope is to be with the Messiah with Jesus Christ um which is far better. And if we are given in the moment of death or soon after a sort of foretaste of that or or a beginning of that then fine okay but you can't then argue from that up to therefore there is a life after death because many in the medical professions would say no no no it's just the brain going through its its final motions and uh you you shouldn't build anything on that. But that's as far as I go. Mike, do you have any and have you read any stuff about this or or any personal experience of this? >> Uh, no.
¶18Well, I haven't had any near-death experiences, thankfully. I >> mean, people that you've known who who told you? >> No. Um, my my view is that the intermediate state is something of a mystery. Okay.
¶19And maybe there are some people who have had a brief glance into that mystery. So I'm willing to be optimistic and open to it that that it's you know it's like when your life is hidden in Christ to use the language of Colossians and I think it is a it is a mysterious place and maybe people have been glimpsed into that mystery but where I get a little bit skeptical is on two things. uh one when people monet monetize their near-death experience. There was a very infamous incident really with a a book called uh the boy who went to heaven and there was a book and there was a movie >> and it turned out that the the boy, you know, had largely just made the whole thing up. >> And I'm also skeptical when people say things which I think contradict what scripture says.
¶20So let me give you an example. Uh my view and maybe maybe this is your view as well, Tom, is I don't think hell exists yet or is occupied because in Revelation it says Hades, the waiting place of the dead, will be thrown into the lake of fire and that's the final judgment. So, but I I don't think the the place of final judgment is yet inhabited or operational as we might instand it. So when people talk about what it's like in hell as if they're giving a >> postmodern version of Dante's Inferno, I'm a little bit I'm a little bit skeptical because that's not my understanding of biblical esquetology, what it means for the final state. I I don't think >> hell is occupied right now.
¶21That might be a very shocking news to some of our listeners. >> Yes. Um I I I think all the language the biblical language about final judgment and so on has to be seen as very much pictorial picture language and just [clears throat] like most of the book of revelation is imagery to try to point to things for which there is no good ordinary language. You know the the lion who is also the lamb who has a sword coming out of his mouth and lots of other stuff. Um, this this is not meant to be something that you could paint unless perhaps your name is Heronomous Bar or somebody, but most people would never dream of trying to paint all that imagery.
¶22It's a way of saying in in in hyper technical as it were that something like this um where we're gesturing towards a reality and I think particularly um what happens in the mind the imagination the memory the consciousness whatever it is um in the moment of death and soon after is highly likely to reflect all sorts of impulses fears um regrets um delights that have gone on in the brain up to that point. You know, people say that when somebody is is in a road crash or about to die, sometimes their whole life flashes before them. It seems to be perfectly possible that in the moment of death or soon after, your whole life flashes before you. In fact, the the the former Pope Benedict in his book on esquetology talks about the fiery moment when you are confronted with all the evil that you've done in your whole life and have to realize all the lasting effects that that's had. And he he that's how he describes purgatory and >> says you come through that but that it will be a moment of awful realization.
¶23And and there is some scriptural warrant for that in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Um, but I, you know, I, as I've written elsewhere, I wouldn't want to push that too hard because again, these are mysteries and we do not have an inside track as Christians. We don't have an inside track on on what they mean. And as as people aware of contemporary medical research, we don't have um good evidence for saying um this was definitely the objective awareness of some reality other than the inside of the person's imagination themselves. I I think that's probably as far as we can take it.
¶24>> Yeah. So I guess that means we're kind of potentially open but cautious. Yeah. Well, let's move on to our second question which comes to us from Ethiopia. Tom, >> we have a question from Yames again tacu in Addis Adaba.
¶25My apologies if I have got the pronunciation wrong there. And this is a question about the eternal sunship of Jesus. And our correspondent asks, "Hello Mike and Tom. I have two questions regarding Christologology and the Trinity. My christoologgical question is, is Christ the eternal son of God or did his sunship begin only after the incarnation?
¶26Given that the son of God concept in the Old Testament was not used to describe a person's divinity, but was instead used to denote a specific role, how should we understand the son of God concept? Furthermore, do you think the church fathers properly understood this concept in its original context? Secondly, regarding the Trinity, Old Testament scripture is characterized by a rigorous monotheism that lacks the explicit philosophical and ontological frameworks developed in the later trinitarian thought. In light of this is the classical formula, you know, three persons in one nature, a legitimate exogetical conclusion. Additionally, how should we best conceptualize the tension between the distinction of the persons and the unity of the divine essence?
¶27Oh my, that is a heavy question indeed. We've got, you know, I mean, how does Psalm 2 work in the New Testament? You know, you are my son, today I've begotten thee. Is that about the eternal son of God or the enthronement of an Israelite king? Has Jesus always been the son?
¶28Is the trinity biblical? and distinction of persons and unity of divine essence. I'm sure that's something we could solve in about three. We don't need four centuries to work this out, do we Tom? We don't need four centuries to explain this.
¶29We could do this >> five over six minutes. The last time I had a friend who sat me down on a park bench and asked me questions like this, my response was, "You need to go to seminary and spend two or three years studying because all of this stuff has been worked over very thoroughly by biblical scholars, by Petristic scholars, by systematic theologians. And each generation bumps its nose against the same question from perhaps slightly different angles this way and that. And each church tradition and I don't know whether our correspondent here is in the Ethiopic tradition or whether um there's been influence from other sources as well. Each tradition has its own way of not only expressing things but of understanding the specific words because words like son and trinity and so on.
¶30These are huge expansive words and you have to define very carefully what you mean and don't mean by them if you're not going to trip over and find yourself saying things that you really didn't mean. And so granted all that and granted that there's no way that we can possibly reproduce in four or five minutes all the things that you might learn if you went to seminary for two or three years. Um, let let me just say a few brief things and then Mike, you've written about this as I have and so we can we can both obviously chip in. Um, the phrase son of God, take that as a starting point. The phrase son of God um in the Old Testament is quite rare.
¶31It refers among other things to the people of Israel. Moses says to Pharaoh that God says, "Israel is my son, my firstborn. Let my people go." Israel is God's son. When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son, says God through the prophet Hosea. But there is also the language about the sons plural of God referring to the angelic beings who surround God's throne and are as it were his civil servants.
¶32Beginning of of the book of Job and various other passages. Um so there's there's clearly an ambiguity already there in the Old Testament. But as I say that the idea of son of God is infrequent and then as you rightly say it bursts out suddenly in Psalm two which corresponds then to um 2 Samuel chapter 7 where God says to David through the prophet Nathan after you're dead and gone I will raise up your seed after you who will sit on your throne. I will be his father. He will be my son.
¶33He will build my temple. And that's a very complicated and dense combination of several ideas. Um the the the raising up of one who God will uh designate as it was his adopted son but who will be um from the family of David and that God will say he's my son and then he will he will build the temple. And of course the king builds the temple so that the glory of God may come and dwell there. You need to have layer upon layer upon layer of these ideas all working together.
¶34And in my experience, sadly, most modern Christians, even comparatively well taught ones, just don't think in these terms at all. They think in terms of, oh, either Jesus was the son of God or he wasn't. You know, I've had um when I've done radio television interviews, I've had journalists ask me, so was Jesus the son of God? And I've always had to say it depends entirely what you mean by the son of God. Clearly this is metaphorical.
¶35We don't think that God actually has a wife and [clears throat] that two of them got together and so they had a son etc etc. So what does sunship mean in this context? And then when we get the retrieval of um 2 Samuel 7 and Isaiah Psalm 2 and the equivalent passages in Psalm 89 and elsewhere um then what we see coming forward into the New Testament is an explosive sequence of events through which it seems that son of God brackets Israel, son of God brackets Israel's king and son of God brackets. Oh my goodness, something new is going on here which we weren't prepared for. They all come rushing together.
¶36So that already in Jesus himself and when he talks about all things have been revealed to me by the father and no one knows the son except the father and vice versa. And then when Paul picks this up and says that uh that that God sent his own son in in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sin offering, all this is to say that all these meanings converge and [clears throat] they use this very simple but very profound and mysterious expression, son of God, to say all of those things at once and thereby to express an intimacy of relationship between the father and the son, between God the creator and the human being Jesus for which there is no other very good language except revelation's wonderful images about the lion and the lamb and and so on. Um, so that I think that's the the starting point. I would say don't assume that we know what son of God means and then say was Jesus that or not. Come at it from its various biblical sources and watch how they all converge in order to find a way of saying something which might have seemed unsayable until that point.
¶37um namely that the creator God always intended to act as a human being within his own world as himself an imagebearer that the category of Israel itself, the category of the Davidic kingship itself, these were uh ways of God preparing the ground that he would then come and occupy himself. And so in retrospect we can look back and say that the creation itself creation of human beings in God's image was uh designed to be a purpose for God's own use. So that when God finally became human this was not an oh what a strange thing is that this was actually we should have seen this coming all along. Likewise with the call of Israel and David or David's son to be son of God. And therefore we have to open ourselves up to the possibility of that that actually this is as good as we get.
¶38And we have to talk about the intimacy of relationship and the differentiation between the father and the son. And those words in intimacy and differentiation are just simply fancy English ways of saying what the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament say in their own way. So having said all of that, when we then get to Trinity and so on, of course, the word trinity doesn't occur in the New Testament, but you do have it at the end of Matthew 28 very explicitly baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. But also, and I think equally important, because that could just be a kind of a surface linguistic trick, what you have in the New Testament is a description of Jesus and a description of the Holy Spirit in language which is borrowed from and echoes things that the Old Testament says about God himself, particularly about the wilderness wanderings of the people of God, where God comes with them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by tonight and the way in which that theme is retrieved both when the New Testament talks about Jesus himself and when the New Testament talks about the Holy Spirit. So that it's clear that the the very early Christians ransack the Old Testament for ways of speaking about God's mysterious action in and amongst his people and for the world.
¶39And then they discover Jesus and the spirit within those extraordinary ways of speaking. Now that's one way. I don't know how long I've just taken to do that. Three minutes maybe, but we could easily do that for three hours or three days or three years. Mike, you as I say, you've you've written about all this yourself.
¶40I've had the first go. Do you want to come in and chip in from other angles? >> Well, Tom, I don't know whether you remember, but you were actually part of a documentary called The Son of God. Uh, I think this was what, the late 90s, early 90s. I mean, the it was actually called the the Son of God.
¶41>> And I remember you wrote a review of the documentary you were in cuz I thought that I thought that was funny. And I remember in your review you said the weird thing about the documentary is they never actually got around to defining what son of God meant. And they never even answered the question, was Jesus the son of God at the very end of it. So you you could probably find it on YouTube now. So, I'm I'm going back to this documentary you're involved in >> probably 25 years ago.
¶42Well, I mean, I have done a little book called Jesus the Eternal Son where I point out how Jesus's sunship is construed in the New Testament in early Christian literature. And I I argue that Jesus didn't become the son at his baptism or at his resurrection or at some other point. The New Testament writers clearly lean to the idea that he was always the son and the son became human. And in the early church, they use arguments like, well, if God is the father, if God is eternally the father, then he eternally needs to have a son. Otherwise, the father language doesn't make any sense.
¶43But otherwise, I think we've got to understand the diverse nature of son language. It can apply to angels. It can apply to Adam. It can apply to Israelites. can apply to a messianic king.
¶44But when Jesus speaks of himself as the son of God, it it can be used with a messianic connotation, but it also expresses what we could call his unique filial sunship, his unique relationship with God. And finally, when it comes to the equality between the father and the son, what I like to do is get students to read Philippians 2:6. You know, though Jesus was in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God, which he already possessed. I think you and I agree on that. He already possessed equality with God something to exploit or use for his own self argrandisement.
¶45So, I look at that verse in Philippians 2:6. But then we go to the opening of Hebrews where it says, "The son is the exact representation of the father's being." And I say, can you think of a word or a way of bringing together the opening of Hebrews and that Christ palm in Philippians? How do you combine equal with God with the exact representation of the father's being? And that's when I hit them with that technical Greek word homosios. And I argue homosios is not a word found in scripture, but it's a theological word that helps us bring biblical language together.
¶46So if you're going to combine equality with God with Jesus as the exact representation of the father's being, homosios is one good way to do that. So that's kind of how I answer questions like this. >> That's great. That's great. And I think you and I basically agree on on that and we could go on and develop it in terms of several other several other passages as well.
¶47I mean I I have met serious scholars who have said well according to Paul Jesus only became son of God at his resurrection because in Romans 1:3 Paul says he was designated son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead. But it's quite clear throughout Romans when Paul sees what Jesus did on the cross, he says that was Jesus doing that as the one who was sent by God as his son. That that God sent his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sin offering. In other words, he didn't wait to become son until afterwards. What he did on the cross meant what it meant because he was already the son.
¶48Um just as as the letter to the Hebrews says. And so we could go around the tracks, but I think we probably made the point. And I I want to say [clears throat] a lot of this is about learning to think in first century Judeian categories. How would somebody in the first century have have drawn on Israel's scriptures to express this explosive new reality that had burst upon the scene and burst into their lives? And when we then find them using language like son of God, we shouldn't assume that that's something that everybody knows what it means and they've just brought it down off a peg and stuck it in.
¶49It's it's a mysterious way of pointing into something which is huge and powerful. Um but in another sense graspable in that we know about fathers and sons and so we can cautiously say God has done this through the one who is his own second self as somebody once said. Um so I I think that's probably as far as we can go without signing on our friend for three years in seminary. >> Yeah. Well, but 3 years and 17 may be a good idea for him.
¶50Uh, but anyway, uh, if people want to read more on that, I really do recommend Tom's great book, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. There's a great section in there on how Paul's Christologology, his account of Jesus, sits within Jewish monotheism. So, if you want to know more, read Paul and the faithfulness of God. But we're going to take a break and when we come back, we're going to look at how Satan could potentially have thwarted Jesus's ministry. Back in a moment.
¶51[music] If God is real, why does he seem to remain hidden? Is this hiddenenness a test of faith or a proof of divine indifference? Could it be that God's presence is subtle, perhaps to preserve human freedom? Or is the simplest and most logical explanation just that he isn't there at all? Could it be that God's reality is revealed through history, morality, science, and reason?
¶52Or are our beliefs merely the hopeful constructs of our culture and psychology? If God exists, why the divine silence? Is God deliberately staying out of sight, or does his apparent absence [music] actually point to something deeper? And we are back. Uh, our third question for today, Tom, is from Casey Cen in Newark, who's got a question about, you know, whether Satan could really have thwarted Jesus at some point.
¶53And he says this, "Hello, Tom and Michael. Thank you for your ministry. I'm a campus minister at the University of Delaware. For many years, I had naively thought that Satan's plan was to kill Jesus and surprised that he had failed due to the resurrection. Then I read something that Dallas Willard uh wrote that suggested Satan knew what Jesus was trying to do.
¶54And it made good sense. For example, Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms without having to go to the cross. Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan." to rebuke Peter about his words that he will not die. and then ramping up all of the torture, taunting, and darkness. At the end, Satan was trying to get Jesus to abandon his mission to call his legion of angels and save himself.
¶55What is your take on Satan's knowledge of Jesus's plan? How did he know? And how does this help us understand his schemes, as Paul says, in our lives? Tom, did Satan have his own intelligence, his own intel on what the son of God was up to? >> I'm very much inclined to agree with Dallas Willard, at least as quoted by by our correspondent.
¶56I've not read the relevant bit of Dallas Willard. Indeed, I confess though people have often told me I should. I've haven't ever made the time to read a lot of Willard, though I know that a lot of what he says and a lot of what I and you might say um would in fact converge. So, just to park that one, but um I I am a little wary of imagining that we can think our way into the mind of this strange being, if that's what it is, which the New Testament refers to as the Satan. I I I prefer to use the word it rather than he because it seems to me that the Satan, the accuser, is kind of subpersonal.
¶57It's not not an equal and opposite person. It isn't Satan over here and God over here. It's the Satan is um is God's director of public prosecutions in um in Job chapter 1, chapters 1 and two. Um and it's almost as though the director of public prosecutions so enjoys prosecuting people that it uh deliberately tricks people into doing things for which they can then be prosecuted. Now, that's a very mysterious whole and very dark area, and I wouldn't want to tread too uh casually into it, but I do think when we see the picture of Jesus and the Satan in the New Testament, there's there's quite a lot of it.
¶58I mean, as you say, from the temptation narratives at the beginning through to the mocking on the cross at the end, which is clearly designed to reflect the same thing. If you are the son of God, command these loaves to be made bread. If you are the son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe you. It's as though all the way through the Satan is trying to disrupt Jesus' vocational sense of the way in which the kingdom is to come. Because it is as though the Satan knows that actually if Jesus goes the whole way and does die on the cross uh obediently taking upon himself the shame and pain and guilt and horror of all the world then its kingdom the Satan's kingdom will be overthrown will be destroyed not all in a flash but as we know the battle continues as in 1 Corinthians He must reign until he's put all his enemies under his feet.
¶59The resurrection and the ascension of Jesus are the beginning of his reign, and that will continue through the present time until finally everything, including death itself, is done away with. Now, this is very mysterious because it's hard [clears throat] enough for us to think into the mind of Jesus, let alone to think into the mind of the one that Jesus refers to as the adversary or the Satan. But that that's where I would go with it. and and Peter's um attempted denial saying to Jesus, "No, no, no. Don't let's have any of this talk about the cross seems to be all part of the same thing." And then Jesus says the same about Peter that the Satan has desired to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith won't fail and when you turn again, then strengthen your uh your family, your brothers.
¶60Um, so that there are just these little hints which which say to me that Jesus was aware that the Satan did have plans and purposes to thwart the ongoing purpose of God which was through the cross to redeem the world. And then again as our correspondent says you get in Paul um that language about we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. Um there's a wonderful old Puritan book which I remember reading when I was an undergraduate called Blessed Remedies Against Satan's Devices. A very um downto-earth practical thing about [clears throat] the enemy will try to make you think this or do that or whatever and here are the the the kind of biblically authentic ways of opposing that. Um, and I think it may be no bad thing from time to time to take stock of our our situation in in that language.
¶61But I think that's probably as far as we can get, but I think the thing that stands out for me is that the cross >> really did defeat the dark powers. And that I know that people who have worked in the area of um whether you call it deliverance ministry or whatever will say that again and again it is the mention of the cross or even the sight of the cross that that actually does the trick that actually puts the dark powers to shame and to flight. But this is not an area that I've gone any further in. So what about you Mike? Have you got more to add at that point?
¶62Yeah, it's hard to psychologicize Satan as if we we know what he's thinking, what he's up to. I've always been, you know, impressed by the devils who who are, you know, being exercised by Jesus and they have the kind of shock and terror of someone who's in the midst of committing a crime and being interrupted by like the, you know, minister of justice finds you doing something. It's like, "Oh my gosh, I know I know who you are, the Holy One of God, you know, please, please spare me." And it's it's kind of like out of all the people I was expecting to see on earth, you were the last person I would want to see right now. So they have the sense of being interdicted in their malevolence and they pray, look, do anything you like, just don't destroy me. So there is this element of surprise that Jesus also brings.
¶63But as to what Satan was up to, yeah, I think trying to distract or make Jesus be way laid from whatever he was doing. I I think that's the most we could say. Maybe having the kingdom without the cross definitely part of it. Definitely part of it. >> And I think we we see that strand running through.
¶64I mean, it's there in John six where they come to make him king and Jesus makes himself scarce and goes off and hides up the mountain somewhere. Um and yet John is quite clear that Jesus is the true king. Um and it's very very clear in John's crucifixion narrative that this is Jesus coming into his kingdom but not in the way that the crowds wanted and not in the way that the Satan would have wanted. And and this is this is really it it's as in Mark 10 um the rulers of this age do things by bossing and bullying people around. But Jesus says we're not going to do it like that.
¶65the one who was is to be the greatest must be be the least and the slave of all. And it's as though throughout the story Jesus is modeling his own vocation. He has glimpsed whether through um his reading of the psalms through his understanding of Isaiah whatever he's glimpsed that the way to defeat the ultimate enemy is the way of suffering and shame and death. That is so counterintuitive and it will have been counterintuitive for the human being Jesus of Nazareth as well. But he is true to that vocation which is given him in his baptism.
¶66Of course, when the spirit descends and the voice says, "This is my beloved son. With you I am well pleased." That's a combination of Psalm 2 and Isaiah 42 which are vocational. This is what the true Davididic Messiah has to do. He has to be the servant to go the servant route for the sake of the world. And yes, of course, the Satan does his best to disrupt that.
¶67Just as when we try to follow Jesus, there are all sorts of disruptions and distractions which attack us to blow us off course, to make us change our minds, to make us waste time doing the wrong stuff, whatever it may be. So, it isn't just a theory about what may or may not have been true in the relationship between Jesus and the Satan. it comes forward into our lives that actually this disruption continues to this day even though the basic victory has been won. And again, we're on that timeline from 1 Corinthians 15 between the initial victory and the final victory over the last enemy. >> Well, I think that's all we have time for today.
¶68We hope you've enjoyed this episode. We've covered a lot of ground, but in our next episode, we've got some great stuff coming. We're going to look at Jesus as the expression of the glory of God. Do we need to rethink the Trinity in light of how complex it is? And how can you be a force for theological sanity in a world that looks like it's gone crazy?
¶69Now Tom, if our listeners, our audience can't wait until the next episode to get some more Ask ENT Wright Anything content, uh, is is is there a way they can get some more content instantly? >> You go go online and and find the past episodes and not least the bonus episodes where we've discussed all sorts of things in considerable detail. But yes, you can put your question at any time. Um u because I'm the one being questioned. I don't tend to do it myself, but I'm told that if you go online, you can find very easily ways of getting there.
¶70>> Yep. You can go to ask anti-wright.com to lodge your question, or you can subscribe to our bonus episodes where Tom and I will be talking about things like how does the Odyssey help us understand the ancient world of the New Testament. We'll go through his book, God's Homecoming, and have a real nitty-gritty analysis of the things that Tom raises there. But until next time, my friends, it's goodbye from me, Mike Bird, >> and goodbye from me, Tom Wright, >> and we'll see you on the next episode of Ask Enti, Write Anything. Until then, God bless you all and take care.
¶71[music]