¶1Hello and welcome to another episode of Ask NT Right Anything, 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 >> by Tom Wright from Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, and currently in Scotland. >> Now, Tom, I've got to ask the question, where do you stand on the Protestant doctrine of total depravity? I mean, do you think that's that's a good way of putting it, or you know, is that a little bit of a pessimistic view of human nature? Are Are you people basically good, but sometimes they let us down, or should we always expect the worst, that way we're never disappointed?
¶2>> Yeah, when somebody says, "Do you believe in total depravity?" I say, "Well, you know, I look in the mirror every morning, and it seems to me to make a lot of sense." Um or I I've I've known I remember one um uh one family who had a child who they nicknamed OS because he stood for original sin. Um that, you know, if you want doubted the doctrine of original sin, just look at this child. Um I But obviously, the the the doctrine of total depravity is not that humans are as bad as they could be, but that we are all um bad in some respects, or rather, there are in in all the parts of our personality and our person, there are flaws and um things that have gone wrong. Um it's it's a way of saying um it's actually very a very um uh a very optimistic doctrine from one point of view, in that if you think that humans are basically good, then you'll always be surprised and alarmed when they do stupid things. Um but if you say, "Well, no, actually um this is a [clears throat] condition which we humans share with one another and the good news is that God has provided a remedy for it and we've done something about it.
¶3Then actually it's the beginning of it's the beginning of a good news story rather than the the shoulder shrugging of a bad news story. >> Yeah, I mean the well the reason I ask is we've got some good questions this week. Questions about you know, the beloved disciple in John's gospel, the sermon on the mount, but our first question is about whether people are good. So this comes from Zach Munch, I believe from Fort Atkinson. And this is what he writes to us.
¶4Hello. I have a question about what the Bible teaches about goodness, specifically humanity's goodness and ability to do good. I was heavily influenced by a part of Christianity that emphasized no one is good except God alone, you know, from Mark 10 and Romans 3. The implication seems to be that humans are bad, evil, and are incapable of doing good. However, I don't understand how there seems to be kings, you know, before the spirit was given that did good in the eyes of the Lord, you know, 1 Kings 15:11.
¶5And why Jesus asked people to do good if they were unable to do so. I'm also challenged by understanding the implications of this for us today. If If humans are evil, does that imply we have less value? The more I listen to your to your podcast, however, I can't help but think that I've been taught to view these verses through a less than helpful lens. I would love to hear your thoughts about these questions.
¶6Thank you both for all that you do. It's been very helpful. So Tommy, you know, to build on what we began with, um you know, are people good but sometimes go bad or they're bad but they're capable of good? And what's your answer to Zach's question? >> Yeah, I think um I think Zach is quite right that we've all tended to come to questions like this with an unhelpful frame of reference and particularly this sort of either/or.
¶7Are we bad but sometimes do good or are we good but sometimes do bad? It that that sort of binary really really doesn't help. Um in Genesis 1 what we're faced with is the creation of humans with a vocation. The vocation is to reflect God's love and glory and stewardship into the world and to reflect the praises of creation back to the creator. Now, you can say, "Well, when people do that well, they are good and when they fail to do it, they are bad." But the question is more about this vocation and how it's working out rather than ranking us on a scale of good and bad where somewhere in the middle would be a tip-over point where, you know, like a bank account going into the red or whatever it might be.
¶8That's not the way that the Bible puts it. However, it is the way that many theologians have put it from quite early on. I mean, I'm not a church historian, but I'm guessing that at least from the time of Augustine, um people have been talking about humans as being either bad or good and you know, the Augustine versus Pelagius debate was was about about that. And I think I think that's that that's a very legalistic and unhelpful way of looking at it rather than seeing the basic human vocation and the question of whether people are living up to it or not because with Irenaeus, I would say that that all humans are made in God's image, that however sinful we are, that during the course of this life anyway, that image-bearing vocation is not removed. We we distort it, we may fail to reflect God into the world in the way we should be doing, but that it is always possible for humans to do that, to bring into the world aspects of God's love, his grace, his beauty.
¶9Even say a musical composer who professes not to believe in God or or whose life indicates they don't have any real Christian faith can still produce beautiful music because it's almost as though despite ourselves we can do good in the world. Despite ourselves we can look at a situation say some something in our town which is going horribly wrong and we think something should someone should do something about that and so we get together a little group, a committee and we work at making that better whatever it may be. And that is doing good and the fact that we may not be totally good people ourselves doesn't mean it isn't good. I mean Augustine when faced with the question of pagan virtue referred to pagan virtue as splendid vices. In other words, these people are still vicious, they're still bent on their own business.
¶10They may happen to do things which, you know, look like virtues from one point of view but underneath it's still all vice. And I I think that's a very negative and unhelpful way of looking at it. Now, um when we come to mainstream Protestant theology, there are debates between Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and then the Socinians and all sorts of other groups and on through the 17th and 18th century as to whether humans are basically good, basically bad and particularly the sort of anxiety that if we give an inch, if we say that actually humans can reach out and grasp God, which is what Paul says in Acts 17 after all, somebody will say, "Oh, so that means that we do have an innate capacity which isn't fallen, which can reach it reach out after God." And I want to say, "Where did this idea of innate capacities come from, and how how are you going to rank them like that?" I would rather say, "No, in every generation and every human being, God is present and saying, 'Here is how you could serve me. Here is how you could reflect my glory into the world.'" And most human beings most of the time say, "Well, um we don't particularly want to do that, thank you very much." And even the best of us, while we're striving to do God's will, we still do and think and say things which in retrospect we think that really let let God down. But, um I think to come with this fixed bad, good, either/or, and then to say, "Does it really count if I do this or if somebody does that?" I really think that's unhelpful, and we should go for the category of vocation rather than simply ranking everything moralistically.
¶11>> Yeah. >> I I appreciate what Zach is saying because I I've been in circles where humans are just wretched worms, and even our good deeds are nothing more than filthy rags. There's nothing There's nothing good about human beings. We're all just lowly, pathetic, evil worms. Which again is affirming something that we do find in the Bible.
¶12There is a real propensity for evil, for wrong doing. This is why we have things like a separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial. Why we have a independent judiciary. I mean, things like this because, you know, you don't want to give one person all power because people can go very wicked. But, it doesn't mean that people don't have a capacity for love, for beauty, goodness.
¶13Something that we find in the parable of the good Samaritan. Even people who can be our historic enemies often had a have a greater, you know, capacity for good than what we might find in our own tribe, our own allies, and our own networks. So, yeah. >> Quite quite No, I think we're on the same page there. Good.
¶14>> Exactly. Well, we have I hope that answered your question, Zach. We have another question from a correspondent in Christchurch, New Zealand. And this is about the beloved disciple in the fourth gospel. And our correspondent says, "Kia ora, Tom and Mike.
¶15Greetings from Middle-earth. Love the show. Thanks for making it happen. I have two questions. Both are simple, but ones I've wondered about over the years, so I would appreciate your thoughts.
¶16First, in the Gospel of John, we find one of the disciples referred to as the one whom Jesus loved. I understand that's generally accepted that the disciple in question is John himself. Uh but my question is, why does John refer to himself this way? When I was young, I used to think it sounded kind of arrogant. I remember my dad telling me, in fact, it was the opposite.
¶17Um John was so humble, he didn't want to use his own name. While I could see how this might be the case, I remember feeling only half satisfied with that answer. I thought to myself, well, if he really wanted to draw attention away from himself, then wouldn't it have been better to simply have used his own name? Or is the purpose to draw our attention to something else? Maybe Jesus' love.
¶18And then he's got a second question, "Why did John and Jesus get on so well?" Uh to answer that second question, uh the reason why John and Jesus got on so well was definitely not because John and Jesus supported the All Blacks. I'll tell you that much. I I don't know all the answer to this question, but I guarantee it's not because they had a mutual love of following the All Blacks Blacks. But uh this is a good question because the beloved beside disciple is an enigmatic figure in the fourth gospel. And I I've heard one interesting theory, Tom.
¶19You've probably heard this, too. That the beloved disciple is not John, the son of Zebedee. I've heard the theory that it is in fact Lazarus. Because in John 11, Jesus is told the one whom you love has died. So, is the beloved disciple in fact maybe Lazarus rather than John, the son of Zebedee?
¶20Or is it just a a name for a Judean disciple of Jesus called John who's not the son of Zebedee? So, Tom, what are your thoughts on the beloved disciple? And who is he and why does he use this form of self-description, the beloved disciple? >> Yeah, I I don't have a pet theory about this. I have seen the theories that you mentioned, and I think There's one I'm not sure it wasn't Jim Charlesworth who suggested it was actually Thomas.
¶21Um which which >> Did Yeah, did Didymus Thomas, yeah. >> Yeah, yeah. Which which seems to me a little unlikely, even though Thomas is my own name, so I'd be quite attracted by that. Um But no, it it is a strange way of speaking. I'm not sure that we have exact parallels for this in Christian or indeed secular literature of the time referring to uh obviously quite an important character, but in an oblique way like this.
¶22Um I am attracted by the possibility that it isn't um John, the brother of James. It isn't John, the son of Zebedee. But that it is a much younger, maybe we would say sort of a teenage um disciple who is following Jesus as well and is around. Richard Bauckham, I think, has explored possibilities like this. That that there were more people at last supper than just Jesus and the 12 and that among the more people there was this very young lad who was just a kind of special young man who obviously Jesus had seen he had a light in his eyes was understanding he was taking it all in he was drinking in all that he'd heard all that he was seeing Jesus doing.
¶23Jesus could tell that he had an enormous depth of understanding for one so young and that he therefore was easily accepted by the other disciples as as a special friend. Um whereas you might have thought if it was John the son of Zebedee that um there might have been resentment. I mean Peter and Andrew for start would think why why is Jesus so so close to him? Now I think if we were I mean this is a cop-out in a way but I'm inclined to say if we were meant to know we would have been told a bit more directly. Um so one of those things I'm just not sure we will ever get to the bottom of this one but at the same time the ending of the gospel is is is really important and that's what gives of course more credence to the possibility that it might have been somebody who was a very young man during the lifetime of Jesus but who was therefore still around and was in fact the last of the original disciples to die because at the end um Jesus says to Peter if it's my will that he remain until I come what is that to you you must follow me and so the rumor went around that this disciple was not going to die and then Robert Browning wrote a whole poem based on this idea of the last disciple the last eyewitness the last one who who was there who remembered the tone of voice and all the rest of it.
¶24Now again I don't think we know that. It's not impossible and so I want to kind of loosen the grip on the idea that it must be either this person or that person. I don't myself find the Lazarus thing particularly plausible. Many things in ancient history, it's possible. I'm not sure it's likely.
¶25One of the problems actually that we face often in communicating answers to questions like this is that many people haven't actually studied ancient history. So they don't realize that in ancient history there's such a dearth of information often that you can produce all kinds of hypotheses which are possible but not necessarily probable. And often there's no way of choosing between the different possibilities. So I would say if anything I would cautiously go towards Richard Bauckham's solution that this is a younger disciple. If the other disciples are in their late teens and early 20s which I think is quite likely, then this one might simply have been 12, 13, 14 years old.
¶26We just don't know. And I think that's that's as far as we can go except to say the crucial thing which comes out at the very end is this is the disciple who is giving evidence about these things and who wrote them down and we know that his evidence is true. This is and looks as though John 21 has been added as a codicil to the gospel by some senior writer who is saying I can vouch for this because I know this chap and I know that he was telling the truth. So that's probably as far as we can go. Unless Michael, maybe you have some pet theories about this which you haven't shared with us.
¶27>> Oh, I could come up with a lot of theories, Tom. I'm I'm I'm very good at developing imaginative theories. Each more each one more imaginative than the last. No, I tend to think Bauckham and Martin Hengel are probably right. I think this is the beloved disciple is a John, a Judean disciple of Jesus, who was known to the retinue of the high priestly family.
¶28I mean, there's an interesting scene >> That's an important >> at the trial narrative, where Peter and the beloved disciple are both about to get in uh trying to get in. The beloved disciple gets in because he's known to the high priest, but Peter can't get in. And I can't imagine the high priest doorkeeper saying, um "Yeah, okay. Well, I don't want Peter, but we definitely need our fishmonger from Galilee to be in here for a capital trial. Uh I tend to think he's part of the uh the retinue or the social circle or known to the family of the high priest.
¶29Uh recently, George Van Kooten came up with an interesting thesis that John was perhaps one of the scribes in the Jerusalem bureaucracy. So, the high priests who were effectively running uh Judea on behalf of the Romans or under Roman supervision, and he argues, this is George Van Kooten, that uh John was one of the, you know, literate scribes who were also a follower of Jesus. Bit speculative, but it's, you know, fun to read on that type of thing. But ultimately, it's a mystery. I do look forward to finding out who the beloved disciple is and learning about all the great things he got up to in Ephesus.
¶30>> [laughter] >> Well, we're going to take a break, and when we come back, we're going to look at a very interesting question. Is the Sermon on the Mount, with its call to do certain things, to have a righteousness greater than the Pharisees, is that a type of legalism? And how do we reconcile that with the the gospel of grace that we get in places like Paul's letters and the Book of Hebrews? More [music] on that in a moment. >> I I would ask Tom this and this is the a surprising question maybe to nominate for me one thing, just one thing that Christianity has introduced that doesn't have some source, some parallel, some analogy in in previous and in other civilizations.
¶31>> The ideal of of lifelong matrimony, I think that's a a very distinctive Christian concept. I think the the category of of what by the 19th century is coming to be categorized as as homosexuality and heterosexuality. I think they have no precedents. I think the notion of secularism, the idea of there being religions, I think all these are entirely exclusive to Christian civilization. I think the concept of science as it emerges in the 19th century, I think is entirely exclusive to to to to Christian civilization.
¶32I think the idea that >> [music] >> human beings are created in the image of God that is obviously something Christians share with with Jews [music] and gives a degree of dignity to human beings that no other cultural traditions I'm aware of even remotely approximates. Welcome back. Our third and final question today comes from Pierre and now in Bloemfontein in South Africa. It's a question about whether the Sermon on the Mount can be construed as a type of legalism. This is what Pierre asks.
¶33He tells us, "The Sermon on the Mount sounds almost like an unattainable works based salvation message by Jesus having raised the bar to what only he could live up to. Is this a picture of what this new creation will look like or how should post resurrection believers then respond in truth and obedience? Now, to give people a a kind of a hint or a taste of what uh Pierre is is wrestling with, let me read to you from Matthew chapter 5 verse 20 and I'll read from the New Testament from everyone translation. Where Jesus says in in Matthew's gospel, "Yes, let me tell you, unless your covenant behavior is far superior to that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven." Now Tom, I think this is a good question because some people are a little bit baffled by the Sermon on the Mount. If we're saved by what we believe, then rather than what we do, how can Jesus expect us to do stuff in order to enter the kingdom of heaven?
¶34And one solution I've heard, and it's not one I agree with, but it's relatively common, is to say, "Well, what Jesus is doing is he's preaching his own version of the law. He's preaching the law to make us realize we're miserable wretched sinners. We cannot attain the holiness and the righteousness of the law and therefore we will clean and cleave to the imputed righteous of Jesus that's given to us." So, Jesus is simply setting up in the Sermon on the Mount God's standard of righteousness that we'll never be able to meet or fulfill and therefore we need to receive the gift of his righteousness. So, it's not something we're actually meant to do or practice or we can even achieve. It's just there to remind us that we cannot meet the higher standards of God's law and we must rest not in our own righteousness, but the righteousness we get from Christ.
¶35Uh Tom, if someone was to espouse that type of a view to you, what would your response be? >> I think my response would be let let let's go for a walk down on the beach and take an hour or two and talk about this but talk talk about lots of other things as well. And only when we've got some good fresh air in our lungs can we come back and actually say to what did Matthew think he was doing here? Because the danger is that we've all been living in this little rather fetid atmosphere of post-reformation theology in which we get terribly nervous about any command to do anything at all. I mean, it comes in Paul as well where Paul talks about this is how you should live and please God.
¶36And people [clears throat] say, "Oh dear, does Paul think we can please God? No, surely not. That's just legalism." And and it goes right the way through all sorts of passages in Paul where he talks about God actually being pleased with what we do and doing things which are acceptable to God. People get [clears throat] very nervous about that as well. "Oh dear, am I supposed to be doing things which God will accept?
¶37Surely that is a denial of grace." And I want to say, "For goodness' sake, lighten up." There's a kind of post-Pauline neurosis which um pushes people to this sort of um nervousness, a kind of theological twitch, which says, "Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling." Now, I sang that line in church yesterday, actually, and there is a sense in which, of course, it's true. Nothing in my hand I bring. Jesus is the center of everything. He has done everything for me. But then when we're faced with Matthew and when we're faced with lots of bits of Paul himself, not to mention James, not to mention lots of other parts of the New Testament, were they all to be reduced either to "I'm saying this to make you realize how miserable you are a sinner and therefore you need to flee to Christ for salvation, or to say, "Now that you've been saved, this is how you are to behave." See, I remember years ago there was a a famous German scholar called Günther Bornkamm, who had written um a major book on Matthew's gospel.
¶38He came to Oxford, where I was then doing graduate work, and gave a lecture on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. And he went round the kind of Lutheran circuit of um how can Matthew be saying this, because doesn't this look as if it's works rather than grace, etc. And then came back to saying, "No, because our redaction critical study of Matthew shows that it isn't written to people who are not yet disciples, it's written to people who are already disciples, who in other words have already been saved by grace through faith, and now need guidelines to how they're to live." And I remember the kind of post-reformation sigh of relief that he was able to give in having brought Matthew on board with good Lutheran teaching about the the the third use of the law, or whatever it was. And I remember thinking, "Do you really have to go round all these things and jump through all those hoops?" And and the the more I then thought about the Sermon on the Mount, the more I came back to say, and you you've probably heard me say this, certainly read me saying this, Mike, before, um that the Beatitudes themselves, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, the peacemakers, etc." These are not ways of saying, "Here is a great moral standard to which you must aspire in order that you may earn favor with God." They're ways of saying, "This is how the kingdom of God happens. What does it look like when God takes charge, when God wants to run the world?" If I've I've often said when talking in parish groups and so on, what would it look like if God was in charge here?
¶39What would it look like if God was in charge in this town, in this country, in this county, whatever? Um and and they it's it's a good question. That's the question of the kingdom of God. But people often say, well, if God was really in charge, you know, he'd send in the troops. He'd send in the tanks.
¶40He'd sort out those bad guys. He would put the wicked people out of sight for once and for all. And he would jolly well use his strong-arm tactics to impose his will. And the answer is, no, that's not how the kingdom of God works. And this is what Jesus is talking about.
¶41When God wants to put the world right, he doesn't send in the troops and the tanks. He sends in the mourners and the meek and the hungry for justice people and the merciful and the pure in heart and the peacemakers and so on. And by the time the bullies and the bad guys realize what's going on, the meek and the peacemakers and the hungry and thirsty for justice people have built hospitals and orphanages and schools and are looking after the poor and are making stuff happen which is bringing God's kingdom into the world. And so, we have to get out of our heads the [snorts] misreading of that phrase entering the kingdom of heaven which you quoted from from verse 20 of of Matthew chapter 5. This is not about how you do stuff in order that you may earn your ticket to a place called heaven after you die.
¶42That's how I read this passage for years and years and years and it's simply wrong. It's This is what God's new regime looks like. The kingdom of heaven is God's sovereignty happening on earth as in heaven. And the answer is, if you want to be part of that, if you want to be part of this project of bringing God's saving sovereignty to birth on earth as in heaven, then here's what it's going to have to look like. And the scribes and the Pharisees aren't going to help.
¶43There is another whole way, a new way of being human, the way which he then spells out in great detail. And it's not this is what you must do so that you may be saved. It's because God wants to run his world in a whole new way. He wants a new type of human to do it. And the answer again and again is if you're following Jesus, you will be becoming that new type of human.
¶44I mean, you can see this in the in in many passages. I mean, my mind jumps for some reason to Mark 10 where Jesus is asked about divorce and remarriage. And he says, "Well, Moses gave you the command to divorce, but from the beginning God made the male and female and said, 'That's how it is, one man, one woman for wife.'" He said, "Moses gave you that command about divorce because of the hardness of your heart, which must mean that either Jesus is being very cruel or he is offering a cure for hardness of heart. In other words, by following Jesus, you are becoming someone who is entering the kingdom of heaven, not in the sense of going to heaven when you die, that's a whole other question about the final resurrection and so on, but somebody who is entering, belonging to, taking part in, sharing in the work of the kingdom of heaven here and now. This is what it looks like when God becomes king.
¶45God rescues and energizes humans so that they can be this sort of person so that then God's work in the world may go forward in the way that he wants it to. So, that that's that's I think the best we can do with that. And particularly then at the end of Matthew's gospel, Jesus tells the risen Jesus tells his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. Not teaching them to earn their own salvation by doing all these good deeds. Um but rather because this is how God's kingdom is coming by more and more people being taught how to observe all the things that Jesus is saying.
¶46And that vision of the kingdom happening on earth as in heaven through all the most unlikely people, the meek, the mourners, the broken-hearted, etc. That vision has sustained the church for the last 2,000 years. >> Yeah. That's right. I I love what you've put there, Tom.
¶47Rather than understand the Sermon on the Mount in light of a post-Pauline neurosis. I love that phrase. I We should patent that and possibly sell it on an eBay. Uh rather than understand the Sermon on the Mount in light of a post-Pauline neurosis, we should understand it in light of the kingdom of God and how kingdom people are meant to live for the glory of God, not to earn salvation, but because they're showing what the life of heaven looks like when it comes to earth, which is one of the best ways of advertising or putting up a signpost of what the kingdom of heaven will look like. Well, that was a great question.
¶48Uh Tom, is is there any way that people can send us more questions? >> Oh, sure. I mean, if people go online um to Ask NT Wright Anything, um then I'm told I've never actually asked a question myself, that'd be a bit odd, but I'm told that there are easy ways in which you can put your question and get it uh onto our desks. >> That's right. If you go to askntwright.com, you can send us your question and maybe, just maybe, your question will end up getting answered on the show.
¶49But in order to have that happen, you've got to go to the website. And Tom, how how much is a a coffee cost in your part of the world in the in the Scottish out of islands? >> Depends whether I go to the cafe down the road or the cafe up the road. I think the answer is probably £2.50 or something like that. >> Yeah, well, basically for the price of a well, slightly more than the price of a Scottish coffee, you can get four extra bonus episodes every month from Ask NT Wright Anything.
¶50If you sign up and become a subscriber to our premium episodes where we go through various things about, you know, the time that Thomas spent living in Jerusalem, his book God's Homecoming, all that and more available to subscribers to our premium episode. But we'll have some more episodes coming out for everyone in the future. And until then, we'll have to see you next time. So, it's goodbye from me, Mike Bird. >> Goodbye from me, Tom Wright.
¶51>> And we look forward to you joining us on the next episode of Ask NT Wright Anything. Until then, God bless and take care. >> [music]