¶1Good evening and welcome to Wickliffe Hall. My name is Jonathan Brandt and I'm the director of Wikliff's new renaissance project. And as we are both a Christian community and a part of the University of Oxford, the goal of our new Renaissance project is to see transformational scholarship, leadership, arts, and culture born out of Christian community and offering the truth, goodness, and beauty of the gospel to the world around us. And if you're looking for transformational scholarship, there is no better place to start than with our senior research fellow Tom Wright. So I'm going to hand over to John Owen, the host of the Unbelievable podcast, and we look forward to a wonderful evening together.
¶2Thank you, John. Welcome to a special edition of Unbelievable, the show where we engage all things theology and philosophy. I'm John Nelson and tonight we are celebrating God's homecoming, a new book by Entie Wright who is senior research fellow here at Wickliff Hall, Oxford. Tom is certainly one of the most prolific biblical scholars in the world. But I once heard him say, and hopefully if I if I'm recalling correctly that if he was not a biblical scholar, he would be uh he would have liked to have composed symphonies.
¶3Is that correct? >> Absolutely. I think though tonight we're going to see what many of us already know, that Tom is uncannily skilled in showing that the biblical narrative is its own glorious symphony and that the theme of God's being with us is its most sublime motif. Later in the evening, I'm going to be engaging Tom in conversation and we'll have time for your audience questions. But first, to celebrate his new book, God's Homecoming, would you give a very warm welcome to Professor Entie Wright?
¶4>> Thank you. Thank you very much, John. And good evening, and thank you all very much for being here. And thanks to those who've worked hard to put this evening together. Um, I've organized many events like this in the past, and I know it takes a lot of moving parts all to coordinate.
¶5Um, let alone to get all the names of the participants right, but that's a whole other whole other matter. Um, our time is comparatively limited comparatively um and I do want to leave plenty of time for the questions which are going to come from John and then from all of you. But I do just want to take some time to tell you basically what the book's about. Um, the easy part here is that unlike many of my books, the first two or three sentences basically say it all. So, let me just read the first two or three sentences.
¶6Somebody asked me the other day if I'd got any sentences in my writing that I was particularly pleased with. And I said, um, the third one in this new book, the book opens like this. Most people today imagine that the point of Christianity is quote to go to heaven when you die, unquote. That's what most believers believe. It's what most unbelievers unbelieve.
¶7It's certainly what journalists, broadcasters, popular commentators think Christianity is supposed to be all about. They're all wrong. The point of Christianity is not that we should go to heaven. The point of Christianity is that heaven should come to us to earth as Jesus taught us to pray. The story the early Christians told was not about humans or their souls could, as it were, go upstairs into the presence of God.
¶8It was about how God had come downstairs to live with them and would one day complete that operation suffusing all creation with his glorious presence. Uh when I uh was first starting on the journey which led to this book, I wrote a little book oh 20ome years ago um called uh for all the saints of quite a small treatment about how actually we all get the order of travel wrong. and Ruth Gladill, the then Times religious affairs correspondent, picked it up and wrote a nice little news piece about my little book. And believe me, publishers are delighted when the book makes it not just onto the review pages, but onto the news pages. Unfortunately, some headline writer got hold of it and the headline read, "New bishop abolishes heaven and the soul." And cuz you know the newspapers only know two and a half stories about clergy and one of them is wicked liberal bishops who deny everything.
¶9And uh uh so I I I I think I quickly lived that one down certainly with the next book the resurrection of the son of God. But um the the the question that I was faced with which I've been faced with actually most of my life was how the whole biblical story works as a complete story. For years, I had been quite seriously puzzled on and off about holding up a Bible and seeing that twothirds of it, the Old Testament, or even 3/4ers of it, depending on the printing, um, was about something other than what I've been taught the Christian Gospel was all about. So that the Old Testament seemed to be about land and family and law and all that stuff. And then along comes Jesus and the apostles and says, "Forget all that stuff.
¶10We're going to heaven instead." At least that was a short summary of how I was perceiving the gospel as a young man and actually as a not so young man. And the assumption then was that the Old Testament and the Jewish world of Jesus' day were over to one side and then there was a huge gear change after which Jesus and the apostles came along and said something completely different. And then this puzzled me because Jesus sayings themselves didn't actually endorse this split. I remember being struck particularly by the eighth biatitude in which Jesus says blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. And the way that I'd been taught Christianity that was like well of course the super spiritual people are all going to heaven but too bad about the meek but because they're meek they won't mind.
¶11They just get the earth instead. Um well no actually that's a quotation from the psalm in which this is part of the blessing of the truly blessed the meek who will inherit the earth because actually God intends to put the earth right and make it the home not only for his people but also for himself. But I realize now looking back it's one of those things my publishers want me to write a little book called 50 things I wish I'd known 50 years ago. So, I'm thinking back to the time when I was sitting in this chapel as a theological student in the early 1970s, all the things that I've learned since then that I wish somebody had told me when when I was here. But I fear that the way that I and many of my contemporaries heard the phrase the authority of scripture, we actually meant the authority of somebody's system, possibly a philosophical system worked out by later theologians with lots of biblical footnotes.
¶12If you want to see what that looks like, look at a printed copy of the Westminster Confession, which is an exposition of classic 17th century reformed theology with lots of one-off biblical references, proof texts. Yes, precisely. And what got me out of this was various trains of thought, especially when I started to teach the gospels and discovered that when Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God, he actually meant God becoming king on earth as in heaven. Kingdom of God was not a fancy way of saying leaving here and going to heaven. Far from it.
¶13It was about God taking charge here and now. And that I remember being compelled in the 1980s when I was teaching in Montreal and studying this stuff. I remember um realizing that actually uh one had to say Jesus was affirming the Judeian hope of the day, but he was also um transforming it by saying, "Well, it's not going to happen like this. It's not going to happen like that. It is going to happen like this.
¶14By the way, that there are more seats upstairs. If you're running out of accommodation downstairs, um you may want to to try upstairs. Anyway, this this is a usual problem and a nice problem to have um in churches and theological colleges to have the pews overs subscribed. Um but there we are. Good.
¶15But so the kingdom of God and that theme rocked me back on my heels. Maybe Jesus did actually mean something about God becoming king here and now. But then there were two themes which um came to me much much later really within the last 20 or 30 years. Um one of which was the notion of the temple. When I was young and we were all good Protestants etc.
¶16the temple was that sort of churchy image which we tried to avoid. um and particularly alas in much biblical scholarship usually done by German Protestants and others the temple was a very Jewish thing which was avoided for that reason. We didn't take the temple language very seriously until a recent wave of scholarship, recent as in 20 or 30 years. That's quite a short time in scholarship actually. Um people were realizing that creation Genesis 1 is a temple.
¶17It's a heaven plus earth reality with an image at its heart. Anyone in the ancient world would know that's a temple. Now in this case of course as in the temple in Jerusalem the uh the the the image was not a real statue in the temple but the image is the place of human beings in God's great cosmic temple. Humans are designed to stand at the dangerous intersection between heaven and earth reflecting God's sovereignty into the world reflecting the praises of creation back to God. The biblical shorthand for which is the royal priesthood.
¶18The royal bit, God's love and care for creation flowing out through his human agents. The priestly bit transporting the praises of creation back to God. And that became then a light motif for me and for many others as we realized that in the Old Testament, yes, it all goes horribly wrong. Genesis 3-11. But God starts a project which actually has a long narrative arc reaching all the way to Exodus 40 when Moses builds the tabernacle in the wilderness and God comes to live with his people.
¶19That is the advanced promise of God's homecoming. And the tabernacle in its construction and design is supposed to be a small working model of new creation. It's a promise that one day God will put the world right and come and live there with his human creatures. Same thing with Solomon's temple mutis mutandis that then so that was the second theme which really made me start exploring this differently. And the third one was those wonderful old testament promises about the world being put right.
¶20The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. That didn't sit too well with the idea that we were all going to escape from this earth and go somewhere else. No, God wanted to flood all creation with himself. As I was thinking about this, I became aware of one particular problem in saying all this in the contemporary theological context. And that is that ever since the 18th and 19th century and particularly deism in the European and British theological scene, those who wanted to hold on to a robustly biblical view of Jesus as the divine son, come to save us, come to do all the wonderful things that he did were always tempted to think, well um th those deists are producing a secularized worldview.
¶21We don't agree with secularism or naturalism. What we want is a supernaturalism. And so in looking for a supernatural worldview, what they do is they go to Platonism and they look at the writings not only of Plato but of first century Platonists like Plutarch and fourth century third fourth century ones like Plutinus and they say no there is a supernatural world. We can prove there's a supernatural world. So that means that miracles and resurrections and things like that are feasible after all.
¶22And uh that's been a problem for those who want to take the Old Testament seriously as a promise of God putting the world right at last. So the main central themes of this book um are the two-fold story of God in the Old Testament. And this this is a puzzle to me. I I never heard any of this when I was here 50 plus years ago or a long time subsequently. But as I've read the Old Testament again and again, these two strands have come up over and over that God promises to do two particular things.
¶23On the one hand, God says he is going to transform all creation. The Psalms repeat how the the the sky and the sea and the animals and the trees are all going to celebrate because God is coming to put everything right. It normally says God is coming to judge the world. But judge there doesn't mean he's going to smash it all into smitherreens. It means he's going to declare in favor of it and rescue and restore it.
¶24Otherwise, why would creation be celebrating? And and that then leads into that passage I quoted from Isaiah 11, but it's also in Habachok 2 and in Psalm 72 and various other places about the whole creation being filled with God's glory. And I began to realize that just as Solomon built the temple so that the divine glory could come and live in the midst of his people. So the the the righteous king in Isaiah 11 and Psalm 72 and elsewhere does justice for the poor and the meek and the oppressed and the widows and the orphans so that the divine glory may flood the whole creation. Those two are in parallel.
¶25So the first story is the long-term project of God wanting to put all creation right and flood it with his own saturate it with his own presence. The second God story in the Old Testament is that at the time of the exile according to the beginning of the book of Ezekiel the temple in order for the temple to be destroyed which because the temple was under judgment God himself had to leave town. God, the whirling wheels and the throne chariot. God is seen disappearing over the Mount of Olives and nobody quite knows where he's gone to. Though some of the later rabbis say he went to be with the exiles.
¶26I think that's just a kind of a cozying of a rather dangerous and difficult tradition about God disappearing. We know not where. But Ezekiel 43 says he's going to come back. And that promise that one day God will return is echoed famously in Isaiah. You know, I must have sung Handle's Messiah literally dozens of times before I ever asked myself, what does it mean to say, "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." The answer is from the point of view of the people who are returning from exile, hoping that when they rebuild the temple, God will come as he did in First Kings 8.
¶27It's the expectation of the glory being revealed. That's picked up in Isaiah 52 as well. Um, your watchmen will lift up their voices and shout for joy because in plain sight they see Yahweh returning to Zion. You got it in Isaiah. You got it, as I say, in Ezekiel.
¶28You got it again and again in Zechariah. You've got it dramatically in Malachi chapter 3. The Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple. And this is the promise that God will come back. Because I remember once asking William Hawbury in Cambridge, one of the great second temple scholars of this last generation said, "William, tell me, is there anywhere in second temple literature which says that the glory of the Lord has actually come back to the temple?" And William thought for a moment and said, "No, not really." He said, "The only place you might say is the end of Bener, the book we sometimes call Ecclesiasticas, where the vision of the high priest in the temple is almost like a divine visitation.
¶29though of course by the 160s BC nobody much was taking Ben Syria seriously because of what had happened with the Syrian invasion and so on. Um, so you've still got this promise in obeyance, the the the the long story, the earth shall be full of the glory of the Lord and the very focus story that one day God has promised to come back in person. And I of course as a New Testament scholar knew perfectly well that when the gospels are introducing Jesus, they do so by means of Isaiah 40 and Malachi 3 and some other passages, but those in particular as though to say, and this is clear what they were saying, that actually when Jesus himself shows up, this surprisingly, shockingly is the fulfillment of the promise that Yahweh will one day come back in person to deliver his people to put everything right. So that I see New Testament christologology as growing straight out of that sense of Israel's God having promised to come back in person and then this being fulfilled in Jesus. That takes several toms should one say to uh to expound and expand and show how it all works out with Paul and the rest.
¶30But one thing it does shows that Christologology was not invented in the fourth or fifth century by the clever learned early fathers. They did a fantastic job of communicating it to their own contemporaries. But it's right there in the beginning. When we're looking at Jesus, we are looking at the human face of God. Of course, the classic passage is John 1 1-14 1-8.
¶31This prologue, you all know it well if you go to church at Christmas. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, tabernacled among us. It's temple language. That which was instantiated in the wilderness tabernacle, that which became a reality in Solomon's temple. Those were both anticipations of what is now the case that the word became flesh.
¶32How nice to have a baby coming in just as we're talking about Christmas. Thank you for that. Please, please don't stop. Um, so, so then you're faced with a question, and I I' I'd like to tease this out more, but I just say it in a couple of pages in the middle of this book. So, does that mean that the New Testament is simply a straight continuation of the Old?
¶33Well, yes and no. Yes, it is claiming to be a fulfillment. And oh, I should have said that the way that the spirit comes in is that the infilling of the church by the spirit in the present is presented quite explicitly as the anticipation of that larger picture of the whole creation being flooded and saturated with God. Paul speaks in Ephesians 3 that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. and Luke in Acts two, he's Luke is not writing about a sort of protocarismatic thing as we've this last generation we've endless debates about that.
¶34No, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in the house and the house was filled with the rushing mighty wind and the disciples were all filled with the Holy Where have we heard this before? We've heard it in Exodus 40 and first Kings 8. This is the filling of the temple. The church is constituted as the new temple. In other words, the small working model of new creation.
¶35There is the high vocation of God's people in Christ and by the spirit that the spirit fills the church as the anticipation of what God wants to do for the whole creation. And the filling of the spirit in the church is of course part of the means in the present time by which that is advanced. So, so what's the difference? And as I thought about this, I kind of mapped very quickly five things where the New Testament's vision is significantly different. For a start, there's judgment on the temple, final judgment on the temple, and its replacement with the disciples.
¶36For another thing, there's the Sabbath. The Sabbath had been a sign of the age to come, breaking in. Jesus says the age to come is breaking in now. So, the Sabbath is no longer relevant in the same way. Then there's the inclusion of Gentiles.
¶37Many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And that was certainly not what Jesus Judeian contemporaries were expecting or wanting. Thank you very much. Then there's as part of that the abolition of the food laws that now all foods are made clean. Then particularly think about this right now where we are historically.
¶38It's the arrival of the peaceable kingdom. The kingdom in which Jesus says those who take the sword perish by the sword. the kingdom in which Jesus says um you must love your enemies and pray for your persecutors. And even though that seems to be an overturning of the Old Testament vision of a kind of a violent king coming in Psalm 2 or Psalm 110, nevertheless, it is already hinted at in Isaiah 2, in Micah 4, in Isaiah 9, and gloriously again in Isaiah 11, where the wolf and the lamb will dwell dwell together and a little child will lead them and so on. And that's all because the earth shall be full of the Adani, the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea.
¶39But notice in all those five points where there is a significant observable shift from old testament to new, none of them are about a shift from a thisworldly uh theology and salvation to an otherworldly one. None of them are saying, "Oh, forget all that stuff about land and family and so on. uh think about going to heaven instead. They're all saying the kingdom of God is coming, but it doesn't look like you thought it would. Jesus is launching his new creation, his new covenant, winning the battle not over the Romans or the Syrians or anybody else, but over the dark powers of evil themselves.
¶40Now, over against this, I'm nearly done. Over against this, there are lots of objections. People say, "What about when Jesus said to the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise." Okay, we'll deal with that. There's a short chapter going through some objections, standard things that I know from frequent lectures, people say. One in particular in Philippians 3 where Paul says, "We are citizens of heaven." I've heard one of the most distinguished theologians of our day, I won't tell you who, um, say that that meant that the Philippians knew that they were citizens of Rome, so they could go back and live in Rome when they wanted to.
¶41So therefore, we are citizens of heaven, so we can go back and live in heaven when the time comes. That's a complete misunderstanding of the language of citizenship. Rome was already overcrowded and had a food shortage problem. The last thing that Rome wanted was a bunch of old soldiers coming back to Rome and swaggering around and stealing people's farms and things. So what citizens of heaven means is that just as Rome founded colonies like Philippi and Antioch and Corinth to be influencing those bits of the world with Roman civilization.
¶42So Paul sees the church as the people tasked with bringing the civilization of heaven to earth not as a temporary thing before you then go away somewhere else. So the result of all this very quickly I the whole section in the middle of the book on how did we get there? How did it go so wrong? Well that's interesting. I blame Plato or rather those who are reading Plato in the third and fourth centuries particularly.
¶43It didn't all happen at once crept in gradually but you can read up that bit of churches. Of course I'm not a church historian so I'm confidently expecting that when church historians read this book they will say very rude things in the reviews about that middle section. We shall see. We shall see. But the result finally fresh ways of looking at evangelism, fresh ways of looking at worship and prayer, fresh ways particularly of looking at the sacraments, a whole different way of doing Eucharistic theology opens up once you realize all along God's purpose was to come and live with us, not to give us odd little signs about going and living somewhere else.
¶44So I explore that and particularly then the imperative to unity which comes in Ephesians and Romans 15 and elsewhere and then the last chapter in the book I deal briefly with the question what do we then say about those who've died if resurrection into the new creation is the ultimate goal what about people who've died in the meantime I want to say this is a problem we in the modern west have in spades people always ask at funerals where are they now what can we think about them now wasn't a big deal in the early church you don't find them asking that question what you do find is little hints Paul saying my desire is to depart and be with the Messiah which is far better and then the teaching about the Holy Spirit that the Holy Spirit who has indwelt us in the present time will not abandon us after death as though the Holy Spirit were to say that was an interesting exercise in temporary sanctification we'll just park that one for the moment and come back to them later. No, the spirit holds us in life in the nearer presence of Jesus against the day when the new day will dawn, new creation and the resurrection will happen. That's how I think we have a way at least of talking wisely about people who have gone before us in the faith. So that's basically it. I I finished the book with a kind of a riff on Isaiah 40.
¶45I wrote I finished this when I'd just been lecturing on Isaiah 40:55 right here which I thoroughly enjoyed. Couldn't resist finishing the book like this. The gospel message has all too often been shrunk. It's been turned into a self-help message of how we might find our way up to heaven and then sometimes, particularly in the modern Western churches, how to have a happy life while we're on the way. But the promise of God's powerful and comforting homecoming works in the opposite direction.
¶46It's gloriously fulfilled in the son and powerfully implemented through the spirit which means through those in whom the spirit dwells. Those who confess Jesus as lord and savior in the full isionic and gospel sense. So there we are. Thank you for your attention. Um I'm done briefly quickly and we're going into a time of of discussion.
¶47Thank you very much. I want to uh dwell a little while longer with with the main antagonist of this book which uh which is Plato or maybe the the church fathers who you say sort of platonized Christian teaching. I think it was nature you quote as saying that Christianity was platonism for the masses. How did the church fathers platonize the teaching of Jesus? Can you just inlect that for us?
¶48>> Yeah. Um, I went back and reread a book when I was doing this which I hadn't read for ages, which is Andrew La's book, Discerning the Mystery, which is about the Christian mystical tradition. And I just looked at the table of contents. And there you have it. The first chapter is on Plato.
¶49The next chapter is on origin. >> I'm thinking, uh, something's missing here. What about the New Testament, for instance, or even the second century fathers? Because it was origin who basically soaked in Platonic philosophy. origin also was a great biblical scholar.
¶50So he didn't want to lose the Bible. He didn't want to lose the Old Testament. But he did with the Old Testament what Plutarch at the end of the first century did with Homer and the great Greek, you know, Plutarch read Homer and and as a good Platonist knew that the gods Zeus and Co couldn't possibly actually behave in the amoral way that the gods do in Homer. So these are allegorories. These are ways of teaching us about the soul and about virtue and so on.
¶51Origin does the same with the Old Testament. Of course, he was anticipated by Pho of Alexandria in the second half of the first century AD who wrote great allegorical treatments. Um, sorry, the the earlier in the first century AD, I'm thinking of Josephus. Um and uh so it it comes in at that point and then the great sum bonum the great goal if you're a good Platonist is for your soul which came from heaven in the first place to find its way back up there. That's already there in Plutarch as well.
¶52So that um then people are reading the New Testament as a way of saying we Christians have got a a fresh way of doing this stuff and they're saying that in order to communicate the message of Jesus to a world which thinks differently philosophically and one of the things which I draw out in the book is that by that stage and origin was in contact with rabbis of the time but by that stage the Judeian rabbis had stopped quite explicitly thinking about God's kingdom coming on earth as in heaven and had constructed the mission at the end of second century as an ahistorical world of piety and so that the the Judeaic thinkers who origin and then subsequent other Christian thinkers knew were ones who had basically abandoned the idea of that revolution happening right here for one simple reason that they tried it twice and it didn't work AD70 and AD135 No thanks, we've had enough. We're not doing that kingdom stuff anymore. So that there's a shift in the Judeaic world and then a corresponding shift in the Christian world. Now, of course, the third and fourth and fifth and sixth century fathers had all sorts of good things going for them. And many of them were deeply devout, wonderful readers of the Bible, determined to to preach from it and teach from it and so on.
¶53But it was shot through again and again with this particular agenda. And I think then that's when the middle ages picks that up and adds Aristotle to the mix and hinkily lacri as um somebody said >> you you mentioned Favius Josephus and I think in the book you talk about a very exciting summer of 1979 when you read through the whole works of Flavius Josephus um and and you you discovered that there weren't well and maybe maybe you can explain it that there weren't any sort of first century Jews who were thinking about the kingdom of god as some sort of retreat beat into heaven. This was completely foreign to the thought world of Jesus. >> Yeah, I I remember that vividly. Um I I actually the reason I did it was that I was for three years chaplain of Downing College in Cambridge and I suddenly had a pupil who wanted to study second temple Judaism and I realized that though I knew the Dead Sea Scrolls and quite well and the rabbis a bit, I hadn't really got to grips with Josephus.
¶54So I thought, okay, here's a project for at least a month in the summer. And you get these wonderful scenes in the Jewish War, but also in the Antiquities, where Josephus and friends are sitting around in Jerusalem, and they're not talking about, "Do I have to do good works in order to go to heaven when I die?" They're talking about when is God going to do what he's promised, liberate us from these wretched Romans, enable all Israel to keep the Torah at last so that we will be his people on earth as in heaven. And then I remember one day realizing I was reading about Josephus in in Jerusalem in the late 50s and suddenly realizing that is when Paul came back from his missionary journeys. And the reason there was a riot in Jerusalem was not because he was saying I've got a better way of going to heaven. That just wasn't the question.
¶55The question was Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. He's been raised from the dead and he wants Judeans and Gentiles together to be his people. that was fighting talk. >> You do note though a number of passages and you you alluded to some of them that are often sort of brought against your picture um that have taken to refer to heaven as some place away from earth. Um there's Jesus's language of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew in Luke you have the brigand to whom Jesus says today you will be with me in paradise.
¶56>> Um Paul talks about being away from the body and with the Lord. So how what do you do with those sorts of proof text? I have about a page and a half on each of those, plus some others as well. But um the absent from the body and present with the Lord thing is the beginning of 2 Corinthians 5. And Paul goes on to say in effect, that's for a while because God has got my new actual body waiting for me in his storoom.
¶57The name of the store room being heaven. Not that we have to go there to get it. I've often used the image of, you know, if I say to a friend, I'm going to be out when you get there, but there's beer in the fridge for you. doesn't mean he's got to get in the fridge to drink the beer. The beer's kept safe in the fridge.
¶58The body is kept safe in God's storoom and God will bring it out and give it to us at the appropriate time. So, a lot of this is language about the so-called intermediate state. Paradise likewise was not um a final resting place. It was the blissful place where you go to be refreshed and rested. And of course Luke 23 where that quote comes is kind of ironic because Jesus saying today you will be with and part of what's going on there is that the Brigen says um remember me when you come in your kingdom which seems to be assuming if he means it seriously not ironically that the kingdom is going to come a long way in the future because goodness Jesus is being crucified that shows he's not actually the the the true Messiah.
¶59And when Jesus says today, he is talking about the timing as well as the location. And the timing is that on the cross, according to Luke, Jesus wins the victory over the dark powers. And from that moment on, the kingdom has in that sense already arrived. And when that happens, the brigant and Jesus will be together in this blissful place for which there is no other good language. But Jesus didn't stay there too long, did he?
¶60I mean, he was he was back a couple of days later. Um yeah, and the the the brigand no doubt um had to wait his turn. Still is waiting his turn right now. I >> I wonder whether another difficulty with this reading is, you know, we often encounter this word soul in the New Testament and we sort of immediately think of the soul as something platonic as something sort of maybe immortal and disembodied. How are first century Jews thinking about the soul?
¶61Well, there were some first century Judeans and Pho of Alexandria will be a good example, although he's not in Jerusalem, but he's in in Egypt. Um, who were so soaked in Plato that when they said the Greek word suk, um, from which we get psychological and all that, they undoubtedly were thinking of the kind of soul that somebody like Plutarch is discussing and that going back to Plato's time, etc. Um the problem then comes that in the Old Testament when it was translated into Greek a couple of centuries before the time of Jesus in what we call the Septuagent um the word suk was used where the Hebrew says nephesh and the point about nephesh is that it isn't it precisely isn't uh a Greek style soul some invisible non-tangible immortal interior bit of you and nephesh is a whole person um it's very interesting You see this in say um uh sorry the the the the parable about the rich fool um where where um this chap says I'm tear down my barns and build bigger ones and he stores his barns with all kinds of good things to eat and drink. And um at the end of that God says you fool this night your soul will be required of you. And generations of Christians have thought yeah that means he was going to die and his soul is going to be going somewhere.
¶62Just before that, what the rich fool says to himself is, "I've stored up all this stuff. So now my soul, take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry." That doesn't sound like a disembodied platonic soul. That sounds like a whole person having a really good time with all his illgotten gains. And so the soul is the whole life. Um but because the Greek is psuk and some people reading the septuent will have thought it meant a platonic soul that's been a real problem.
¶63Um if you look at John Golding gay's remarkable translation of the old testament he is very clear about this. I mean for instance Psalms 42 and 43 why are you so heavy oh my soul why so disqued within me as as the prayer book translation. Um John Golden translates that why are you so heavy? Oh my whole self. It's the the whole self is weighed down.
¶64It's not just some interior part because that's how the Hebrews would have seen it. Um the Hebrews basically were not anthropological dualists. They believed, okay, there are different aspects to who we are as human beings, but we aren't this odd thing called a body with this lovely thing called an immortal soul dwelling in it. So, um, that's a very a very short version of a very long story. >> You've got to read the book to absolutely find the long answer.
¶65>> Absolutely. >> I I think that part of the part of the problem and one of the reasons why we often think of escaping to heaven is kind of just, uh, it's phenomenological. It's like an experience we have that we may believe in our heads that, you know, the heavens and earth are full of your glory and yet then we go to the office or we're doing our normal jobs and it just doesn't really seem like the kingdom of God has arrived in our lives. >> So I I suppose sort of thinking more pastorally, what would you what would you say to us to help us to see that God has already made his home with us? >> Yes.
¶66Uh I would want to stress what in the trade we call inaugurated esquetology. That is something has happened as a result of which the world is a different place. Something is yet to happen which will complete that process. There's that stunning little paragraph in 1 Corinthians 15 20- 28 where Jesus has already been raised from the dead. The victory has been won.
¶67And then it says he must reign until he's put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed being death itself. and and which is when that happens, God will be all in all. The implication is we're living between resurrection mark 1 and resurrection Mark 2. And so as we are on that pilgrimage, there are all sorts of things which we wish were otherwise.
¶68And I mean that contrast that you nicely make between um the whole earth is full of his glory. I mean fascinating, isn't it? Isaiah 6, the seraraphim singing in Isaiah's vision. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.
¶69But then in other passages in Isaiah and the Psalms, the whole earth will be filled with his glory. So there's already a tension in the Old Testament. And they've got those lovely Psalms. The earth, oh Lord, is full of your steadfast love. Oh, teach me your statutes.
¶70So the earth is already full of God's, but we need to learn how to come into harmony with that and so on and so forth. So, but but I would also say um if only modern Christians sang the older hymns a bit more often than they do. A hint to the principal who's sitting at the back there. Um think of George Herbert. Teach me my God and King in all things thee to see.
¶71And what I do in anything to do it as for thee. A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine. Who sweeps a room as for thy laws makes that and the action fine. you know, and and that is exactly like Paul's advice to masters and servants at the end of Ephesians or Colossians that that whatever you do, do it as to the Lord. So, yeah, the desk may look very threatening and boring and all the rest of it.
¶72Um you should see mine just now but um uh yeah th this this is somewhere where God wants to be present with us and that's the daily Christian vocation is to dream into that world where the earth is already full of God's glory and to see what ways today we can make that a little bit more of a reality realizing it'll never get there fully until until the resurrection. But I mean this this has enormous political application as well that um we are still in a world where people that think of themselves as Christian nations go to war to beat up other peoples to make the point um and no no particular topical reference in mind here of course um but um you know this is because we just have not understood Jesus' message about the kingdom. Um, if you read the sermon on the mount, this is how God is becoming king. And of course, it's a slow process because God is not sending in the tanks. I've often said we wish God would send in the tanks and sort out the bad guys.
¶73But according to the sermon on the mount, when God wants to me to to to get the world back into shape, he doesn't send in the tanks. He sends in the poor in spirit and the meek and the brokenhearted and the peacemakers and the mourers and the hungry for justice people. By the time the bullies and the bad guys have woken up and realized what's going on, the meek and the mourers and the hungry for justice people and so on have built schools and hospitals and uh running food food banks and that sort of thing and and suddenly the world is a different place as Tom Holland has argued in his book Dominion. Take all that stuff out and the world will be the very bleak place that it was back in the first century AD when the Romans were running it. So when we're thinking about the kingdom, we've got to celebrate what has been and build on it in the right way >> and not please God in the wrong way.
¶74>> Well, I was I was thinking of uh something called Christian nationalism when you were saying that. And I think that some people, you know, reading your book, but I think God is making his home with us. That sounds fantastic. We might help him along uh in, you know, people with certain political convictions. How does your reading of scripture resist that kind of notion of the kingdom of God?
¶75Because it is it is political but not quite. >> Absolutely. On both sides of the Atlantic. Now, I thought it was just in America, but I I discover it's here as well. Um I did I did a whole lecture on this in in Sacramento, I think just a week ago.
¶76Um the first thing to realize is that most Christians in the world are not white Westerners and most white westerners in the world are not Christians. Let's get that absolutely clear. Many nations, our own included, have been significantly influenced by the Christian message over many years, but not completely transformed thereby. And when push comes to shove, we revert to pagan type. Um so individually it's so in political systems we have a lot of work to do which is made harder because for the last many generations well really ever since the enlightenment western Christians have said oh Jesus said render to Caesar the things of Caesars render to God the things that are gods these are totally different so we do our civic duty and we say our prayers and never the twain shall meet that's a total misreading of that line um and likewise when Jesus says in John 19 my kingdom is not from this world of this world.
¶77The Greek as you know is ectosmutu which is my kingdom is not from this world but my brothers and sisters it is for this world. That's part of the point. And so we have escaped the ch the political challenge of the gospel by uh misreading bits of the New Testament and filtering it through different bits and pieces of modern western philosophy and theology. book recommendation. James Davidson Hunter, who's the sociologist who gave us the whole idea of culture wars 30 years ago, he has a new book called Democracy and Solidarity, which is all about this, about how in America particularly, you have the hybrid enlightenment, partly a strong streak of Christianity and partly a strong streak of John Loian philosophy and pragmatism and empiricism and so on.
¶78And that those two have been fighting each other and that's really where the whole thing comes from. And until we recognize the hybrid intellectual and cultural world that we live in, we won't really be able to see what a Christian nation might look like. I'm tempted to give you the whole lecture, but another occasion. >> I really want to ask you about sacraments. Yeah.
¶79Yeah. >> Because I I sort of came to this book thinking finally I'm going to have the Eucharist explained to me. >> You just did >> by by some right. I did. But um I think a lot of people are very technical in in the way that they describe the Eucharist.
¶80Um and you sort of talking about your sort of biblical vision as opening up opening up new ways of seeing the Eucharist, but it doesn't feel like you land on sort of any particular thing. Maybe there's a sort of slight hair at transubstantiation. But I I was I was sort of still left asking what is the Eucharist to you? >> Okay. Well, that would take a whole other book in itself, I guess.
¶81But um the for me the breakthrough when working on these topics about the promise that the whole earth shall be full saturated with God's presence and glory as the waters cover the sea. And then we find Jesus on the night he's betrayed saying this is my body. This is my blood. And then we find the early church picking that up and uh then being so overwhelmed with this reality of the the living presence of Jesus with us and in us and taste. It's just John 6 taste unless you chew or munch um the the flesh of the son of man.
¶82John uses, Jesus uses a very physical word muenaka, the one who munches my flesh, which is, you know, well, the people at the time thought it was shocking and I think it was meant to be. But then what I want to say is this, if we believe that one day God will flood all creation with himself. And if we believe that in Jesus this was anticipated um that Jesus the person of Jesus is the one in whom uh God has already flooded completely saturated one human being I didn't mean that in an adoptionist sense but I hope you hear what I'm saying that this one human being who was and is the second person of the trinity then by the spirit if he wants to fill his church with himself in that way so that the church can be both the receptacle for and the means of the filling of the world. Then the eucharistic language makes all kinds of Judeaic and biblical sense without recourse to the philosophy of Aristotle which Aquinas then expounded in the middle ages by splitting up the substance which is the inner invisible reality and the accident which is the outer the feel the smell the taste the weight etc of a piece of bread and by saying that it's the substance which gets changed by the time of the 16th century most ordinary European Christians didn't understand the difference between substance and accidents. They just basically thought when the priest stands at the altar and says those funny words and does certain actions then suddenly this bread and wine just becomes literally the physical body and blood of Jesus.
¶83Now in a sense that was the right mistake to make but in a sense it was the wrong mistake because it gave rise to all kinds of extraordinary superstitions and wrong views about the priesthood and so on. What I'm trying to do is to articulate a way of speaking about the real presence of Jesus in and with and through the body and blood in the eukarist without recourse to that medieval philosophy but by talking about new creation and about then God's new creation coming forward to us in the present. Think about in the wilderness, the children of Israel um sent some spies into the land and they came back with those grapes, great heavy bunches of grapes and the children of Israel while still in the desert were tasting fruit from the promised land. I think a wonderful image of what we are invited to do in the Eucharist when we will one day be fully totally with Jesus um celebrating his presence and he's celebrating our presence we get to taste that reality in advance when we take the bread and drink the wine. So though I understand the lowurch sensitivities about oh dear we got to be terribly careful how we do all this and some people seem deliberately to make it as informal and casual as possible in order to show we're not being like those um liturggical Catholics and people.
¶84Um I want to say I think that's um an understandable but unnecessary reaction to an understandable but unnecessary overstatement. Does that make sense? >> Just about. >> Good. Good.
¶85Um my last question is going to be probably about the the sort of scariest and most demanding and most exciting part of your book I think and you mentioned in your talk about how the sort of the task of the church is to be a sort of small working model of heaven and to create the civilization >> of new creation >> see people still do this he's read the whole book and he's still written to write this book of new creation and you know to sort of bring that civilization um here. And I think that scares a lot of Christians because we think, "Oh, well, that's that's a little bit like the legalism of of the Old Testament and the sort of the whole point about the New Testament. I thought we is that we have faith and we're going to go off and be with Jesus." So, how would you respond to your mostly American critics who would say that you're kind of reintroducing works into the picture? >> Yeah. Yeah.
¶86It's a total misunderstanding because the debate about faith and works and Paul's meaning of justification by faith which has been rumbling along now for a generation. Um people cling to the way that they heard it taught and I understand that we all do that. We don't like to give up a standard way we've been seeing it. But actually two things particularly. One, the language of works of the law in Paul is never about me doing moral good works to earn God's favor.
¶87It's the works of the law are the Sabbath, the food laws, the going to the temple, um circumcision, the things which marked out the Judeaic people over against their pagan neighbors. And if you doubt that, look at the second century fathers who every time they mention the works of the law, that's what they assume that it meant. That was the original perspective on Paul, if you like. And moralizing that into, oh, I've got to impress God with all my good virtuous behavior. That again is a medievalism against which the 16th century reformers um were were rightly reacting.
¶88But when you see I mean there are three or four key texts here and one of the most significant is Ephesians 28 to10. By grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God not because of works lest anyone should boast. So that's all of what I was just saying. This isn't something to do with performing the things which say hey we are God's people.
¶89And then verse 10, we are God's, the Greek word is pouyama. We are God's workmanship. Um, uh, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand for us to walk in. So many generations have said, "Well, that's it. You're saved by grace through faith." And then, of course, God wants you to behave yourself once that's happened.
¶90Well, yes, God does want you to behave yourself once that's happened. But that's not what good works there means. As in the letter to Titus, good works is stuff that people do in the wider community to demonstrate the fact that there is a God who loves them. It's to do if you can to do the things whether it's running food banks or putting up a new building for worship or whatever it is which say these are the things which are signals to my contemporaries. And what I love about that in Ephesians 2:10 is that word for workmanship.
¶91The Greek word is pouyama. We are God's poem, God's artwork. This is what I mean by the small working model of new creation. And I think when I was speaking on Ephesians here a couple of years ago and I made this point about we are God's poem. Well, some of us may be haikus, some of us may be sonetss, some of us may be limmericks, some of may be epics going on and on and on forever.
¶92But we are all called to be different kinds of poems or artworks or symphonies or or whatever it may be, displaying to the world who God really is. Actually, that's a theme runs right through Ephesians. The church is there called to be the people through whom the one God says to the world, "This is who I am. This is what I'm like." And yes, that is about as demanding as it could be. But it's nothing whatever to do with me doing good works to earn God's favor.
¶93The whole point about God's homecoming is that it's grace from start to finish. >> I could talk to one of my academic heroes for hours, but I must hand it over to you. So I'm sure many of you have questions. Um if you some of you probably have like three or four questions. If you could make it a single question through so we can get through as many as possible and if you could make it also on the topic of uh tonight's evening God's homecoming that would also be fantastic.
¶94So do we have any questions? >> Yeah. >> Thank you very much. Uh really interested to hear your um talk about God homecoming to this earth. Wonderful.
¶95I'm just puzzled in my mind because I've always understood things like Hebrews chapter 1 uh verses 10 to 12 about God rolling up the heavens like a robe and uh Revelation 21 then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. So I don't know how that squares with God coming down. Does God come down to this earth or is there another earth that God comes down to? >> It's a great question. Thank I don't know if you all heard it, but there are several passages in the New Testament of which one is in Hebrews 1.
¶96There's another one in in second Peter. There's the one towards the end of Revelation, which do imply a huge change and a huge transition. The way that I've come to read those, and I'm not a revelation scholar, but I consulted people like Richard Borham who are, um, is that the great change comes when what is abolished is all the corruption and decay and evil, everything in the present heavens and earth which tends towards death and decay and and disaster. and to transform that into what God always intended from the beginning, the new creation full of life and vibrancy and color and all the rest of it. Um that will be a new heavens and new earth and the old which is um as so often in the New Testament the old is that which is passing away.
¶97um rather than so in other words this does not fund a dualism in which everything about the present world is wicked and sinful and has got to be thrown in the trash can um that demands to be explained in terms of pretty well every single verse that relates to it. You've mentioned one and we've talked about a couple of others as well. But that is how I've come to read them. That this is not about God saying to the present creation quite enough of that. I'm going to do something totally different.
¶98It's the present creation has become so saturated with evil and rebellion as in the days of Noah as in the time of um the Tower of Babel etc. And God is going to do away with that and it will be like a total new creation. The only model we have for it is the resurrection of Jesus where um Paul says in Romans 6, the Messiah being raised from the dead will never die again. Death has no no more dominion over him. And then there is the extraordinary thing in the gospel accounts of the risen Jesus where they don't immediately recognize him.
¶99John says they none of them dared ask him who are you because they knew it was the Lord. That's absurd. You know, they've been going around with him for the previous two or three years. Um they wanted to ask who are you? there was something had changed and yet he was definitely the same leaving an empty tomb behind him.
¶100So I think something of that radical change and everything that smells of death has gone. Um that's that's pretty drastic. >> Thank you. This is a beautiful world. >> Thank you, Dr.
¶101Wright. That was very interesting and I appreciate that. Um, I guess my question to you is I see that you're arguing a lot of continuity with the Hebrew Bible. And what strikes me though is that looking back to the evolution of of many different ideas like resurrection appears very late in the Hebrew Bible. It's a new thing it seems.
¶102And then uh you know later the ideas of incarnation and the trinity and other things seem radically disjunctive with the Jewish under understanding like you were mentioning the kingdom will be different than you expected. So I guess my question is to be true to these to these conceptions, don't we have to really give them weight and and give um and say that that there is something there that it has in common with Platonism, but it's it's prior to Plton to being influenced by Platonism and it's actually something disjunctive that Jesus has introduced into the Jewish tradition. >> Yeah. Um, I'm not sure because the more I've studied the whole temple theme and the way in which Genesis 1 and 2 relate to really the whole of the rest of the Old Testament, certainly the rest of the Pentetuk, the more I've come back to thinking that in Genesis 1 itself, the creation of man and woman in God's image is not as just a kind of an odd first move which God is going to do something else about later. It's a way of saying that God wants to come and be at home in his world and that a human being is the best mode in which that could happen.
¶103You get the same, at least I see the same in 2 Samuel 7 when David says he wants to build a house for the Lord, meaning a building in Jerusalem, and Nathan the prophet says, "Well, nice try. No cigar. Not a bad idea really, but actually your son's going to do that. But now I will raise up your seed after you who will sit on your throne. I will be his father and he will be my son.
¶104This is God's answer to David's desire that there should be a place where God comes to dwell permanently. And the answer is it won't be in a building. It'll be in and as a human being. So I already see and I think the early Christians picked up exactly that. I mean look at the way in which 2 Samuel 7 is used in say Romans 1:3 and 4 and parallel passages.
¶105So I I would say what you find in Genesis 1 is a kind of prototrinitarian theology. It starts with the the the the breath of God, the Ru Elohim, the the wind of God. And then when you get God breathing into human nostrils the breath of life, there's this sense God has made humans in order that God has made humans to be stewards of creation in order that he might himself become the steward of creation by becoming human. And I think that's how the New Testament picks it up. God has made humans to be filled with his breath in order that ultimately his real breath, his ru, his spirit will come and fill them against the day when he does that for the whole world.
¶106So I want to say I have a very trinitarian reading as you hear of Genesis 1 and I see that going on through through the prophets particularly um and it's not said in the same way that the fourth and fifth century fathers say it but I mean just one example when I was here studying Petristics among many other things uh a thousand years ago um we we were told that the early church never really sorted out whether the Holy Spirit was God or not. And it was up to the um the the Capidosian fathers who did all the all the leg work on that three centuries later. Um but that the New Testament just gives you a few hints and guesses. I want to say sorry this is a failure to read the New Testament Judeaically because in Romans 8 and Galatians 4 when Paul is talking about the new exodus of the people of God which is what's happened in Christ and by the spirit he uses the image of us being led to our inheritance. And what leads us to our inheritance is the spirit.
¶107Now in the original Exodus story what leads the people to their inheritance is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. you could not have a higher pneumatology than you've got in Galatians 4 and Romans 8 and in the other passages which go with them. So I want to say um I don't think I'm not actually answering what you said here but I'm answering the kind of question behind it that I think the early church then from the 3rd century onwards is struggling to say in the philosophical language of its time what was actually much more clearly said in the first century Judeaic language drawing precisely on the old testament and and yes there are significant gear changes which I mapped very briefly but um so you hear what I'm saying I hope yeah >> you mentioned the value of old hymns. What do you think is a good way to handle Amazing Grace? Because because the final stanza in the in the new in the the licensing agency has put out is um the earth shall soon dissolve like snow.
¶108>> And uh I've seen over a hundred years of efforts by hbook editors, lots of himbook editors, back you know Baptist ones and uh to salvage the hymn by either chopping the last stanza or substituting one from a different hymn. um when we've been there 10,000 years which is which is sort of you know not not too bad not so bad. Um >> at least it doesn't collapse into a platonic eternity. >> But I mean for for me personally it's a big issue because it comes up a lot in church and I just walk out. I I walk out.
¶109>> How can I handle it? >> I I don't walk out. I either just don't sing those lines or make up other ones of my own. Um and one of the nice things about being a bishop was that when I was running services in Durham, the bishop has the last word on the liturgy. So, if I wanted to change the last verse of a hymn, I would do it.
¶110Um, and there are several. I mean, and some I just wouldn't go near at all. Um, sadly, sadly, ones I've loved from childhood, away in a manger, and fittest for heaven to live with thee there. I'm sorry, that's not what the text says. And, um, ah, there's that lovely hymn set to a bark tune, the dutiousest day now clotheth each flower and tree reposes.
¶111They probably don't sing that in your Baptist church, but I sang it a lot growing up. Um, and it's it's all about well at the moment we are blundering around in the dark like somebody during the daytime because the sun obliterates everything else. But then when night comes we see the moon and the stars and we realize this and so and the hymn ends. But when life's day is over, shall death's fair night discover the fields of everlasting light. It's great poem, a great poetry, but it's nothing to do with Christianity.
¶112Um and and and and like there was another one an evening hymn, son of my soul, thou savior dear. It is not night if thou be near. The last verse there which I sung many many times as a choir boy when he was growing up um come near and bless us when we wake through the world our way we take till in the ocean of thy love we lose ourselves in heaven above. Sorry that's Buddhism. It's not Christianity.
¶113And the fact that people put it in him books without realizing that shows just how far we've and that's what I said about the deism thing is really important that because the deists and then the secularists were saying there is no heaven there is no supernatural world it's all just what you see what you see is what you get so that really anything which was speaking about another dimension people thought oh that must be spiritual that must be Christian and we need I mean I at least would love it if people did go back and try to sing the old hymns. Um, but be very careful while you do so. Um, sorry, it's the time of night in my jet lag. Anecdotage, my oldest son was an organist for a while in a church in County Durham and um, my wife and I once went for a service where he was playing and the vicar said, "We're going to sing him number 535. We're going to omit verse three.
¶114I'm not quite sure, but Julian says we should, not a show, but Julian says we should admit it." So, I thought, "There's my boy. I imagine you would dismiss this question as complete rubbish. Please do >> if you feel um so you've talked about the new heaven and new earth and about our present and our future. Uh there are some intriguing references in scripture just a few about the past uh chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and so on. >> I think of first Ephesians, first Peter, Revelation.
¶115Um, was there any physical pre-existence for us? >> Oh, >> please dismiss this if there if it's real rubbish question. >> I see no evidence for any physical pre-existence. I see plenty of evidence for intention in the mind and heart of God. Um, uh, but no idea of a physical pre-existence.
¶116And this becomes difficult when you talk about was Jesus pre-existent because I really want to say yes the one who became incarnate always was with the father. That's very very clear in scripture. But the becoming incarnate John 1:14 is a new thing. The word became flesh. Any idea that he was already flesh sort of pull pulls away from that.
¶117Um so and it's very interesting that in Ephesians 1:3 which you quoted chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world doesn't say so that we could go to heaven and be with him forever. It says that we should be holy and blameless before him. So back to the whole question of good works etc. But in other words we are chosen so that we can display to the world who the true God is. That is a big responsibility.
¶118That's again the small working model of new creation. >> Thank you Dr. A. In one word, evangelism. So there is the notion of heaven as a useful pop initiator when evangelizing.
¶119And so when one has 30 seconds on the tube or so to pop a question, it is incredibly useful. But of course, when thinking about the study desk and bringing the kingdom of heaven here on earth, there's equally that tendency to get too comfortable and not share. I suppose the question in and of itself is how would you advocate for evangelizing when we don't have that? Okay, thank you. Great question because I know there are many evangelists for whom the opening question is, you know, if you died tonight, where would you go?
¶120Um, and I say in the new the New Testament isn't terribly interested in where you go. Interested in your final destination, the resurrection, but I wouldn't put it like that. And I have a section on this in the book um on evangelist J. John. Yeah.
¶121um he and I have been friends for 354 years and we we talk this stuff from in fact we've got a podcast even I'd forgotten that um where we we discuss this so have a look at that in more detail but the key thing is this seems to me the message is that the God who made the world has launched his decisive plan to remake it and flood it with his own life and love and beauty and justice. You get the chance if you want to be part of that plan. Not only to have it in your own life, but to be recruited to be an agent for it. You up for that? Now, I could say that in three sentences on the tube.
¶122Um, and and that that and because then of course, how could I possibly be because I'm a sinner or I'm a this or I'm unworthy or God has dealt with that. You want to know how he's dealt with it? Have a look at, you know, the end of Mark's gospel or whatever it may be. So I would start with the promise of new creation and the fact that God is recruiting people to be part of that new creation now and then to be able to take it forward. One of the ways I've done it particularly summarizing justification.
¶123God has promised to put the whole world right. In Jesus he dealt with evil and launched the new creation. He now puts human beings right with himself by grace through faith. That's justification so that we can be part of his putting right project for the world. It seems that that's actually fairly straightforward.
¶124It's just not what we were all taught in Sunday school. Uh there are some intention not to use the book of revelation and your narrative when you try to present all the Bible narrative for some reason decided not to include too much the book of revelation because some idea could be very strong in this book but I am questioning why do you prefer not to use yes I >> I'm sorry um I in the notes that I had from when I gave a similar talk which took me an uh a week ago in North America there was plenty of revelation. I was just zooming through my notes rather fast as you observed. One of the key moments for me and this has been so for ages. Uh in other words, it wasn't a new discovery.
¶125It's it's there all along. Revelation 21, which introduces the final scene, is not about saved souls going up to heaven. It's about the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth. And the strap line in verse three is not the dwelling of humans is now with God. It's the dwelling of God is now with humans.
¶126Now I have to say there's a lot about the book of Revelation which I still wouldn't claim to understand. Basically the middle section I find the first seven chapters are more or less I think I can do those and the last sort of four or five it's the ones in the middle which are which are very difficult and most commentators will agree with that. Um but then in Revelation five where you get that glorious scene where the lion who is also the lamb is being praised by this great assembled host that they say you are worthy to receive um the the the the scroll and open it because you were slain and by your blood you ransomed humans for God from every tribe and language and kingdom and nation and made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they will reign upon the earth. I never heard sermons on that when I was growing up. That just wasn't part of the way we told the story.
¶127But Revelation, I think, is very conscious of writing at the end of the first Christian generation and really drawing the whole narrative from Genesis right the way through. There's a lot of Genesis in Revelation and and Genesis 21 and 2 is very much it's the garden city. It's both the new Jerusalem and the New Eden. And I mean I get frustrated by this because when I was in Lichfield um every few years they put on the mystery plays, wonderful mystery plays with little troops of players going all around the town doing different scenes about Noah and the ark or Jonah and the whale or Daniel and the lion's den and and then coming through into the great scenes about Jesus. But the final scene in those medieval mystery plays again and again was of people going upstairs to heaven uh while there were demons waiting to drag some people some some people downstairs to earth.
¶128And that's just not how the Bible story is how the medieval story works. Look at the cysteine chapel. Um and I remember a wonderful memory um maybe 20 years ago going to a performance a staged performance of V's Reququum in Covent Garden and it was wonderfully done beautifully sung with then the chorus acting out what was going on and in that wonderful liber de Morte eternum free me oh lord from eternal death the chorus were all lighting candles from a central u central flame and then proceeding upstairs to an upper gallery above. Um, and the soloist was trying to light her candle with a match which wouldn't strike and wouldn't strike and wouldn't strike and eventually the whole thing went dark and she was left on the stage. It was heart-rending.
¶129Um, and it was actually a clever piece of direction because they gave her a box of dud matches. We we know the lady in question and that's how it worked. But um I remember sitting there thinking that is wonderful theater and lousy theology and that's not what the last scene in the Bible is all about. But we've had it drilled into us by music and art and everything else. >> You're very influenced by by your uh explanation of of of heaven and the final plan.
¶130But something a little personal based on what you said before. It seems as though you see >> Sorry, can you speak up? I'm >> sorry. Okay. Sorry.
¶131It seems as though you see Plato's influence on Christianity is quite pernicious. And you mentioned how Aristotle got introduced later. I mean he's he's maybe more in line with the sorts of vision you're presenting it seems to me. But I guess >> so sorry. Who are we talking about?
¶132>> Aristotle introduced again later. He seems a little bit less um out out there a little bit more grounded. >> Um I guess my question overall is how do you see the relationship between philosophy and theology? Do you think philosophy has any role to play? Because I think you have a PhD in it if I remember.
¶133No, my first my first degree was great, which is philosophy in ancient history. Um, my doctorate was in Paul's letter to the Romans. Um, but you can't escape philosophy there either. Romans of all places. Um, it's a great question.
¶134My anxiety is that so often philosophy appears to deal with two dimensions of a problem which theology deals with in three dimensions. Obvious example would be the problem of determinism and free will where it's kind of an eitheror either everything is mechanical ultimately or we have free will. Um and very hard to see how those work together. If you add in the dimension that God the creator has plans for the world but those plans include wise human beings being liberated from all that corrupts them in order freely to choose the good of his creation. Then suddenly the problem of either determinism or free will can be addressed in a much richer and more manysided way.
¶135And actually problem of perception is the same I find. Um but I've never really worked this out. It's a it's an entire thesis. If anyone's looking for a philosophy PhD thesis um the way in which the the classic theological problems um express the philos philosophical problems but in three dimensions rather than two. That's a shorthand but it would need it would need working out.
¶136I think though every generation has its favored philosophies. I mean you said nichi presenting Christianity as platonism for the masses. Although some people who have got more into the this worldliness of of of uh of creation and new creation have actually started saying that maybe it's epicuranism for the masses. Now that would be wrong as well. Um but um there's more to this than meets the eye.
¶137But each generation does have the obligation, I think, to think into the world of the Bible and the gospel in relation to the philosophical, cultural, etc. problems of the time and to see where there may be engagement to be had and where there may be uh dialogue to be had. The danger then is when Christians get so enamored of whichever philosophical track they're on that they think they can actually prove or reconstruct the whole of Christianity out of that philosophy just bringing the Bible in as footnotes. I've seen that done is not a pretty sight. >> Thanks so much.
¶138Fascinating. A couple of well two see if you could do two cheeky ones. One is one one about sort of personal formation and one about sort of pastoral practice. So this this longing of an anticipation of of God's homecoming, I wonder on on one level, what's your advice in terms of us personally sort of um cultivating a hunger, longing for that in our own hearts uh an anticipation, reminding our own hearts of that day? And then secondly, if I may be cheeky, how in pastoral practice week by week with illness and bereiement and unemployment, how do we how do we make this future reality a a living burning pastoral impact?
¶139>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> In church life. >> Yes.
¶140I mean, the two questions are closely related. my mind goes instantly to several of the psalms which are about invoking the presence of God in the midst of trouble whatever it may be or or sorrow or tragedy as well as invoking the and celebrating the presence of God when everything's going well and we're feeling we're feeling great um but I would then say John 13-17 the so-called farewell discourses and particularly 14:15 and 16 very much about um yes in the world you will have trouble But God and his spirit will be with you because I am going to the father and I will send another comforter and he will be with you and will be in you. And I know many many people who found that praying carefully through John 14:15 and 16 and just seeing where that goes for you personally because there's so much richness in there that it could go in in one of a number of different ways but that would be a way in. So I would say the farewell discourses and the psalms um yeah um I think particularly pastorally and in terms of a preaching ministry in the church the time to preach about God's ultimate future and the promise of resurrection is probably not at the funeral because people come to a funeral their minds heavy with grief and anxiety and sorrow and loss and so on and they're not ready to have a mini theological lecture. the time to preach about the ultimate hope and the stages there too is in the ordinary course of preaching um in in the church week by week and especially of course at Easter but uh uh other times as well because then um and and I'm not diminishing at all the difficulty for many clergy who really want to teach this to congregations but who find that as I remember student saying either here or somewhere I was teaching a long time ago go.
¶141Um, while I was listening to you, it all made sense. And as soon as I went out of the door, my mind flicked back into neutral, you know, um, or into into default mode. Um, and and that's that's all too often the case. But we've got to keep on trying. And we've got to show it works by the church being the church at the places where the world is in pain.
¶142Those of you who know my work will know Romans 8 is really, really important in much of what I do, which is about the world groaning in travail. Please God, that's going on right now. The church groaning in travail as we await our redemption. God the spirit dwelling in us groaning inwardly with inarticulate groanings which is most extraordinary thing. You know there is stuff which is so bad that even the third person of the trinity hasn't got words to express how bad it is.
¶143But the father knows what is the mind of the spirit. And we are caught up in the middle of that and shaped according to the pattern of Christ which is the crucififor pattern. That's Romans 8:29. Conformed to the image of the son that he might be the firstborn among a large family. So farewell discourses, Psalms, Romans 8.
¶144Can't say fairer than that. >> Tom, thank you so much for all you've taught us this evening. Thank you for letting us record this special edition of Unbelievable. And good luck on your book, God's Homecoming. Thank you to Wickliffe.
¶145And can we give another thanks to Tom. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.