Abstract
The notion of resurrection has been strangely absent from much popular, as well as academic, Christian thinking in the west. For most, ‘going to heaven’ is the ultimate aim, rather than the biblical ‘new heavens and new earth’, promises rooted in the vision of God as good creator and wise judge. Paul and John expound a vision of new creation, starting with Jesus’ own resurrection. The church’s mission is to model and implement this new creation in the present, not least in working for justice and beauty, ahead of the final renewal which remains God’s own work.
Highlights
I attended a funeral not long ago which set me thinking about whether the western church has really got it right
Paul and John expound a vision of new creation, starting with Jesus’ own resurrection
The writer in question goes on to speak of Socrates and others who, were happy to depart this life for a blissful heaven
Summary
The Greek word for ‘resurrection’ is anastasis, literally ‘a standing-up’. And here’s the key point: in the world of the first century, anastasis never referred to what we think of as ‘life after death’. In one of the greatest Christian poems of all time, Paul writes to the Colossians that Jesus is ‘the beginning; the first-born from the dead; so that in everything he might be pre-eminent.’ We will never understand the gospel unless we see it as a great narrative, the narrative which finds its way through the dark night of the soul in the long years of Israel’s desolation and bursts out with new life on Easter morning.
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