10^th July 2010

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is woven into the very structure of Christian life and thought bringing a future hope for people and the creation itself. But how do we come to terms with the significance of the Resurrection? There have been many radical "block-buster" theories about Easter and the after-life but Paul points out that we need to take care not to build with wood, hay and stubble or to look to the wisdom of the world 1Cor 3: 11,18.

Influenced by the culture of our time the resurrection of Jesus has been emptied of its meaning. Like a glass of water, the glass can stand alone and remain intact but be emptied of its content. In fact we have often flattened out the resurrection into meaning simply that there is life after death, a state of spiritual bliss or that Jesus is alive today and we can get to know Him. While there are aspects of truth here, the truth of the resurrection is much richer than this. In fact the resurrection is not really about "soul making", the language of the resurrection only makes sense if you understand the Jewish world view.

Why did the early Christians say the Messiah and the Kingdom of God had come? Why did Christianity with its Messiah executed by Rome not only refuse to abandon these concepts? Why did it emerge as a different Messianic movement? How do we explain why the early church, which had cherished Messianic hopes, not only continue to believe that He was Messiah but actively announce him as such to the Jewish and pagan world? They cheerfully redrew the picture of Messiah-ship around Jesus refusing to abandon it.

Many have said they changed the meaning of the Kingdom radically so that it didn't refer to the political state of affairs but to an internal spiritual one. No, this is not true! It was neither a nationalist, Jewish movement nor a fuzzy private experience. The early Christians said the Kingdom of God had come because of the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus.

Resurrection was not a general word for life after death or for going to be with God. It was not about souls, angels or spirits. It was the symbol for the coming new age, the word for what happened when God created newly embodied human beings after whatever intermediate state there might be. Why was the resurrection of the dead important?

From the time of Ezekiel resurrection was the word used to describe Israel's great return from exile. When it happened Israel's sin, death and exile had been dealt with. It signaled that the fortunes of his people Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, together with all of Gods people including the martyrs would be re-embodied, raised to new life in God's new world. This was not a state of bliss, of being alive as an angel, spirit or that their souls were in the hand of God. Resurrection meant embodiment and implied that the new age had come.

The earliest Church however declared not only that Jesus was raised but that "the resurrection of the dead" had already occurred Acts 4:2. Against their expectations of all the righteous dead being raised to life at the end of the present age. One man had been raised in the middle of the present age. What is more they believed as though the new age had already arrived, their whole way of thinking and viewing the world changed. Since God had done this for Israel, the Gentiles also shared the blessing.

The Resurrection Body

As a strict Pharisee and early Christian, Paul believed passionately in the restoration of Israel and the coming new age. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul does not understand resurrection to mean the opening up of a new religious experience or of survival after death. It meant the Scriptures had been fulfilled, that the Kingdom of God had arrived. The new age had broken into the midst of the present age, had dawned upon a surprised and unready world. (as it still does) The entire biblical narrative had at last reached its climax-come true in these astonishing events. As a result Paul proclaims the New Age is in two stages. The Messiah first, then the final resurrection of all those who belong to Jesus the Messiah.

This Messiah is already risen, he is already as a human being, exalted into the presence of God, He is already ruling the world-not in a divine capacity but precisely as a human being-fulfilling the destiny marked out for the human race. On this basis Paul asserts emphatically the future embodied-ness both of the Christian dead and of the Christian living. So the present life of the church, in other words is not about "soul- making", the attempt to produce or train disembodied beings for a future disembodied life. It is about working with fully human beings who will be re-embodied at the last after the model of the Messiah.

What sort of body? 1 Corinthians 15:50-57.

Paul states emphatically his belief in a body that is changed not abandoned. The present physical body in its present state, in weakness, sickness and death is not to go on and on forever. What is required to inherit the kingdom of God is a "non-corruptible physicality". V's 35-39. (The translation in some Bibles is unhelpful) Both phrases physical-and spiritual body refer to a physical body.

Paul is saying the present body is a physical body animated by "soul;" the future body is a transformed physical body animated by God's Spirit. So that our lowly bodies will be transformed to be like his glorious body Philippians 3:20-21.Paul, then, claiming to represent what the whole main stream of the church believed, insisted on certain things about the resurrection of Jesus.

1. It was the moment when the creator God fulfilled his ancient promises to Israel, saving them from their sins, their exile. It thus initiated the "last days," at the end of which the victory over death began at Easter would at last be complete.
2. It involved the transformation of Jesus' body: it was, that is to say, neither a resuscitation of Jesus dead body to the same sort of life nor an abandonment of that body to decomposition.
3. It involved Jesus being seen alive in a very limited early period, after which he was known as present to the church in a different way
4. It was thus the ground not only for the future hope of Christians but for their present work. They began to live in the light of the new creation.

We live, therefore, between Easter and the consummation, following Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit, bringing God's reshaping to our world. In all of this the most glorious thing is of course the personal, royal, loving presence of Jesus himself. Blessed, says Jesus, are those who have not seen yet believe; yes, indeed, but one day we shall see him as he is, share a resurrected body and in the completed new creation that he is even now in the process of planning and making.

Adapted from "The Challenge of Easter: NT Wright by Rev Ted (EA) Curnow. July 2010