The Resurrection Series #22

Warranted Resurrection Belief

In the great halls of Philosophy lies a School of Epistemology which has existed for thousands of years. The question of how we know what we know is discussed at this school and great men have fought and disputed the phenomenon of human knowledge since the dawn of philosophy itself. Sometimes reading through the tombs of essays and anthologies on this subject can make you feel like you are stuck in an MS Escher painting. I will do my very best to present this material as concisely as possible.

Alvin Plantinga really has to be given credit as being the one who has revived interest in the subject of religious epistemology. He laid the groundwork for what might be called an intellectual treatise on faith. Ever since the dawn of the modern era faith has been seen as a hindrance to rational thought. Marx saw it as the opiate of the masses, and the faithful responded by proving him right. Everyday we see stories of people doing the most irrational things for their faith, and for any critical person these tragedies seem so easily avoided should we not all adhere to a simple code of reason. I for one would not ever want to be on the side that tries to limit or suppress rationality.

So the question Plantinga ultimately sets out to answer is; is faith rational? This is not expressly admitted to, but through his technical jargon this is the basis for Warranted Christian Belief, which is the culmination of his Warranted trilogy. What Plantinga offers is a very easy and common sense theory of knowledge, which is refreshing, but his approach is still steeped in the analytical school of philosophy. It can be daunting to try and read through his books. Plantinga’s basic thesis is to identify the cognitive functions that produce true beliefs, and if such functions are working properly then they obtain warrant. Now there are a few more caveats to add to the idea of what it means for a cognitive function to “work properly”, but that phrase is sufficient enough to grasp the general meaning. Thus, a properly functioning cognitive system is a rational one.

Plantinga does very little to elaborate on what neurological components exist in his epistemology to identify cognitive functions, nor does he ever make a connection between faith and cognitive functions in order to truly establish his thesis, but he does go to great lengths to show how principle Christian beliefs demonstrate coherency toward general metaphysical principles. I cannot say for sure why Plantinga drops the ball at the most critical juncture of his argument, but it is still recognized to be one of the great contributions to religious epistemology. My guess is that Plantinga wanted to shy away from over-rationalizing the Christian faith, and to establish a specific cognitive function as representing faith would in the end make our spirituality too banal and natural. Plantinga mentions in his books how his epistemology is a naturalistic one, but can be used for spiritual purposes. So in keeping “faith” shrouded in its religious conclave made it possible for him to simply sidestep the issue and move on to other important theological concepts.

But where Plantinga left off, Paul Tillich gives us great insight into the cognitive properties of faith. Paul Tillich describes faith as ultimate concern. Tillich was not afraid of over-rationalizing the Christian faith, in fact, that was his objective. Which might be to his peril. His Systematic Theology is one of the greatest modern works of Theology, and one of the most sacrilegious. It is pure theosophy on the one hand and Christian mysticism on the other. Tillich gives us a comprehensive Christian faith seen through the eyes of modern intellectualism. One can feel as though they completely understand Christianity and still not know anything about it at all, after reading it, like reading a manual on how to build a car and thinking you can then drive it afterward.

What is ultimate concern? For Tillich ultimate concern was that state of concern that existed ultimately, and I know that sounds repititous, but it is an important distinction. Concern is that state of seeking personal meaning. We show concern, but concern is in a sense non-rational. It is not derived from the inductive or deductive synthesis’ of our noetic structure. The way we think, the way we hold beliefs, the way we arrange information into patterns is all determined by a set of filters already in place we see as our identity. Our identity is who we are. It is not simply knowledge. It is *our* knowledge. We have no rational foundation for our identity is simply is. It exists and everything else comes afterward.

When Tillich proposed faith as ultimate concern what he was doing is saying that faith is our way of finding meaning and purpose for our lives, and his proposal was to argue that since our identities are non-rational we have the epistemic license to seek the transcendent as a source for ultimate meaning. God, in this sense, is the bringer or source of ultimate meaning. So for Tillich, god is a tacit belief for all concerned people. We all just name our gods differently. For some god is popularity. For others it is success, and still have family as their god. The point is that the role is the same as directing our total selves to something we see as beyond or transcendent.

The argument along these lines to direct us to God in the proper sense, is to seek out that one principle which is truly transcendent that can exist ultimately. It does not good to make success our god, for that is clearly a false god. It is no more transcendent then jump rope. It is an idol. Modern Evangelicals have manufactured a term called, “classical theism” and with it they have made themselves sound legitimate as possessing “classical” belief, but the reality is that patristic and medieval theology had a well spring of divergent theological belief that was very accommodating and adaptable to a pluralistic society, and one such idea saw God as Unity. Unity of self and unity of others and unity of nature is a valid transcendent concept that faith can properly call God. It was along these lines that Thomas Aquinas called Truth, Good, and One the Transcendentals of his metaphysical system, meaning that they were in all beings and no being could ever separate itself from these three qualities. He elaborated further to say that these Transcendentals could be condensed further into Simplicity/Unity.

So Warrant and Ultimate Concern can lead us theologically to accepting the reality of God. And if we follow Plantinga’s line of thinking such a process is in a sense naturalistic. In that, it becomes natural to find in God meaning to life for those who come to find meaning in devoting themselves to God. And because we can identify a natural source, albeit a genuine spirituality nonetheless, we can propose that a relatable safe guard exists which can block or provide resistance should we misuse or abuse our faith. We can easily assume that because we can understand faith, we can also understand that something called, “bad faith” exists.

If Plantinga is correct and warrant is conferred through properly functioning cognitive processes, and Tillich is correct that faith is ultimate concern then we have a basis of determining what is good or bad faith, and thusly what would be a good or bad religious experience. This fact alone makes the appeal to religious experience as a basis for the resurrection extremely plausible. From the a posteriori facts alone the resurrection produced some of the most important spiritual insights for Western Civilization, and continues to do so today. So what it comes down to is understanding what an identity is. An identity is a unity. What makes an identity, what it is, is its basic uniqueness while remaining unified to everything else. So what unites us to the world?

Humans have a distinct identity. I would say one that is ontologically different than everything else. As Sarte exclaimed, “Existence before essence”. What he meant was that for humans we first exist and then we have to figure out what we are. For everything non-human, or non-person, what they are comes first and then they are allowed to exist or not exist. Unicorns possess being, in that they are potential. In classical metaphysics unicorns exist, because they exist potentially. Today we would say that unicorns exist in a possible world. What this means is that we lack a basic unity that everything around us has by virtue of the fact that they are a non-person.

This ontic unity is the basis of normativity for all faith activity. Anything “of faith” ought to lead us to a greater inner unity and external harmony. The cult leader who shuns society is intrinsically acting in bad faith. The serial killer who hears from God, may be acting according to some “reason” for his crime, but it is not in good faith that he does so. I would say that the resurrection most certainly increased the unity quotient in those who first confessed that they were witnesses to the Living God present in the New Life of Jesus Christ. The literature that came from this event testifies to their reliance on God and a new awareness of His existence in their hearts and in their being as they live out their lives aware that everything they do, they do for His purpose.

Since we have no instruments which can measure whether or not something was either a hallucination or a vision two thousand years ago. I propose that the a posteriori evidence be considered and meriting genuine religious experience. Since it can then I argue that a spiritual resurrection model has a good chance of success. 

The Resurrection Series #20

Acts of the Resurrection

We have only one book left to consider in our quest through the New Testament to find convincing evidence that early resurrection belief necessitated the colliery beliefs that either, physical regeneration is the only acceptable belief to qualify as authentic resurrection belief, or that Jesus must have been physically present on earth after the time of his death for salvation belief to be genuine. We have found not a singe reference or case which could be made for any of the above colliery beliefs that we speculate could substantiate the historical resurrection model. It has been a long task, I admit, and one that I have pondered for quite a while.

My position at the beginning of this series was to state how the current debate concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ has more to do with the religious polarization between conservative and liberal theologians then it does between Christians and atheists. There are copious amounts of literature being generated on this topic and many Christian apologists are being factory produced at evangelical colleges to present this issue in a different light then what I think is really happening. These “apologists” go out and debate atheists, skeptics, and unbelievers with the tag line of how “reasonable” their position is, and at the end of the day Christians are content and comfortable to believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. And the only reason anyone is not saved is because they are resisting the truth that is so clear to everyone.

There are power structures at play in this debate, and Christendom has a lot at stake in the Evangelical community. If people believe that their salvation is a matter of gathering all the correct information and synthesizing it correctly to produce the right beliefs then you will have a group that is easy to control and manipulate. There are good reasons why those in power and authority want us to believe that the resurrection is a historically provable event. It reinforces the power structure that gets those to disassociate goodness with rightness. If the only thing that matters in life is getting things right then we will always have to look to those who are smarter, richer, or more powerful than us, but if being good has any merit at all then our own self-appraisal and conscience must come into play, and an authentic salvation should be directed more at what makes us good rather then what makes us right.

So I am deeply concerned about the Evangelical passion to prove that the resurrection occurred historical as the Gospels testify. It concerns me because the “fruit” which comes from such a passion only seems to make good servants and not good people. So a discussion of “acts” is fitting for our final examination, for it is the “Acts of the Apostles” which seems to be the overwhelming and consistent claim to a Living God present in the wholeness of Jesus’ life and person. These first believers of Jesus gave everything for him, just as he gave everything for us, and as this tradition passes from generation to generation Christ, who is our progenitor of faith is lifted up and is given New Life. As Bultmann portrayed, “Christ is risen in the kergyma.”

Acts does have some important information, because in it we see the first followers of Jesus preaching how Jesus was raised right after the event happened. These stories will have to be taken with a grain of salt, for they are written under the same condition in which the Gospels are written under. But, if a good case can be made that right after Jesus’ death people went out and claimed that he was physically raised from the dead, then my case for a spiritual resurrection might have to be reevaluated, and the case for a historical resurrection would become stronger.

In the 2^nd chapter of Acts Peter preaches to those at Pentecost of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He says, “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him…. (quote from psalms 16) Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place on of his descendents on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (2:24-32). Peter quotes a verse from the Psalms to make his argument which says how the “Holy One will not see decay”.

It is important to note that no Jew at the time of Christ believed that Psalms 16 was a messianic prophecy which predicted his future resurrection. Peter for all intents and purposes is completely constructing his interpretation of Psalms 16 around what he wants to believe about Jesus. His argument itself is weak, for he claims that when Psalms 16 says how the Holy One will not see decay it means how a physical body will be regenerated and then glorified, as though this passage is left incomplete, but this is not the case. In fact the passage in Psalms 16 does complete itself, it says, “Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (9-11). Peter changes the phrasing of this verse to suit his needs at the moment. He changes the body resting secure to a body living in hope, because the first phrasing suggests that the body remains buried in the ground, and he leaves out the part of eternal pleasure being at the right hand, because it represents an exaltation rather then a resurrection. Thus, the Psalms passage that Peter uses is NOT an example of a resurrection prophecy. So if that is contrived then we have no reason to think that the physical resurrection is also NOT a contrivance.

 The next passage in Acts to consider is the Cornelius encounter. Peter says, “We are witnesses of everything be did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen – by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (10:39-41). The physical manipulation of objects by spiritual beings does not entail the physical regeneration of a corpse. Angels manipulated physical space in plenty of Biblical stories. What makes this account interesting is how it is God who causes the risen Christ to be seen. This lends more strength to the argument that the resurrection is a spiritual matter and not a historical one. Thus, Jesus was not seen by virtue of his regenerated body, or by virtue even of the fact that God raised him from the dead. He was only seen because God allowed it, which suggests to me that the author of Acts understood that the visibility of the risen Christ is only a periphery matter, and not one that has to do with the definitional understanding of what being raised from the dead is. The common understanding of “raised from the dead” was not a good enough descriptor to suggest to the audience that such an event would illicit visible sightings. It had to be added that “God caused him to be seen” to make the audience understand the sightings of the risen Lord.

Paul gives testimony of the risen Christ in Pisidian Antioch. He says, “When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people” (13:29-32). Again, we do not see an Empty Tomb or a necessary physical regeneration for the “sightings” to have taken place. But Paul does go on from here to try and make the same argument Peter did about Psalms 16. Paul’s argument is just as forced and contrived. But Paul does allow for some nuance to exist in the text that Peter is unaware of. Paul says, “For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep, he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay” (36-37). This argument recognizes the distinction between the person and the body. It was not “David” who decayed. It was his body. So in theory, David could be raised while separated from his body. Thus, Paul’s argument can go either way.

 There are probably about ten to a dozen more references to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but none of them mention physical regeneration or speak of the resurrection outside the “raised from the dead” model which is too ambiguous to infer conclusively that this must mean a physical body walks out of a tomb or climbs out of a grave. Thus, there does not seem to exist one single New Testament argument which can be made to conclusively demonstrate that a resurrection must be physical regeneration or corporeal post-mortem appearances. So if there are good reasons to believe in a spiritual resurrection independent of the Biblical narrative then this should be the model preferred. 

The Resurrection Series #18

Isn’t Peter Important?

Like the post-Pauline epistles most believe that the Petrine epistles were not actually written by Peter. What is likely is that they come from a community or source that was particularly affiliated with Peter and his ministry. Since these epistles cannot give us direct access to Peter’s own thoughts and autobiographical narrative they have little weight historically speaking compared to Paul, but these epistles are still valuable works within the New Testament structure, and should not be seen as limited simply because they were not written by Peter himself.

While it is interesting that we cannot put too much weight on these epistles for historical information, it is also interesting is what is not historically significant for these epistles. While we cannot view these letters as reflecting the character or internal states of Jesus’ head disciple, what we can be interested in is how other communities felt entitled to attribute these epistles to Peter, nonetheless. So while we may not be able to say that Peter definitely believed this or that because it is in the epistles with his namesake. We can take note that others had no issue with attributing his namesake to what is written inside these epistles, and since this is apart of our Biblical heritage, we as Christians should take it seriously, too.

The author says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you” (1:3-4). Elsewhere he says, “Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and soy our faith and hope are in God” (21). And he says how baptism saves us in being a symbol of the resurrection (3:21). In all these the Petrine tradition offers no account of any physical or historical testimony for the resurrection. We do not see these epistles giving an account of how Peter witnessed the risen Lord, nor do we find any teaching on how Jesus was seen by witnesses as all. In fact, it appears that the same formula we see in the rest of the New Testament is what we see in the Petrine epistles as well, and that is that Christ died and was immediately taken to heaven.

It should be noted that there is one major place where such an insertion should be expected. At one point the author says, “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, your love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1:6-9). This would be the perfect place to add testimony to the fact that Jesus has been seen, or revealed to a few, like we see in 1 Corinthians 15, but there is nothing of the sort. For all intents and purposes this pericope reveals to us that no one has actually seen Jesus since he died, for what this reveals to us is that a lack of physical evidence actually increases faith and saves our souls.

2 Peter is an interesting book. It may be the last book to be written in the NT canon. It is certainly one of the last. It contains references to Gospel stories, which is interesting, because this author makes no specific claim for physical regeneration as an eschatological belief. In fact, the author speaks of his body being simply a “tent”, and this is mixed with the claim how they were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ majesty (1:14-16). Thus, there is no dissimilarity in thiw authors mind of establishing how our bodies will be regenerated after the resurrection as it was with Christ, because it is most likely that this author had no belief that bodies need be physically regenerated. And, this author makes no claim for the resurrection in order to allude to Christ’s majesty. He says that the divine affirmation at baptism and the transfiguration experience were the only eyewitness attestations that they Petrine tradition can make (17-18).

James makes no mention of the resurrection. He hardly mentions Jesus. And Jude only makes reference to Jesus being the source of eternal life (21).Thus, we are left with Hebrews. Hebrews begins with the exaltation model of resurrection where Jesus is taken to heaven after death with no mention of intermediary activity on earth. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (1:4). Hebrews makes some other casual references. It simply affirms the resurrection as a simple belief for spiritual infants (6:2). It says that Jesus has an indestructible life (7:16), that he will live forever (24), and that he is exalted (27).

In the eighth chapter of Hebrews the author begins by describing Jesus heavenly ministry. This is an interesting shift or speculation, because it almost nullifies any claim for a post-death appearance of Jesus here on earth. If you follow the argument Jesus is needed in heaven to continue to make intercession for us and forgive us our sins. So any intermediary time between Jesus’ death and his time in heaven where Jesus walked around and talked to people would only be seen as time wasted from Jesus’ true heavenly ministry (8:4). It is further emphasized in the next chapter how Christ’s heavenly existence has nothing to do with corporeality, and is instead something that must be spiritual, because he is serving a spiritual ministry. Christ is not a part of this creation. His body according to the Hebrews is spiritual (9:11). Now this does not exclude the possibility for a physical resurrection, but it does not necessitate it, nor does it hint at a preferential distinction between physical regeneration and resubstantiation.

In another sense the author of Hebrews makes the point that for Christ to still have a physical body would imply that he did not actually make a sacrifice for our sins. The perfect sacrifice in Hebrews is the physical body of a sinless person. To keep a physical body, or to regenerate it would be in a sense to take back that sacrifice. This is why the priest who offered the perfect sacrifice (himself) went to sit at the right hand of God. He was immediately exalted into heaven without any intermediary period of spending time on earth (10:12). At the very end of this epistle the author confirms once again that Jesus was brought back from the dead (13:20).

1 John begins with what might be a promising note for the resurrection. It mentions eyewitnesses and appearances, but it lacks the persuasive force to make an argument that these events describe appearances of a post-death Jesus. The beginning of 1 John however does affirm that eternal life is found in Jesus which can serve as a basis for resurrection belief, but the eyewitnesses are not directly linked to Jesus (1:1-4). The author of 1 John also seems to think that our future existence with God has not yet been made known, meaning that he is unaware of any post-death appearances of physical regeneration. This author believes that we will be like Christ, but that the specifics of this future reality is unknown, which means that there exists no knowledge of what Christ was like while he walked on earth before the ascension and after the Empty Tomb (3:2). Two other times the author of 1 John makes mention of eternal life being found in Jesus (5:11, 20).

For this author Jesus’ after-death existence is to be the source of eternal life. He makes no appeal to eyewitness testimony for this, except to claim that eternal life has appeared, and not Jesus himself. In fact, the author goes to lengths to say that no one knows what Jesus looks like now suggesting that there was no after-death appearance. For this author the only sufficient requirement needed in order to make the claim that in Jesus exists eternal life is that he be identified as the Son of God (5:1). And we identify one from God, because he does the will of God (2:17). So this author is making the argument that we know Jesus is from God, not because of any supernatural intervention, but simply because he was a man who did the will of God par excellence. 2 John makes no reference to a resurrection of Jesus. And 3 John makes no reference to a resurrection of Jesus.

This concludes our look into the NT epistles which give us the most accurate historical picture of what early Christians believed about Jesus, and in this entire scope of literature, I must confess that we have no found a single confession of what the Gospels proclaim, namely that Jesus’ body was physically regenerated, glorified, and walked around for a period of time before ascending into heaven. So in order to establish the historical model of the resurrection as being more likely then the spiritual model we have to put all our weight on the Gospels. Considering that the best sources we have support a spiritual resurrection model the Gospels must overcome a serious deficiency. It is unlikely that they could do so. 

The Resurrection Series #16

Paul’s Last Stand

The last works of Paul, 2 Corinthians and Romans, are monoliths in themselves. But we shall do our best to be concise in acknowledging the relevant material. 2 Corinthians takes time to really mention the resurrection of Jesus. There is a section in the third chapter which vaguely describes the theological merit of Christ’s resurrection taking place in the lives of believers who rely on the living God. This passage lacks any direct reference to a resurrection, but Paul’s implication seems clear that Christ lives spiritually in the hearts of those who are devoted to a living God (2:14-3:6). This is not conclusive, of course, but it does reaffirm the narrative that Christ’s lives in us, because God raised him from the dead. The distinction here being that the resurrection is evidenced by our conformity, or transformation, to the New Life of Jesus.

Following this periscope Paul reflects more on the importance of the spiritual dimension in which Christ exists. At no point does he reflect on the physical nature of Christ’s resurrected body. For Paul, Jesus is Spirit. “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (3:18). So Paul spends the beginning chapters of 2 Corinthians not correcting the misgivings of 1 Cor. 15, but rather reinforcing the spiritual and theological importance of the resurrection as it relates to man’s relationship with the living God. Our Lord (Jesus Christ) is Spirit. Paul says it. Why don’t we believe it?

This passage also shed’s some light on the concept of transformation in Paul’s eschatology. It is often argued that for Paul our corpses are transformed into glorified bodies. Thus, physical regeneration revives our corpse and then the revived corpse is glorified in some sense to be angelic or spiritual… divine in some way. But the destination of our transformation is to be Spirit, like Christ. So Paul never assumes that Jesus is some combination of a physically regenerated corpse in a glorified body. For Paul, Jesus is always Spirit. Which makes the argument ad hoc, unless you fall back to the Gospels where Christ’s physical regeneration is made explicit, but this only becomes a leaky bucket, because we are now trying to fix one fallacy with other fallacious arguments. The Gospels have no reliable historical evidence to suggest that the physical regeneration of Jesus’ body actually happened.

But, we are not left hopeless. I still believe that there is warrant to believe in a physically manifested resurrection that does not rely on physical regeneration. This still falls under the category of a spiritual resurrection, because what is being transformed is our spirits, and not our bodies. Our spirits are being given new bodies, not bodies restored from their corpse like state and then sprinkled with some fairy dust to make them better. So if the idea of “transformation” is persuasive enough to consider that the resurrection must exist on some corporeal plane then we can still hold to such a concept without the need to suggest physical regeneration as a method of delivery.

Paul later says, “we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence” (4:14). Paul is here again, re-emphasizing the point that through our commitment to a Christ-like model in our own life we can reveal the resurrection to others. Paul speaks of presenting the Corinthian Church to Christ in the after-life, because he is suffering and willing to die for them, like Christ suffered and died for us. Thus, Paul is in a sense, claiming that as we suffer and commit our lives to each other we show ourselves worthy of presenting those we suffer for to Christ himself. So Christ becomes manifest in our self-sacrifice to others, in a metaphysical sense that is reconciled in the after-life. Paul concludes this thought by saying, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal” (18). So the end, or perfection, in Paul’s thinking is always the spiritual and unseen realm. Even if the resurrection comes with a physical body, for Paul the thing to talk about the thing to fix ourselves on is the spiritual.

Paul again, makes it clear that what he is referring to is not a restored physical existence in the after-life. In the very next chapter Paul emphasizes time after time that our bodies and physical nature will be destroyed, “swallowed up”. For Paul, corporeality is death, to be given a physical body means eventual decay, disorder, and ultimately death. The only hope we have for eternal life is to be given a new life in the spirit. For Paul, the spirits we possess in our bodies currently are only deposits. Thus, there is nothing intrinsic about our spirits to our specific bodies (5:1-10).

Paul says, “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (5:15). This precedes Paul’s ultimate image of the resurrection. He says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (17-20). This idea of reconciliation is what is really driving home Paul’s message of new creation. For Paul, our acts of reconciliation with the world, which is what Paul described earlier when he said how he suffered and almost died for others, are what serve as a conduit to the atoning acts of Jesus Christ, when he died and suffered for us all. So for Paul the fact that Jesus is raised from the dead and the fact that we ought to carry each others burdens are one and the same fact. The New Creation is reconciliation, point blank. Paul does not imagine some supernatural realm where we get a free pass from the responsibility we have in the here and now. Paul’s vision of God’s heavenly existence is us reconciling the world to God through the carrying of each other’s burdens to the point of death if we have to. In this, Christ’s life is made manifest in our own and his risen-ness is affirmed.

This sums up Paul’s teaching on the resurrection in 2 Corinthians. The rest of the book deals with generosity, false apostles, and godly correction and accountability. Romans now becomes our focus. Romans is a great book in the New Testament. It is perhaps one of the only books which can be categorized as a theological enterprise. Paul puts on his best effort to make a case for Christ in the area of Rome where he is planning to visit. Thus, this is a letter sent ahead of Paul. All his other letters were sent to places he has been before. So Paul wants to make sure that he is making the best arguments he can make.

Paul says right in the beginning of his epistle, like all his epistles, “[Jesus] through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ our Lord” (1:4). Elsewhere, Paul says, “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of the Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life” (5:10)! Paul continues from here to begin his treatise on the resurrection for the Romans. He says, “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (5:17). And then he says, “so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (21). And Paul concludes his resurrection argument by saying, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the live he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:4-11).

Grace. What a powerful word. Paul has one thing in mind when we writes about the resurrection. His central premise always arises, and that is how the resurrection is a demonstration of the power o grace. Grace is not simply a religious or spiritual idea. For Paul, grace is the energy and power of a New Life. Paul has little concern of where Jesus was buried, or how many people saw him after he rose. The only thing Paul cares about is that you understand the enormous need in our hearts to be radically transformed by grace.

All through Romans Paul’s message is grace. He says, “So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God” (7:4). Again, Paul makes the relationship between the fruit we bear for God and the resurrection equivalent propositions. The fruit we bear to God demonstrates that Christ was raised, and if Christ was raised then the Law is dead. “There is therefore now no condemnation” (8:1)! What beautiful words. For Paul these are the words which embody the Spirit of Life, and since we find this embodiment in Christ Jesus it must be concluded that Jesus raised from the dead (3). Nowhere do we see Paul change his message concerning the resurrection and how it relates to Jesus and the New Life we can have with God.

Now Paul does say that the Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies (8:11). And if this is a reference to physical regeneration then it would be one of the first and only references Paul makes for it. However, it is unclear if this is even in reference to an after-life existence. All through Romans and the rest of the Pauline corpus the similitude between Christ’s resurrection and our Christian living were one and the same. For Paul, the New Life of Christ was a here and now reality. In fact, following from this very passage Paul is clearly emphasizing this exact point that in THIS life we are dead to sin. Paul is literally saying that we are all like zombies and the only we way we can even think of ourselves as humans is through Christ’s Life being poured into us through the Spirit. However, I do grant that there is a warranted eschatology here. The question is: does this verse require the physical regeneration of our corpse?

The eighth chapter of Romans contains more of Paul’s eschatological beliefs. The difficulty here is combining the various lines of thought that Paul is presenting here. In one sense his eschatology is very much immersed in the here and now. Christ’s resurrection is a current reality for us to explore and experience. But in another sense, Paul keeps an eschatology that future directional. The resurrection will be the end of human history and all creation will be redeemed. The verse 11 reference seems out of place from the rest of the chapter, in that it is embedded in a section that seems to relate more to our current inhabitation of the Spirit dwelling inside us. The rest of the chapter makes two important distinctions. “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Now only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait patiently” (8:21-25). In this periscope we will 1. be liberated from decay, 2. receive bodily redemption, and 3. it will be unseen.

What Paul implied in verse 11 is counter-balanced by his appeal to the “unseen” later found in the chapter. This indicates to me that the reference Paul was making in verse 11 was only an allusion and not a direct indication for future orientated eschatology. In the context of that verse, Paul was seamlessly speaking of our life in its current context. Thus, we have the potential for resurrection power to dwell inside our mortal bodies in the here and now, and in the here after our hope will be for the unseen. I see no reason to think that Paul had any intention of teaching that physical regeneration is a required belief for any form of Christian eschatology, and if this is not a required belief then we have to accept that the ramifications this has on the resurrection of Jesus Christ is also fully realized.

The Resurrection Series #15

Resurrection Dawns

If you are uncomfortable with the low Christology of 1 Thessalonians and Galatians then I imagine that some of the believers of the first century were as well. As Paul writes more epistles his Christology becomes more developed over time. Philippians and 1 Corinthians mark important developments in the dawning of resurrection theology for the early Church. It is important to note that these developments came at later points, and I believe it is not because they were being “added” to Christian belief. It is more likely that Christian belief always contained these elements within them as an unconscious participator, and as Christianity grew into itself more these beliefs would have to expand and eventually realize their full potential. In Philippians we see the “suffering servant” motif given full acceptance into the Christ-God narrative, and in 1 Corinthians we see the full acceptance of the term “resurrection” to describe Jesus’ state of being “raised from the dead”.

 Philippians lacks the traditional Pauline greeting which affirms his calling and the resurrection of Jesus, which we find in both 1 Thessalonians and Galatians. This epistle is written while Paul is in prison, and so it could be that the prison experience prompted new insights in Paul, or it could be criticism we received from his first missionary journey, or a combination of both, but in Philippians we see some new developments that are important to note. But while it seems that Paul is deepening his Christology, he is not hesitant to repeat his previous theological convictions. For Paul, the Gospel is always the primary edict of devotion for him. God had given us His Gospel through Jesus Christ. This is and always will be Paul’s basic message.

There are small hints of Jesus’ resurrection in the beginning chapters of Philippians. Paul does say, “For to me, to live is Christ to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body” (1:21-24). Paul is speaking here from the perspective that Jesus is in heaven and will welcome those who die for him, which is analogous to a belief that he exists with God. Previously, we saw how this was equivalent to a  belief in being raised from the dead. Paul echoes this sentiment again not to far from this pericope when he says, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place” (2:9). These sentiments reflect the non-corporeal aspects to the resurrection that I was showcasing in the previous article. Paul continues with his same teachings as before, but later in Philippians he changes his tone.

Paul says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (3:10-11). And later Paul elaborates and says, “we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorified body” (21). I believe this is the first mention of resurrection for Paul, and is the impetus for his more elongated explanation in 1 Corinthians 15, which we already looked at. These two verses encapsulate resurrection belief for Paul. The resurrection is a source of power! Paul does not want to know the details, the facts, or the history of the resurrection. He wants to know the POWER of the resurrection. And secondly, that there is a bodily transformation!

I would like to note that the one distinguishing characteristic thus far added into the “raised from the dead” narrative that previously existed in 1 Thessalonians and Galatians and is changed now in Philippians is this concept of bodily transformation. For Paul, the difference between being “raised from the dead” and being resurrected is bodily transformation. The bodies we possess post-resurrection is NOT simply our spirits which leave our bodies. Our body will be transformed. Now I am not arguing that Paul lacked resurrection belief previous to Philippians, but what I am arguing is that the differences between the presentations of Christ’s after-death existence reveal to us nuances that are worth taking note of, because they reveal to us a pattern and development that can apply to our own sense of how we can relate to the resurrection. For Paul, it seems that he was primarily influenced by a theological conviction of Grace superceding the Law, of a Living God, and of Jesus’ atoning crucifixion. These elements combined to form the belief in Paul that Jesus must now be the source of New Life with God and that this New Life can be characterized through Jesus’ after-death narratives of exaltation, “raised from the dead”, and ultimately resurrection.

So for us, a theologically motivated belief in the resurrection should not be seen as being an offense to sacred history, for it seems to be the pattern of what we find in the NT. The important characteristic that Paul, and I think every believer who is theologically motivated to do so, is that our theology be incarnational. Paul did not simply believe in the Gospel. He believed in a Gospel story. He believed that salvation could be found in a man.

Not just any man, of course. Paul, takes a moment in Philippians to remind us of the divinity of Christ, and it is an exceptionally important moment in early Chruch history, because the stanza that Paul writes to the Philippians is considered to be one of those early creedal forms that we discussed earlier, and it shows us at an early stage how Christians related to Jesus as God. But it also reveals a very remarkable Christology that is not often seen in most Churches. It is called kenoticism. It is the belief that for God to become a man, in Jesus, the divine attributes would have had to of been poured out. This image shows Jesus as a man, because he is literally suppressing his divinity at every moment. It is important to note this passage in Philippians as a belief in kenoticism, because it highlights one characteristic of Paul that is over looked, and that is the intentional use of rhetoric. In kenotic Christology there is no distinguishing Jesus as God-man and from man. In fact, it could be argued that the more human Jesus seemed the more like God he must have been. A perfect God would surely be capable of perfectly suppressing his divinity in order to perfectly resemble a man at all times. Thus, the kentocist’s need to appeal to any supernatural characteristics of Jesus’ life are non-existent. It would seem that for Paul this would be a particularly persuasive Christology for he held to no clear supernatural interventionist belief in the resurrection, as well.

What is most important though about the Philippians Christ poem is its clear allusion and connection to the suffering servant motif. Christ is called a “servant” in Philippians 2:7, and in 2:9 it says how he was exalted. Both are direct references to the suffering servant passage in Isaiah 50-55, particularly 53. This is a good passage of scripture to study independently.

The beginning of 1 Corinthians seems to flaunt Paul’s contempt for what might be called a miraculous orientated resurrection. He speaks of how our belief in Christ is foolishness, and he claims that this is so in the context of is apparent lack of support from miraculous intervention (1:22). Paul later says how the Power of the Spirit causes the “weakness” of Christianity to appear strong (2:2-5). So for Paul the victory or triumph of Christianity lies not in any evidential argument crafted to prove that Jesus rose from the dead. It comes from the Power of the Spirit. Paul speaks of a demonstration which was given of this Power, and many might think that this is referring to some miracles that were preformed, but for Paul this spiritual Power is nothing more then wisdom (2:13).

Wisdom is important for Paul as he writes 1 Corinthians for this is almost a Church manual for the 1^st century. In it Paul discusses how to tithe, how to take communion, how women should act in Church, how people should marry, and how spiritual gifts should operate. The climax of this wisdom, Paul says, is love (ch. 13). So again, for Paul, everything goes back to love, or grace, in some way as being the heart of the Gospel. And it is in this that we see the “power” that he so eagerly desires. For Paul, power and demonstrations are not acts of superiority over inferior subjects. Power is a life force that energizes all things. When Paul speaks of the Power of the Spirit, the only thing he can be referring to is the life changing reality of love and grace. Paul does not need divine intervention to know that love makes the world go around.

1 Corinthians 15 is really the only other section that deals with the resurrection, and we already discussed that, which brings us up to date on all the Pauline material that pre-dates 1 Corinthians 15. From these books I can find no suggestion that Christology is a miracle/interventionalist dependent belief system, not for Paul, anyways. However, this does not mean that the Biblical miracles did not, nor could not happen. I for one think that the miracle stories have great value and can cause no one harm for believing in them. But it would seem that it is not necessary for belief in Christ. Paul’s only emphasis in his epistles is the theological impact of Christ’s New Life with God, the gospel. Through Christ we have the Spirit in 1 Corinthians. In Galatians it is because the Law must be abolished. In 1 Thessalonians it is so we can have hope for an after-life. In Philippians it is so we can have power. None of these reasons points to a non-rhetorical motive for believing in the resurrection. So for Paul, it would seem, that the sufficient and necessary belief about the resurrection is that we connect to God through it to deepen our relationship with Him.