resurrecting faith
NT Wright in this article in the Australian has much to say about the bodily resurrection and whether a belief in this is necessary to be a Christian. He also talks about Dan Brown and his best seller book - The Davinci Code, which is soon to be made into a movie and compares it to gnostic literature.
It is an interesting read but I thought this quote was wonderful.
“Jesus was going around ‘doing the kingdom’, healing the sick, cleansing lepers, feeding the hungry, he was celebrating at a party with all the wrong people, transforming people’s lives and saying cryptic things such as: ‘Let me tell you what the kingdom of God is like’,” Wright says.
“The church has it the other way around. It has tended to say: ‘We must say it, say it, say it as clearly as possible and if there is any energy left over, we’ll do a bit of it as well.”‘
April 18th, 2006 at 9:55 am
It is quite incredible how the church - and other expressions of faith communities - synagogues, mosques - spend so much time trying to get the orthodox views down pat what do we believe, what’s the right thing to believe etc - and so very little time actually ouyt there making a difference in this world, actually being incarnational instead of trying to define what is meant by incarnational!
Sometimes I am ashamed of the amount of enjoyment Iget out of a good theological debate rather than the amount of enjoyment I get out of cleaning up a persons garden who can’t do it themselves.
April 18th, 2006 at 10:41 am
yup.. ditto
April 18th, 2006 at 10:42 am
perhaps DD was onto something in his strange bedfellows post
April 19th, 2006 at 1:41 am
Hi Greg, hi Umonk: “Sometimes I am ashamed of the amount of enjoyment Iget out of a good theological debate rather than the amount of enjoyment I get out of cleaning up a persons garden who can’t do it themselves.”
Me too; I identify with the “scattered sheep”, so spend my days discussing the theology of Ezekiel 34 etc and postulating reasons why the sheep are scattered and where they may be scattered to and what fate they may be suffering; but scant time do i spend seeking these same sheep. Guilty as charged! Thanks for the reminder!
April 22nd, 2006 at 9:46 am
Why is the physical resurrection of Jesus so critical to Christianity’s core? Paul says it, If Christ isn’t raised from the dead then we are dead in our sin. A symbolic resurrection doesn’t accomplish anything; only a real one can conquer death and sin. A spiritual resurrection may be inspiring, but it doesn’t solve our problem….
Aside from the fact, which Wright points out, that the physical resurrection best explains the eye witness testimony we have, the notion of a “spiritual resurrection” doesn’t even make sense. When Jesus died on the cross, what died? His body because spirits or souls don’t die - they survive the body. Now look at the word resurrection. Essentially it’s resuscitation. What needs resuscitation after three days in the grave? Not his spirit because it never died. A resurrection can only refer to Jesus’ body..
What kind of good news is a spiritual resurrection??? If someone you love dearly died and then someone told you he was raised from the dead, would you find it stunning or the answer to your sorrow that this resurrection was spiritual? Only the physical resurrection can turn mourning to joy, guilt to forgiveness.
April 22nd, 2006 at 1:29 pm
just to add a little bit.
A physical resurrection of the SAME body shows:
1) Jesus was without sin
2) he has therefore conquered Satan
3) He could take the punishment for our sins on the cross as he was without blemish
April 22nd, 2006 at 2:09 pm
God doesn’t need to perform a resurrection act to conquer death/satan/sin or whatever. God is already all-powerful, right? How does it prove Jesus was without sin? No connection there either. Besides, we don’t know enough about the life of Jesus to make this claim.
April 22nd, 2006 at 2:54 pm
God doesn’t need anything DD… but did it to prove to the disciples that he had conquered death… to prove to their rational minds that he is who he said he was.
April 22nd, 2006 at 3:19 pm
He also needed to be in human form to do it but that is way to long to explain
April 22nd, 2006 at 10:56 pm
DD, you make a good point; God is all powerful and He had no need to conquer death. The need was ours, not His - we were the ones who were dead because of our sin; God was fine! In order to understand the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection we must needs go to the Book of Beginnings; Genesis. People like to attack the Genesis account of creation and to mock at Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Admittedly the account is brief and leaves a lot of scope for debate, but the central issue of the creation account has nothing to do with whether the earth was created 6 thousand or 60 billion years ago or any of the other meaningless controvesies, IMO its all quite irrelevant. Genesis records that God created man (male and female) in His image and in relationship with Him. Being in God’s image meant, among other things, that man possessed a free will and was essentially an eternal spirit which could not cease to exist. Now God offered man the option to trust (believe, obey) Him and thereby remain in His kingdom for all eternity. But we, (in Adam and individually), chose to believe (trust and obey)Satan and as a direct consequence of our choice we were instantly and eternally separated from God (we died) and we became eternally confined to the kingdom of Satan. And as has been discussed elsewhere, as citizens of Satan’s kingdom we inherited an eternal condo in the Lake of Fire.
Did God have a problem; wasn’t Him in hell. Did we have a problem; depends on whether or not you have an affinity with eternal suffering. Imagine living for ever with the shame of your sin your only companion! You could say we had a problem. God did no wrong, and He would have done no wrong had He simply washed His hands of us and left us to our inheritance. And our fate would have remained sealed; But for Christ.
God did not need a resurrection act to conquer Satan - that was accomplished when He kicked satan and those that sided with him out of heaven. It was us who had the need, we needed a way out of satan’s kingdom and a way back into into God’s kingdom. And fortunately for us, God provided a way when He sent His son from eternity into earth; to be born into mankind, to live the sinless life that God had always planned for man to live, to suffer and die the death that we should rightly and eternally experience. God had nothing to “prove” in raising Jesus from the dead; but His resurrection does “demonstrate” that He is who the Bible says He is - and that means you and I can have hope. The choice is really ours; we had no hope, God has offered us hope “in Christ”, the only condition he lays upon us is that we repent and believe (turn and trust) in Him. Think for a moment of Jesus’ loving words; “come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Then imagine, if you can, the eternal comfort those words will offer them that accept His offer. Then imagine, if you can, the torment upon torment those words will bring to those who must scream throughout eternity. Oh, but its too simple, but why would God send me to hell, but i didnt want to turn from my sin, but what would my friends think, but i didnt feel like, but there are too many hypocrites in the church, but i wanted to get to God MY way … all of thesearguments will be drowned in that eternal lake.
As abtruth points out, if Christ is not raised from the dead then we are without hope. That He has been raised from the dead, means we do have hope - at least as long as we are able to hear the voice of God calling us to repentance and belief.
Ni nites, may the Lord grant us all the grace to believe!
April 23rd, 2006 at 12:45 am
Why did he need to bwe in human form EP?
April 23rd, 2006 at 12:51 am
AB; Did it to “prove” to the disciples? Even when the Disciples saw him in flesh and blood they didnt recognise him….Do you really believe that what was going through the tiny little minds of a bunch of laboureres and fishermen was, “Oh, hes showing us that he has conquered death and Satan.” Come on brother? The way I read it, ( uneducated as I am) the disciples didnt have a clue, the whole way along… bit like us…
April 23rd, 2006 at 1:20 am
The disciples didn’t have the benefits of the creeds.
Good sermon, James. You wonder how such a fanciful story came to be cobbled together.
April 23rd, 2006 at 6:34 am
Good point Umonk; the disciples didnt have a clue … just like us.
April 23rd, 2006 at 6:37 am
DD, what part do you find fanciful?
April 24th, 2006 at 8:20 am
James, just because a myth provides comforting emotional support and the cosy shared friendship of co-believers doesn’t make it true.
A myth may be an inapt description, if “a myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes” (James Feibleman, Understanding Philosophy, 1973)
“Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor all their own.”
(Bertrand Russell, What I Believe)
April 24th, 2006 at 11:19 am
but at some stage they did realise who they were speaking to….. it was this along with pentecost that provided impetus for the early church to get going and provided the basis for the apostles creed….
April 24th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
DD, “even if the open windows of science …”
A deductive argument is only as valid as its underlying assumptions. Given this and this, then… The problem with the Bertrand Russell statement, imo, is that science has deliberately closed its windows. At any level of significance you could possibly envisage, (think 0.0googolplex1), one would have to reject the hypothesis that the most simple building blocks of life came about by random chance. The science fraternity knows this. And of course, we are only discussing the basic building blocks; eg dna.
Darwin himself sowed the seed of the disproof of his own hypotheses when he stated, in effect, that all his hypotheses would be proved nonsense if a single example of “irreducible complexity” were to be discovered. The science fraternity knows that at every level of living matter there are examples of irreducible complexity. Behe and other cite the Flagulum as an example and evolutionist delight in attacking (not at all convincingly, imo) the Flagulum example. But there are numerous examples; examples of such complex systems. Take the cell, for instance. Ime going to proceed any further here; ime too lazy and, if you are really interested - you will find your own search truly and wonderfully enlightening. As a pointer, consider the necessity for a cell wall to be in place and functioning (the complexity of the cell wall is itself mindboggling) in order for the nucleus of the cell to live; while at the same time discover the role of the nucleus in the formation of the cell wall!
As for the cosy friendships; I would love that very much. Unfortunately, the Lord granted me repentance and faith in Him and in His word before i met noth christians or entered the door of a church; and now ime a member of the church of this dispossessed.
If you want to know if God is real; science can neither prove nor disprove God - but if you are sincere; ask God to reveal Himself to you, to break thru all the disappointments and religious crap youve been exposed to; to reveal Himself to you and instruct as to what you are to do. Only suggestion i can make!
April 24th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
The “irreducible complexity” argument seems to be the current favourite of the intelligent design mob. See the following websites for a discussion:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html,
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html, and
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Catalano/box/behe.shtml
You talk about “breaking through” the “religious crap”, yet partake of same yourself with your comment “the Lord granted me repentance and faith in him”.
April 24th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
DD, it might sound like crap to you - (and i am not at all offended by your challenge as i have met so many spiritual giants with great stories of what they have seen and what God has told them, only to discover them to be charletons, that i consider a good dose of scepticism to be valid and probably a necessity), but it happened to me. If i were to deny that God granted me repentance and faith in him i would be lying. Not that i am anyone of any importance, in fact i was (and of myself still am) the most pathetic piece of humanity. I was not a believer as a child and lived in debauchery until God arrested my attention.
The irreducible complexity argument may be flavour of the month - the argument is not new. It is around 29 years since, as a first year science student, i started number crunching the probabilities of the simplist of life’s building blocks. The numbers were incalculable. This led to further investigations from physics and biology; the understanding of e = mc2 was itself, to me at least, evidence of a creator.
But the interesting thing is, one cannot come to know God unless God chooses to reveal Himself - makes it fair for intellectuals and dimwits alike.
April 24th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
You may already know why the probability argument you offered against evolution is misleading, so I won’t bore you with it.
Of what use is the concept of God? What can you do with a belief in God that you can’t do as an atheist?
It’s a bit like the “what is the purpose of a soul?” question. I’m not doing anything with my soul, and I don’t think God would add anything to life, either.
April 25th, 2006 at 7:33 am
DD wrote: What can you do with a belief in God that you can’t do as an atheist? … and … I’m not doing anything with my soul …
If there is no God, then you will benefit nothing. If there is a God and if we also have a soul then just believing there is a God may well not benefit you either.
The Word of God explains that our soul is dead because of our sin and can only be made alive again by, and, in Christ! If your soul is dead, then of course it is reasonable for you to state that you are not doing anything with it. The question that then comes to my mind is; are you concerned for the state of your soul. NOTE: question meant only as food for thought, or discussion if you like, not any form of accusation.
Another rhetorical question for you; If God were to open your understanding to His reality; would you be willing to turn from all your sin and put your trust in Him? Duck, i found this a tough one. Even after i was certain beyond any doubt that a) there was a God, b) i was under judgement for my sin and on my way to hell, c) pardon was mine if only i would turn from my life of sin and follow and obey Him with all my heart … i still wrestled for a full year before turning. And i was relatively young … but may the Lord grant you His grace, the opening of the eyes of your understanding. And if you do choose to turn … methinks a road of solitude of faith may await you.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:57 am
I’m sure if God wants a chat he knows where I am. Haven’t heard from him yet. You talk about going to hell - do you mean a place of eternal punishment? If so, do you think that is reasonable justice for finite “crimes against God”? I don’t think so - this God of yours sounds very similar to an old-fashioned revivalist preacher’s God. You may be getting your source of information about God from the wrong place. Many people mistakenly believe the Bible to be such a source.
James, I hope you continue to develop your skeptical and critical thinking abilities. Remember, doubt is more valuable than belief.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
You know where He is to found too.
April 26th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
I don’t know where God is. He is said to be everywhere, but that doesn’t help.
Could you describe him for me, so that I can recognise him.
April 26th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
You can recognise God in the downtrodden in the hungry in the imprisoned and in the naked. You can recognise God in the outcast and in the refugee. You can recognise God in yourself in your friends and neighbours - but one thing is for sure DD…you will never ever ever recognise God if you aren’t looking!
April 26th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
And the best cold beer is Vic (don’t drink it myself, but your statement reminded me of an old VB promotion, Greg).
What about the comfortably-off surgeon who has bi-annual overseas holidays and is a member of the most exclusive clubs? Or the filthy-rich arms dealer who trades with all sides in a conflict? Or the infamous dictator who has personally executed 100’s of people? Or the international capatalist who destroys the environment with his ever-expanding profit-driven greed? Or the womanising cocaine-snorting gambler who cheats on his wife? Can you see God in these people too?
What is it about
April 27th, 2006 at 8:54 am
about what? Please ignore that last phrase.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:39 am
of course you can DD.. you can see what is right and wrong and how depraved and separated from Gods original intention they are that they will do these things and justify them in there own mind
April 27th, 2006 at 9:47 am
i mean really DD .. you aim to use moral jusdgements to prove that our belief is somehow rediculous???
there are moral absolutes centred in a moral lawgiver, as C S Lewis said that the only way that we can know that a line is crooked is by the fact that there must be a straight line.
if there is no God then there is no possibility for a moral absolute and then all morals are personally decided upon - everything is right as long as its right for you, in other words there may as well be no such concept as morals or ethics