Relational theology: what does the buzzword mean?

Have you heard of relational theology yet? Its advocates certainly want you to. With some caution, I’m willing to put myself in that camp.

It intends a Christianity that describes God as a more relational being than we might have thought. It’s intended to sponsor a more ‘relational’ way of doing church. It's an aspiration to have a theology that thinks this through intentionally.

But here’s the first problem: every Christian tradition could claim the word ‘relational’ for itself, and it’s almost impossible to disqualify any of them. Any Christian tradition will hold that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish”. That pretty much enables every church to appropriate the term ‘relational,’ and nothing can take it away from them.

Generally, when I speak to people who subscribe to relational theology, and I ask them what it consists of, they struggle to answer or look pretty blankly at me. The answer is usually minimal: God wants to have a relationship with us. I’ve sat through seminars on relational theology quite unable to pinpoint any clear thought in it, and the whole thing has seemed to have a hermeneutic of fluffy thinking. There’s a belief that awkward bits of the Bible are not awkward if you have a relational theology, but it can seem a bit unstructured, as if it approaches the Bible with no more strategy than hoping for a brainwave for a relational interpretation. You have to search harder to get a clearer answer on what relational theology actually is.

So what are proponents of relational theology generally laying claim to that could make them distinctive? What does that buzzword mean to them? If you could put the ingredients on the label, what are they? There isn’t someone who can decide that for us, and it can feel a bit like trying to nail jelly to the wall.

I’ll try to put a few things together, the good the bad and the ugly.

Method

There isn't a single clear method of reading Scripture to produce these perspectives. I think some of the people advocating relational theology now, saying they are reading the Old and New Testaments through a 'relational lens,' will be the same people who formerly said they were reading through a 'Christ-centred lens.' I can't tell whether for some of them this is more or less the same thing renamed. I can't tell whether it broadens or narrows the reading lens. Is it broadening the lens to bring a loving Father more into view as well as Jesus - good if so. Or is narrowing the lens to keep in mind only the parts of the Gospel's Jesus that we find most 'relational'? It could mean different things to different expositors.

Criticism of classical theism

Pushing against the deist-type idea that God is aloof and distant, relational theology emphasises that God is intimately involved in our lives up close and personal. That is to say, God affects us and we literally affect God. Our view of the image of God needs thinking through now. This sees the Imago Dei as a relational attribute. We are relational beings with family and friends, and we are made in God’s image, and therefore God is a relational being. And we can affect God as God can affect us.

Even though God is unchanging, yet God can be pleased or displeased. Thus, if we destroy the ecology of the world He made, God is genuinely displeased. If we love one another as Jesus loved us, God is genuinely pleased. This isn’t taken to be metaphorical language in relational theology. As such, this movement is drawn to story, to telling the biblical narratives in which God proclaims his feelings towards people. Stories are better at conveying character and emotion.

This is quite different from classical theism which would be rather critical of all that. Classic theism has had a Neoplatonic influence which some forms of relational theology reject in order to emphasise that God’s feelings are real and we can influence them. There is less attention to aseity, immutability, and so on, or there is even a repudiation of philosophy. A relational theologian might assert that such a God is arrived at by cold reason, a God who is basically satisfied with correctly performed rituals, and doesn’t feel our sorrows.

In ancient Greek thought, perfection is static and can’t be improved upon. In relational theology, creativity and messy interaction, rather than perfection, are the order of the day. Working on a theology of what perfection might mean to God is not typically a pursuit. Talking about love is a primary pursuit. Relational theology tells stories of a loving God who relates to each of us, person to person.

The transcendence of God may be downplayed to emphasise a very ‘relational’ form of immanence. This is justified by this mental framework: God created relational human beings to be relational with Him and with each other. As a theology, it’s an attempt to give earnest thought to how God is actively involved with us person to person.

Sometimes – not always – this comes with an emphasis on the existence of free-will and social Trinitarianism. Sometimes, I say, because all kinds of theologies claim a bit of relational theology. This is unsurprising as any branch of Christianity could claim that God is relational, but it is more likely to be claimed within those who advocate Arminianism (but that doesn’t exclude some Calvinists from the fold), or some Wesleyans and holiness movements, or feminist theologies, or liberation and post-colonial streams, some process theologians, some open theologians. Most are Trinitarians, but some are Oneness Pentecostals. And there’s a risk of a pick and mix approach to this. A bit of this theology, a bit of that theology.

Benefits

Advocates of relational theology claim its benefits.

Hermeneutics

On method. Ideas such as Church being the Bride of Christ may be more accessible if presented in relational terms, as something that brings joy to the heart of God as a wedding does, rather than in terms of motifs and symbols as might be the case in classical theism. It's a platform for preaching that God delights in weddings because God is love, to illustrate what God is like. This reading method is once place where relational preaching is distinctive.

Real-life comparisons

Compared to other theologies, it is easier to draw practical implications for discipling together, and provides greater stimulus to do so. I'm not sure, however, how well this describes a greater stimulus for being active. There have always been active Christians before the phrase was coined, and outside circles where it us used. I think there must be other drivers that need to be credited.

It is easier because we can rely on the evidence of our own eyes to see relationality in parents and children, family and friends. If we describes God’s love for humanity as being like a parent’s love for their child, it’s easier to explain than abstract theology. And it’s easier then to suggest we need to actively reciprocate in some or other practical ways.

Pre-eminent love

This idea that God’s pre-eminent characteristic is love is a bit of a cornerstone, although in some versions justice for the oppressed is a higher priority. Many Christians would never have thought of God having a pre-eminent characteristic in the first place, but this is rather important in relational theology. You’ll hear less about the final judgment compared to other traditions. You may hear nothing at all about it. Indeed, I wonder if the idea that God is primarily loving is partly a reaction to depictions of God that convey very little in the way of love. Perhaps God is a balance of attributes, rather than having primary and second ones. Certainly, the apostle Paul stressed the love of God, so it’s entirely fair that we should stress it too, whether it’s pre-eminent or not. Relational theology is intentional about doing so. In versions I’ve personally encountered, the theme is God’s love being unconditional, no strings attached, and steadfast, always reliable.

A God who mourns

Another claimed benefit is that it does help pastorally to speak of a God who mourns when we mourn, who cares about our tears. Advocates would say that classical theism does not bring as much hope and comfort as relational theology, although that seems perhaps insulting to some wonderfully pastoral pastors who are classical theists. The point is that one is equipped with a moral pastorally engaging message. God notices us and cares. Jesus wept. 

Worship that changes us

A major claim to a benefit is that it reframes what we worship. If we worship a distant God, we may act like dispassionate believers. If we worship a God who can be pleased by us, we may be keen to do so. (I did say ‘may’. It can adversely result in passive believers who think that God is so pleased with us that we needn’t worry about the effort of discipleship.) But I’m sure it is generally true that we are inclined to become a bit like our object of worship. Someone whose worship expresses that God is pleased with war is more likely to be warlike. Someone whose worship emphasise that God wants to heal us is less likely to be warlike themselves. Relational theology is pleased to present as an object of worship a God whose pre-eminent characteristic is love, and expects church members to be loving to one another.

Battling with sin?

And to those worried about their battle with sin, the pastoral message of relational theology is: don't fret about it. Just as a child’s naughty moments don’t dim their parents’ love, neither do ours dim God’s love. Just as a child’s naughty moments don’t shatter their relationship with the parents, neither do our sins shatter our relationship with God. A relational Father aims to restore us, not to demolish us. 

Now some traditionalists may think this sounds like a jail-break without a valid card, going straight to 'Go', and collecting £200, no questions asked. One finds different takes on solving this. 

One take is to say that any 'legalistic' framework about sin should be trashed when we think about how a loving Father would treat his child. This Father God would never say "Go to your room!" 

Another take is that a once-for-all atonement guarantees this: that our sins never obstruct this Father-child relationship. Bold we approach the eternal throne! (Curiously, this result is not unlike Word of Faith teachers like E.W. Kenyon who argued that the redeemed have a binding 'legal' right to boldly approach the eternal throne.) 

Your might hear that forgiveness of sins can be declared daily, but without a word of repentance for sins daily. You probably won't hear it suggested that you might say the Lord's Prayer daily. (It has that awkward phrase, "Forgive us our sins...")

We ought to recognise that there are wonderfully pastoral pastors who are classical theists, whose pastoral skills are not unrelational. But the relational theology claim is simply that the pastor is better equipped with the messages of relational theology, so as to help build people up in faith and assurance in a loving God will not reject them. I’m not sure how much you would find a contrary message in other Christian traditions. But advocates of relational theology want to depict God’s love in this fashion as a dominant pastoral message. Repentance is de-emphasised.

Anything new?

Now it must be said that none of this is particularly new. John Wesley could have said a lot of it. Christians have been singing “What a friend we have in Jesus” for nearly 200 years. For just as long, Christians have been singing the sentimental songs of Fanny Crosby, such as "I Am Thine, O Lord (Draw Me Nearer)", and "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." It could be argued that her songs were foundational in leading to this kind of relational Christianity. What relational theology represents is a more intentional approach to structuring our thoughts in all these things.

For example, it seems to provide a framework for making connections between the following, to hold them together as a Scriptural trajectory about a God of relationship and love:

·         God walking in the Garden of Eden

·         “Go forth and multiply”

·         God’s personal name Yahweh

·         Yahweh’s covenant with Israel

·         Stories that tell that God can be pleased or displeased

·         The Psalmist’s refrain that God’s love is steadfast

·         God with us, the incarnation, God sending his only Son to us

·         Jesus saying the more familial “Abba Father”

·         The greatest commandment being about love for God and neighbour

·         The new command to love one another as Jesus loved

·         The instruction to love enemies and neighbours

·         The practice of eating together in the early church

Grouped together like a story, they don't slip through our fingers. They make a path for telling the story of the Bible as God wanting to dwell with us and enjoy his love. Of course, there are many facets to God, and this framework is intentionally limited to one broad theme, the theme appealing to relational theology: love. You may hear advocates of relational theology may frame it that God’s chief desire is that we love God and neighbour as Jesus taught.

 

Red flags?

While relational theology claims benefits in how it addresses sin, there are also red flags in the same area.

Oh, those Pharisees!

Relational theology purports to reject a legal-contractual characterisation of God’s dealings with us, but advocates a relational-covenant view of God. The theological problem with that of course is that a contract is what a covenant is. So what is really being said? Such an argument is suggesting that other theologies are legalistic, and lack the flexibility of relationship. A relational God is not like one of those dreadful Pharasaic lawyer-types, in other words. Accusing other Christians of being Pharisaical is a rhetorical strategy of the movement which I really dislike. It’s using the name of a Jewish group as a bogeyman word, and thereby lies the spectre of anti-Semitism. The Pharisees ought not to be used as the hate figures of relational theology. In the entire New Testament, only Jesus gets to say a critical word about Pharisees, no-one else does. He also has positive things to say about them. And yet some relational theology advocates do not hesitate to so blacken the reputations of their target “legalistic” Christians in this degrading way. A lack of graciousness towards those who disagree with them seems to be a temptation that the movement doesn’t face up to properly, I fear. A good test of relational theology should be how relational you are with people who disagree with you. 

Of course, just because someone advocates relational theology does not entail that they are a nice likeable person. And just because a theologian is nice and likeable doesn’t mean that they advocate relational theology. People are so varied.

It can turn into an unpleasant sense of “those Christians are rigid Pharisees whereas we are moving into Christ-likeness.” This is dangerous. I do feel a need to sound a note of caution about the assertion of relational theology that it develops believers who are the ones more interested in being Christ-like. This may be so in some cases, but not always. The thing is, when someone claims this, you need to check what they include and what they exclude, lest they simply be re-making their Christ in their own image, the risk of a reduced version of the Christ of the Bible. You may want to be alert to notice which bits about Jesus they are comfortable with, and what they tend to leave out. It matters.

Punishment or abuse?

There is also confusion about punishment and abuse, or the problem of equating punishment with abuse. This most famously surfaced in the notorious statement that the penal substitution is a theology of divine child abuse. One of the problems there is this: if penal = abuse, then all punishment is abuse. Any punishment authorised in Scripture is abuse. This critique thus creates more problems than it seeks to solve. Of course, if Jesus didn’t bear what he did, then we would bear it instead, because “the wages of sin is death”. If these wages are not to be seen as abuse, then they mustn’t be seen as punishment at all. They have to be seen as a self-inflicted wound instead. I don’t think that is what Paul was saying. It is perhaps not surprising that relational theology (if you are familiar with it) shies away from the idea of punishment because punishment hurts. People who advocate relational theology are usually caring people who cringe inwardly at the thought of someone being hurt. The trouble is, biblical punishments exist and they don’t give people the right not to be hurt by them.

As I once heard Jackie Pullinger say, when you see what human beings sometimes do to each other, there has to be justice. Saying that justice is abuse won’t do.

There just has to be justice, and that is in peril if we confuse punishment with abuse. People who have done unspeakably terrible things to other people should not expect that justice to be convenient to them. Confusing punishment with abuse does nothing for credibility of a theological movement. And of course if you allow that there ought to be fair punishment, then the equivalent punishment of penal substitution isn’t abuse. If God doesn’t punish, it’s not because punishment is abuse, it’s because he shows mercy.

The wages of your arrow missing?

Similarly, it’s popular in some relational theology to teach that the Greek word for ‘sin’ really means falling short, like an arrow missing its target. (Based on the etymology of the word.) This makes one feel less guilty, which makes one more relationally confident before God, which is what relational theology want to foster. Good intentions. But… remember that “the wages of sin is death”? Well this reinterpretation would mean that “the wages of missing is death”! That sounds thoroughly dystopian! It actually sounds much worse than what it is trying to correct! How did this sloppy thinking ever catch on? The wages of missing are abuse then? Better be careful and not take part in any archery contest where this God sets the rules. It will be like the Hunger Games and not in a good way!

This also doesn't really account for the fact that sin, in the Bible, is sometimes compared to trespassing, which means overstepping the mark, not falling short. Abuse, for example, is more analogous to (severe) trespassing than to, say, a weak shot of an arrow. 

There's also the analogy of debtors. Indeed, I'm seeing much less in relational theology about debt and trespassing.

Cheapened gospel?

Along with that is a risk of a cheapened gospel in which, however it is that atonement works, we think we have swerved the kind of spiritual death that Jesus endured thanks to his substitution for us. The trouble there is that Paul is quite specific that we have to die to ourselves spiritually. Relational theology sometimes struggles to deliver messages that are not nice to hear.

So an idea that any punishment God dealt out to any member of humanity is divine abuse of humanity would sound worse than the problem it was intended to fix. Notwithstanding the good intention of being relational, mistakes can be made.

There are other possible red flags.

Order or hierarchy?

There also seems to be a bit of a muddle over order and hierarchy. Relational theologians are often opposed to hierarchy without necessarily addressing that, regardless of hierarchy, Scripture does describe divinely created order. This needs more exploration. The lack of clarity might be a sign of not differentiating order and hierarchy.  

"Jesus is my boyfriend"?

nother potential risk in the movement is manifested in the sort of worship that gets caricatured as “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs. Not only does the Father get neglected in such worship, but also it doesn’t give us anything like the whole Jesus of Scripture, such as neglecting Jesus being our reigning King unless he is “the King of my heart.” It’s as if what matters most is to make our King relatable, rather than the truth that he actually is reigning so that creation will be saved. It’s not likely to tell you that you need to die to yourself. Jesus isn’t our boyfriend, he’s a challenge to our inner selves.

Embarrassing apologetics?

A minor quibble, but there is a risk of looking for relationality beyond common sense. One of the odder apologetics for relational theology is this: physics shows that God made a relational universe. I have to say, there is nothing personable about Newtonian laws of physics. They describe impersonal forces evident in interactions between objects. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, etc. It makes no sense to try to translate this into an apologetic for hearts of love. It just doesn’t follow. There are much better arguments. I hope I’ve made some of them.

Rescue the antidote?

All these risks could be addressed without enormous effort. But perhaps it’s unsurprising that people struggle to articulate what relational theology actually is when such cloth-eared stuff is circulating uncritically. Do people not pause long enough to realise that they have made something which actually sounds worse? Perhaps critical thinking of the movement's ideas is not the done thing in the movement. But there is a risk that there will be no clear theology, just a framework with a few tools that may not be well used.

Is the future of relational theology in peril because of such nonsense? Probably not, but it will be at risk if collectively some of the risks I’ve mentioned coalesce into a destructive blob.

I hope it can be rescued. It tries to be an antidote where people have had negative experiences of church, and that’s probably the motivation for its recent rise. People really have been to churches with little or no emphasis on God’s love, authoritarian or hierarchy-driven churches where unapproachable leaders openly wield power over people, where someone’s appearance has been policed, their clothing openly criticised quite confrontationally, being “kept in your place” in a suffocating structure, never being consulted about things that affect you. It takes more than simply switching between Calvinism and Arminianism or whatever other option, to address this. Relational theology is an earnest and intentional attempt to articulate a church that looks more like Jesus. But as I’ve said, it has its own risks to navigate.

Back of an envelope version of relational theology

Here then, in nine bullets, is a back of an envelope version of relational theology as I have personally encountered it, and as seen by some of its advocates:

·         It criticises classical theism as having a problematic cold distant judgmental God, and it seeks to be an antidote to that. Judgment is dialled down, for example.

·         Scripture is about a God of relationship. So, biblical ideas such as Church being the Bride of Christ are read as examples of relationship, rather than in terms of motifs and symbols. A relational lens for reading.

·         God’s pre-eminent characteristic is love, unconditional and steadfast. Jesus shows us this. God created human beings for a loving relationship with Him and with each other.

·         Our better idea of what God is like will be reflected in our worship – worship tends to have more songs about personal connection with Jesus, with a good and loving God.

·         God has feelings too, and we can be a delight and a blessing to God.

·         Drawing on real-life relationships as a lens to see God's love smooths over the troubled waters of sin. E.g. just as a child’s naughty moments don’t dim their parents’ love, neither do our sins dim God’s love. Just as a child’s naughty moments don’t shatter their relationship with the parents, neither do our sins shatter our ongoing relationship with Father God. Bold we approach the eternal throne. This is a help in pastoral conversations about sin.

·         It also helps pastorally to speak of a God who mourns when we mourn, who notices us and cares. It brings hope and comfort.

·         It’s a stimulus for discipling together with strong relationships as a church.

·         Following these principles makes us each more Christ-like.

 

For some advocates, there may be bullet points about justice for the oppressed, or about God’s relationship with the ecology of the planet.

 

 Further reading:

Thomas Jay Oord: What is Relational Theology?

 

 

 

 

When the Old Testament refers to the one God with plurals

 

These are brief notes based on work by Steve Rudd. It’s not the argument I make in my book but it’s interesting data.

Some anti-Trinitarians would say that God is never referred to in the Bible with plural words. That isn’t strictly true, as this post will show.

 

Trinitarian perspective

When one sees in the text that God is referred to (as by God or by others) with any singular personal pronouns like He or I, then that’s one of the three persons speaking, not all three. Likewise, it’s one of the three persons saying to either of the others, "Let us make man in our image" (Genesis 1:26). This isn’t some random modern apologetic. It’s what the early church taught about Genesis 1:26 as being about the Father and the Son in particular. For example:

He speaks to the Son, "Let Us make man after Our image, and after Our likeness." (Epistle of Barnabas 6)

See similar arguments about the same verse in: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4:20:1; in Tertullian, Against Praxeas 12 and 5.8); in Origen, Against Celsus 5.38); in Novatian, Concerning the Trinity 26; and in  the Apostolic Constitutions 5.8.

 

Elohim and Adonai

Elohim – God(s) - and Adonai - Lord(s) - are both plural words in Hebrew. And apart from the name ‘Yahweh’, that’s what God is usually called in the Hebrew OT. In that light, it’s unsurprising that plural verbs go with it. In Hebrew, it reads like ‘Gods’ and ‘Lords’ create (Ecclesiastes 12:1); and make (Gen 1:26; Ps 149:2; Job 35:10; Isa 54:5); and wander (Genesis 20:13); and reveal (Genesis 35:7); and judge (Psalm 58:11). But those plurals actually go with it being one God, one Lord.

It’s also unsurprising that a plural adjective can go with it, i.e. “holy” Gods or Lords. (In English, that doesn’t come across.) More on this below.

So it wouldn’t be true that you can’t find plurals, whatever explanation you prefer for it.

 

Plural pronouns

And “us” / ”our” – that’s God preferred plural pronouns in  the following:

·           "Then Elohim said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness" (Genesis 1:26)

·           "Then Yahweh Elohim said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us" (Genesis 3:22)

·           "Come, let us go down and there confuse [plural verb] their language" (Genesis 11:7)

·           "Elohim saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"" (Isaiah 6:8)

·           So it wouldn’t be true that you can’t find plurals, whatever explanation you prefer for it.

So again, it wouldn’t be true that you can’t find plurals, whatever explanation you prefer for it.

 

Other plurals

"Let Israel be glad in his maker [asah plural]" (Psalm 149:2)
"Elohim my maker [asah plural]" (Job 35:10)
"For your husband [baal plural] is your Maker [asah plural]" (Isaiah 54:5)
" Elohim had revealed [plural form of gla] Himself to him" (Genesis 35:7)
“Surely there is Elohim who judges [plural form of shaphat] on earth" (Psalm 58:11)
"You will not be able to serve Yahweh, for He is holy [plural form of qadosh] Elohim." (Joshua 24:19)

"And the knowledge of the Holy [plural form of qadosh] One is understanding." (Proverbs 9:10)

"Nor do I have the knowledge of the Holy [plural form of qadosh] One. " (Proverbs 30:3)

And God is called creator, with the plural form of bara (Eccl 12:1)

So again, it wouldn’t be true that you can’t find plurals, whatever explanation you prefer for it.

 

 

Appendix: Angels are not included in God’s "us" and "our":

For the avoidance of doubt, "Let us make man in our image" cannot be God speaking to angels. Angels are not made in God’s image in the first place and were not co-creators of humanity. 

(NB As “God never said to any angel that "Today I have begotten You" (Hebrews 1:5) Jesus cannot be an angel.)

For the avoidance of doubt, there are no instances of God speaking to angels with we / us. That’s despite God speaking to humanity in terms of "us" in Isaiah 1:18: ""Come now, and let us reason together," says the Lord.” It just doesn’t happen with angels.

 

Should Christians use the word 'Easter'?

If you speak English, what would be your English name for the Christian festival which is called Pascoa in modern Portugal?

Also called Pasqua in modern Italy.

Also called Pâques in modern France?

Why is the same festival called 'Easter' in modern English?

The festival in England at this time of year is the same festival as above, but with the name changed in English to 'Easter.' Yes, only in the English-speaking world.

But English people have also used the word 'Passion' for it. (You may have heard of the film 'The Passion of the Christ' which is relevant.) 'The Passion' comes from the Latin word for "suffer", rather than the word Passover. I'm getting ahead of myself now...

The addition of the later word 'Easter' may seem strange. Call the festival by one of its continental names instead if it helps, e.g. Pasqua !

How did we get here?

Christians have had such a festival, a 'Pascoa' (in whatever language you will) from very early times. 

Polycarp, the disciple of John, celebrated it, according to Irenaeus (the disciple of Polycarp). Irenaeus wrote this about 180AD. 

Melitus, his contemporary, said it was celebrated when Servilius Paulus was proconsul of Asia.

Theophilus and Polycrates also wrote about it in the second century.

It's connected with Passover.

Passover

Passover, as you should know, was (and is) a way of celebrating the Jewish Exodus story. 

Jesus' work (his cross and resurrection) is the beginning of a new Exodus story, and of course it's a story that happened at about Passover time. 

Jesus' Passover work is what the church is celebrating each year, in continuity with the church's Jewish origins. (This can be seen from Melito's sermon on the festival.)

The matching of the annual Passover celebration with Christ's sufferings goes back a long way, back to the scriptures. 1 Corinthians 5:7 reads "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed". There was no doubt then as to whom Christians were celebrating every year around Passover time. This wording is from Paul's exhortation to the Corinthians to keep the Passover Festival in a Christian way.

Ye Olde English

In the English of the period when the KJV translation was written, they could have referred to the event as "the Passion" or "Easter" as both were used of the calendar event. Hence public performances of "the Easter mysteries" are also called "the Passion plays". The KJV could as easily have written "the Passion" as "Easter".

The Passion encompasses the interpretation of the Passover through the suffering and death of Christ. 

Continuity

The church explicitly remains in continuity with its Jewish origins at that time of year. For example, the Anglican liturgy for so-called 'Easter' makes repeated reference to Passover/Paschal/Passion. 

This is what Christians are celebrating at that time of year: "Christ our passover lamb has been sacrificed for us." (You can see the liturgy online.)

And if you want more of the Passover in your festival, then why not go to one of the celebrations being run at that time of the year by the organisation Jews for Jesus.

KJV versus NKJV

Let's come to the question of why the Greek word "Pascha" (Passover) was translated as "Easter" in the KJV translation.

The Greek wording of Acts 12:4 is 'meta to pascha'. The KJV renders it in two words: "after Easter". But it means 'after the passover'!

The risk in using the word 'Easter' is that the connection with passover is overlooked. So the New King James Version dropped 'Easter'. 

Which do you think is more accurate - "Easter" or "the passover"?

I think "Easter" is inadvisable. 

In Acts 12:4 Herod is the agent, and he would have had only the Jewish Passover in mind, without the Christian understanding of it. What matters is the meaning of the word. 

Using "Easter" gives the wrong impression that Herod had in mind the Passover as interpreted through the death of Christ. That is why it is inaccurate. As a rendering of "to pascha", it is out of place.

But on what date?

In my view, the date for the celebration is secondary, and not a matter which ought to result in any real division between Christians. St Paul advised us not to judge one another about days - some days are more special to one and not to another. (Man looks on the outward appearances. However God looks on the heart.)

Concern for the date goes back to the Passover regulations Exodus chapter 12. But if this were vital, would you eat unleavened bread for a week in accordance with the Passover instructions in Exodus 12? Fair play to you if you do. 

If someone wants to adhere to a particular calendar as one of your church's distinctives, that's fine by me. But it should not be an occasion for anyone to judge Christians who are not attached to that. There's enough division in the world without seeking to add to it.

Should one avoid a word suspected of being pagan?

Some people get hot under the collar about the origins of the word Easter. This sort of thing can get a bit silly.

Do we avoid use of written scriptures in religion practices because pagans used writings first (Sumerian Cuneiform)?

Do we spend the whole of the month of March avoiding mention of 'March' for fear of honouring the pagan god Mars? (March is named after Mars.)

Do we avoid using the word 'Wednesday' for fear of honouring the pagan god Woden? (Wednesday is named after Woden.)

The word Easter is a later accretion, a Johnny-come-lately attachment to the festival. There are other later accretions (bunnies, eggs) to the festival, but none of these are pagan and are not a big deal. Tim O'Neill answers questions about Easter and pagan beliefs in an excellent post here: Easter, Ishtar and Eostre (historyforatheists.com)

Nothing to do with chocolate either

By the way, "Easter" was not used by the KJV translators in order to please chocolate eaters! Chocolate arrived in England in the 1650s, not fifty years earlier!

But next 'Easter', feel free to say Happy Pascha! And you will be in the spirit of the thing, even if you baffle people!

What happened to Jesus at his death? Did the immortal die?

 

Some may ask what happened to Jesus at his death? Did the immortal die, as the famous hymn goes? Let's start, not with theology, but with something a little more reflective.

Death in a family or a community is painful. And what is it, this thing we call death? Whenever we lose a loved one, thoughts can naturally turn to the question, where are our loved ones now? Do their souls or their spirits somehow live on in another place?

The grieving process, our mourning our loss, takes as long as it takes, and the questions can linger, and here I will try to contribute a little to these questions. I will review some of the themes in the Bible that give people hope of life after death.

I get the impression that most of humanity probably, most cultures, believe that death is not the end. But they have many different ideas of the afterlife. This blog is about Christian beliefs, so I’ll limit myself to that.

To answer the question - did the immortal die? – it’s necessary to take a look into Scripture. Not into the famous hymn, though – that’s poetry, not doctrine.

How would they have an idea of God being immortal?

The Bible says God is immortal, So a question worth asking is why did Jewish people think their God was immortal in the first place? The answer is that the Jewish God didn't have a physical body. If there's no body, then there's nothing that can die. We see the death of physical things all around us. We don't see the death of non-physical things. That's why Paul could say God is immortal. It's why Jesus could say angels don't die. 

They were not saying that God had some magical immortality cloak. They simply didn't think of God as having a physical body, so they didn't imagine any sense in which God could die. God is immortal.

The question changes if God comes to earth in a physical body, because currently a physical body can die, and that's what happens to Jesus' body. He has what Paul calls a 'mortal body,' and this mortal body could die. What then happened to Jesus' inner self on the fatal cross at Calvary? That's one of the bigger questions that this blog will answer further down below.

(This is a bit like the question of how can God be invisible, as Paul says? It's the same answer: because God doesn't have a body. It's as simple as that. It's not a magical invisibility cloak. It just comes down to not having a physical body, and therefore not being visible, and it really is as simple as that. But what happens if God comes to earth in a visible body of flesh? Well, that's part of the story of Jesus.

And it's also a bit like the Bible saying God never sleeps. Ancient people weren't thinking of God being on stay-awake pills. Simply, a physical body needs sleep, but God doesn't have a body, so God doesn't need sleep. But what happens if God comes to earth in a physical body, and the body needs sleep? Well, that's part of the story of Jesus. So much is different when you have a body.)

Before thinking more about Jesus, let's look at what Christians believe about human death and the afterlife generally. 

 

Two main perspectives on the afterlife

There are two main Christian perspectives on death and the afterlife. On one hand, no immediate life after death, and on the other hand some kind of immediate afterlife. Two quite different perspectives there, with a spectrum of views within each.

The first camp believes that after death, there is nothing left of us but dust - until one day, a future resurrection when we come back into existence. In-between times, they say, nothing survives, no spirit, no mind, no soul. That goes against the perfectly common human belief that "part" of us survives death, a belief with many variations. A belief in entire annihilation of body, mind and spirit at death is a far cry from many common beliefs across cultures. It is absolutely common in human belief that part of us dies (the body) and some part of us lives. (As summarised in a book review here (link).) 

Probably only a minority of people think that nothing of you will survive after death, as shown in a New Scientist article (link). Incidentally, scientists know that even the death of the body defies a single clear-cut definition, as shown in in a BBC article (link).

The second camp (where I belong, and notably articulated by N.T. Wright) believes that human life continues after death in some form. God keeps us alive in some sense – it is a gift to us. I’m really only addressing this understanding about God’s people in the Bible: peoples of the Old Testament, and Christians specifically in the New Testament.

Now, to get one thorny issue out of the way quickly. The older churches generally believe that every human being is born with an ‘immortal soul’. It's the classic formulation that goes back to St Augustine: that human beings have a body and a soul, and one's death separates the soul from the body, but in the future, one's resurrection will reunite the soul with the body. 

I'm not given to the idea of an ‘immortal’ soul in the classical sense. I do believe that it is perfectly plausible both that humans are mortal and nevertheless may continue to exist after bodily death because God can sustain our existence for as long or as little as he likes. Not immortal by right, but preserved by grace. I can’t deny God the right to preserve life.

So, that may go for you and me. So I would say that there isn’t any ‘immortal soul’ in human beings. But the lack of an immortal soul still allows for continued life by God’s good grace. The dead are not just dust.

As long as God chooses to keep someone's spirit alive, that person remains alive. That doesn't require them to be innately immortal. It is rather just a matter of remaining in God's loving care for as long as God wishes. A human doesn't need a divine nature to have an existence beyond death. It just needs God's continuing gift of life.

 

 

Biblical pictures of death

Ultimately, this blog will ask what happens to Jesus at his own death on the cross. But answers about Jesus’ death very much come down to our views of what death is in the first place.

So I’m going to start with biblical pictures of death, and then discuss the death of Jesus in particular.

Question: what view of life after death is shown by the following New Testament passages? The first is from a story set in a strange afterlife, told by Jesus.

•              "The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side... now he is comforted here". And there is more: “The rich man … in Hades … called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus…” (Luke 16:22-25)

•              Here now is the apostle Paul writing about himself: “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account." (Phil 1:22-24) (I wonder if his choice is between taking his chances facing the violent mob, or the relative safety of imprisonment.)

•              And from 1 Peter: "as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure…" (2 Pet 1:13-14)

All of these suggest that, after death, there is another place we may go to. What this place may be is never made absolutely clear there, in the sense that we are not given the address, but there are some key words. For now, I’ll pick out three: Sheol (Hebrew), Hades and Paradise. 

 

What’s in a word? – Sheol and Hades

It is not necessary here to spend too long thinking about the places called Sheol in Hebrew and Hades in Greek. Sheol is typically translated as “grave” in English and as “Hades” in the Old Greek translation of it, which sounds much more like an actual place. But Sheol is lso depicted as a place of fire in Proverbs 30:16, and cf. . (This may prefigure ideas of a fiery hell, but that would be another matter.)

Hades is treated like a place in Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus above, in which the rich man is in “Hades” whereas Lazarus has gone to “the bosom of Abraham” to be comforted. (Some dispute over whether Jesus was telling a parable or not here, but that is missing the point. Jesus had no problem picturing it as a place where people live, and made no attempt to put people off the uncanny idea.) And it's also pictured like a place when Jesus says “the gates of Hades” are no match for his church.

So, what is the afterlife of the people whose bodies lie in the grave (Sheol)? I should really start by going back further. To the first books of the Bible, known as the Torah, which are very ancient indeed. These start with the book of Genesis, so we'll start our research properly there, after this brief word.

 

What’s in a word? – Paradise

The word paradise is not like those other words. It is derived from an ancient word for a garden. (From the Persian word for garden.) It is a restful place of life. Jesus refers to it in Luke 23:43, saying in Greek ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ - "in the Paradise". And I’ll come back to that later.

There is a one-minute video summary about it from N.T. Wright online (link).

 

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

We wouldn’t want to skip the book of Genesis, and the wider Torah, when thinking about life after death.

Note Abraham. (Yes, Abraham again, who is alive in the afterlife in Jesus’ story above.) Well, doesn’t Genesis say he was buried alone with his wife? Not in a family burial ground. Not in a communal burial ground. Read it and see. Yet Abraham is told that at death "you shall go to your fathers" (Gen. 15:15). So where are these fathers? It doesn’t say. Indeed, “Abraham breathed his last and … and he was gathered to his people.” (Gen 25:8) Where were these people?

Such a saying was popular either:

•              because they believed death wasn’t final at all, and somehow Abraham and his people really could be gathered together again after death.

•              or it’s just a euphemism, a saying to soften the painful blow that there is nothing for the dead and we will never see them again.

But the latter explanation for these sayings isn’t convincing. If ancient people believed that death was absolutely final and they just wanted to soften the blow when they lose someone, the obvious way to do it would be to make themselves believe that death isn’t actually final at all.

Here’s a thing. If they didn’t believe in any life after death, how would they even come up with a phrase like "you shall go to your fathers"? If they had a hard and firm rule that death was final, where did they get this phrase from – “he was gathered to his people”? Why adopt such a phrase if it went against their beliefs?

The much less complicated idea is that they believed in a post-death state, alive in spirit, somehow. The more I look at this, the more it seems entirely in vain to resist the conclusion that this was in line with beliefs about death not being the end.

We have to understand this without prejudicing it with our own beliefs. To stress the point, this phrase appears again and again. Ishmael was gathered to his people (Gen 25:17). as was Isaac (Gen 35:29), and Jacob (Gen 49:33), and Aaron (Num 20:24), and Moses (Num 31:2).

This is not even about any communal burial ground. Moses was not buried with his people. He would die on Mount Nebo. (Deut 32:50) “So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.” (Deut 34:5-6) 

Let that sink in. Moses, not buried with his people. Not buried with his ancestors or his descendants. Not in any known burial plot. And yet he was told to be prepared to “die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people”. (Deut 32:50) How? Where are these people? The simplest explanation for such language is that his ancestors’ spirits have left their bodies and are gathered someplace other than where their bodies lie. It is a purely spiritual mode of existence.  The how and the where isn’t spelled out in Genesis, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t believe it.

Back to Jesus. His Lazarus story, with Abraham’s bosom, wasn’t all he said about Abraham.

In Mark 12:24-27 Jesus answers about the resurrection, and he enigmatically declares that his heavenly Father is “not the God of the dead, but of the living,” such that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still alive to God in Moses’ day. While Abraham and sons were dead to men, they were still alive to God. (Similarly, Moses and Elijah are at the transfiguration of Jesus.) Clearly they were not just dust. To God, they are alive.

Does this all represent a very ancient tradition about Abraham? Let’s stay with the Old Testament a moment longer. The impression of life after death is deepened by this couplet in 2 Samuel 12:23: “But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” How will someone “go” to those who cannot “return”? Is this just poetic about death? Or rather, is it a belief about death? It’s consistent with growing evidence of belief about an afterlife.

 

Or is death terribly final?

Now, let’s give the opposing viewpoint. Some would approach all these verses differently, with a different preconception about death. This is the first camp, the critics who deny any afterlife apart from the resurrection. They might argue that “dust to dust” in Genesis 3:19 means “no afterlife” but that is asking “dust to dust” to do a lot of heavy lifting. To be fair, they would cite other verses for their point of view. There are really just a few go-to passages for it. Starting with Genesis 2.

 

Genesis 2

It is true to say that Scripture does not literally include phrases such as “we are embodied spirits” or “we are spirits” when speaking of human beings, that is, we who are living and breathing on this planet. We are never made to sound like angelic spirits or demonic spirits. This is an important point to critics.

When God creates the man who will be in Eden, Adam, God breathes life into him and it says he became a living soul. People tend to overinterpret this, either to say it is a body with a soul (it doesn’t literally say that), or instead to say that a soul is simply a living being with body and breath, not a body with a soul.

Funnily enough though, language leans the other way. One might say, “this is my body” or “my own breath” but then who or what is the “my” if not a person in a body? One should not push that too far though, lest it turn into a Gnostic negativity about the human body.

Anyway, there’s nothing in Gensis 2 to firmly anchor anything positive or negative about an afterlife.

 

Ecclesiastes 9:5-6

This is perhaps the main go-to passage to see human death as having a terrible finality, with no hope of an afterlife. Not even a resurrection. It reads:

“For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun.” (ESV)

Of course, if this - ‘nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun’ - sounds life no after-life, it very much sounds then like no resurrection at all! (Which would negate a key Christian belief. The way round it might be that Ecclesiastes knows no better, but the prophets have fresh revelation of glimpses of a resurrection.)

But here’s the thing. What does “the dead know nothing” actually mean? Does it mean that their minds know nothing, or that they have no minds? Which should we infer? The negative view would be that they have no minds. The positive view would be that they have minds but are not conscious. This is not a sure basis of any doctrine.

Perhaps you could give more weight to “their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished”, but some in the ancient world would see the death of these passions as the path to wisdom!

And anyway, Ecclesiastes is the last place anyone should go to proof-text from a verse or two!

 

Job 7:9–10

“As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave does not come up. He shall never return to his house, nor shall his place know him anymore.”

Again, if read literally, that means there will be no bodily resurrection for anyone, which would negate a key Christian belief. It does not deny a ghost-like state, it just denies a future for the body of the deceased.

But in any case, this is nothing other than a melodramatic expression of Job’s grief. Not literal. You only have to go back two verses to read “my eye will never again see good” (7:7) and realise it’s not literal because later we read “and the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.” (Job 42:12) What a turnaround for Job! It seems odd to me that people try to prove or disprove something about life after death from such verses.

 

Isaiah 26:13-14:

“O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance. They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.”

The negative way to read that is to pick out the words “they are dead, they will not live” to mean no afterlife. But the positive way to read is to pick out the words “they are shades,” which means an afterlife, spirits or ghosts. But then it says these “shades” will not arise, which perhaps seems to mean that while they may be like ghosts in an afterlife, yet in the future there will be no resurrection bodies for them. Perhaps they stay as shades forever. The point I want to take from this passage is that it would be unconvincingly selective as proof against an after-life. 

So, up to now, I have summarised the Old Testament debate between these two camps, for and against belief in an afterlife.

 

 

Ghosts/shades

What was that word? you may ask. In thinking about the biblical evidence for an afterlife, some would talk at length about ‘ghosts.’ It may be a surprise to know that the Bible has some fragmentary things to say about this. Don’t be freaked out. It’s not much, a few biblical words, and also includes that Jesus' disciples believed in ghosts and he didn't dispute it, which is actually helpful. The disciples at first thought that the risen Jesus was some ghost. People who think "here's a ghost" are not people who think that after death there is only non-existence. The obvious takeaway is that for them, there wasn't some non-existence category that they would expect Jesus to fit into after the cross - and to not see that could only be the result of reading the text through a doctrinaire mindset. We should have been switched onto that already when they thought Jesus walking on the lake was some ghost. If they were meant to think that non-existence was the fate of the dead, they didn't get the memo. 

But what caught them by surprise was the difference between a ghost and a resurrection body, that of Jesus.

Suffice to say, it adds to the evidence that the peoples of Bible times did believe in a kind of bodiless afterlife, and didn't believe that death meant non-existence. 

On the Old Testament material for ghosts, some of the evidence is contested, so I won’t do more than put some links (in an appendix below), to link to some scholarly work on ghosts. It’s not something that needs to be overly focussed on.

Back to my train of thought now…

 

 

What about the death and afterlife of Christians?

Now, back to the subject. I’m going to talk about Christians in the New Testament because this introduces a new idea: the idea that you’re alive in the Spirit because you are born again. And that being alive in the Spirit today continues in being alive in the Spirit after death.

By now, some non-traditionalist Christian readers will be adamant that I am reading this all wrong, and will double down on saying that there is no afterlife until the resurrection in the End Times. They mean that life completely blinks out of existence when we die, and we pop back into existence at the future End Times resurrection. But in-between times – nothing. For those readers, and I know you’re out there because you tell me so, I would like them to consider something. Suppose you just let me make the case for those who are born again of the Spirit. Even if you disagree with everything I have said up to now, hear me out on this one. Even if we were to deny an afterlife to people before Christ, and to deny it for non-Christians, we have unique evidence for Christians and we need to consider it.

We can’t leave this subject without considering whether something new happens for Christians in terms of the afterlife. Let me set the scene.

Across most traditions, Christianity believes in a human journey which goes from our present life, then to an afterlife, then to a final bodily resurrection in the End Times. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright (link) citing Polkinghorne, talks about this journey:

“Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom.” [emphasis added]

That’s from an interview with N. T. Wright which puts a lot of this better than I can! He is talking specifically about true followers of Christ, and he speaks of a time after death when they “are in God's presence.”

It is common across Christian traditions that eventually there will a great ‘resurrection’ when those who died are back on earth in bodies again. That is in the future. It hasn’t happened for anyone yet. But before that happens, there is another afterlife, resting in the presence of Christ, for those who have shuffled off their mortal coil.

Here is why. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6). Crucially, your spirit is alive if you are in Christ. Ephesians 2:4-6 says “God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” (In 2:5, the relevant Greek is συνεζωοποίησεν τῷ Χριστῷ…)

And Colossians 2:13: “and you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him.” (συνεζωοποίησεν ὑμᾶς σὺν αὐτῷ…)

It is difficult to see how you go from ‘made alive’ to unalive and out of heavenly places again.

So Christians have already been “made alive with Christ”. They are made alive, alive in spirit, now. We are both alive in spirit and also “in the body” now.

Here is the crucial sequence. To a Christian (“if Christ is in you”), then your spirit is alive now; but one day God “will also give life to your mortal bodies” too (Romans 8:10-11). Indeed, it is not the ‘spirit’ of the born-again Christian which is said to be mortal, but only the ‘body’ which is said to be mortal.

One day we will be clothed with our resurrection bodies, but not yet; for now our spirits are ‘made alive’ but our resurrection bodies are yet to come. On that day, we will again be “in the body.”

From within the New Testament paradigm, we may ask the rhetorical question: how can those who have already been made alive in the spirit lose that aliveness in the spirit? John already says we have eternal life. This is life in the spirit.

At death, we fall asleep "in him" (1 Thessalonians 4:14). As it is “in him”, we do not pass into non-existence. To be asleep in him is still to be alive. What it can’t be is “non-existence in him.”

“So the [Holy] Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Romans 8:16). Our spirit, which has been made alive, won’t be made dead again. Those who are born again have already crossed over from death into life. After they shuffle off this mortal coil, they will remain in the presence of the Father awaiting the day of resurrection. In an intermediate state in heaven. Alive in the Spirit, they already have the new life, eternal life; they do not yet have their resurrection bodies.

In Philippians 1:22 Paul - describing the intermediate state - says that his desire is ‘to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better’. Paul does not suggest that this happy state 'with Christ' will be the same thing as the eventual resurrection which he describes in quite different terms in Philippians 3:20-21. When Paul speaks of the resurrection, he talks about Jesus coming to be with us, not us departing to be with Jesus. (Hence, 'the coming of the Lord'.)

Philippians presents those two stages of afterlife, two conditions of afterlife. First a spiritual existence with the Lord, later a bodily existence at the resurrection. Death is when Christians depart to be with the Lord. Whereas the bodily resurrection happens when the Lord comes back to us, in the End Times. (See N.T. Wright’s short book For All the Saints, pages 20-27. )

This intermediate stage, departing to be 'with Christ' upon death, is elsewhere described by Paul as ‘falling asleep’ (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15), ready for 'waking up' at the resurrection.

The Christian's intermediate state is surely not a purely unconscious state because Paul describes it as ‘far better’; and in the same vein the book of Revelation 6:9-11 depicts souls who are conscious in heaven awaiting justice, an image reflecting belief in a conscious state that is to be enjoyed in heaven between death and the resurrection. For these Christians, this intermediate state is the ‘far better’ state than the sufferings of the present day, but presumably not as good as the eventual great resurrection. (By the way, we know Revelation 6:9-11 is set in heaven from Revelation 4:1.)

All this is possible because it was true for Jesus first. So, let’s consider Jesus’ journey into the afterlife.

 

 

What about the death and afterlife of Jesus?

This is the main point that this article is coming to. I wanted to answer a question that some ask: if Jesus is immortal God, how could the immortal die? We may be advised by the early church fathers on this – there are quotes in an appendix below. But let’s think this through together.

Jesus was the meeting of the divine and the human in one person. Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity”.

I believe Christ experienced, at his death, something that every follower of Christ experiences at death – that is, bodily death and passing spiritually into the heavenly presence of God the Father. That’s what a real human death is for those who are saved. The mortal body is left behind, and our spirit rests in the presence of the heavenly Father. 

Indeed, after everything revealed so far, it would be pretty strange if there were no intermediate stage for Jesus between cross and resurrection. If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were gathered to their people upon their deaths, how could Jesus not have an afterlife? If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were alive to God because he is the God of the living, how could this not be true also of Jesus when his body was buried?

Just as to a Christian, your spirit is alive now; and God “will also give life to your mortal bodies” (Romans 8:10-11); then likewise the same sequence applied to Christ first. When his mortal body gave up his spirit on the cross, his spirit didn’t die – it went to his heavenly Father.

Remember that Paul referred to your “mortal body”? Well, this indicates only that his mortal human body died. Scripture says nothing about his spirit being mortal. Jesus’ mortal human body died and his spirit was separated from his body and entrusted to his Father. The verse for this is as follows. “And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Having said this, He breathed His last.” (Luke 23:46, see also Matt. 27:50.)

Jesus’ spirit lived on. It is unproblematic therefore that his divine nature lived on: immortality didn't die. Jesus’ immortal divinity went on this journey, like the human spirit, through the harrowing experience of bodily death, experiencing it as the human spirit experiences it. And coming through it as the human spirit comes through it. What did the immortal experience? Being united with Jesus' human nature, his divine nature experienced the death of the mortal body, saw it, felt it, came through it, as we will do. 

Jesus always knew his own spirit would go to the Father. Remember, as N.T. Wright pointed out, in Luke 23:43 Jesus answered the criminal, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

As such, Jesus believed that he and the criminal would pass through death to paradise. Death on the cross was something they would pass through. Jesus anticipated that some part of these men remained alive, just as he remained alive in spirit.

The point becomes clearer now. Some part of the criminal on the cross passes through death to the paradise of the presence of God. So how much more emphatically would that be true of Jesus, of divinity, specifically Jesus’ divinity? He passes through bodily death to the paradise of the presence of God the Father, and he invites us to be ready for the same journey when our time comes.

If some part of our humanity passes - through death - into the presence of God the Father, then how much more must we say that the divine nature of Jesus is never dead. Part of his humanity, with his immortal divine nature, passing through together, fastened together, on the journey.

Thus, when Jesus was crucified, some part of his humanity passed through death to paradise - along with his intact divinity. The immortal did not die, but experienced the harrowing death of the body, as every human does. 

On the night before the cross, Jesus says five times that he is “returning to the Father” (John 16 and 17). Whereas he speaks differently about his resurrection or ascension (John 20:17). Clearly in John, “returning to the Father” coheres with Mark (his heavenly Father is “not the God of the dead, but of the living”). And it coheres with going to paradise with the criminal “today.”

When the human body of the criminal was on the cross and the body of Jesus was in the tomb, something of them was in paradise, in the presence of God the Father. All through those three days and beyond.

In this post, I won’t go into the question of Jesus’ spirit having a location during the three days between his cross and resurrection, but there is a great short video about it by Michael Bird here (link). (Spoiler: it wasn’t in hell.)

Quick summary of the theology

It's perfectly ordinary for people to think that something survives when our body dies, as in the phrase "shuffling off this mortal coil". Many ancients believed that "part" of us survives death, passes through death.  It is perfectly normal human thinking to say that only the body is destroyed by death. The spirit survives death. This is perfectly normal human thinking about what death is. And the body is left behind.

For a Christian, anything of a human being that survives death - call it our spirit - remains joined to Christ when we die. 

In Jesus' case, we have seen it. Jesus is both human and divine. The surviving part of human nature remained fastened to his immortal nature, as together they journeyed through the harrowing death of the human body.

That of Jesus which is mortal died: the 'mortal body,' Paul calls it. 

And that of Jesus which is immortal never did die, nor could it. Humanity and divinity remained joined together in spirit when his body was crucified.

On the cross, his spirit does not die. His divinity, which is spirit, does not die. 

So in Trinitarian belief, divinity didn't suddenly cease to exist on the cross! Human spirit, and God who is spirit, are not extinguished when the body dies. The cross is central to Christian faith.

Only that of a human which dies did die. And that of a human which survives death did survive death. Divinity was there, remaining fastened to humanity, as he went on that journey. 

Resurrection, then, is the resurrection of the body, not a resurrection of the spirit. That's also going to true of all who are born again, kept alive in the spirit after the death of the body, to rest beautifully in the presence of God until resurrection day. 

It would be odd to suggest that God, who is spirit, dies, whilst the human spirit does not die. The immortal didn't die - the hymn was just being poetic. But that which does die, did die on the cross.

Times for mourning

Even though Christians are already ‘made alive in the spirit’ such that they ‘have eternal life’, we still treat the death of the body as a serious matter, and we mourn the departure of loved ones. We do not have a low regard for the body, nor for the mourners. Together, we comfort each other. We treat the death of the body, the death of the immediate companionship it helps to provide, as a very sad thing indeed.

And we look forward to the hope of the resurrection of the body. Until then, as Christians we are alive in the spirit, before and after death.

I said there start that I would talk about some of the themes in the Bible that give people hope of life after death. May this post bring hope and comfort. 

 

 

Appendix 1: what do Christians believe about the resurrection body itself?

 

So then, Christian belief - talking not now about the intermediate spiritual afterlife - but talking about the ultimate future final bodily resurrection of the dead back to bodily life, which hasn't yet happened for anyone. Except Jesus.

After his own physical bodily resurrection from the tomb, Jesus still had a human body. Jesus said, "A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:39). Jesus continues to live as a real human after being bodily raised from the dead. Hence this scripture: "‘ God … will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’ (Acts 17:30-32)

A Christian, like Jesus, will ultimately be resurrected with a new body - not someone else’ body but our own body “transformed.” This is according to Paul: “He will transform the body [soma] of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body [soma] of his glory”. (Philippians 3:21, NRSV) A body [‘soma’] is overwhelmingly a physical concept in the New Testament.

This transformed body is still a body of flesh and bones according to Jesus. Luke 24:39-43: “see my hands and my feet, that I am he; handle me and see, because a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me having.' And having said this, he shewed to them the hands and the feet, and while they are not believing from the joy, and wondering, he said to them, `Have ye anything here to eat?' and they gave to him part of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb, and having taken, he did eat before them.”

The same transformed body of Jesus bears the marks of the wounds of the cross. (This, I suggest, is a more apt phrase than referring to his resurrected body as ‘wounded’.) The story is in John 20:25-27: “So the other disciples told him [told Thomas], We have seen the Lord! But he said to them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it. A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you! Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

So for Christians, it will be like him: for each of us, our spirit, which has been “made alive” already, will be “clothed” with an immortal body of the future, better than the mortal body of today (1 Corinthians 15:42-44 & 53-54).

It happens in this order: the saved spirit is already alive; whereas the body is sown like a seed in the ground and raised again (1 Corinthians 15:42-43). Our raised body will be like Jesus' raised body (1 Corinthians 15:49).

 

 

Appendix 2: What about ghosts?

I haven’t done any serious study of this, so I’m just linking here to a scholar who has, Michael Heiser. Not to endorse all his conclusions, but simply because he has done the research on biblical ideas about ‘ghosts’ etc, and it’s there if you want to see it.

https://drmsh.com/a-biblical-view-of-ghosts-part-1/

https://drmsh.com/discerning-the-dead-part-2/

https://drmsh.com/discerning-the-dead-part-3/

https://drmsh.com/biblical-anthropology-part-4/

https://drmsh.com/sheol-the-ot-bad-place/

 

Appendix 3: some early church quotes on the death of Jesus

 

"But though as man He became one of the dead, He remained alive in the nature of divinity."

(Hippolytus c 205AD see: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0502.htm )

 

"we are not guilty of blasphemy against the Lord God, for we do not maintain that He died after the divine nature, but only after the human".

(Tertullian c 213AD see: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian17.html)

 

"For what if the divinity in Christ does not die, but the substance of the flesh only is destroyed"

(Novatian c 235AD see: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0511.htm )

 

"of this Being and His nature [his divinity] we must judge and reason in a way quite different from that in which we judge of the man who was seen in Jesus Christ. Accordingly, you will find no Christian, however simple he may be, and however little versed in critical studies, who would say that ... "the Life died," "the Resurrection died.""

(Origen c 248AD see: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen167.html )

 

"so that as the appropriate remedy for our ills, one and the same “Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus,” might from one element be capable of dying and also from the other be incapable."

(Pope Leo’s Tome 449AD, see: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xi.vii.html )

 

 

Appendix 4: who raised Jesus back to life?

It’s no surprise that Jesus is active with the Father and the Spirit in resuming his resurrected life on earth on that Sunday. Jesus said he had authority to raise himself to life again, which makes little or no sense unless he believed he would be in a position to exercise this authority over his own dead body. In John's Gospel, Jesus talks about raising his own body back to life.

A brief note of something I have heard Jehovah’s Witnesses say in this connection, to amplify their view that Jesus was utterly non-existent for three days between that famous Friday and Sunday. It’s one of the JW either/or dilemmas. Typically they say something like “Jesus did not resurrect himself, but was raised to life only by his God and Father Jehovah.”

Hopefully the ‘false dilemma’ is immediately obvious. It's an attempt to diverge from the Trinitarian belief that Father and Son and Spirit were active together in the process, that what these three did, they did together. I won’t bore you with all the verses – they’re easy to find. Simply, Jesus said "I have authority to lay [my life] down, and I have authority to take it up again." (John 10:17-18). He could have said "The Father has authority", but he chose to say "I have authority" to self-resurrect. These were not wasted or idle words. As someone said, if Jesus is truly the agent of his laying down, then he is truly the agent of his taking up again.

Here it is again: "No one takes it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again."

So what was Jesus contemplating doing with his authority here? He was contemplating using that authority to play his active part in the resurrection, taking up his life again. "I have authority to take it up again."

So Jesus describes exercising his authority to have his life back. 

That's what he means in saying "I will rebuild it" (John 2:19).

John 2:19-22 reads: "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said."

Father, Son and Spirit: what these three did, they did together. 

 

 

Appendix 5: noting the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ annihilationist view

I have seen that Jehovah’s Witnesses also hold that at death everyone is annihilated out of existence, leaving just a lump of flesh destined for dust. Dust to dust. That’s all. No spirit or soul or mind survives. The whole person is annihilated on every kind of level. Accordingly, they say that Jesus at his death on Calvary became non-existent on every level, annihilated out of existence, except a lump of flesh destined to become dust. As for the resurrection three days later, this they see as him popping back into existence (but they use different words).

That is how they see the general resurrection of people in the End Times. More or less, everyone pops back into existence from nothing, perhaps from the dust beneath our feet: no spirit or soul is reawakened, because no spirit or soul existed after death. Rather, in their belief, God just remembers how to recreate the same people from nothing. (A handful of Christians over the centuries have held that same view.) Sometimes, they will soften the tone by saying that after death, they will be in God’s memory. But they don’t mean that they will somehow ‘live’ in God’s memory. They mean they are nothing more than a memory, something that God remembers. And one day, God makes them exist again based on his memory.

I wanted to include this note because they are quite prolific in spreading views on death without making clear that this is what they actually mean. Interesting to note, anyway.

 

Further reading

John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000.

Robert Morey, Death and The Afterlife. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1984.

N.T. Wright, For All the Saints. London: SPCK, 2003.