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.

John 1:1c, grammar, Colwell, etc.

For this post, I’ll assume that this will be of interest to readers with some of the basics of grammar 'rules.' To avoid this being overly long, I shan’t explain everything. If you need more clarification about anything, please leave a note in the comments box. Thanks.

This is about John 1:1c:

καὶ   θεὸς  ἦν   ὁ   λόγος

(and God  was the Word)

Breakdown

 

Here is a grammatical breakdown of John 1:1c. In the Greek word order, the words are “God was the Word”. Thus:

 

• “God” is a noun and is anarthrous here (no article “the”) and is pre-verbal here (before the verb) and is our predicate here (it tells us something about the subject) and is in the nominative case. It’s not the subject in the clause.
• “was” - our equative verb – I’ll explain such verbs below.
• “the Word” is our subject – the noun in the nominative case with the article ‘the’.

 

 

The verb

 

What is an equative verb?

 

Daniel B. Wallace, in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids MI, 1996: Zondervan), on pages 38-45, gives a handy account. Basically, an equative verb refers to a state of being (I am). Rather than to an action with a direct object (e.g. Caesar took the scroll).

 

Also, an equative verb needs two things to compare, such as two nouns (e.g. ‘a flower is a plant’: equating a flower with a plant to a certain degree). So a flower has the state of being a plant. It doesn’t have to be an all-encompassing match - ‘a flower is a plant’ fits within the category sufficiently, even though not all plants are flowers. A similar example would be ‘Rome is a city’. The equative verb: ‘is.’

 

(NB: take this as reflective of Koine Greek. I’m not making a claim about the English language, wherein we have more of a distinction between equative clauses and predicative clauses. So, in English writing, we would say that “Rome is a city” is a predicative clause.)

 

Another example of an equative verb linking nouns, famously joining a subject noun to a predicate nominative (PN) noun - thus: “the Word was God”.

 

So, an equative verb needs at least two things to compare, but it does not require two things to be perfectly numerically identical. It is not an = (equals) sign. The equative “the Word was God” does not mean the two are just numerically identical, but does mean that they are equated with each other in some way. In other words: it doesn’t mean that ‘one God = one Word.’ That would be silly. The Word isn’t all there is to God. But it does leave us with the thought that God and the Word are equated in a different way which John wants us to think about. If that is unclear to you, consider that ‘God is love’ is equative, but is not the same as God = love. Love isn’t all there is to God.

 

There’s a lot more to equative verbs in Greek that’s just not relevant to John 1:1c, so I’m not going into such joys as genitives and datives of possession here, nor predicate datives and participles. Nor much much more!!! But a little technical note for us grammar geeks. An equative verb won’t be a transitive verb (example of a transitive verb: Caesar grabs the scroll - an equative verb won't look like that, nor like this: the scroll is grabbed by Caesar). Nor will an equative verb be an intransitive verb (so it won’t have an indirect object - thus, not: Caesar went to the Senate). All the same, an equative verb can be a bit like these other kinds of verbs to a degree. It's not quite black and white.

 

 

Subjects and predicates

 

To set the scene for the ‘subject and predicate nominative’ thing: a predicate noun tells us something about the subject noun.

 

But how do we know which noun is the actual subject in these situations? Well, there’s more than one way:

 

• The subject may be a pronoun such as ‘it’ (“it is a plant” – here the pronoun takes precedence in order to be the subject);
• or the subject may have the article such as “the” (the Son of Man is Lord – here the Son of Man takes precedence as the subject);
• or the subject may be a proper name (Jesus is the saviour – here, either could be the subject though, as in this case one is a proper name and the other has ‘the’ article).

 

There’s more to this, but you get the drift about this pattern - one noun is the subject and the other noun is the predicate, and both are in the nominative case.

 

 

The article “the”

 

Wallace (1996) on pages 256-63 gives us a handy account of ‘special uses and non-uses’ of the article ‘the’ in Greek. This is useful because what we have in John 1:1c is a departure from the general pattern of anarthrous predicate nominatives. It’s a departure from the general inasmuch as such predicate nouns usually appear after the equative verb. The predicate noun being before the verb is the departure from the general. I say general because it's not absolute. In John 1:1c, it appears before the equative verb. It's one of those departures. So that gives us something to talk about.

Now, if John wanted to say “the word was a god,” then the most natural thing (though not obligatory) would be for the Greek words to be in the order ‘the word was [a] god’ (‘was’ before ‘god’). John isn’t using that completely natural Greek word order, because instead he puts ‘god’ before ‘was’. So, we should suspect John is lending it a specially meaningful emphasis, rather than merely saying “the word was a god.” He’s put the words into a different order to capture something more. He has put the anarthrous PN before the verb.

In addition, if John wanted to say something with ultimate definiteness like 'one Word = one God' he would probably write "the word was the god" or "the god was the word". He's not saying that. It would exclude the Father from being God or make the Word the Father, and most of us are sure that John is not saying that. John is not formulating the numerical equation 'one Word = one God'. (Which is a relief to me as a Trinitarian, nailing my colours to the mast for disclosure. There's much else to God, with the Word, such as the Fatherhood of God, and the Holy Spirit. And that's why is as important for Trinitarians, as much as anyone else, that the PN is John 1:1c is qualitative (or adjectival if you prefer), the quality of which is closer to definiteness, rather than actually strictly definite. More about that when we get to Wallace below.)

Now, it needs to be said that the way theologians contrast these word is a bit odd. A thing always has the qualities of that thing. Any philosopher can tell you that three has the property of threeness (note the 'ness' on the end). 'Definite' has the quality of definiteness, and otherwise it wouldn't be definite. 'Indefinite' has the quality of indefiniteness, and otherwise it wouldn't be indefinite. And so on. So you have to look at what theologians are really saying when they contrast qualitative with in/definite.

 

The predicate noun: theos (God)

 

This is a bit of an excursus. We can't let the subject pass us by without paying a visit to the subject of Colwell. He had a famous role in this discussion. His 1933 paper (https://www.areopage.net/ColwellRule.pdf) offered a modest proposition that in Greek, where there is a noun that appears to be a definite predicate nominative (PN) and it appears before the verb, the trend is that such definite ones 'usually' drop the article ‘the’. That's all he really proposed for further discussion. Although the word 'rule' is bandied about, he calls it a theory on page 15. It's quite modest indeed. It needed testing and refinement in the years that followed, as he would have expected. Unfortunately, it got hijacked by those who thought Colwell had discovered an absolute 'rule' in Greek grammar, His 1933 paper hadn't claimed that at all. Building on the work of Robinson and Torrey, he used the term 'rule,' but when it comes down to it, he doesn't claim an absolutely reliable rule, and rather he frames it as a 'theory', a 'usually', and a 'tentatively'. The word 'rule' in the title of his paper is a bit misleading!

To have arrived at his modest conclusion, Colwell had needed an evidence basis to begin with, which means he had a list of texts with pre-verbal PNs that he had already decided were definite. He candidly says on page 17 that there are "bound to be mistakes" in his list of which ones are definite. He similarly says on page 19 that for examples outside the New Testament, he only made a 'hurried sampling' with only variable confirmation of his theory. 

He says he has tried to omit qualitative ones. Subsequent reviewers determined a far large proportion are qualitative, and so Colwell did his test with a larger sample that he should have. The test has to be re-done on a smaller sample to see if pre-verbal definite PNs do tend to drop the article.

He did his test on his over-large sample and made his conclusion that there is a trend of them dropping the article 'usually'. His paper seemed to say that such a list is made in the first place by looking at 'context'. He indicates on page 16 that he did not make an exhaustive search of the New Testament, and clearly was working on samples. 

Having done his test, he says on page 20, "The following rules may be tentatively formulated..." [emphasis added]. And this is where he says "usually." Yet some commentators have gone completely over the top about this. There is a bit of untangling to do there, to see what subsequent reviewers needed to do. Colwell could firstly be challenged as to his evidence basis: should any of his suite of 'definite' PN verses be excluded from the test on the basis that they are possibly not definite in the first place? Rightly, there has been challenge that some of his verses should be excluded from the test.

Philip B. Harner (JBL vol. 92, no.1, 1973, 75-87) and Paul Stephen Dixon (1975 https://www.forananswer.org/Top_JW/dixon.pdf) play a role in refining this - see below - refining the evidence base. Their reviewing the evidence base found that a good deal of the pre-verbal PN nouns are more likely qualitative than strictly definite. Therefore they would have to be excluded from any re-testing of Colwell's specific test (i.e. "do the pre-verbal definite PNs tend to drop the article/"). Although I am slightly suspicious of the very large numbers of qualitative PNs they find, and this needs to be re-run in my opinion.

That leaves a much smaller sample of pre-verbal definite PNs. Is it even worth re-running Colwell's test? Trends can be seen in the remaining sample, so Dixon argues, but it's not all one way. Sometimes the article is there, and sometimes it is dropped, which is what attracted Colwell's attention and his 'usually'. So, it's not absolute, but there are trends for discussion about the evidence base and the testing. 

However, a finding that qualitative PNs also often drop the article is highly interesting too. Colwell didn't test that. So Colwell had started a rabbit hole for scholars to follow down. For some scholars, these qualitative PNs have become more interesting than the definite PNs.

Colwell’s information is handy, but has to be handled with caution because of misunderstandings over the years, usually by those who treat Colwell's findings as an absolutely reliable 'rule' which is far stronger than he claimed himself. That is: in Greek, it’s perfectly standard  - but not uniform - that definite PN nouns drop the article ‘the’. So when you see one, the thought may well run through your mind: is this one of those definite nouns? 

But what is missed by those at fault with misuses/misunderstandings is this: Colwell was pointing out that they have a tendency to be anarthrous before a verb, not that they have a tendency to be definite. To establish definiteness requires additional work. Colwell says his method for establishing definiteness is context. So context must be how he decided which PNs were eligible to be included in his test.

Now, definite nouns don't have to have the article 'the' in the first place, which somewhat reduces the force of Colwell's evidence base (so Dixon argues). But that doesn't mean there's no significance in a trend to drop the article. It just gets harder to be sure that the reason for the absence of an article is the reason of being before the verb. 

And to repeat another note of caution, although Colwell basically said a definite PN before the verb tends to drop the article, that’s not to say that it’s usually definite when it looks like this before the verb. If you’ve grasped that so far, then you’ve grasped what you need to know about Colwell here. 

Just keep in the back of your mind that: there are definite pre-verbal PNs don't always drop the article; and anarthrous pre-verbal PNs aren't always a definite with a dropped article. Colwell's findings simply place the possibility of an anarthrous definite PN in open view. Seeing an anarthrous nominative PN shouldn't be taken as a proof that it is definite, and Colwell didn't claim as much anyway (his research openly included examples where it's not the case) even though he has been misused/misunderstood that way. It just alerts us to a wide range of possibilities.  

But, problem: how then – in such a construction where the article is absent - do you identify which nouns are actually definite, given that you can have both article-less definite and also article-less indefinite nouns?

In his solution, Colwell wrote, “if the context suggests that the predicate is definite, it should be translated as a definite noun in spite of the absence of the article.” (Colwell, ‘A Definite Rule,' 21.) So, if we are reading it as a definite noun, it should be because the context suggests it. Colwell doesn't say much more than that to flesh out his method of using context, but he does at least posit such as the appropriate kind of method. 

Otherwise, the alternatives are: a certain degree of qualitative; or indefinite. Qualitative is of particular interest here. We shouldn’t think of ‘qualitative’ standing on its own. There isn’t necessarily a hard distinction between indefinite and qualitative, nor between definite and qualitative. If something is qualitative, we should be asking what quality? It will be leaning in one direction or another, towards a quality having definiteness, or a quality having indefiniteness about it. It's curious that when people think about what quality John means, they often limit quality to one thing - divinity - but Wallace is right to treat the quality of something as wider than just one thing. We shouldn't be so narrowly focussed on ideas of divinity that we neglect qualities of definiteness and indefiniteness. Wallace corrects the balance.

And remember, if not qualitative, it could still be simply definite (or indefinite – less likely given the word order as explained). Harner, following Colwell, found that where his famous construction is found, 20% of the time it is indeed definite, and 80% of the time it is qualitative (leaning towards one quality or another). I think that needs to be re-tested again as that seems a very high number.

What can we take from Colwell now, if anything? Well, he's right about one thing: an anarthrous noun can be definite, but everyone knew that already. And therefore his point that an anarthrous PN before a verb can be definite isn't at all controversial, and doesn't carry much force. For example:

John 1:49: you are the king (σὺ Βασιλεὺς εἶ)

3:29: is the bridegroom (νυμφίος ἐστίν)

5:27: is the Son of Man (Υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν)

8:33 & 37: are the seed of Abraham (Σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ ἐσμεν / σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ ἐστε)

8:54: is our God (Θεὸς ἡμῶν ἐστιν)

10:2: is the shepherd (ποιμήν ἐστιν)

10:36: I am the Son of God (Υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ εἰμι)

19:21: I am King of the Jews (Βασιλεύς εἰμι τῶν Ἰουδαίων).

Colwell's paper also singles out some examples that have merit, but the overall picture is that it doesn't add up to much because the evidence base is rather small, in light of Dixon's work. So yes, it's confirmed that they can drop the article, and there are patterns, but it's pretty inconclusive as a way of determining how to read John 1:1c. Colwell himself said that it's context that tells you if something is definite anyway, so it's almost a redundant point.

So let's leave Colwell there.

Harner and Dixon would argue that they have expanded the evidence base for qualitative pre-verbal PNs, but simply calling them 'qualitative' doesn't really tell us anything about them. What quality? That's the question they pose. Let's come to Wallace.

Wallace

Daniel Wallace has surveyed all this. He notes this trend in the data: that where the anarthrous PN appears before the verb, it’s meaning is closer to definiteness, and where it’s after the verb, then it’s meaning is usually indefinite or qualitative. This confirms what I said earlier – in John 1:1c, the text fails to follow the obvious ‘indefinite’ route of putting the PN after the verb. So what's the emphasis?

In John 1:1c, the PN is before the equative verb, is qualitative, and and it is qualitatively closer to definiteness, as the above trends might lead us to expect. The operative word here is ‘closer’ because there is still this sense of qualitative. In other words, that takes us to translating it with a quality of definiteness, even as “and the Word was God”. But we can tease out the sense in which it is adjacent to definiteness. There is the REB the translation “what God was the Word was.” And better still the NET Bible translation: “and the Word was fully God.” (https://netbible.org/bible/John+1) Qualitative leaning towards definiteness, beautifully captured.

Context

As I’m always saying, context and function should inform our understanding of a text. I’ve written so much about the context of John 1:1 elsewhere. But briefly, there are obvious contextual problems with saying "the Word was a god". John 1 is telling us that all creation was made through the Word (Jesus). That he was pre-existent before the creation of the cosmos. That he is a pre-existent divine heavenly being, unlike ordinary men or anything else. In other words, when they claim it reads "with God ... was a god" that's two gods. More than that, both of them would be unique pre-existent divine heavenly beings with supernatural power on the cosmic universe-creating level. Believers would be singing songs to both of two heavenly beings. They would be believing in two gods. John 1:12 thus becomes a problem. No-one and nothing else would be placed in that complex category. It is ticking so many boxes on the 'god-like characteristics indicator' that this is clearly a two-god system. Saying "with God... was a god" with all these characteristics makes a two-god religion. 

I've seen some, including Jehovah's Witnesses, trying to deflect from that huge problem by putting the Word as 'a god' under a broader banner of 'gods' such as the world of men and angels called 'gods'. That doesn't work. The significance of Jesus being called theos in John 1:1 is of a totally different kind of order from anyone else being called "a god". An incomparably different meaning from the other categories of 'gods', so trying to explain away that there are two gods in their version of John 1:1 doesn't work

Regardless how many contrasting categories of gods there be, their John 1:1 is evidently a two god beginning, a two god creation, etc. Two unique pre-existent divine heavenly beings, with all those characteristics. Two heavenly gods at the beginning, two gods at creation. Two contrasting gods of whatever kinds who are the two unique pre-existent divine heavenly beings, both supernaturally able on a cosmic universe-creating level, unlike other so-called 'gods.'

The problem should be obvious. I'd love to see how a secular anthropologist could be persuaded that such is not a two god religion. That is, if these are split into two separate heavenly beings. 

This problem is avoided by not saying anything like "with God... was a god."

Appendix: contrary examples

Scholar Jason BeDuhn (in Truth in Translation) takes to task misuses and misunderstandings of Colwell's 1933 paper, and credits Harner with improving analysis of the data. He also turns his guns against Colwell with some passion. Colwell had made modest claims, such as that context can be used to make an evidence base of pre-verbal PNs to test. However, BeDuhn's tirade completely misses this, as if Colwell had no method other than rigging the test (through unconscious bias?) to pre-determine his findings.

BeDuhn also writes as if this analysis should be have been impeccable from day on. This doesn't work in other fields. Humanity would never have got to the Moon if everything to be tested had to be impeccable from day one. Progress needs a hypothesis, trial and error, review, refinement, revised data, revised models and propositions. Eventually, you get to the Moon. BeDuhn writes as if Colwell should have got to the Moon in scholarship's first stab at the matter. So review is important. BeDuhn had an opportunity to contribute substantially to this.

BeDuhn writes as if to turn review of progress after Colwell into a total debunking of Colwell. However, where BeDuhn conjures examples in which English translations ought to add an indefinite article ('a' / 'an'), he chooses some examples where English doesn't actually require that. For example, he unthinkingly takes John 8:48 as it's commonly translated: "you are a Samaritan" whereas an English speaker would be more likely to say "you're Samaritan" (just as an English person in an informal setting would say "you're American," not "you are an American"). BeDuhn is not differing from contemporary translations, but he ought to if he is taking it to a fine point to debunk someone else.

BeDuhn also picks John 4:19 where he, like the typical NRSV, has the woman at the well saying "you are a prophet." This has always struck me as odd. Was the woman aware of a class of people with second sight that she called 'prophets' into which she was now inducting Jesus? Why would she call a person with second sight specifically 'prophet'? Rather, could the Samaritan woman not be taking Jesus to be 'the prophet,' the expected one of Deuteronomy 18:15-22? (Jesus had competitors for this special title.) The unthinking assumption that she is putting Jesus into a class rather than proclaiming him to be unique doesn't look right to me. I think John is depicting the latter, especially given the ensuing conversation. BeDuhn's examples are better taken in John 9:24 and 12:6. However, Colwell's proposition was a modest 'usually,' and he never made an absolute rule in the first place, so BeDuhn is in principle in accord with Colwell in a sense. (Although he writes as if he protests otherwise.) 

But something else about BeDuhn's selection here needs to be said. If the focal point he will return to is John 1:1c, where the order is PN-verb-subject ('god was the word'), then it is of less force for BeDuhn to argue with examples that are just noun-verb (12:6 'thief was'); and subject-PN-verb (9:24 'this the man sinner is').

Meanwhile, PN-verb-pronoun as subject (4:19 'prophet are you'); and again PN-verb-pronoun as subject (8:48 'Samaritan are you') - these latter two are obviously closer to the PN-verb-subject structure of 1:1c than the former two, but interestingly neither of them need assume an indefinite article in English as I've explained above. (It's a less important difference that the subjects in these two cases are pronouns.) If BeDuhn is just pointing out that Colwell found something that was not absolute, well, Colwell openly presented such evidence and didn't claim otherwise, offering just a modest 'usually' which doesn't merit nailing Colwell to the wall as if to attack an 'always' or a 'nearly always.' This is almost straw-manning by BeDuhn.

But basically, while there are clear grounds for criticising other's misuses and misunderstandings of Colwell, it doesn't mean that Colwell wasn't on to something. It just means Colwell is out of date but was right in his 1933 paper about his proposition not being absolute. His work should be handled with caution and as mediated by more recent scholars such as Wallace, just as Moon missions couldn't be based in initial rocket tests.

Ironically, Colwell may have arrived at some correct findings by faulty method. This happens in science too! BeDuhn is aghast at the ides of arriving at a destination by the wrong method and wants to throw out the baby with the bathwater, which isn't a great method for progressing scholarship. 

I'm not sure why BeDuhn is so keen to completely discredit Colwell's work. If Colwell hadn't developed the enterprise, and Robinson and Torrey before him, using context to determine that some pre-verbal PNs are definite, and then testing the idea that such nouns tend to drop the article, well, had he not done so, then Harner and Dixon wouldn't have done their refinements and a good deal of useful scholarship wouldn't exist, looking at how pre-verbal definite and qualitative PNs are shaped. Someone has to start off, or develop, an enterprise and then be reviewed and refined and correctdSeeking the Truth Of Things: Why "eternal generation of the Son"? (gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com). Colwell was a link in that chain. But we are a long way down the road of refinement since then. BeDuhn is harsh towards Metzger (1953) for publishing a mere 20 years after Colwell's paper his views that had got caught up in the mistaken assumption of an absolutely reliable 'rule.' But Metzger did not have the advantage of another half century's work on the matter, whereas BeDuhn did have that advantage. Scholarship needs to be more collegiate and generous. 

To re-test this, the critic needs to start with a fresh list, however small, a list of which pre-verbal PNs are definite, determined on context if that method is followed, and say how many on that small(er) list drop the article. That's all that needs to be done to validate or invalidate Colwell's 'usually.' Has BeDuhn run this test?

If he is omniscient, how come the Son of God has to receive a revelation in Rev 1:1?

A question you would rarely come across. I had only ever seen it in polemics by Jehovah's Witnesses against standard Christian beliefs. But recently, it has resurfaced in Muslim polemics against Christian beliefs. So there is a slim chance you might come across it.

Regular readers will be pleased to know a short answer will do!

The controversial suggestion is that the verse is a giveaway about omniscience. It isn't. It's about something else altogether - a scene set in heaven that is carefully staged for effect.

The basics: to understand what the first verse of the book of Revelation means, the best way to start is to read the rest of the book of Revelation. Here's a short summary. The book tells us a vision. In God's heaven, there is a scroll, a revelation scroll. So everyone wants to know what is written on it. In a quite spectacular scene, the shocking fact emerges that no-one on in heaven is worthy to even open God's scroll... except one. Who is that one? It's the Lamb of God. (That's Jesus to you and me.) So the Lamb takes God's scroll and opens it. And all manner of spectacular visions appear, images of traumas the world will endure. And the ultimate promise is that God and his Lamb (Jesus) will make everything right again, and make a brand new heaven and earth.

So, a key scene there is the scroll, the revelation scroll, full of secrets. The Lamb of God takes it to open it, as a demonstration to all the witnesses that only one is worthy to receive it. 

The witnesses need to see and hear it. That's the point of the book. It’s staged for their benefit. That's what Revelation 1:1 tells us:

"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place." 

The revelation is in the scroll. It's the scroll that God gives to Jesus. The revelations in it are for the witnesses to hear. And the reason for staging this is made very clear: the Lamb takes God’s scroll simply in order to answer the question: “who is worthy to open it?” 

It’s a public demonstration of the Lamb’s status. God needs to give the scroll to the Lamb, so that the explanation is heard, the explanation for why only the Lamb is worthy. 

Otherwise, the scroll could just have been given directly to John or the angel. The verse again (in full):

"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John..."

The scene is staged as a display of how great the Lamb is, not how inferior his knowledge. The idea that it could be about omniscience is a woeful mis-reading. It's one of the least effective attacks on Christian belief that I've seen. It’s doubtful that anyone would veer towards such a view unless they were motivated on some level to down-rate Jesus.

So that was the answer. Now let's enjoy the passages a bit more.

That opening verse is a synopsis of the scene to come.

 

That "revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him" occurs in chapter 5, which gives the following account of it. When it's given to him, it's simply a scroll.

(By the way, here you see something common in the book: the author hears one thing and sees another. He hears it's a lion, but when he looks, it's a lamb. The book does this a lot.)

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb...

And the spectacular scene goes on. So there you have it. The revelation scroll is in God's right hand, and the Lamb takes it. Later when the Lamb opens it, its spectacular visions are witnessed by all. 

 And that's what Revelation 1:1 prefigures:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John...

It's pointless insisting it's about who is/isn't omniscient when it's really about the drama of the scene, the drama of who is worthy. I can't imagine that when John wrote this scene, that he would ever having imagined that people would try to turn this into an Omniscience Indicator! I suppose one of the problems the biblical writers face, like all writers, is that you can't write anything without people trying to make it into something else.

Feel free to suggest topics on early Christianity for future posts

If it's within my areas of study, I'll do my best to respond. 

Use the comment box below to suggest topics.

Cheers

Colin

John 8:58: what’s with the great ‘I am’?

John's gospel uses the absolute 'I am' (Greek = 'ego eimi') statements of Jesus schematically. One of them is John 8:58, but to understand it, we need to look wider. 

To understand why, we need to dip back into the Hebrew Bible.

 

Deuteronomy and Isaiah

Behind some of it is the Hebrew 'ni hu (= 'I am he'). This occurs seven times as God's declaration of his unique identity. Those seven times are in Deuteronomy 32:39, plus six in Isaiah at 41:4, 43:10, 43:13, 46:4, 48:12 and 52:6; plus the emphatic ‘anoki 'anoki hu occurs twice, both in Isaiah at 43:25 and 51:12.

So, nine verses: seven of 'I am he'; plus 2 emphatic ones. Those verses are key and well known statements of Jewish monotheism. John wrote his gospel with this in view.

And before we move on to the New Testament, we need to know that the Old Greek (Septuagint) sometimes translates 'ni hu' as 'ego eimi' (= 'I am').

 

John's Gospel

In his carefully structured gospel, John echoes that pattern in reference to Jesus. It’s an extraordinary move.

So, for Jesus, John includes seven absolute 'I am' statements, plus 2 emphatic verses. Here they are:

·       John's seven absolute 'I am' verses in his gospel are: John 4:26, 6:20, 8:24, 8:28, 8:58, 13:19, and 18:5.

·       Plus 18:5-8 which emphatically twice repeat the seventh occurrence.

 

Note what John is doing there. John’s message emerges in his own pattern. It’s about the parallels with those famous monotheistic verses from the Old Testament. So:

·       the Old Testament ‘I am he’ has 7 instances of 'ni hu' and 2 of the emphatic 'anoki 'anoki hu.’

·       John's ‘I am’ includes 7 absolute instances of 'ehgo eimi'... and 2 repetitions of the 7th for an emphatic climax.

Those verses thus very carefully and deliberately identify the ‘I am’ Jesus with the ‘I am he’ God of the Old Testament. It’s about Jesus' divinity. The aforementioned 7 + 2 uses of ‘ego eimi’ in John’s gospel match up with the 7 + 2 uses of ‘ni hu’ by God in the Old Testament.

John in this way reveals Jesus to be claiming the monotheistic divinity of the creator God here.

Whatever one may think about how best to convey John 8:58 in English translation, whether ‘I am’ or not, we must not miss John’s point.

The Greek is clear - this gospel’s 7 + 2 uses of the absolute ‘ego eimi’ parallel the 7 + 2 uses by God of ‘ni hu’ in these profoundly monotheistic passages.

 

A brilliant place to find out is the short book 'God Crucified' by Richard Bauckham. The same line of thinking is in Catrin Williams’ much more expensive book.

 

Exodus 3:14

Sometimes, commentators are keen to connect the ‘ego eimi’ of John 8:58 in particular with the Old Greek version of Exodus 3:14.

But it's not particularly Exodus 3:14 that is in view in this 'I am' statement. Instead the schematic way it is used shows that John has structured his gospel to link to the 7+2 verses of Deuteronomy and Isaiah listed above.

 

Conclusion

The Old Greek (Septuagint) sometimes translated ‘ni hu’ as ‘ego eimi’.

The 7 + 2 uses of ‘ni hu’ by God in the OT are clearly in view in John’s plan of his Greek-language gospel, and what is especially significant about them is that they all occur in profoundly monotheistic contexts. These are well known OT verses, and John’s carefully structured gospel clearly echoes the pattern. It does so by giving Jesus 7 absolute ‘ego eimi’ statements plus two emphatic follow-ons.

Therefore, John's Gospel echoes the monotheism of Deuteronomy and Isaiah, and makes the profoundly Christological step of including Jesus in the identity of the God of Jewish monotheism.

 

Notes

Observers of the Jehovah’s Witnesses comments on this verse might like to go to this collection of references to see how it has evolved over the years. It’s not my favourite website by any means, but it’s handy for having a lot of information contained in one place.