Category: Theology

The cross is a complex issue. Years ago I heard Tom Wright say he was teaching Sunday School to children and he asked them to come up with the reasons for the crucifixion. Eventually the varied answers from the group came back. Some picked up on those (bad) Romans, others on the jealousy and opposition of the Jews, others went for forgiveness by God through the cross. Perhaps overstating things he suggested that between those kids they held together what theologians had been unable to. The reasons for the cross were manifold.

Sin of course meant the cross. Some interpret that as the wrath of God had to be appeased as he cannot look on sin… I am suggesting though that sin at every level meant the cross took place. The sin of Empire, for Jesus suffered the death of the rebel against Rome, the sin of the alignment of religion and money / compromise (better one die than they come and take away our freedoms and this place), the sin of wrong valuations – 30 pieces of silver is what this is worth (how many ways are there to kill people through unjust trade deals?). One more I have been thinking about is betrayal. The betrayal opened the door for the high priests and Sanhedrin to hand Jesus over to the powers. I don’t know if betrayal was necessary for the cross, but what is sure is Jesus drank the cup of betrayal to its finish.

Betrayal, let down, shafted, stitched… in whatever form or shape it comes it is part of what shapes humanity and its sorry state. Stemming from a devaluation of others (hence the irony of valuing the transaction at 30 pieces of silver).

What a potent combination – money, religion, compromise, false alignments, and the anticipated punishment of the Jewish state by Rome. They are all there as part of the cross. But seemingly unlocked by betrayal. Far from the idea that Judas was predestined to betray is the thought that betrayal opens the door, the deepest of which comes from those on ‘the inside’, and Jesus knew from the beginning who it was that would betray him.

If we safeguard ourselves against betrayal (not possible!!) we will be forever putting limitations on the effects of the cross.

Thus endeth my pleasant thought for the day!

Resurrection: continuity and discontinuity. Jesus, rises, not someone else. His body can be touched, he can eat. He is recognised. Clearly there is continuity. But there are changes. He appears and disappears from sight. He eats not to stay alive, maybe indicating that eating is always about more than satisfying hunger, but each time we take food we are ‘guests at his table’. Continuity and discontinuity at a personal level. And also at a corporate level.

The Hosea Scripture, ‘on the third day he will raise us up’, indicates that his resurrection was the resurrection of Israel. And because it was the resurrection of Israel there is continuity and there is discontinuity as far as corporate identity is concerned. The second sign of the arrival of the kingdom (resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit) was promised to those who repented, for the promise was for ‘them’, for all those who saved themselves from that corrupt generation (Acts 2:39,40). The crisis had truly come as far as the apostolic preachers were concerned: refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah and the fate will be to be ‘utterly rooted out of this people’ (Acts 3:23), clearly indicating that those who refused the Messiah will no longer be viewed as part of ‘the people’ (Lev. 20:3, 5, 6).

A strong perspective to say the least. But the strength of it is in proportion to the intervention of heaven through the life of Christ. ‘Born of a woman, born under the law’, coming to his own who do not receive him, punished by the twinning together of Imperial and religious powers, but vindicated by heaven.

The very title ‘son of God’ is not a title indicating divinity. Israel was God’s son, called out of Egypt, and Jesus is declared ‘son’ by the resurrection (Rom. 1:4). He is raised as the one true Israel, the one and only truly human one.

The ‘people’ called to be a sign of the age to come, to image themselves (imagine) not on the Imperial powers of the day but on the radical horizontal outworking of a devotion to a God who is not in the image of any Pharaoh nor Caesar, that son had failed. The Son comes and overcomes, even death cannot hold the Author of life.

Such life is so strong that everything has to be redefined. There is continuity – the call continues; there is discontinuity – those in Christ are the children of promise, the descendants of Abraham. It took a while for there to be an outworking of where the Gentiles fitted in the scheme. It seems the early days were spent in seeking to provoke as many (Jews) from the broad way that would only lead to destruction and on to the narrow path that would lead to life. Those early days were spent in persuading Jews. They knew they could be part of the ‘people’, but only if they came through the door of life.

This is not ‘replacement theology’ but Christocentric theology. Christ at the centre of all of God’s purposes redefines everything. Those in Christ have to pick up that calling to be imaged by God for the sake of the world, to be signs that both point to that reality and as signs bring that reality ever closer. Salvation from… is important, but salvation for… is what defines the ‘people’. A Christocentric definition does not necessarily condemn all Jews (and Paul wrestled with that one), nor does it condemn all those outside of Christ. A judgement to come will decide on those issues! It does not condemn, but it calls from that tomb for all who through their obedience to Christ, can humbly line up to be counted among the ‘people’.

Israel, today, cannot be whitewashed for treatment of those who are their neighbours. Any such, unthinking response cannot stand the test of any biblical prophet, and one can only applaud the recent comments by Pope Francis for his public rebuke.

The tasks that lie ahead are enormous; the energy flowing from the tomb though is more than necessary for the fulfilment of the task. The early call was to the Jew; now we understand the call is to one and all for there is no Jew nor Greek, but ‘all’ are in Christ.

He was raised on the third day, ‘according to the Scriptures’, so goes the early confession of the believers which we can read in 1 Cor. 15:4. The Scripture has to be Hosea 6:2

After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.

That Scripture, relating to the resurrection has enormous ramifications for who are the ‘chosen’ people, and one that I will get to in the coming days. Alongside that Scripture the other central text given as a ‘sign’ is that of Jonah (Matt. 12: 39,40).

No sign will be given.. except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.

I like the NRSV translation above – not whale but ‘sea monster’. I am really not sure that Jonah literally existed and there are certainly some ’embellishments’ in the Jonah text (3 days to cross Ninevah!!), and we certainly have no need to defend the historicity of the story to get its significance. Mission, was the significance and mission to the nations, even to the ’empire’ of the day that stood (as all empires do) against God’s outpoured, ridiculously generous, love.

The sea monster (the one who re-appears in Revelation maybe?) vomited Jonah up and out. He vomited him up and out not back into the place of comfort and certainly not of escape but into the launching pad for the nation(s). The sea monster could not hold him.

Neither could death hold Jesus. God raised him, and maybe death spewed him out in reaction to that impartation of divine life. Life entering the place of death meant there was a holy reaction.

Resurrection re-configures Israel (Hosea) and restores why there was a chosen people. God’s huge ‘yes’ to humanity is testified to in the resurrection. Those ‘in Christ’ are commissioned not to be separate from those not yet in Christ, but are ‘spewed up’ out of the belly of the sea monster ready to go to Ninevah. Ninevah might not be as big as we think, but to cross it will truly take three days. The journey across takes three days, the time in the belly of the sea monster, it will take the entire history of our bondage, and our death to that system to travel across our Ninevah.

For Paul his Ninevah was the entire Imperial lands of Rome. He likewise was blind for 3 days (Acts 9:9) in that transition out of his religious bondage and deception until he could truly see light.

We all have our ‘three days’, and often experience repetitive cycles of three days, but on the third day without short-circuiting it, we are ready. Spewed up as always by the system. On the dry land, the place God separated from the waters for humanity to care for: dry land that has been polluted, Ninevahs that have been built on it. But the ‘Jonahs’ are coming!! Jonah sought to get to the ends of the Empire (Tarshish / Cádiz) to escape. Paul sought to get to the ends of the earth (Spain). He did not aim for the religious centre. That was truly ended at the cross. The Temple curtain ripped. That was the end. The third day, post-vomit is the beginning.

What a day to look forward to… the hope, because of the faithfulness of God, that the righteous will rise to participate in the age to come, to be with God when he comes to put all things right. Then right in the midst of the place that was to keep that hope alive, Jerusalem / Israel, probably as the day dawned, Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead. That he died was not disputed, that his body could not be found in the grave was not disputed, but the implications for Israel and for the world? Those implications were just too much for many. Deny he had risen – the disciples had stolen the body – otherwise they had a major issue to face.

There would have been no controversy worth arguing about if the disciples claimed that Jesus was alive beyond death. Life after death was not a focus nor that controversial, but resurrection was both the hope and the controversial element that raised enormous questions. Crucified by the Romans, the death penalty for sedition and rebellion against the state, seen through Jewish eyes as confirmation that he was a blasphemer, cursed of God being all those who ‘hang on a tree’. For the early Christians to state that this Jesus had been raised by God as an affirmation of his faithful life was an affront. Within a short while Saul of Tarsus was pursuing all deviant Jews who had come to believe this about Jesus. At one level it would not have concerned him what the pagans thought, but for Jews to believe such a thing would only bring yet more judgement on Israel, therefore in line with his passion for holiness he set about imprisoning and even sentencing to death such believers.

The resurrection, human life in bodily form, was God’s huge affirmation of Jesus: he declared him to be the son of God in power through the resurrection, but it is more than an affirmation of Jesus, the resurrection is the hugest affirmation of humanity. For humanity to be in the image of God and set in creation was a strong affirmation, but to raise Jesus bodily is an affirmation of the fitness of humanity to participate in the age to come, and goes beyond even that creational identity. The ‘yes’ echoes around the walls of the empty tomb. God is for humanity… God wants to spend time, for ever, with humanity.

Because of the resurrection:

• We must have a high theology of and for humanity.
• We have a firm assurance that what we see around us is not all going to burn up. Through the fire, yes, but through the fire.
• We recognise a new world has appeared for those who can see it. That new world is calling now for those to inhabit it with the values of the age to come. That original great Easter morning opens the door to the great new world that is coming, and is here.
• We see all of life that affirms dignity, well-being and relational health as resonating with values that heaven responded to that morning. We cannot elevate the ‘spiritual’ above the ‘mundane’. The strength of heaven is so invasive that God is found wherever we travel.

What a day… what a hope… what a provocation to LIVE now, to sown now for then.

I like the rawness and speed of Galatians. There is no real messing about, and some of the arguments seem to be as non-watertight as many of mine! Take this one:

Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.

Just a few little leaps there that evade the Western mind as to how on earth Paul got from Hagar → to Sinai → to the Jerusalem of his day. He is certainly moving beyond a careful examination of the original context, author’s intended meaning, blah, blah!!

At the beginning of that chapter he hits something right on the head regarding the coming of Christ. He holds out that the timing was so specific, ‘the fullness of times’:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God (Gal. 4: 4-7).

This is much more than it was a time of good communication, such as language, structure, transport etc., even if from a strategic point of view that might be the case. It seems to me that Jesus came when there was no hope. No hope now for the Gentiles because there was no hope for the Jews. So bad that we might as well draw a straight line from Hagar through Sinai to Jerusalem!! Jesus came as a human (born of a woman) to rescue humanity, and this is why a truly humanitarian approach has to also understood as a godly approach. Yet his rescue of humanity is as a Jew (born under the law), not because they were the chosen race, in the sense of chosen and others condemned, but because they were the failed chosen race. They were under bondage, their bondage being under the (good) law, and Paul can compare their bondage to the Gentiles under bondage to the elemental spirits. The coming of Christ then is for the Jew, his death is as a Jew under Roman execution, so that ‘we’ (normally when Paul uses this in these contexts he is indicating ‘we – Jews’) might be adopted as children! Hagar and child had been thrown out, hence his ease at being able to use such an analogy for Israel. Those adopted as children had received the Spirit – those whether Jew or Gentile.

Jesus came at the crux of history. The time of no hope. The chosen people were focused on how they were chosen but not fulfilling their call (their reason for being chosen) to be there for everyone.

This is not God acting in Christ outside of the rules, but entering into the rules of engagement. He is not a God-in-the-flesh untouched but victorious. The miracle of the Incarnation is not simply he becomes one of us, but the depth of the pit he enters. That pit is described as the ‘fullness of times’. The time of no hope. He does not arrive in the flesh to walk with Adam and Eve, nor appear at the time of the prophets, nor at any other hopeful moment. Present, of course, throughout, but only present in that intense way when there was no hope. Jew and Gentile alike under deep bondage. Coming to free those under the curse of the law, and those who were not chosen.

We enter the Easter season. It always speaks of personal hope. Yet for huge numbers Easter and every other day is just another day in the calendar as they struggle under the bondage of oppression through war, displacement, slavery and a host of other evils. There is no easy word to give to those multitudes. I believe God has not, nor never will, forget them. There is some kind of connection to that personal arrival (the parousia) when what is wrong is righted and the contribution to that ‘fullness of times’ that is to be pioneered by those who have received the Spirit. Easter gives personal hope and provokes an understanding of chosenness that we are to make a contribution to filling up the time. Not with universal bondage and no hope as the sign of its arrival, but of the abundance of gold, silver and precious stones, that had been stored up throughout human history, even some stones that came through when there was apparently ‘no hope’.

Jesus came at the right time. Not simply the most strategic time to communicate. In that coming he finished what the Father gave him to do. That work, the work of Christ is the finished work. He will return when we have finished what we were called to do. Easter says he values our (tiny) contribution. Maybe we can even say he needs our contribution. He certainly needs it to complete what he has always desired: to make his dwelling with us.