Peter and Ryan, (2-09-08)

Due to many similarities in the two responses, I will respond to both of you here.

It does not surprise me in the least that both of you would disagree with me.  I have grown a great deal in Biblical understanding because of just such disagreement.

Peter, I did not say that the kingdom had been “completed by Jesus in the first century.”  I said that the kingdom had been established in heaven in the first century.  In my opinion, it has not been “completed” but is in fact growing and growing at the present time.

It is very easy to assert that “the meaning of the term (kingdom of God) as it is used in the NT is to do with God’s activity on earth. In that sense, kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonymous terms.”  However, it is quite another to provide proof of such an assertion (which you did not do). 

While I do agree with you that “the kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” are “synonymous terms” I must disagree with your unsubstantiated assertion that it is only used “in the NT is to do with God’s activity on earth.” (Another assertion for which you provided no evidence)

One of the primary focuses of Paul’s teaching was an imminent (in that first century generation) “resurrection” (Acts 4:2, 17:18, 32, 23:6, 24:15, 21, 28:20; Rom 6:5; 1Cor 15; 2Cor 4:14; Php 3:10-11; 2Tim 2:18ff, et al.) and it is also a focal point for Peter (1:3-7, 10-13, 21, et al. cf. 2Pt 3:12-13), James (5:3,7-8), John, and the author of Hebrews.

At this point, my question for both of you would be — where do you think that Paul, Peter, John and the other NT saints are located at the present time?  Do you agree with Wright that they are still in the grave?  If “His heavenly kingdom” was not established in the first century - then they and all other Christians that have died are still in the grave and not with Jesus in the heavenly realm.  As N.T. Wright said, “In the Bible we are told that you die… St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet.”[1]

In this statement, N.T. Wright, like so many others, completely misses the point that the NT also teaches that Paul and the other writers of the NT were expecting their resurrection to take place very soon, i.e. within that generation (Matt 16:27-28, et al.) “in the parousia of Jesus Christ” (1Cor 15:23c, cf. 1Thess 4:14-17).  To argue that Jesus was either mistaken about these things or that He deliberately lied to His apostles about the timing of the eschaton simply will not work.  It is time that Wright and others faced the music of the first century Christian’s imminent expectation of that generation’s resurrection!!

At every funeral service I go to — I hear the Officiant say something to the effect, “Jane Doe is no longer with us she is now in heaven with Jesus - which in our day, because of the events of AD 70, is an accurate, Biblical statement.  I think that it is about time that we bring our incorrect futurist “classroom/pulpit”  eschatology into line with our correct preterist funeral eschatology. 

It is more than laughably absurd to continue to think that Paul – who fully expected, possibly within his lifetime (1Thess 4:17), to be resurrected into the “heavenly kingdom” of Jesus Christ (2Tim 4), thus to be “face to face” with Jesus Christ, and then to “know as he is known” (1Cor 13:12) and that John who twice wrote that “it is the last hour” in which “the world passes away” (1John 2:17-18) and who fully expected to not be “ashamed before Jesus Christ…”at His appearing…in His Parousia” (1Jn 2:28) and who fully expected to be “like Him when He shall appear…in His Parousia” (1John 3:2, cf. 2:28) – have not been resurrected, but instead are still in the grave nearly two thousand years after they died!  That view turns their imminent expectations into a mockery and Jesus Christ, from whom they received those imminent expectations, into a colossal liar and failure.

In this interview Wright continued:

“The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies.”

In my opinion, Wright needs to re-read the NT.  The NT does not say a word about Jesus Christ “returning” to earth to set up a kingdom and it certainly does not say that the people then (some time in the future from 2008) living will get “a whole new life” here on earth.

Wright continues:

“And finally, the location.  At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.”

I think that Wright has mis-apprehended the thought behind the "new heavens and the Earth" as expressed in the Bible and ostensibly Wright has missed Jesus’ comments in John 14.  Actually Jesus’ comments recorded in John 14 begin with this comment in John 13:1:

“Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father… (John 13:1 NKJV)”

Jesus’ commentary, as recorded in John 14, picks up with the thought of Him going to the Father and states:

 “"In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go (to the Fathers’ house) to prepare a place for you.  "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am (in the Father’s house), there you may be also. (John 14:2-3 NKJV)” 

Here, it certainly seems to me, that Jesus is describing a "location" when he states "in my Father’s house are many dwelling places…I go to prepare a "place" for you.  Here "place" seems to refer to one of the "dwelling places” in the Father’s house.

In a Jewish marriage the bride and groom where first betrothed, as the groom prepared for the forth coming marriage he would build an addition to his father’s house, then when the appropriate time came, the groom would come and get the bride and take her to the "place" he had prepared in his father’s house.

This statement in John 14 seems to be formed on that model.

In 2Cor 11:2 Paul states to the Corinthians that he had "betrothed them to one husband, that (he) may present (them) as a chaste virgin to Christ.”  Here and many other place in the NT, Jesus is identified as a "groom" and the first century "ekklesia" as the betrothed virgin that becomes the "wife" in the Parousia of Jesus Christ.

The above is summed up in a parable as follows:

"Then (after the events of chapter 24) the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. "Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. "Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, "but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. "But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. "And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming (to get the bride and take her home to the "place" He has prepared); go out to meet him!’ "Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. "And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ "But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ "And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready (the first century "ekklesia") went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut… "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming (to get His bride [the first century "ekklesia"] and take her home to the "place" he has prepared for her in the Father’s house). (Matthew 25:1-13 NKJV)In Acts 24:14 Luke records Paul’s statement to Felix that, "there is about to be a resurrection."  The resurrection to which Paul refers here is surely the three phase ("order") resurrection which he explains in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“…the resurrection of the dead.   …each one in his own order:

(First phase, past ca. 30AD) Christ the firstfruits…

(Second phase, past ca. AD 70)  Afterward they that are Christ’s in His Parousia. 

(Third phase, future ??)  Then the end, i.e. the resurrection of the rest of the dead” (Rev 20:5a, 11-15)

(1 Corinthians 15:21-24 NKJV)” The apostle John twice wrote, “It is the last hour” (1John 1:18) Which he surely acquired from Jesus own words, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, comes an hour, and now is when the dead will hear the voice (cf. 1Thess 4:16) of the Son of God and those hearing (cf. John 10:27) will live (in resurrection, 1Cor 15:23c, cf. Rev 20:4 “the first resurrection”) Marvel not at this, because there comes an hour in which all those in the tombs will hear the voice of Him and will come forth those having done the good things unto a resurrection of live, and those having done the evil things unto a resurrection of judgment (Cf. Rev 20:13, i.e. the resurrection of the rest of the dead, Rev 20:5a) Thus we see that, contrary to the unsubstantiated assertions of many, the Bible simply does not teach the erroneous notion of  just one “general resurrection” at the end of time (as if time can ever end?).

[1] Interview for Time Magazine by Time’s David Van Biema    

 Lloyd