Transcription
God has made you for this world to enjoy it, to live life in it, and to be his Witnesses within it. So Jesus has won the victory. He will win the ultimate Victory, and our task is to be faithful in the present. God will flood all of creation. We are the kind of pilot project for that end result.
There was a a few years ago when I was, you know, picking up a few NT Wright books and and looking through this and and and even filtering through what we're discussing from a storytelling perspective. Jesus was a storyteller. And, you know, it didn't make any sense that God would create man, man would reject God, God would start over with Noah, man would reject God again. He would then send Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the third part of God. See, they're all present and accounted for. God the Father, God the Son is at the right hand of the Father, Holy Spirit's in us. There is any more God to talk about, right? And we are the living Temple. Now, God is in us, dwelling in us. NT, he's in us. And we need another rescue mission. It doesn't make any sense. I totally agree. I totally agree.
Um, at the same time, the danger with saying we don't need another rescue mission is that people think we've now got everything that we're meant to have. And then people look at the churches they know, and they look at the world the way it is, and they say, "Well, excuse me." Um, but what you find in the New Testament's eschatology, the New Testament's vision of the of the ultimate second coming of Jesus, is that that's the point at which, as Paul says dramatically in Romans 8, creation itself will be set free from its slavery to decay in order to be part of the freedom of the glory of the children of God. And the other key passage is 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, where Paul talks about the last enemy to be destroyed is death. And that hasn't happened yet. People are still dying. I was just at a funeral a couple of days ago of a young man who we just say, "We have no idea why God would take him," etc., etc. We've all been there and done those funerals. Um, and so when we say that Jesus defeated the enemy and death itself on the cross, which we do say and rightly, that is, in technical language, proleptic. That's happened, but it is still to happen. And we live between the defeat of death on the cross and the final defeat of death, in which there will be no mourning or crying or pain anymore, as in Revelation 21. Um, and and and during that period, Paul talks about an ongoing battle, 1 Corinthians 15, but also Ephesians chapter 6, in which the church has to take part because the church, being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, is now sharing the present work of Jesus, which includes, among other things, the rolling back of the domain of darkness. And if we don't understand that, then when bad things happen to us as Christians, we would just say, "Oh dear, I'm supposed to be New Creation. This shouldn't be happening." And the answer is, "No, sorry, because you're New Creation, you are actually, if I dare use the language, taking the fight to the enemy." Which is a dangerous and difficult thing to do and demands prayer and fasting and and wisdom and so on. Um, so understanding the present time as being between Resurrection Mark 1, Jesus' resurrection, and Resurrection Mark 2, which is when we will all be raised to share in this new creation, that's the crucial thing about learning about Christian obedience here and now.
Okay, I'm going to ask you a question. You're going to think it's off-topic, but it's not. It would be very difficult for you to to answer this any other way than what I expect. But did Jesus accomplish everything he was sent to do?
Um, Jesus accomplished everything he was sent to do. He says so in John 17. He says, "I finished the work that you gave me to do." And then two chapters later, on the cross, his last words in John are, "It is finished" (tetelestai), which I think is hooking back to Genesis 2:1-3. God finished all the work that he'd begun. But that was the work he was be was given to do then. Now, um, Paul says, "He must reign until he's put all his enemies under his feet." So the post-resurrection work which Jesus has been given to do is to be ruling the world in the present through us, through and through us, in a thousand other ways as well, no doubt. I mean, you didn't make the sunrise this morning, nor did I. Um, Jesus is ruling the world until... I think I did, but I didn't really. Yeah, to until he will put all his enemies under his feet. You know, this is, and and that will be the final work. But Jesus has completed the work he was given to do for then, which then launches, if you like, the new work that Jesus is given to do. That's part of what the Ascension is all about.
Was that a theologian version of "yes"? Um, it's, as most theological questions, you have to answer "yes, but" and "no, but." So I think I did both. Okay. So Jesus fulfilled, up until his death and resurrection, everything he was sent to do. Yeah. That's a simple yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Yes. Interesting. He didn't kick out the atheistic, godless, Roman, uh, child sacrificing, you know, god-worshipping, gods-worshipping ruling, uh, authority of his day. And so Jesus didn't do that. In fact, he said, "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's." Interestingly, now. Yes. That's that's a complicated little saying, but right. Yeah. But ultimately, doesn't that mean that that means we, if we are to be like Jesus, can accomplish everything he's called us to do now, like he did, even though we see darkness or evil in the world? There is this version, again, I mentioned my pastor friend earlier, and he, and he just jokingly put this little term together. Why don't we call ourselves "Emmanuelists," not dispensationalists, not pedists? Create some new term. Emmanuel: God is with us, to accomplish what we're called to do. Um, can you, can you go with that up to a point?
But the danger in saying Jesus didn't kick out Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas or whatever is that Jesus makes it very clear in, say, John 16, that when the Spirit comes, and the Spirit comes to and through us, the Spirit will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. Um, and that hooks into what Jesus says in John 12 about the ruler of this world being judged. And something about Jesus' death and resurrection holds the rulers of the world to account. I don't know if you've seen the book that I just did with Michael Bird called "Jesus and the Powers." I haven't read it, but you... Yeah, okay. But that's really all about this. Um, the fascinating thing is in John 19, when Jesus is having this discussion with Pontius Pilate, Pilate says, "Don't you realize I have the authority to have you killed?" And Jesus says, "You, you could have no authority over me unless it was given you from above." This is the Son of God saying that the Roman Governor has a God-given authority over him. But then he says, "So the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin." In other words, yes, this is really important, and most people never hear this. God wants his world to be wisely ordered through human agents. And God will do that, even through unbelieving human agents. But God will hold them to account. And then in John 16 and subsequently, it becomes part of the vocation of the church to hold the rulers to account. We have backpedaled from that because we don't want to make a fuss. And particularly from the 18th century onwards, we've separated out God's sphere, our sphere, Christ, Caesar, which is not what that saying is is all about. And and so we've imagined that we mustn't have any critique of of the principalities and powers because that would be a a wrong thing for us to do. Instead of watching everything come together, because it's all connected, we need it to be more connected. We have been the ones that have been separating. Yeah, that that's that's right. And we've handed over the responsibility, which is the church's responsibility, in the power of the Spirit, to the secular media, the secular press, who think it's their responsibility to hold the government to account. Um, in fact, it's the church's. Which is a very difficult thing, because the church may not always agree, to put it mildly, on how to hold the government to account. My goodness. Um, but that that has to be what John 16 is all about. That that passage about the Spirit convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. You are now, I'm going to say, say a little deeper than the shallow end in regard to the way we should be living our life because of this new definition, or the more robust definition of the resurrection. A kingdom has begun. We are its agents. And we are sorely lacking in taking our position on Earth. Yeah, yeah, that that's true.
But there are huge paradoxes in that. Just as Jesus became king through the crucifixion, that's the crown of thorns and King of the Jews above his head and so on. The Gospels make it quite clear this is how Jesus becomes king. You've got it there in Mark chapter 10, when James and John say, "We want to sit at your right and your left." And Jesus says, "You have no idea what you're talking about, because actually the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many." That's the redefinition of how power is meant to work. It's the power of love. So then when the church receives the Spirit, it doesn't mean that the church can now become the sort of people James and John wanted to be, "Oh, we're going to go off and show these guys what's what." The church takes up its powerful reign by being Jesus-shaped, cross-shaped people. You see it in Paul, particularly when he says, "We're just the offscouring of all things. We're just beaten up and thrown this way and that and and vilified, and people tell lies about us." And that is actually how the message of of the Cross is making its way in the world. So on the one hand, we have to say the church does have a God-given role via the world. On the other hand, this isn't about, so the church has to take power and start bullying everybody, because that's precisely how Jesus himself said, um, "We're not doing power that way anymore." It's the power of the Cross, which is very, very demanding.
What is this image in the early church? Many theologians puzzled about this because the question of "What is a human being?" was a regular philosophical talking point. And they wanted to know, "Does the image mean that there's a bit of me which is just like God? Is it my my thought, my imagination, my memory, my will, or something like that?" But that actually misses the point. Genesis is talking about God creating a world, a heaven plus Earth reality, with an image at its heart.
Do you believe everything in the Olivet Discourse is fulfilled? That's a good question. In Mark's version, I would say yes. In Matthew's version and Luke's version, I would say yes. In Matthew's version, um, there are hints that there is something more going on. Just like in, um, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, if it's not sure it is a parable, but you know what I mean, in in Matthew 25, um, there's a sense that this is now a vision which goes beyond the immediate to some kind of final judgment. Um, I've always retained an open mind about that. And I was attracted for a while by the distinction which some scholars have drawn between Jesus saying, "Here's all this stuff about the the fall of Jerusalem." I mean, the discourse is basically about the fall of Jerusalem. And Jesus saying, "This generation won't pass till it's all happened." That is the fall of Jerusalem. That's quite clear in my mind. Likewise, the Daniel 7 fulfillment. The Son of This is a key thing. The Son of Man coming on the clouds is not coming back. He's coming to God from his position of suffering on earth. That is absolutely vital to get the direction of travel right there. Um, kind of important. I I know I know how revolutionary that is in many circles. I could tell you some funny stories about that. But then, but then Jesus says in Matthew's gospel, "But of that day and that hour, nobody knows." And some scholars have said Jesus is kind of casting forwards and saying, "There may well be a further fulfillment." In other words, when God finally brings the whole project together, then this will be something which there won't be any, um, signs for. It'll be it'll be a strange new world. But you clearly pull the hinge pin out of the dispensational theology by saying that that discourse is all about 70 AD. I know, I know. When I wrote my book "Jesus and the Victory of God," I thought my Evangelical friends around the world would be delighted because I argued about the cross that Jesus really did have Isaiah 53 in mind all through, which was very controversial in scholarship. Most of my Evangelical friends never even got to that bit because they were so crossed with what I did with the Olivet Discourse. So, well be that as it may. So you you end up defining something new. This. And I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, tongue in cheek, a touch here, Tom, by saying, let's just call ourselves Emmanuelists, because at some point, that's something new, and at least somebody has to listen. So if I'm an Emmanuelist, they'll go, "Okay, what is that?" That God is with us, and that there is an established kingdom that we are supposed to be living in. And a lot of the church believes most of the Olivet Discourse is yet to come, when it was clearly, I believe, literally talking about what is it, 35 or so years into the future, when 70 AD. Then let's take the the bigger... There'll be some at home. I can I can hear somebody, you know, either clutching their pearls or tearing their clothes, in regard to Revelation.
Mhm. How much of Revelation is not fulfilled? Oh, um, I don't think this is easy. Is that, um, obviously, we do not yet. I say, obviously, we do not yet have Revelation 21-22. Let's start with the easy bits. That we do not yet have a new heavens and new earth with death, mourning, and crying and pain being abolished. That's just not happened yet. So, fine, okay. Um, which bits then? I remember having a a conversation with a fellow New Testament scholar in Rome some years ago, and we were talking about, and we're neither of us Revelation specialists, but, um, one of us said, "I think I understand the first seven chapters of Revelation." And the other one said, "I think I understand the last three or four." And we looked at each other and said, "Together, it's the bits in the middle which are difficult." But I, I mean, part of the difficulty there is that the language of heaven has been so co-opted by people who think that means the ultimate future. So that when in chapters four and five, John says, "I saw in heaven an open door, and I looked, and there was the throne, and there were these people around it, and the creatures, and so on." People think that's a vision of the ultimate future. That's what you get in Charles Wesley's hymn, "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling." The last verses change from "Glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place, till we cast our crowns before." That's straight out of Revelation 4 and 5. That is not a vision of the future. That is a vision of the present. That's the reality of the worship of all creation and of the church in the present. That's the heavenly dimension. So there's all kinds of things which have got to be unscrambled and put back together. Likewise, as I say, the ending has not happened yet. That's where it's all going. The different stages in the middle, oh, there's so many theories, as you will know, because it seems to me it's not sequential. It's not saying, "First, there'll be these things, then there'll be those things, then there'll be plagues, then there'll be trumpets," or whatever it is. These are all layer upon layer upon layer. It's like one of those things where you put different colored slides into a a projector, and so that you're meant to see them all together. And as with a lot of Revelation's imagery, um, it doesn't make sense in the sense, you know, like a lamb who is also a lion who's got a sword coming out of his mouth and so on. This is not a photograph of what it's going to be. This is rich, biblically laden symbolism enabling us to say, "Jesus has won the victory. He will win the ultimate victory, and our task is to be faithful in the present." Um, you know, that's that's how I would sum it up very simply.
Authorship, date of Revelation in your mind? Uh, yes, good question. Um, I come and go. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be, um, written by somebody called John. It's a very common name at the time. Sometime probably in the late 60s. Um, equally, I don't see any problem in saying that that's written by somebody probably called John in the 80s or '90s. I don't see a problem either way. I suspect it may be the earlier date, but, um, I I don't, nothing's riding on that for me. I just want to confirm it's the early 60s. I'm sorry, in case you need it, you know, you know, final answer on that. That's it's the early 60s.
Going to heaven, oddly, is not apparently the subject of either the Old Testament or the New Testament. Many people just assume it is, and so read all sorts of things in the Bible as though that's what it's saying. But actually, again and again, in both Old and New Testaments, the point is not "How do humans find their way up to somewhere called heaven?" but "How does the God of heaven come to dwell with us, or for us, or amongst us?" Again and again, that's as it were the direction of travel.
So what does salvation mean when we put it in that larger framework? In, uh, discussing what you have said, was the book that most people mention in regard to stopping you and, oh, you're the author of "Surprised by Hope." You have a follow-up to "Surprised by Hope," and it's based on Acts 2 or a portion of it. "God's Homecoming." Okay. The the question that I actually want to ask you: the infilling of the Holy Spirit is a step towards New Creation in the present. Okay. That's a question and a statement at the same time. Talk about that just for a second.
It was, uh, one of those "aha" moments some years ago when I was doing some work on the Acts of the Apostles. And we all kind of know Acts 2. It's the day of Pentecost. And because we have Pentecostal movements and Pentecostal churches, we kind of assume that Acts 2 is the foundation of all of that. And fine, okay, people invoke the Holy Spirit, the Spirit is at work in people's lives, that's wonderful. But the way that Luke has told the story, he emphasizes filling, filling, filling. "When the day of Pentecost had fully come," the Greek word is *plerousthai*, which is the same filling word. "Then the house was filled, and the disciples were filled." And if you know Exodus 40, where they build the Tabernacle and the glory of God fills the Tabernacle, and if you know First Kings 8, where Solomon dedicates the temple and the glory of God fills the house, and if you know Isaiah 6, when the prophet is in the temple and the house is suddenly filled with smoke, you realize that what Luke is trying to tell you is, "This is the new Temple moment. This is when the church is constituted as the people into whose midst God comes." And for me, one of the exciting things about that is that instead of regarding the Holy Spirit as the one who we have to give us a bit of a spiritual boost, or to help us have faith, or to see us through dark times, I think we should see this as God always wanted to come and dwell in and with his creation. And this is God is delighted to do this. This is what he's been waiting for. Like the Incarnation in John 1:14, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." This is not God saying, "Oh dear, I didn't really want to do this, but there's such a mess, I've got to come and sort it out." No, God created humans in order that one day he could come and be human himself. God created a world that is other than himself so that he could come and fill it with himself, so that it's still independent, in a sense, but also filled with himself. And Acts 2 is the moment when the Spirit filling the world becomes a reality, close up and personal, with the church. Now, what happens as a result is that half the controversies in Acts are about temples: the temple in Jerusalem, temple in Athens, temple in in Ephesus. Not surprising, because we've got a new temple now, and it's you guys. So, so that's how I now read Acts 2 as part of God's long-awaited homecoming plan.
It almost reminds me of the Old Testament when God created his chosen people and said, "I want to rule them directly," but they largely rejected him and asked for a king. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost like they, this is the second version of that, in a sense, or that was a precursor. Maybe it's that's a curious passage, of course, in in, uh, in 1 Samuel, because when God does give him a king, and eventually gives him David, who's a man after God's own heart, David, of course, is deeply flawed, as all his successors are, you know, right through the Old Testament. Nevertheless, there's an ambiguity. God wants to rule his people. Backtrack. God wants to become Lord of his word. God creates humans to run his world so that he can himself run his world by becoming human. And I would say God then creates the category of the chosen people through whom he's going to save the world, so that he can himself come and save the world by becoming Israel's representative. But then within that, he creates the category of messiahship or the servant king, in order that he can himself become the servant king. And I think that's what Isaiah 40-55 is all about. That amazing scripture, the lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. It's in deep in the heart of God is the self-giving love which we see fully revealed on that. My goodness, that was beautiful. Wow.
So how does some of the church call the good news? How does that fall short of the historical Gospel of Jesus Christ? I remember when I was a student, one time, was in a large group of Christian students, and somebody said, "Take your pens, take your notepad, write down in one long sentence what the good news is." Everyone scribbling away like this. And then we're all kind of comparing notes. And most people said, "The good news is we're all sinners in in danger of going to hell, but God sent Jesus, so one day we'll go to heaven." Um, and, you know, as I've said before, I'd much rather people believe that Jesus was the way to God's future than that they didn't believe that. But the good news is all the way back to Isaiah 40 and 52, where the word "good news" comes, both that God is coming back in person, um, to judge and to save the whole world, and that this is going to be the means of bringing about the New Creation. In other words, that the world is not going to hell in a handbasket, so we got to get out of here. That God is doing new creation, and he's doing that in person, in the person of Jesus, Jesus, and in person, in the person of the Spirit, filling the church, in order to fill the world. Oh, that's beautiful.
If there was a misunderstanding, or let's say an incomplete version of the good news, okay, how has that affected the way we've lived? I think the way it's affected the way we've lived is that many Christians have lived as escapists. And this is so interestingly with liberal Christians as well as very conservative ones. Rudolph Bultmann, one of the great liberal New Testament teachers in Germany in the 1930s, he couldn't cope with, um, Germany in the 1930s. So he kept preaching sermons about that we have to live "as if not." He would quote 1 Corinthians 7, like people buying and selling as though they weren't having any dealings. In other words, we just got to rise above it. Um, we've got to pretend it's not happening, and we have a faith which goes beyond. But many devout evangelicals, who wouldn't want to be associated with Rudolph Bultmann, have taken exactly the same thing. "Oh yes, we leave politics to the politicians, we leave social work to the social workers. We've got a different thing, which is all about how we go to heaven." Um, and that is tragic. It means that we've said, in effect, um, "God is happy for his world to be run by people who don't believe in him, or people whose faith is wobbly or shaky, or whatever." Um, rather than wise, devout Christians taking up the responsibility of sharing God's governance of the world, difficult, complicated though that is. Getting involved. Getting involved. Yeah. Yeah.
How does the Lord's Prayer become good news to people? Yeah, I think I've said in one of these books that many people, they wouldn't actually do this, but they effectively pray the Lord's Prayer backwards. The first thing they say is, "Help." It is that book, "Simply Good News," which is like, "Deliver us from evil." So they start at the back end. And then they may realize that they're part of the problem as well. So they say, "Lead us not into temptation." And then they may look wider and discover that the world needs help. So, "Please give us this day our daily bread." And they may eventually work back to, "May your kingdom come, your will be done." Now, then, ideally, we learn how to say, "Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." We could just stop there because everything else is contained in that. But we need help with showing how that's contained. So we work it out. "May your will be done, may your Your Kingdom Come on Earth as in heaven." And again, everything is contained in that. And this is the good news: is God is coming to be king. God has come to be king in Jesus. That will be complete when he returns. And we are to be kingdom people by the Spirit in the present. And that that all comes out of that prayer.
So what does salvation mean when we put it in that larger framework? It's a big word. It's an important word. So some other people have said, "Well, salvation actually isn't about us going to heaven. It's about us trying to make the world a better place now." If you look at people who are refugees and homeless, if you look at people who are hungry and desperately sick, then telling them that there's a salvation which is pie in the sky when you die doesn't seem to address their immediate concern. And one of the things we know about Jesus of Nazareth is he went around addressing people's immediate concerns. So it looks as though we might be getting something wrong if we simply talk about what can become an escapist vision.
I want to uh point out to you uh from your uh "Surprise by Hope" on page 259: "Let us then remind ourselves of the starting point, the created order which God has begun to redeem in the resurrection of Jesus is a world in which heaven and earth are designed not to be separated but to come together. In that coming together, the very good that God spoke over creation at the beginning will be enhanced, not abolished." Absolutely. Okay. Practically, what does that mean to our waking up and living our lives and the mental hope we should be absorbing by that thought? Expand on that, if you will.
Wow, yes. It seems to me, among many, many other things, it should constantly, daily renew and refresh our worshiping and praying lives. That when we get up in the morning and say our prayers, or read the Bible, or do both, or when we go to church, and when, in my tradition at least, week by week, I go to the Lord's table, um, this is all about being refreshed and sustained in being New Creation people. I mean, the, what we Anglicans sometimes call the Eucharist, the bread breaking, um, when you start to think of the big story in terms of God wanting to come and be with us and of making a new creation in which the present world is strangely being transformed, what's the big deal about saying, "This is my body, this is my blood"? I mean, because we've been so frightened of the wrong way of saying that, going back to medieval Catholicism and magic theories about transubstantiation. I mean, transubstantiation wasn't a magic theory, but that's how it was perceived. But once you say that's not what it's about, once you think in terms of New Creation, all sorts of possibilities are open. But it's not just about praying and worshiping and and sacraments, though they're important. It's about expecting that God will be doing new creation, and that he will call us to share in that project, and that that's going to be tough. It's going to be demanding. There will be suffering. There will be sacrifice. There will be times when we beat our heads against the wall and think we're going in the wrong direction. And and we, I've often said to people, "We may be going in the wrong direction." That's why we we need one another in the body of Christ to say, "Hey, watch what you're doing there." Um, but as Paul says again and again, if you are doing this stuff, if you're doing this kingdom stuff, then expect the furniture to fly around the room a bit. But, you know, carry on. Say your prayers. See it through. God is doing and will do new things. So who was it who said, "Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God"? You know, that makes even more sense if you believe in New Creation.
Define "furniture flying around the room" in American terms. Well, everything going wrong, you know. Um, you know, the bottom falling out of your bank balance, or or kids getting sick, or whatever it is, you know. Um, okay, as I say, sometimes things go horribly wrong because we have messed up and have to put our hands up and say, "Yeah, now let's put this right." Other times, bad stuff happens when we really did believe, and to all intents and purposes, we seem to have been actually doing the right thing. And it's because Ephesians 6, the principalities and powers don't like it when we take the fight to the enemy. That's why in Ephesus, Paul had such terrible trouble that, as he says in 2 Corinthians 1, he got to the point where he despaired of life itself. You, if even Paul doing New Creation his way sank that low. I mean, the danger, you see, is that if we just say, "New Creation, wow, isn't this great," we become triumphalist. And I, I, I think God will never allow us to become triumphalist. The cross will always mark us. I've heard it said, "How do you even know you have faith unless it's called upon?" That's one way of putting it. Yes. Yes. I mean, I think there are many, many times and many people who just know when they're saying their prayers, "This is real. Life is tough, but I just know God is with me." It's the Emmanuel thing again. Um, there are other people who find it all goes dark, and there are people who just find they're feeling their way in, and they're not sure yet. I was sitting with one such just eight or nine days ago, who's just in midlife, just coming into, "Maybe it's all real, but I'm not quite sure yet." And so we're all coming from different points of view. And so, yeah, sometimes when it's tested, that is when you come out the other side and say, "Oh my goodness, yeah, that actually, we got through that."
I'm going to read something out of a book by NT Wright. Let's see if you agree with it. "If that is so, mission must urgently recover from its long-term schizophrenia, as I've said before. The split between saving souls and doing good in the world is a product not of the Bible or the gospel, but a cultural captivity of both within the Western world." Yeah. Explain that, because that's taken slightly out of context, but you know what I mean, and explain our what our schizophrenia is all about.
Yeah, yeah. Well, it goes back to stuff that I've said in the other book that you got in, and the history and eschatology, where I talk about how Western culture over the last 300 years has split apart the heavenly dimension and the earthly dimension. Philosophically speaking, this goes back to the philosophy called Epicureanism, which is a pre-Christian Greek philosophy, which said that maybe the gods exist, but they're a long way away. They don't interfere with us. We can't do anything to affect them. So we just live as though we wave at them from time to time, but it's not going to make any difference. Now, that philosophy very explicitly came into the Western world through all sorts of sources in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries, and became the dominant philosophy of countries like America. Thomas Jefferson said, "I am an Epicurean." But actually, it was much more widespread because it's a sort of cousin of deism. Deism: you have a distant God, but he still kind of cares how you behave a bit, and he may get crossed from time to time, but he's basically not not around too much. He's like an elderly relative who lives upstairs, and you may go and visit him on Sunday afternoons or whatever, but he's not involved in the day-to-day running of stuff. And that philosophy, most people in the Western world just assume that if there is a God, he or it is that sort of God, a normally absent divinity where we just get on running the world ourselves. Which is, um, that was one philosophical option in the ancient world. It's become the dominant thing in our world, and most people don't even realize that that's an assumption. Most people just think that's the way it is. So then Christians have said, "Oh, well, maybe God's distant, but we have a soul which can get in touch with him, and one day we'll go and live with him forever." So the Platonic reaction has happened within that split-level universe. Unfortunately, split-level universe has also worked its way into political systems, especially in America and France. Both both had revolutions, exactly born out of that same thing in the late 18th century. And we in Britain, as usual, just get muddled about these sorts of things. And we we sort of de facto have a split-level universe, but we still have an established church, and and we all know it's muddled, and we don't know what to do about it. The early Christians, if we say, "What is this movement that you're part of all about?" They would talk about Jesus himself. And when you talked with them about Jesus himself, Jesus would not just be the means to an end, "Oh, well, Jesus is the means by which you get to heaven," or "Jesus is the means by which we make the world a better place." But Jesus is himself the focal point, the one who explains to us, not just in words, but in deeds and in his very person, what life is really all about, and what life can and should be all about.
I am going to remind everybody that NT Wright has written close to 100 books. How many years has you been studying? Well, I started my theological studies in 1971, so I guess that's 53 years. I did my, I finally finished my doctorate. My doctorate took longer than it should have done, in 1988. 1980, I finished it. So that's, um, how long that is, 40, 44 years ago. So Dr. Wright, I have a question for you. Part of your ministry has gone through being pastoral. So you, you love people, and you, you can, you are not just, to put it in American terms, a a a book person. You're not just a theologian. You understand the realities of pastoral work and loving people and helping people through issues and all that. Out of all of these years of diving in, it was asked of Billy Graham one time, you know, what would you do different if you went back? And I remember him saying something about spending more time with family and a few things like that. There's, what's the, what's the main lesson that all of this study of the Bible and its meaning and its purpose and how we're supposed to live it and try to live it, understand it? What, what's the, if you had to give us this, you know, entire of your studies boiled down to one thing you've learned, what is that?
Yeah, I mean, I would echo Billy Graham and many others to say it wouldn't have been nice to spend more time with the family. And I'm still doing a bit of that, you know, kids and grandkids. That's that's wonderful, and they are sustaining and supporting. But when I think, "What do I wish somebody had said to me when I was in seminary?" That's another way of asking that question. And it probably would have been to do with this integration of heaven and earth, with this coming together. Um, I didn't understand the kingdom of God when I was in seminary, and nobody helped me do that. Um, I think we were all basically still Platonists in one form or another, thinking that the key thing was we had souls which wanted to get to heaven, and the question was, "How do you do that properly and without trying to justify yourself?" etc., etc., etc. And so one of the major revolutions in my life was when I think I finally, uh, tried to get rid of Plato's influence in my thinking. And that was huge, and it was like a personal revolution on every level. Um, and the Bible is there waiting to say, "Phew, glad you've woken up at last. Now let's do some business." So I think the, and for me, the thing which has summarized that and encapsulated it has been thinking in terms of Jesus and the temple. That the temple was the sign in ancient Israel of God coming to dwell with his people. Jesus comes to be the temple in person. And then by his Spirit, he says, "You are now the the Temple of the Living God because the Spirit lives in you." So when I think of the one thing that I would want to grasp, it might be, if you like, Temple-shaped theology as opposed to a Platonic [Music] soul.
God is accounted for, creator of heavens and the Earth. Jesus is accounted for, redeemer of uh man back to God. Holy Spirit lives in us. We are the dwelling place of God on Earth. So far so good. As long as you include the eschatological thing that this is against the day when God will flood all of creation. We are the kind of pilot, supposed to be the the pilot project for that end result. So what are most Christians waking up to incorrectly? And that mindset should shift to what?
I think many, many Christians have a genuine imperative towards living a Godly, holy life, but are hindered by somebody who's told them, "Don't think that you've got to do good things because that's trying to justify yourself by your own works." That's such a misunderstanding. Such a misunderstanding. So there's, there's another book which I wrote called, um, in America it's called "After You Believe." Um, my publisher said this, which is about virtue. It's about Christian character. And my publisher said, "This book is basically about the embarrassing interval between the baptism and the funeral." In other words, you put up your hand in a meeting, you've said a prayer of commitment, you've been baptized, you are now a faithful Christian, you are going to be with God for all eternity, or whatever. What are you supposed to be doing? And if the answer is, "hanging around until the day you die and maybe persuading one or two other people to come along with you," that's very far short of what the New Testament says the Christian life is all about. But giving a rationale for that Christian life within popular Western Christianity is actually not easy. But if you say, "We are meant to be New Creation. We are meant to be the small working model of God's ultimate New Creation," then okay, there are a thousand different vocations that that can move out into. And I, it's kind of exciting when sometimes I've been speaking about this, and young people come up to me after and say, "So what should I do? What should I be doing?" Don't ask me. I don't know who you are. But talk to your friends about what, what you're good at. Talk to your friends about what, what maybe God is calling you to do. Because God wants some people to dig wells in Africa. He wants other people to teach Old Testament Hebrew in seminary. All sorts of things in between. So find out where your vocation is, but then embrace it gladly as part of God's total body of Christ, New Creation package.
The biggest mistake, it feels like, um, is that we have accepted a Jesus and that's really important when we die, super important. Instead of the understanding of what Jesus is asking us to accomplish here and now. Absolutely. But I mean, in so many ways, when I look around and my society in Britain is much more secular than yours in America, is though yours is going that way too. But it's a question of, is the glass half full or is the glass half empty? I would much rather somebody said, "I don't know much about anything, but think Jesus is where it's at." I'd say, "Great, fine, okay. The glass is half full. Now we can build on that." But if after 2,000 years of Christianity, whole churches are still getting it wrong, I want to say, "I'm sorry, the glass is half empty." You may have got Jesus, which is far better than not having Jesus, but now please will you read what the Gospels are actually saying? It's not, it's not, forget the Gospels. Here's another thing. It's read what the Gospels are actually saying. Figure out what that means as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, and where we go forward from there. Feels like we need to take that half a glass of water and splash it in someone's face and say, "Wake up and get after it and go do something." The kingdom of God does include God's ultimate purpose, which transcends death. God's ultimate purpose for a new world in which, however we die, that God is going to give us a new life in his presence forever. That that's there. But it needs to be thought through. And likewise, because it's about Jesus talking about God's kingdom coming on Earth as in heaven, that is there as well, because Earth needs to be rescued from so many things. And ultimately, we are told that will happen when Jesus comes again to complete the work that he began in his public career.
I want to give you, Tom, the final word. What is the takeaway you want our television audience to take away? The highlight of of what this, you know, the old term, I'm an old pilot, land the plane for us. If you will, one thing.
One thing we haven't talked about which does land the plane, um, is what in technical terms we call the Ascension. And people often collapse the resurrection and Ascension together. Jesus died, and then he was raised to heaven. I've heard preachers say that, including good preachers. Allow themselves to say that. But when we talk about the Ascension of Jesus, we're talking about Jesus as Lord. I know people worry about lordship theology or lordship evangelism. That's a kind of worry within a particular subculture. But actually, part of the point, and this comes through, should come through in evangelism, is that we're not saying, um, "Please accept Jesus, he'll help you to escape." It's, "Please recognize the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world. Appeal to him as such. Live under his authority as such. Look out at the world prayerfully, praying that the lordship of Jesus will become a reality." And and that is where the whole business of defeating evil on the cross and launching New Creation in the resurrection is then going. Jesus is Lord, and what will happen at his second coming is that the veil will be torn back, and the present already truth of Jesus as Lord will become the visible, tangible reality. And at his name, every knee shall bow. That's how I would put the whole thing together.
Wow, I like it. What a day. Um, you, uh, you were, you were quoting some old hymns that that largely get theology wrong. One of them, in, in one of your books, you, you said, "This whole world is not my home, I'm just a passing through." Okay. And that is largely based on a lot of Greek philosophy really that merged into the church. Wait a second. This is our home, and we're not passing through. He's coming to us. Is that a way to put an exclamation point?
I certainly would. With this little footnote that if I remember rightly, that hymn was particularly popular with African-American slaves in the southern states. "If heaven's not my home, then Lord, what will I do?" In other words, some people were singing it as a metaphor for, "I need to get out of this. Need to get out of here." And when they sang hymns about, um, "crossing the Jordan," actually what they were wanting to do is cross the Ohio River. Is that fair? So that, um, in a sense, there were some people who were taking that language, which may have started out with a kind of Platonic dualism, but were making it real within the present social and and personal struggle. So I, I don't want to knock those songs because they did have a very powerful impact. But yes, when people, and I've heard happy teenagers singing, "This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through," I want to shake them and say, "Come on." Yeah. God has made you for this world to enjoy it, to live life in it, and to be his Witnesses within it. So don't imagine that you can just, you know, get off out of here somewhere else.
Beautiful. NT Wright, thank you. Dr. NT Wright, uh, your newest book coming out, we want to make sure that we, uh, talk about it. A follow-up to "Surprised by Hope" is entitled "God's Homecoming." It'll be out soon. So "Surprised by Hope," the follow-up, "God's Homecoming," coming out sometime in 2025. We want to get, uh, you an and a heads up on that. Um, NT Wright, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for hosting us here in Oxford. You're very welcome. And God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.