← Ask NT Wright Anything
Loading summary
Transcript27 lines
- [00:00]
Michael Bird
Before we get into today's show, I have an urgent challenge to share with you. This podcast is brought to you by the Ministry of Premier insight and on June 30th we come to the end of our financial year. The challenge we face is there is a final funding gap of $65,000 that must be closed by that date. The great news is a generous friend of the ministry has offered to match the first $10,000 given to help meet this goal, but we must fully meet the $10,000 for it to be released. That's why I wanted to take just a moment before we get into today's podcast to ask for your help. If you would please take a moment today to give your best gift@premierinsight.org give. That's premierinsight.org give thank you for understanding how important your gift is today and for giving generously. And now it's time for today's podcast.
- [00:55]
Tom Wright
I think you're on mute. Workday starting to sound the same.
- [00:59]
Sam
I think you're on mute.
- [01:01]
Tom Wright
Find something that sounds better for your career on LinkedIn. With LinkedIn job collections you can browse.
- [01:07]
Sam
Curated collections by relevant industries and benefits like Flexpto or hybrid workplaces so you.
- [01:14]
Tom Wright
Can find the right job for you.
- [01:17]
Sam
Get started@LinkedIn.com jobs finding where you fit.
- [01:21]
Tom Wright
LinkedIn knows how to 5am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down, working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com hello and welcome to another episode of the Ask nt Write Anything podcast, the program where we try to answer your questions about Jesus, the Bible and the life of faith. I'm Michael Bird from Ridley College and of course I'm joined by Tom Wright.
- [02:06]
Sam
From the far north of Scotland and.
- [02:09]
Tom Wright
We are continuing to answer the questions of our listeners and we continue to get some absolute crackers. Tom Our first one is from Will G in Atlanta in the United States and he wants to know a little bit about Jesus, Olivet discourse and the new Creation, the Kingdom of Heaven. And he asked this. He says, Dr. Wright, I have grown to become a big fan of your views, particularly over eschatology and interpreting the Bible as a first century Jewish document. My question relates to the Second Coming and New heavens and New Earth. If the Bible is written to 1st century Jews and Jesus, while talking about the destruction of the temple in Matthew 24, states that the heaven and earth will pass away. Then what stops us from claiming that this currently is the new heavens and the new earth? I tend to believe the destruction of the Temple was the final transference of the covenants. So, Tom, if the destruction of the temple in 70 AD was what the Olivet discourses about in Mark 13 and Luke 21 and Matthew 24 and 25, if that's about the destruction of the temple, if that's the coming of the final judgment in embryonic form, the turning of the ages, does that mean we are already living in the new heavens and the new earth? I think I've got to the substance of Will's question there. What are your thoughts on that, Tom?
- [03:43]
Sam
Wow. Yes. I mean, it's quite a, if I may say so, it's quite a sophisticated question because a lot of people from whom we get questions haven't got anywhere near where this questioner is. But the question is coming from a position that I sometimes get messages from people who hold this position called the pressurist position, which there's some people who really do hold, that with Jesus, death, resurrection, ascension, and with the destruction of the Temple, that was it, that was the fulfillment of everything. That was the inauguration, the the actual new heavens and new earth. And I want to be very careful about the last thing that the questioner just said, the idea of the transference of the covenants, because in the light of Romans 9, 11 particularly, but also Paul's care about the way he speaks about his fellow Judeans in the first century, I think Paul would say, just hold on a minute. They are children of Abraham. They are people to whom God has made promises. And if non Judaism Judean Christians start saying that's it, Christianity is now a gentile phenomenon. So those Judeans have had their day, then watch out. We know where that stuff leads to. So I want to be very careful about any sense of, okay, the Judeans are out of the picture now and it's a different show because for Paul and for all the early Christians, I think, up to Marcion anyway, in the second century, the strong sense was that actually the Jesus followers are Jew and Gentile alike and joined together in a single family, however difficult that is, either conceptually or practically. So setting that one aside, I want to say, yes, the language of heaven and earth, and this is the more sophisticated point from our questioner, can be a reference, and some people have taken it as a reference to the temple in Jerusalem and yes, the. The whole of the Olivet discourse, certainly in Mark 13, certainly in Luke 21, arguably in Matthew 24, though it is slightly harder. There is about the destruction of the temple, about Jesus looking at the building and saying, actually guys, this whole thing is coming down. Because this is part of the climax of the gospel story in the Synoptic Gospels, that Jesus whole ministry, his. His public career of announcing God's kingdom has been a way of saying this is how God's kingdom is arriving on earth as in heaven. And that inevitably upstages the temple. Which is why, as I've often said, when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem in the sequence of thought, certainly in the Synoptic Gospels, the place isn't big enough for both of them. And he announces the imminent destruction of the temple, as he already does in John chapter two, Destroy this temple and in three days I'll build it again. There is something about the resurrection of Jesus in John's Gospel particularly, which is about the new temple. This is where heaven and earth now meet. And so whatever you say about the existing temple, the reality has shifted to Jesus himself and by his spirit, to his followers. So all of that granted. However, however, this doesn't mean that the new age is so inaugurated by. Has to fulfill all the great promises. And this is surely very clear from say, 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul, who is most emphatic that the new age has begun, that with Jesus resurrection, God's new world has been launched, is also very clear that for all of us, except a few, at the end we must still die in order then to be raised. We have not yet been raised as we will be raised, but the world has not yet been transformed as it will be transformed. The great prophecies of Isaiah 11, of Psalm 72, et cetera, of the earth being full of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Well, there are times I'm looking out of the window at a gloriously sunny day. There are times when you could almost believe that. And then you read the newspaper and you watch the television and you see that there is war, a rumor of war, just as Jesus said, we'll be rumbling along, there are earthquakes, there is violence, there is wickedness, there is poverty, there is sickness, there is doubt, there is darkness. Darkness. And as long as that is going on, then any suggestion that we already live in the new heavens and new earth simply seems laughable and perhaps worse than laughable, almost as though we are not bothered about all the people who are still suffering. So this is the problem with inaugurated eschatology, classically, there is a now and there is a not yet. What has changed with Jesus, with the Spirit, with the destruction of Jerusalem, is that the now has taken a big leap forward, forward, which merely accentuates the gap between that now which Christians already celebrate and the not yet now. The good news is, as people like Tom Holland in his book Dominion have argued, the now has been pretty massive. There have been many shifts in public perception of morality. I mean, the whole protest about apartheid in South Africa in the 60s and 70s, that would have been unthinkable in the first century. People just accepted that the world was the way it was and that people in power were people in power. And not to worry, people largely accepted the system of slavery, et cetera, et cetera. We have taken huge steps forward, and a lot of that you can track to the worldwide influence of the gospel of Jesus. But that merely accentuates how far there is to go and how the new age in which heaven and earth will be one has not yet fully and finally arrived, even though we have the sure sign and hope of it, both in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit. And I venture to say again, as a good Anglican, every time we take the bread and drink the cup, we are saying that something of God's future is arriving in the present and that we are fed by it in order to be people of God's future in the present time, in order that more bits of the future may come to be instantiated in our world. So I think we need a more nuanced view, although I would congratulate that particular listener, because to get as far as being able to ask that question is already to understand things about Mark 13 and parallels which many people just never get to understand.
- [10:28]
Tom Wright
Yeah. I mean, it's one thing to say that the destruction of the temple is the beginning of the final judgment. It vindicates Jesus as the prophet who spoke against the temple. But you can't collapse the whole promise and hope of the future into that as if we're already there. I think you've drawn a good balance, Tom, between the now and the not yet that we're called to live out.
- [10:50]
Sam
That's great. Thank you.
- [10:51]
Tom Wright
Yeah. I mean, but this is all to do with promise and fulfillment and how Jesus changes the future. But Jesus kind of also changes the past and in fact, how we read biblical narrative or the Old Testament in its entirety. So we've got a good question here from Rob Den in Singapore. Wonderful city. I've been there. And he's got a question pertaining to how people, churches sometimes have a propensity to. To read the Old Testament if it's almost completely about Jesus that they have. Not just a Christological reading of the Old Testament, it's almost a Christo monastery reading of the Old Testament. And I'm very sympathetic to his question. This is what he asks. He says there are too many churches today that are so focused on finding Jesus in every breath of the Old Testament that they've lost sight of God, that they've left the Father alone in, you know, up there in the clouds instead of having us meant to be riding around with the sun. Is it possible to read the Old Testament in a way that's perhaps a little bit too cheesy? I think is what he's asking. You know, I love that book, you know, by Sarah Lloyd Jones, the Jesus Story Bible, you know, where it says every story whispers his name. It's great in a sense, but. But can it be a little bit overdone? Can it be a little bit too much? Do we have to take every biblical story to John 3:16 to properly understand it? I mean, Tom, what do you think of this?
- [12:33]
Sam
I very much resonate with that question. And indeed, when I was writing my children's Bible, my big story Bible, or as in one edition, it's called God's Big Picture Story Bible, I was very careful so to tell the story that when we arrive at Jesus, we would have an aha moment. That it does in fact make sense of so much that's gone before, but without trying to overplay that hand. And I'm always mindful of what happened on the road to Emmaus, that Jesus was talking to two disciples who knew their Bibles presumably quite well. Most people in Jesus entourage knew their scriptures. They didn't have many books. And the big one that they had, they knew pretty well. But they are saying, we had hoped he was gonna be the one to redeem Israel. With the corollary he can't have been because he was crucified. And Jesus says, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Now, from one point of view that might legitimate or seem to legitimate that way of reading. Oh, well, this bit is really secretly about Jesus. Whatever. I think that's trivializing and it ignores the fact that the people Jesus was talking to knew their Bibles very well and had not seen the pattern. And it's about a pattern and a larger narrative that we're really concerned here. Because then when Jesus explains it to them, there's this sense of how did we miss it? And then later they say, did not our hearts burn within us on the road as he expounded the Scriptures to us? You see, when I was a very young Christian and was eager to study the Bible in new ways, I bought a commentary on Leviticus, which was quite an old commentary. I think it was originally published in the 19th or even the 18th century. This was a new publication. And the commentary on Leviticus I find deeply unsatisfactory because it went through sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice, and it was all about Jesus. And I already began to think, do you know, I think there's something more going on with the difference between the sin offering and the guilt offering and Passover and the scapegoat coat and so on. If we say it's just about Jesus, I think we are missing something here. And it's only much more recently that I've started to think that I think I begin to understand something about the Levitical sacrifices. That's a whole other story. But so that I would say what we're missing is the larger narrative about creation and new creation, about covenant and new covenant. And yes, within that great story, that great narrative line from Genesis through to Chronicles, cause Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew canon. You do then have a sequence which is pointing ahead tantalizingly, looking to the future and saying, something is going to happen. And it'll have to have an element of this, It'll have to have an element of that. But it's as though at the end of the Old Testament canon, the. They know there's a fulfillment to come, but they're not quite sure how and who and what it's going to be. Which is why many Judeans in Jesus Day divided over the interpretation of their Scripture. And I mean, the idea of finding Jesus in all the scriptures goes back to people like Origen in the second, early third century as a reaction, not least against Marcionism. And we have plenty of Marcianism in the modern church as well. People who look at the Old Testament and say, this is just a crazy old book with a violent God and arrogant people and the bizarre things happening. And yes, there are one or two nuggets of wisdom there, but basically we forget it. And I've even heard people quote Romans 10:4, Christ is the end of the law, almost triumphantly, as though to say, there we are, now we've got Jesus. We don't need the Old Testament anymore. And against that, the early fathers, like Origen, said, no, no, no, the whole Scripture is God's word. But they allegorized it. And Origen began that process, or at least I may have been going on already, but certainly continued a process of allegorizing. And in some ways, what our questioner is asking about is the modern form of that allegorization. Here is a nugget about Jesus hidden under the disguise of a narrative about David or Solomon or about Isaiah or Hezekiah or whoever it may be. And I want to say, no, let's give the Old Testament its due. Read it as a historical narrative as it intends to be. But the historical narrative shot through with strange veiled promises, many of which only come to light when you actually see the fulfillment. So there's a constant to and frozen. My favorite example might be from 2 Samuel 7, when in Nathan's oracle to David says, this is about the building of the temple, that when you die and lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your seed after you, who will sit on your throne. I will be his father, he will be my son. He will build the temple. Now, many Judeans, as we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls, interpreted that text as a prophecy of a coming Messiah. But I don't know of any pre Christian Judean interpreters who saw that word I will raise up as a prophecy of resurrection. But the early Christians, faced with the resurrection of Jesus, looked back and said, oh my goodness, Anastaso tospermasu in the Greek, I will resurrect your seed. And that then becomes, he really is the Son of David, and he always was. And the resurrection demonstrates that the title on the cross was true, King of the Jews, et cetera. So there's a constant to and fro, and we must avoid the trivialization of many allegorical schemes while allowing the full, rich, multilayered narrative to play its own role, which is a glorious role, and finding a fulfillment in Jesus, which then actually broadens out into the fulfillment, which is, broadly speaking, the work of the Holy Spirit in the world as a whole, and especially in the church. So there's a kind of a yes, but and a no but to this question.
- [18:54]
Tom Wright
Yeah, I think that's very well balanced in what you've said, Tom. Recognizing, you know, there is a kind of prophetic and a proleptic pointing ahead to what Jesus will do. But, you know, when you read things like the Ten Commandments, the point is not, well, Jesus fulfilled the law for you, so you don't have to keep it. Actually, you know, not blaspheming, not stealing, not murdering. These are still things you should really be doing. There's still some relevance. There's. Yeah. Or when you read the book of Proverbs, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You shouldn't say, well, I don't have to fear the Lord anymore because Jesus has placated God's wrath. So there's nothing ready to fear at the level of ethics or even simply having a God centered universe in your worldview, there's still a lot to take away.
- [19:39]
Sam
Yeah, absolutely. And I think in biblical scholarship, of course, the last 200 plus years, there's been a dominance of the German Lutheran tradition, which has often been so anxious about the law as encouraging works, righteousness and human self effort, et cetera, that sometimes it's swung to the other extreme of saying, therefore we don't need the law in any way, shape or form. And then you lose precisely all the wonderful things that you're rightly talking about. But we need to cultivate the wisdom of reading the whole canon as a whole and doing business with the whole canon as a whole.
- [20:18]
Tom Wright
Yeah. Well, that's a good time for us to take a break and when we come back, we're going to tackle a very tricky text about Jesus, John the Baptist, and resurrection.
- [20:34]
Michael Bird
I just wanted to quickly remind you that this podcast is part of the ministry of Premier Insight. And as we close out our financial year, we've been offered a $10,000 matching grant that will double your gift today. And right now that's an incredible blessing as we're needing $65,000 before the end of our financial year on June 30th. This show depends fully on the generosity of friends like you. So I'm asking you to give your very best gift right now to meet this $65,000 need, knowing your gift will be doubled. You can give now@premierinsight.org give me that's premierinsight.org give. Thank you.
- [21:15]
Tom Wright
If you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify. You know that purple shop pay button you see at checkout? The one that makes buying so incredibly easy? That's Shopify. And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it. Because Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10% of all e commerce in the U.S. sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify..com promo go to shopify.com promo.
- [21:49]
Sam
Summer's here and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dress season ever, from beach days and weddings to weekend getaways in your everyday wardrobe. Discover stylish options under $100 from tons of your favorite brands like Mango Skims, Princess Poly and Madewell. It's easy, too, with free shipping and free returns in store. Order, pickup and more. Shop today in stores online@nordstrom.com or download the Nordstrom app.
- [22:23]
Tom Wright
Welcome back. Now we've received a couple of questions from Brad Garrison and Jesse Lusko. Kind of similar questions, but not exactly the same. But they are interested in Mark 6, 14, 16. That's where people wonder whether Jesus is in fact John the Baptist brought back to life. So let me just, let me read this passage for us. And I'm reading it on my Logos Bible software kit. This is great. I've got the Greek and the English side by side. I've got the anchor Bible dictionary on the far left and I've got a bunch of commentaries open on the far right. But I'm going to read this now from the nrsv. And it says this King Herod heard of it for Jesus name had become known. Some were saying John the baptizer has been raised from the dead and for this reason these powers are at work in him. But others said it's Elijah. Another said it is a prophet like one of the prophets of old. But when Herod heard of it, he said, John, whom I beheaded has been raised ton. This is a very interesting story in the Gospels. What is going on here? I mean, did Herod, this is Herod Antipas for those who don't know, did Herod Antipas really think that Jesus was a resurrection or a reincarnation of John the Baptist? What is going on here and what does that tell us about resurrection language in the Old Testament or in the first century? Does this mean people really did think that resurrection was a possibility?
- [24:12]
Sam
Yeah, one often meets this question because the mainstream Judean view in the pre Christian world and then on into the rabbis is that resurrection is what God is going to do for all God's people at the end of time, not what he might do randomly as a one off for people. At the same time, there are of course, all sorts of speculations. People of different cultures have had all kinds of different ideas and guesses as to what might happen or what's possible. And faced with extraordinary things going on, like the mighty deeds of Jesus, the healings and the feedings and so on. And the extraordinary rumors that will be reaching the court of Herod Antipas. How are we going to explain this? And Herod Antipas has obviously got a guilty conscience about having had John beheaded. And so it's a kind of thing of, oh, my goodness, maybe this is a judgment. Maybe this is God sending him back to haunt me or something like that. I don't think it's anything more than that. I don't think we should expect to learn serious 1st century Jewish theology from Herod Antipas, of all people. At the same time, clearly the idea is in the air that it might be Elijah, because there's a prophecy in the book of Malachi about Elijah coming back. So maybe this is Elijah coming back, or maybe it's one of the prophets of old. Do they think that that means that somewhere, maybe Elijah might still be around? Or maybe if it was like Jeremiah, maybe Jeremiah's tomb has been emptied and here he is back again. And I don't see anyone going off to inspect John the Baptist's tomb to see if that's empty in order to explain that Jesus actually is John the Baptist. So there's all sorts of strange things happening. I was actually reminded. I mean, this is a trivial anecdote, but it just reminded me of it that when I lectured once at St. Mary's College in Baltimore, which is a big Roman Catholic seminary where the great Roman Catholic scholar Raymond Brown had taught for many years, I lectured there with great enjoyment some years back after Ray Brown had gone to his rest. And the dean of the seminary, in thanking me, said, it's so wonderful having Dr. Wright here. It's almost like Ray Brown being raised from the dead. To which I responded, what did Ray Brown do wrong to be reincarnated as an Anglican bishop? But I think that's actually the level at which we should take this discourse. It's kind of wild speculation, supposing this was what was going on. But I don't think we should allow that to knock us off the main strand of Judean teaching, which, as I say, goes back through various teachings all the way back to Ezekiel 37 and particularly to Daniel chapter 12 and to that flicker of Hosea chapter 6, which is about a great resurrection which is going to happen at some point in the future. And maybe Herod Antipas was vaguely aware of. Of different traditions, but the idea was, well, this is a judgment on me. So that's his way of saying it. I don't think we should read any more into it than that.
- [27:26]
Tom Wright
Yeah, I think that's right. It's kind of like, oh my gosh, it's like John the Baptist 2.0 is coming at me again. That would be a contemporary analog. But I have to say to listeners, if you do want to study a text like this, this is where logo software is pretty helpful because I've opened up here and you can search who is Herod and you can find dictionary articles about Elijah, John the Baptist, you know, where John was baptizing, all that kind of thing. So it's a good little resource you can check out if you go to logos.com NT but in any case, that is all we have time for today. It's been great having you, Tom, and I love your company and we love your questions and we have an insatiable appetite for them because we keep getting sent really good questions. So go to ask ntright.com and send us your questions, whether it's about resurrection, redemption, the Bible, the final judgment, you know, whatever questions you have, we would love to hear them. So it's going to be goodbye from.
- [28:31]
Sam
Me, Mike Bird, and goodbye from me, Tom Wright.
- [28:34]
Tom Wright
And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Ask nt Write Anything.
- [28:42]
Michael Bird
Sam.