← Ask NT Wright Anything
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- [00:00]
Alex
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- [00:14]
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- [00:40]
Dr. Michael Bird
The Ask NT Write Anything podcast Hello there. This is Dr. Michael Bird from Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia.
- [00:50]
Tom Wright
And this is Tom Wright from Oxford in England.
- [00:53]
Dr. Michael Bird
Now, Tom, we've. We've known each other for a while. I think I first physically met you at a conference in Scotland. I think it was the Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference. It was the first time we, we. We met. And that was a fun conference. I remember it was Don Carson and Bruce McCormack, two scholars going back and forth at each other. But since then, we've cooperated on a large number of things, ranging from a New Testament introduction and more recently with forays into political theology, which, given current global events, I like to think is kind of relevant. A lot of them always seem to center on heaven, hell, resurrection or the end time. So we've got one question, Tom. This comes from Alex Hawkins. He's got a good one. He says, is God's judgment on sinners eternal conscious torment or annihilation or a combination of both? Well, I mean, that's a pretty hefty one to ask about, you know, hell and eternal conscious torment. These are things that people do have a lot of anxiety about. Tom, what are your thoughts on this topic?
- [02:05]
Tom Wright
Yeah, I've always been cautious about this because again and again, when the New Testament talks about some sort of imminent terrible judgment, it's actually talking about the upcoming destruction of Jerusalem. When Jesus says at the beginning of Luke 13 that what about these people who were killed by Roman soldiers in the temple? And what about these people who suffered death when the Tower of Siloam fell on top of them? Jesus says, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Now, there are thousands of sermons going back through church history saying, there you are, you've got to repent or you'll fry in hell when you die. Jesus was talking about Roman swords killing pilgrims and falling stonework in the immediate vicinity of the Temple. And as Luke is quite clear, these are fulfill when Jerusalem is destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. And so again and again the judgment is something that Jesus was warning about at the time, because it was about to happen. And actually Jesus, near contemporary, the historian Josephus, talks about telling people to repent. And he doesn't mean to have a religious conversion experience. He means to give up your crazy revolutionary ideas and let's work at the present political situation in a different way. Now I think Jesus meant more than Josephus, but I don't think it was out of that register. I think it was look at what's going on in the present state of affairs and give up these crazy nationalist militaristic ideas of overcoming the world and sending the Romans packing. Because if you don't, there will be dire judgment upon you. And actually what happened in Jerusalem in AD 70 was just as bad as any medieval vision of hell, if not worse. That's a whole other story. But what's then happened is that from the early Middle Ages onwards, Christian teachers picked up things which were really the ancient pagan visions of little demons waiting to grab you after your death. There are plenty of stories about this in ancient paganism and indeed that's why the philosophy we call Epicureanism happened, because Epicurus and his followers were aware that people were frightened of what was going to happen to them after death. And so they invented this philosophy of atomism which said we're just atoms and we'll just dissolve death. Said there's no hell, there's no nothing, there's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to look forward to either by the way. But that was a reaction against early pagan, not early, the paganism of the time, views of hell. And then the Middle Ages picked that up and made it more lurid and more extraordinary with great paintings of demons dragging people down to hell and so on. That so colored the medieval imagination that that was what was behind the protest of the reformers about how actually you were to be saved, etc, etc, but they never challenged that view, which was basically the medieval version of the earlier pagan view. What you find in the New Testament is much more restrained. And yes, there are warnings that unless you come the way of Jesus, then finally he or the Father will say, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of iniquity. So I don't think we can read the New Testament and be honest universalists, there are some people who still try to make that case at the moment. I just don't think it works. I think the New Testament does warn that there are real consequences to the moral and spiritual choices that we make in this life, and that these will last into God's new day. But part of the trouble with talking about hell is that people are still so easily fooled into thinking, thinking of heaven and hell as the basic categories of Christian eschatology, whereas the basic category of Christian eschatology is God's new heaven and new earth, the whole new creation. The question then is, what happens to those who in the present life say, I don't want to be part of God's new creation. I don't like the sound of it. I don't like the demands it's making on me. I'm not going to be part of that. C.S. lewis, in his book the Great Divorce, has this image of hell which I think answers to this, because his view of the great future that God has is of a robust new creation, of a world bursting and teeming with life. And then hell is a tiny, thin, insubstantial place that you could get to if you made yourself small enough to get down through this little crack in the earth. And if you go down there, it's real enough and it's miserable enough. And Lewis is very good at painting that. But it doesn't have the capacity, as it were, to blast, blackmail heaven and to say, as long as I'm here in hell, you shouldn't be enjoying yourself up there. It's what happens when people deny the God who is the creator and giver of all good things, and so find themselves deprived of all the things that make human life what it is. And in particular, and I argued this briefly in my book, Surprised by Hope and by the way, I wasn't going to write a section on hell in that book. And when it was quite late on in production, somebody said, you're talking about the final stage. You have to say something about hell. So I wrote rather quickly a rather brief account there, but it goes something like this. We humans are made to reflect God into the world. That's what it means to be image bearers, to reflect God's love and stewardship into the world and reflect the praises of creation back to the Creator. If somebody says, I don't want to do that, if somebody, they mightn't say it in that articulate way. But if somebody, by their actions, by their life, by everything that they are and do, is denying that the goodness of God should flow through them into the world, and denying that the worship of all creation should be brought before the God who made the world, then ultimately they are asking, please, can I stop being an image bearer? Which means Please, can I stop being a genuine human? I think the danger with some popular older pictures of hell is that they have full on human beings being tortured forever and ever. Whereas the picture I see then coming out of what the New Testament says about what it means to be human is of a creature who once was an image bearer and now is no more. So there's a sense of loss, a sense of something that might have been but isn't. And whether you call that creature in that situation still a fully human being and whether you talk about eternal torment, I don't see that as torment. I see it as just a tragic, sad loss. I should say it's very difficult to talk about this because I'm talking about people that I know and love, people who I know and love, who I wish would come to faith and to the fullness of Christian expression, but who seem at the moment to be holding it at bay. So I don't want to say, as some people do, oh yes, they're lost, they're going to hell, that's who they are. And happily we're in the other path. No, as soon as we do that, we are becoming proud and arrogant. So I have articulated this idea that ultimately God will say to all people, either you are an image bearer or you are declining to be an image bearer. And if you decline to be an image bearer, then that is a sense of loss which lasts. I don't see that as necessarily annihilation, although it does annihilate the humanness of the person involved. I think what we're talking about is the idea of a creature that once was human and has decided not to be anymore. And that is a real tragedy. But it doesn't then stand as an equal and opposite over against God's new creation. It's an opportunity that was there, that was not taken. That's probably as far as I can go.
- [10:28]
Dr. Michael Bird
Yeah, well, I mean, it is a fascinating topic and it is one that I know many people think about. You know, what, what is hell? What do we mean? And yeah, like you've said, you know, there's this medieval tradition, this almost cartoonish idea of an afterlife that seems to haunt what we think about. It's almost impossible to think about hell without having those images, you know, cartoonish though they may be, cast up. You know, I remember something Dale Al Wilson said in one of his books. He said, look, I don't know what happened to Adolf Hitler or Mother Teresa after they died, but if there's any moral rhyme or reason in the universe, they did not end up in the same place. So I think the, the hell is a good thing for the, for the complete justice of God, that the, that, you know, like, like a smallpox vaccine. There are some forms of evil, rebellion or inhumanity need to be quarantined away from, from God's new creation.
- [11:25]
Tom Wright
Yeah.
- [11:26]
Dr. Michael Bird
And the other thing I tend to stress when I'm, when I'm, you know, talking to people about this is I point out the wide variety of images that the Bible uses to speak about hell or eternal punishment. I mean, you make a good point. A lot of the things, a lot of the biblical imagery about hell actually applies to historical events around 70 AD. But it's interesting how the, you know, the eternal state, everlasting destruction can be described as a lake of fire and outer darkness or being cast outside. It can be somewhere where it's very hot, it can be somewhere where it's cold outside with the, the chattering of teeth. And I don't think there's any single image that really captures what it means, but it simply means to be removed from, from, from God's love, that special relationship and in a way choosing it and to use your image of, you know, be, choosing to become, you know, inhuman. Do you know what was going through my mind, Tom? It was Lord of the Rings. It was kind of like someone deciding that they'd rather be Gollum than Smeagol, you know, if, you know, from. For those who know the Lord of the Rings, that they, that they'd rather be this sort of wandering goblin esque creature who gets to pursue after their precious ring with all, with all the desires and promises that happen, rather than be an actual human being. People who would rather perhaps, you know, maintain their own defiance in what we call hell than serve the Lord of Creation, the Lord of love, goodness, and makes anything or makes all things new.
- [13:04]
Tom Wright
I would recommend that book by C.S. lewis, the Great Divorce. And of course he knows that it's a fantasy in a sense. He's not trying to say theologically this is how it is, but he's giving us the means by which to imagine the glory of God's new creation. And then a world which is basically all negative, it's all negation. It's not this, it's not that, it's not joy, it's not peace, it's not happiness, it's not success, it's nothing and drifting off into darkness. It does worry me when people obsess about this topic because it seems to me if we're looking at the God we see in Jesus and directed by the Holy Spirit, then yes, if we glance this way and that there are other paths and sooner or later we may have to discuss, as we've been doing, what happens. But actually the path ahead to new creation is so much more important than scaring people with fantasies about hell. Like that terrible sermon in James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young man. You know, the fiery preacher saying this is what hell is like and that's what hell is like. And everyone goes out of the chapel thinking, oh my goodness, I better go and confess my sins at once. And then what happens? So I think there is a problem in Western culture about getting too obsessed with this and we've got to look at the bigger picture of new creation and reassess our priorities for where to put our thinking energies as Christians in the light of that.
- [14:36]
Dr. Michael Bird
Well, that's a probably a good point for us to end on time. Well, we're going to take a break there and we'll be back in a second with another question on Ask nt Write anything.
- [14:48]
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- [15:51]
Dr. Michael Bird
Now Tom, I have to point out, many years ago you wrote a little article in Bible review about 1 Thessalonians and the rapture. And if I have I heard correctly, you received some very peculiar feedback about your inability to transport yourself to heaven in light of the Rapture. I mean, can you tell, can you tell us briefly what that was?
- [16:14]
Tom Wright
Yeah, it was a little bizarre. I mean, I have been reading the New Testament on eschatology for a long time. And the more I became aware of what some people were saying about first Thessalonians, chapter four, which is where Paul talks about the Lord will descend with the cry of the archangel and the sound of the trumpet, and the dead in Christ will rise, and we who are left alive will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we shall ever be with the Lord. And the way in which that has been taken and become the linchpin of an entire theological scheme, even though it's not mentioned in the whole of the rest of the New Testament, and even though that's not what that passage is all about. So it's been turned into a view which says that the main feature of the end times will be that God's people will be caught up on the clouds. And I remember a long time ago, Professor Robin Scroggs, who was professor in Union Seminary in New York, somebody asked him in a class in New York one day, Professor Scroggs, what is the Second Coming all about? And Scroggs said, one day you'll look out of the window and you'll see all these people going up in the air and you will say, well, I'll be damned. And I thought that was a wonderful response. But of course, that popular image of people floating up into the sky is a bizarre thing which is nothing to do with New Testament theology, nothing to do with New Testament eschatology. Apart from anything else, the language of being caught up on the clouds is very much Daniel 7 language, where the Son of Man comes on the clouds to the ancient of days. So being on the clouds is a way, a biblical way of talking about, talking about being joined with Jesus in God and God's ultimate sovereignty, but then meeting the Lord in the air. The word for meeting is like what would happen if in the ancient world, say, a prince or an emperor was coming to a city and the leading citizens would go out to meet him out in the countryside in order royally to escort him into the city, not in order to stay out there in the countryside and have a picnic and then send him away again or to go off with him somewhere else. So the whole thing deconstructs that passage. 1 Thessalonians 4 doesn't mean what the rapture merchant said. So I wrote an article saying this in the Periodical Bible Review. This is going back 20 years now. And one of the angry letters that the magazine received was from somebody saying, how does Mr. Wright think he's going to get to heaven if he doesn't get raptured. To which my response was, are there really people here who think that heaven is a location within our space time universe, just a few miles up in the sky, so that we have to employ some kind of spirit engendered space travel in order to get there? The answer I received from some American friends were, yeah, there are people who really believe that. And I want to say that simply totally misunderstands what the biblical language about heaven and earth is all about in the first place, and what the ultimate hope for new creation and resurrection is all about. But Mike, you may want to sharpen that up with questions that people have now asked.
- [19:33]
Dr. Michael Bird
Well, that's, that's precisely the question we've got here, Tom. David Black, another one of our listeners, he asks, well, where is heaven? Is it all around us? Is it in the solar system? Is it in the universe? Now when I think of that question, I think of a famous Belinda Carlisle song which says, you know, heaven is a place on earth. We know heaven is not just two miles, you know, up in the sky, above the clouds, just, you know, go to the past the moon and take a sharp left. Heaven's not like that at all. So when people talk about heaven spatially, when they're wondering, you know, where it is, is in the Milky Way, is it in a different dimension? When it comes to the spatial dimensions of Tom, what do we say? What do you say to David when he's asking where is heaven?
- [20:18]
Tom Wright
I would say that our imagination in the Western world has become very shrunken, particularly with the scientific world of the last three centuries, which has tended to reduce everything to weights and measures, to space and time and matter, and that's it. Whereas in the Bible, and indeed in most cultures, including Western culture, until about the 17th or 18th century, it was recognized that there were many different, what you might call dimensions of reality. So space, time and matter, you may say those are three dimensions, use that word if you like, though it's probably a metaphor. But then there may be other realities as well. My friends who do high energy physics talk about parallel universes and alternative universes, and there might be lots of them, dozens of them, but it's not exactly like that. The language of heaven is a way of saying the God who made the world is both other than the world and present to his world. And language about heaven is a reverent way of talking about the fact that God is with us, around us, knows us intimately. In my morning reading this morning I happen to be reading Psalm 139, which includes the wonderful passages about, if I climb up to heaven, thou art there. If I go down to hell, thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will reach me. In other words, God knows us through and through. He is with us, is in a sense all around us, not as a threatening presence, but as the one who sustains us, who holds our very beings in life. So that the idea of heaven as another space, as a place up in the sky, whatever these are, for some people, they have been quite helpful metaphors. Some people in the medieval and early modern world used that language of the sky and the stars. And I don't know that they necessarily meant it as we would say literally or as though, you know, even some children's hymns talk about way beyond the blue, as though you've got to go through the sky and out the other side to get somewhere to God. But no, that's ridiculous. It's like when people I've heard say, when somebody is praying and they don't believe in prayer, they say, oh, but it doesn't go beyond the ceiling. And the point is. But I'm sorry, who made you think that God was somehow beyond the ceiling and that I had to get through there? God wants to come and be with us. And part of the point of the New Testament is to say, as Paul says In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 10, God's plan from the beginning was to unite everything in heaven and on earth in the Messiah, in Jesus. And this looks all the way back to Genesis 1, when God makes a world which is heaven plus earth. And you can tell it's heaven plus earth because Adam and Eve are walking in the garden and there is God waiting for them, calling to them, wanting to be in relationship with them. We have been so duped by the philosophy of Epicureanism, which has come back with a bang into Western culture in the last 300 years, with the idea that if there are gods, if there is a heaven, they and it are a long way away and they don't really connect with us and nor we with them. So that then the Platonist responds, ah, but I have a soul and it has a hotline to heaven, and one day it'll go there and be there forever. That's Platonism, that's not Christianity. In the Jewish, biblical and Christian world, heaven and earth are made for one another. That's what the temple is all about. And for Jesus and his first followers, the temple is Jesus himself and his people indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That's the better question to ask. If we think of heaven detached from those questions, we will start making up fantasies, which is, of course, what people have done. So when we want to think of heaven, think of who God really is and where God really is, and then will discover that it's much more mysterious and much more dramatic and challenging than simply thinking of heaven as somewhere up there. As you say, past the moon and turn left, which we somehow have to find our way to. That simply shows that we're on the wrong track.
- [24:44]
Dr. Michael Bird
Yeah. I think it's important to point out, as you've said, that when we think of heaven, it's not like we're trying to find the lost city of El Dorado or we're looking for the. I remember that. Remember that TV show, the. The Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs, you know, this sort of, you know, valley that was.
- [25:00]
Tom Wright
Hearing about it, I don't think I ever watched it.
- [25:04]
Dr. Michael Bird
Yeah, this is a prehistoric valley. And some people get trapped in it, but it's still stuck in, like, the, you know, prehistoric times. It's. It's not like this sort of little hidden place that, you know, God is hiding in. It's about who God is and God's activity in the world and how they're being united, you know, when the word becomes flesh and how a lot of symbology behind it is certainly represented in the temple, which is meant to be kind of the seed of God's throne, you know, at least when the Israelites are worshiping. But it's only a symbol of a greater and wider reality. I mean, that's why when. When Solomon built the temple, he said, you know, heaven and earth cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built. And yet they still saw that, though, as a kind of nexus into the reality of gods, but realities of which they only had emblems or signpost. I. I think if we get a lot more, you know, biblical awareness, a lot more people thinking in those terms, then people will be less inclined to talk about where is heaven? As if it's somewhere you can't find on Google Maps. Yeah, let's change tack. Let's go from heaven back to hell. We've got another question on hell. This time, this question comes from Jaden McCullough. Now, Jaden seems to be a little bit anxious, okay? So I think he's struggling with the assurance of salvation. He says this. He says, hi, I've Been having a lot of hell anxiety. Even though I'm a, I'm baptized and a believer of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How can I find comfort? Well, it sounds, Tom, like Jaden might be in a bit of a moment of spiritual despondence and worried that, you know, can he really have assurance of salvation or is, is hell a real possibility to people who are baptized and believe in Jesus?
- [27:01]
Tom Wright
I, I would say to Jayden, your problem is a personal one before it's a theological one. Actually, all theological problems sooner or later are personal problems and vice versa. But when I read what Jaden had written, I thought if this dear man came into my study and sat in the chair here and said that I would want to take time and make sure we were comfortable and say a prayer and try and find out what was going on in his life and why he has got to this point. And of course there are many people down through the years who have had very strict teaching about heaven and hell and the warnings about make sure you're on the right side of the track and don't go in that other direction. And, and for some of them this just turns them off, the whole thing. And they say it's all rubbish, I'm not going to pay any attention from now on. And they go off and live their life their own way. For others, it enters into their, as we used to say, the iron enters into the soul and becomes a source of horrible anxiety. And it's like people who are frightened that they have done something either to somebody else or to God that is unforgivable and this gnaws away at them. And I've had to counsel sometimes people who've had what I would see as quite irrational fears, fears that everyone is out to get them, fears that this person that they love has actually rejected them, whatever it is, and however much you try to reason them out of it, that's not scratching where they're itching. And there are serious issues of internal mental and emotional balance and well being. And I would say if that's the case, what Jayden needs is probably to go and see somebody who's a qualified either psychotherapist or Christian counselor who can help him think through and pray through and work out why is he so worried about this when lots of other people who've had the same teaching as him may not be. Now it may be that though he's baptized and believing he has in fact been running off after this sin and that sin and very destructive ways of life in which Case I would say watch out, because these are destructive ways of life. But I'm not hearing that in his question. And it seems to me that somebody who is baptized and believing, like Martin Luther, can say baptizatus sum. I have been baptized. Jesus has assured me that I am part of his family. I have died and been raised with Christ. Romans 6. Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Messiah. Jesus. So I would say two things about finding comfort. First, Jayden, try taking Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8 and read that section through at a run, perhaps on your knees. And then the next day do it again. Read through Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8 and do that maybe every day for a month, praying that God will reveal to you where the deep roots of your own discomfort are coming from. And then like a doctor prescribing two lots of medication. The other thing I would say, if it's comfort you want, the great book of comfort in the Bible is Isaiah 40:55. Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God. Now, Jayden, you could Simply take Isaiah 40, verses 1 to 11, and you could read that again and again and again, read it prayerfully, read it asking for God's comfort to come down and, and heal whatever is going on and is driving this fear. But then maybe read the whole section, Isaiah 40:55, much longer than Romans, but my goodness, it's one of the most amazing poems ever written in the whole world. And again, try reading that, the whole thing at a run, and then the next day try reading it at a run again. Now, in the light of Romans, in the light of Isaiah, see what God is doing to you to reorient your emotions, your feelings, your fears. And then, yes, get to some theology. How do we know we are in Christ? Well, Romans 5, 8, we've been baptized. We believe there is no condemnation. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Therefore, follow Romans 8 through and end up saying those he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? And if having read that, you still say, oh, but I'm still not sure, then I do think that's a sign that some clinical help may be required as well as theological counsel.
- [31:45]
Dr. Michael Bird
That's a very good word of comfort to people who go through those sort of struggles and anxieties. Every now and again I come across the odd parishioner or the odd lay person or get the odd email and I say know similar things. You know, I love Romans 5, where it talks about the love of God has poured into our hearts. And I say, well, look, if you've got some love of God and love of Christ in your heart, that means it's been poured in there by God himself. And you know that that means no matter how small you feel, how guilty you might feel, how inadequate, if you've got some love of God in your heart, there's nowhere you can go where that love cannot find you. So, I mean, that's a sort of exhortation I would make. But anyway, that brings us to the end of today's episode. Can't believe we got through that. Don't forget, everyone listening. You can always email us. And if you want access to content, articles and the vast archive of Ask NT Write Anything podcast material, then head over to premierunbelievable.com shows to get more time. So that's the end of the show. It's goodbye from Tom Wright.
- [33:00]
Tom Wright
Goodbye.
- [33:01]
Dr. Michael Bird
And it's goodbye from me, Mike Bird. God bless you. Take care. Until next time. You've been listening to the Ask NT Write Anything podcast. Let other people know about this show by rating and and reviewing it in your podcast provider.