colluding with vs conquering

"The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."" - Genesis 2:15-17 (NIV)

"The truly righteous man attains life, but he who pursues evil goes to his death." - Proverbs 11:19 (NIV)

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 6:23 (NIV)

"This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." - 2 Timothy 1:9b-10 (NIV)

"Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." - Revelation 20:11-15 (NIV)

death is always and everywhere an evil. indeed, 'life - all life - is meaningful and good, and evil distorts and disrupts the good and cries out to be set right' (Westerholm, Understanding Paul). to this end, Christian hope is not about going to heaven when we die, but about 'the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting' (The Apostles' Creed).

going to heaven when we die is merely colluding with the grave. this is patently unbiblical. on the other hand, eternal life in a new heaven and a new earth is conquering the grave. this is what we are living (and dying) for!

life after life after death

Paul and John, Jesus himself, and pretty well all the great Christian teachers of the first two centuries, stress their belief in resurrection. 'Resurrection' does not mean 'going to heaven when you die'. It isn't about 'life after death'. It's about 'life after life after death'. You die; you go to be 'with Christ' ('life after death'), but your body remains dead. Describing where and what you are in that interim period is difficult, and the New Testament writers mostly don't try. Call it 'heaven' if you like, but don't imagine it's the end of all things. What is promised after that interim period is a new bodily life within God's new world ('life after life after death').

I am constantly amazed that many contemporary Christians find this confusing. It was second nature to the early church and to many subsequent Christian generations. It was what they believed and taught. If we have grown up believing and teaching something else, it's time we rubbed our eyes and read our texts again. God's plan is not to abandon this world, the world of which he said that it was 'very good'. He intends to remake it. And when he does, he will raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it. That is the promise of the Christian gospel.

- N.T. Wright, Simply Christian

link: more on colluding with vs conquering (25 mar 09)