I came across a curious paragraph in Tom Wright’s Simply Christian, in which he highlights a ‘mystery’ in the social organization of God’s ‘new world’. He argues that the end of all things is not the emigration of the righteous to heaven but the reintegration of heaven and earth, when God will remake the world and ‘raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it’. I have a bit of a problem with the way he characterizes resurrection as ‘life after life after death’, but the basic assertion that we are summoned ‘to live in the present as people called to that future’, in the light of the believed in renewal of creation, is surely a good one. He continues, however:
To live in it, yes; and also to rule over it. There is a mystery here which few today have even begun to ponder. Both Paul and Revelation stress that in God’s new world those who belong to the Messiah will be placed in charge. The first creation was put into the care of God’s image-bearing creatures. The new creation will be put into the care of, the wise, healing stewardship of those who have been ‘renewed according to the image of the creator’, as Paul puts it. (Simply Christian, 186-187)
So in effect Christians will be both the inhabitants of this new creation and those who rule over it. It seems to me, however, that this is more of a muddle than a mystery. The whole business may appear to many too abstruse to be worth pondering, but I would argue that it takes us to heart of how we understand the biblical narrative and that we have to do this hard work of radically rethinking how the story works. The emerging church has wanted to affirm both a ‘kingdom’ theology and a ‘new creation’ theology, but there is considerable confusion regarding how these two concepts relate to each other biblically.The following observations touch on one aspect of this.
1. Wright’s implicit argument from creation is misleading. In Genesis 1 the man and the woman are given authority over the non-human world. In the New Testament passages that speak of a future reign of believers with Christ it is a reign over the human world that is intended (Matt. 19:28; Lk. 22:28-30; 1 Cor. 6:2; 2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 20:6). It is the exercise of the kingdom and authority that is given to the Son of man; there is something more to this than stewardship.
2. The idea in Matthew 19:28 (cf. Lk. 22:28-30) may actually be quite specific. In the ‘regeneration’, which refers not to the final new creation but to God’s people restored following judgment (Josephus uses the word palingenesia for the ‘rebirth’ of the nation following exile: see Re: Mission, 86), those who literally and painfully (Luke describes them as ‘those who have stayed with me in my trials’) followed Jesus are assured that when the Son of man sits on his glorious throne, they ‘will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’. The focus on Israel suggests that this is to be understood within the narrative of an impending historical judgment on the nation (in other words, the war of AD 66-70), which Jesus interprets in the light of Daniel 7. The disciples will be vindicated with Jesus for choosing the narrow path of suffering that leads to life and will (symbolically?) sit with him in judgment over rebellious Israel when it reaches the end of the broad path leading to destruction.
3. Something similar is found in 1 Corinthians 6:2: ‘Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?’ The interpretive framework is less evident here, but I would place this in the narrative of judgment on the pagan world which I think underlies what Paul has to say about the ‘wrath’ of God in Romans 1:18-2:10, though the argument has been strongly contested (as no doubt this post will be). Jesus from within a first eschatological horizon imagined his suffering disciples participating in the judgment on Israel. Similarly, Paul from within a wider, second eschatological horizon imagines the faithful church, as it seeks to preserve its moral and spiritual integrity (1 Cor. 5:9-13) during a period of great ‘distress’ (6:26), being vindicated and participating in the judgment on the Greek-Roman world.
4. In 1 Corinthians 15:24-26 the reign of Christ comes to an end when the final enemy, death, is defeated, and the ‘kingdom’ is handed back to God the Father. The implication is that this reign is necessary only as long as hostile powers, among them supremely death, oppose the purposes of the creator God. Once those powers have been destroyed, it is no longer necessary for Christ and those who suffered and were vindicated with him to reign; and at that point the world is made new, uncorrupted by the power of death.
5. In John’s vision in Revelation it is not the whole church but a special subset of the church that is raised and reigns with Christ - those who directly refused to worship the beast, which I take to be an image of Roman imperial power, and were martyred as a result (20:4).
6. In Revelation 20:6 the reign with Christ is limited to the symbolic period of a thousand years and ends before the final defeat of death and remaking of creation.
7. I should point out that Revelation 22:5 says that the servants of God, gathered around the throne of God and the Lamb in the new Jerusalem, who look on his face and bear his name on their foreheads, will ‘reign for ever and ever’. I would, however, that this constitutes a restatement or echo of the idea that those who remain faithful in the face of suffering, who overcome death for the sake of Christ, will ‘reign’. Notice in particular Revelation 3:12:
The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.
Again we see a particular group of believers - those who remain faithful to the point of death during the trial that is about to come upon them (3:10), who conquer death - who become part of the worship of God in heaven and bear the name of God, of the new Jerusalem, and of Christ himself. Similarly, the martyrs who are raised and reign with Christ for a thousand years are called ‘priests of God and of Christ’.
It seems to me, therefore, to make better sense of the New Testament teaching to locate the idea that believers reign with Christ in an eschatological narrative that encompasses, first, the judgment on Jerusalem, and secondly, the judgment of God on Greek-Roman paganism. Those who concretely participate in Christ’s suffering and vindication then reign with him as long as wickedness, Satan and death continue to oppose the purposes of God - that is, in John’s symbolic schema, for a thousand years. This reign with Christ comes to an end once the final enemy has been defeated - it is no longer necessary for the one who overcame death or those who likewise overcame death in him to reign.
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
Thanks Andrew for the post. The mixing of the Kingdom of God and new creation narratives seem to be an emerging phenomenon. A lot of good has come out of this framework but as you have picked up, to the early followers they are two different narratives.
Just a few questions if you don’t mind:
Regarding point 4. In the broad narrative how did death come to be the ultimate enemy and part of the human experinece? This is important to know becasue it seems that death and decay have been part of the world for a long time, way before we humans came along. I think the story tellers were trying to make sense of death and how the world had kind of gone chaotic? What do you believe?
Regarding point 5, Jesus’ resurrection involved coming back to bodily life on earth. Was his body the ‘spiritual’ body of 1 Cor 15? And do you think the matyred followers of Christ that were part of the first resurrection received the same type of body as Jesus? Why weren’t they raised to life like Jesus on earth? Was Jesus’ resurrection like there’s? Is there any room for metaphors?
Also what form do you think satan will take when he is let lose? When scripture says satan will be let lose for a short while, what do think that means?
Sorry for all the questions Thanks Ryan
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
Andrew - apologies to you and Ryan for inserting this before you had time to answer Ryan’s questions, but I have to seize the moments when they become available.
Overall, I think your argument raises the question of what exactly God’s people will end up doing in the new creation - but that’s another issue.
My interpretation of palingenesia is not far removed from yours; I would see it as starting with the renewal of the people of God (and actually therefore, starting with Christ himself at his resurrection, since this was the start of the renewal/regeneration). There is then a sense in which the renewal/regeneration is both "now" (and includes judgment on unfaithful Israel in history) and "future" (final judgment, in which the disciples may also participate with Jesus in judgment).
The "now" and "future" dimension of what Jesus is saying is emphasized in the rest of the passage. There are rewards in this life ("a hundred times as much") for those who leave everything for the sake of Jesus (this is even clearer in the parallel passage in Mark), which includes "eternal life" ("life of the age" if you will), but that "eternal life" (or "life of the age" ) spans life now and life to come.
However, the "thrones" in Matthew 19:28 are for judgment (now or future); that they might also be for a continuing reign is only an inference at this point.
In 1 Corinthians 6:2, the judgment could also be both temporal and final, but I would be more inclined to think that a final judgment is in view here, because a temporal judgment on Rome/Corinth (akin to judgment on Israel) simply never seemed to happen, or not in a way that we have ever been aware of.
The ’wrath of God’ passage in Romans (1:18ff) is as much directed at Israel as the ‘pagan’ world, and as mentioned in a previous post, the difficulty with locating "the day of God’s wrath" - Romans 2:5 in temporal history is that it is qualified in Romans 2:16 with a statement that places it more naturally in a final judgment - at the end of history.
In other words, I am not sure that the "two horizons" idea (of Jesus and Paul) works out quite so neatly in practice. It is also true that Paul is just as much concerned with Israel’s temporal judgment as Jesus was.
I also don’t think that 1 Corinthians 15:24-26 is describing the "end" of the kingdom; it doesn’t actually say that. It does say that Jesus "hands over the kingdom to God the Father", after the final defeat of the powers, but that does not mean its end. It does say that Jesus must reign "until" the final defeat of his enemies - but "until" is ambiguous. It can mean "until" and not beyond; it can also mean "until" and continuing, where the "until" simply underscores the final defeat of Jesus’s opponents through the kingdom. So what ends is Jesus’s enemies; what continues is the kingdom.
The "handing over" of the kingdom to the Father cannot be taken in a crudely literal way; it’s really a metaphorical way of emphasizing the ultimate conclusion that "God may be all in all". There isn’t any material division between God the Father and Jesus whereby something could be handed over from one to the other which the other didn’t already own. The reality of what the kingdom signifies therefore continues - there is a continuing reign of Jesus in heaven - but its focus and character must inevitably change when the nature of its earthly activity changes.
I would hesitate to make a definitive explanation of a passage which has been the subject of endless dispute over the ages, but I personally take the view that there was not a separate resurrection of a particular group of people at a time preceding others who were resurrected in Revelation 20:4-6.
I see this passage as a non-literal way of encouraging those who were martyred - their matryrdom will be reflected in the kind of resurrection they enjoy (that there can be different kinds of resurrection is a theme of the NT).
I also see three groups of people: those on the thrones; those who were martyred; and the rest of the dead. I think much of the time imagery here is simply a metaphorical way of underscoring the victory of the people of God. I think it is overstretching things to use the passage to support an innovative doctrine such as Christ’s reign coming to an end (in the way it has been described) at a future point in time.
In all, it is much simpler to take Revelation 22:5 as what it says: the servants of the Lamb will reign for ever and ever - just as Jesus is said to reign "for ever and ever" in Revelation 11:15 where "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" (a parallel, surely, of 1 Corinthians 15:24-26, but put in a slightly different way).
In other words, the reign of Christ, and of the saints, continues even after the defeat of the final enemy, but with that defeat, one would imagine that the way in which the reign, and the kingdom itself, was expressed would undergo some changes.
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
It seems to me that you are trying to make a distinction between God´s kingdom and the new creation? Or do I misunderstand you? If this is what you are trying to do, its confusing to me. The concept of kingdom is not clear in the hebrew scriptures, but the idea of God as (coming) king is important, for example in the Psalms and 1 Sam 8. God´s kingdom is simply that which God is ruling over. And Rev is full of the visions of God as king, vision that continues into the last chapters, for example 22:3 with context. Isn´t this kingdom-terminology, then what is it? To me it seems the most natural way to read text about God´s kingdom and the new creation as referring to the same thing, but seen from different angles. When God rules over God´s creation, it will become the New Creation. And it can only become truly new when God reigns. And if I´m right in this, I think there are good reasons to still be waiting for a coming (universal) kingdom of God that will transform things profoundly.
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
Jonas, I would suggest, in fact, that the concept of ‘kingdom’ is very clear in the Hebrew scriptures. For example, the people ask for a king in order to be like the bullying kingdoms around them; David represents the high point of the notion that Israel is ruled by a king, who is God’s ‘son’ and who is given victory over Israel’s enemies (cf. Ps. 2 and 110, which are critical for the development of New Testament thinking about Jesus); Isaiah proclaims the good news that YHWH is coming as king to set free his people and reign over them; and the clash of nations symbolized in Daniel has as its outcome the establishment of an eternal righteous kingdom, one that is given to the saints of the Most High.
Notice that all these motifs contain the idea that Israel as a kingdom is at odds with, if not at war with, the more powerful nations round about it. The issue of kingdom arises when Israel ceases to be God’s new creation because it ceases to be obedient to the Law and consequently brings upon itself the ‘inter-national’ disasters predicted in Deuteronomy 28:47-57. The king is the one who will go out before them and fight their battles (1 Sam. 8:20). When Jesus announces the coming of the kingdom of God, he is not announcing the coming of a new creation. He is announcing that God’s microcosm will be delivered from the hand of its enemies and that, as prefigured in Daniel’s vision, the kingdom, the right to reign over the people, will be given to the Son of man, who is both Jesus and the community that suffers in him. The ‘kingdom of God’ in the Gospels is a dynamic eschatological notion: it is a statement about judgment, restoration and the eventual victory of the early church over its immediate historical enemies. That victory is won, through the death of Christ, so that the people of God can - by grace and through the indwelling of the Spirit - be the new creation that from Abraham onwards they were intended to be.
I agree that the kingdom idea spills over somewhat into John’s vision of the new creation. But I pointed out in the post above that Revelation 22:3-5 has very strong associations with the motif of the reign of the martyrs with Christ, which greatly restricts its significance. Otherwise, I think the basic principle holds, that kingdom is a relevant category as long as sovereignty over God’s people is contested, as long as there are ‘enemies’. But once the final enemy, death, has been defeated, the kingdom, as Paul says, is given back to the Father. In the new heaven and the new earth there are no more battles for Israel’s king to fight.
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
Hi Andrew, Thanks for yet another thought-provoking post.
“The emerging church has wanted to affirm both a ‘kingdom’ theology and a ‘new creation’ theology, but there is considerable confusion regarding how these two concepts relate to each other biblically”
I have recently been working through the Prophets, and as you know a controlling theme for many of them, especially Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel, is the ‘return from exile’. Associated with this return are numerous themes such as the ‘new heart’, the ‘new covenant’, the ‘good news’ and the related message ‘Your God reigns’ (kingdom language). Of course, ‘new creation’ language is also associated with this awaited return (in Isaiah), and so both ‘kingdom’ and ‘new creation’ language find association with the ‘restoration of Israel’.
With that in mind, I wonder if there is scope for exploring a more mutually relating fulfillment of the two (‘kingdom’ and ‘new creation’) in the ‘new covenant’. Just as Paul could say there is ‘new creation’ for those in Christ, so being ‘in Christ’ was to come under Christ’s lordship. For Paul, both are inaugurated in Christ.
So my thought: I wonder if the prophetic tradition and the Pauline data together put a question mark after the attempt to press a distinction between ‘kingdom’ and ‘new creation’ according to specific eschatological horizons and stages?
All the best, Chris
Chris Tilling http://www.christilling.de/blog/ctblog.html (Blog)
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
I too have this suspicion (sorry for my nonscholarly butting in here) but for Paul there is no doubt that Christ is the integrator and as Jesus preached the kingdom, Paul has to have integrated that teaching into his thoughts on the new creation "in Christ". The separation that we sense perhaps comes because we do not rigorously see Pauline teaching through a kingdom lens.
Live to serve : Serve to live
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
I tried to look up the reference in Josephus which you cite above but do not find it. By "Ant. 11.2.9" I assume you mean Antiquities Book 11. Chapter 2. Paragraph 9. If that is not the case please inform me what is referenced so that I can look it up. The copy of Josephus which I have does not appear to have 9 paragraphs - only two. However, 11.3.9 does seem to be your reference.
Moving on, while I do agree with you that Matthew 19:28 and Luke 22:29-30 have "a quite specific reference to the eschatological narrative"; I have a real problem with your comment:
According to your understanding, which "nation" was Josephus referring to as being "reborn" in Ant. 11. 3. 9? Please name that "nation".
I very much want (need) to know why and how you draw a distinction between the "regeneration" of 19:28 and your proposed "final new creation." Where does the Bible speak to the subject of "a final new creation"?
In your comments above, it seems to me that, you have assumed a lot of things that are not in evidence.
There is much more that I would like to discuss about this topic; so I will come back to it, after I see your response to the above.
Please tell me, according to your understanding - when does "the Son of man sit in the throne of His glory"? And what is the "throne of His glory"? Where is it located?
However, it is your next statement that I have a real problem with:
Will you please give me the name of "the nation" which you think was at "war" with the Romans in AD 66-70?
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
Lloyd, try Antiquities 11.66 - there are two different ways of numbering Josephus. Here is the passage:
My suggestion is that in much the same way Jesus uses palingenesia, which may perhaps connote the re-birth or re-creation of the nation of Israel, with reference to the complex historical process by which the church as a community of the Spirit of God emerged from Israel as a community of the Law of God. The early church, however, appears also to have held the belief that this renewal was a sign or anticipation of a final renewal when wickedness and death would be destroyed (1 Cor. 15:24-26; Rev. 20:11-21:8).
The symbolism of the Son of man sitting on the throne of his glory is used, in my view, by Jesus to convey to his followers the expectation that they will be vindicated for their trust in him when Israel comes under judgment and Jerusalem is destroyed. It is used in a broader sense by Paul and John for the analogous expectation that the church in the pagan will be vindicated for its trust in the announcement about God’s Son when classical paganism and supremely Roman imperial paganism is overcome.
Come on, Lloyd, what’s with these irritating trick questions again? You know perfectly well that I mean Israel.
Re: NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation
Andrew,
Thank you for your assistance here. The reference, in the copy of Josephus which I have, is 11.3.9.
You quoted my question and wrote:
Come on, Lloyd, what’s with these irritating trick questions again? You know perfectly well that I mean Israel."
I am very sorry that my questions "irritate" you. However, as I have told you before, there is no "trick" involved in my questions. They are honest, straightforward questions seeking to get at correct answers which apparently you cannot provide or my questions would not be so "irritating" in your opinion.
I did not "know perfectly well" that you meant "Israel." I was afraid that that was the case, but I did not "know." Now I "know."
Because you have not answered my other questions with meaningful answers, let us return to those questions and I will supply my answers to them and then we can go from there. (You and most others on this site really need to read Jesus the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile - Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement, by Brant Pitre, PhD, Baker Academics.)
Here are my questions and my answers:
The nation to which Josephus makes reference is the nation of Judah, aka, the house of Judah or the "southern kingdom." It is very clear in the Bible, in Josephus and in other sources that the nation of Israel, aka, the house of Israel or the "northern kingdom" was not restored to the land during the time of the Jewish return from Babylon (Ant. 11.5.2; et al.)
The nation that was at war with the Romans in AD 66-70 was not "Israel" as you erroneously assert; it was Judah, aka the house of Judah or the "southern kingdom." Contrary to popular Christian mythology, there was no national "Israel" in the first century - only a national Judah, i.e. the Jews and their associates the Galileans, i.e. the tribe of Benjamin.
In the 8th century BC "Israel" was divorced by God (Jer 3:8) and put out of her Mosaic Marriage Covenant relationship with God (Hosea). Because of this divorce "Israel" was taken captive by the Assyrians and deported (2Kings 15:29, 17:6, 18-23) from the land in accordance with the Law of Divorce (Deut 24:1). "Israel" was thus exiled from the land and scattered among the "gentiles/nations in fulfillment of prophecy (Deut 4:27; cf. Dan 9:7; Hosea 3:4, 8:8-9; Amos 6:14, 7:8-9 11, 9:9, 10:5-7; James 1:1, 1Peter 1:1ff; et al.) where the people of Israel (not Jews, as the people of the northern kingdom where not Jews) would be "wanders among the nations" (Hosea 9:17). Israel never returned to the land and did not have a "national restoration" in the 5th century BC nor at any other time previous to the first century AD.
Because you do not apprehend the history of "Israel" correctly you do not understand the New Testament correctly. I repeat, you need to read Dr. Brant Pitre’s book.
You wrote:
Contrary to your assertion above, there was no "impending historical judgment on the nation" of "Israel" in the first century and "Israel" was not in any "war of AD 66-70" with the Romans. At the time of the Jew’s war with the Romans "Israel" was still in exiled Diaspora, i.e. "scattered and wandering among the gentiles."
Ezekiel prophesied that at the end of this "exiled Diaspora" (Eze 36:19) God would "take (the descendents of Israel) from among the gentile/nations and gather (them) out of all the countries and bring (them) into (their) own land (i.e. the heavenly land of Hebrews 11:10, 13-16 12:22-24; Eze 36:24; cf. Amos 9:11-15; Acts 15:14-17),
Within that context, Ezekiel also prophecied that the restoration of the nation of Israel would be through resurrection (Eze 37:1-15) and that this resurrection would produce the restored nation of "Israel" (Eze 37:16-28).
Thus, we see that it is the restoration of "Israel" that is "impending" in the first century not "a judgment" as you theorize.
However, while the "restoration of Israel" (Acts 1:6-8, 3:19-26) was in fact "impending" in the first century so was a judgment on apostate Judah, i.e. the Christ rejecting Jews of the first century.
With these things in mind, we should now edit your statement to read as follows:
We should now understand that the phrase "In the regeneration" in Matt 19:28 is parallel with the phrase "in the resurrection" (Matt 22:28, 30; Mark 12:23; Luke 14:14, 20:33; John 11:24) and does in fact refer to what you erroneously refer to as "the final new creation."
We should now see that this phrase does in fact refer "to God’s people restored following judgment (cf. Is. 65:17; 66:22; and (that it does parallel)Josephus’ use of the word palingenesia in Ant. 11.2.9 for the ’rebirth’ of the nation following exile)". However, not the judgment and exile of the apostate Jews in AD 66-70, but the Captivity/Exile/Diaspora of apostate, divorced "Israel" of the 8th century BC.
Lloyd