In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, N. T. Wright challenges us to rethink our notions of heaven and the implications of the doctrine of heaven for the entire Christian faith.
In Chapter Three describes the Christian view of life after death and of resurrection in comparison to Jewish and pagan views. In summary, Wright says that “the ancient world–with the exception of the Jews–was adamant that dead people did not rise again; and the Jews did not believe that anyone had done so or that anyone would do so all by themselves in advance of the general resurrection.”
The pagan view was that the road to the underworld was one-way. There was no answer to death. When pagans spoke of “resurrection” it almost always referred to something that might (though probably wouldn’t) happen after someone had died. Most pagans believed in some form of life after death. But they did not believe in resurrection. Thus, when pagans heard Christians saying that Jesus had died but was now resurrected, they knew Christians were saying that something had happened to Jesus that had happened to no one else and that nobody expected to happen.
The predominant Jewish view was that there would be an eventual resurrection. That is, once a person died, God looked after that person’s soul until, at the last day, God would give his people new bodies when he judged and remade the world. “Resurrection” referred to something that would only happen at the very end of time and something that all of God’s people would experience at once. This explains why the disciples could not understand what Jesus meant when Jesus claimed he would die and rise again. It never occurred to any Jew that one person would be raised ahead of all others. And once Jesus died, their hope in him as Messiah died. They had no expectation that he would rise, at least not ahead of the final resurrection of all of God’s people. The Jewish belief involved two-steps: 1) death and whatever lied immediately beyond, and 2) a resurrection and new bodily existence for God’s people.
Finally, Wright shows how the Christian view of resurrection, though rooted in Jewish views of resurrection, nevertheless modified the Jewish views in seven significant ways:
- There was no spectrum of beliefs regarding life after death within Christianity. Though they came from many strands of Judaism and paganism, Christians ultimately adopted one single and simple view of life after death and of resurrection.
- In second-Temple Judaism, resurrection was important but not central. In Christianity, however, resurrection “moved from the circumference to the center.”
- In Judaism there was diversity of belief regarding the type of body the resurrected possess. Early Christians, however, held that those resurrected would have a transformed physical but incorruptible body.
- Jews believed the resurrection would be a large-scale event that would happen to all of God’s people at once. Christians, however, believed one, Jesus, was resurrected “in advance of all the rest.”
- Because of #4, Christians believed they were called “to implement the achievement of Jesus and thereby to anticipate the final resurrection, in personal and political life, in mission and holiness.”
- Within Judaism, resurrection metaphorically stood for the return from exile. Within Christianity, however, resurrection metaphorically stood for baptism and the new life of believers.
- Nobody in Judaism expected the Messiah to die. Christians believed he did die and he was raised.
