N.T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope": The Pirate Review, Day 5

Posted on 2/05/2008 Comments (1)
Labels: Book Review, N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

In light of today's official U.S. release of Surprised by Hope, I was contemplating changing the name of this series from "The Pirate Review" to something else, maybe "Just a Plain Old Review." But in a heated 45 minute discussion with a reknowned expert on international law (who has expressed his desire to remain unnamed), I may still be liable for Days 1-4 of this review. So its still technically a "pirate review."

But enough with the formalities. Let's get on with the show. International law be damned.

Chapter 6

What The Whole World's Waiting For

In Chapter 5, Wright had delineated and discussed the two most prevalent views about the "destiny of the universe" in the world today, "the myth of progress" and "the myth of souls in transit." In Chapter 6, he sets forth the biblical, historical Christian vision of the cosmic destiny, in contrast to those discussed in the previous chapter:

"The early Christians did not believe in 'progress.' They did not think the world was getting better and better under its own steam--or even under the steady influence of God. They knew God had to do something fresh to put it to rights.

But nor did they believe that the world was getting worse and worse and that their task was to escape it altogether. They were not dualists.

...They believed that God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter."

Wright then explores three major themes that emerge from the New Testament (NT) texts that support and directly lead to this vision. First, there is the theme of "the goodness of creation," and Wright emphasizes both nouns in that phrase, "goodness" and "creation." The NT both affirms that the world was created, and is thus other than the Creator, and that such a creation was an act of love, which, by definition, affirms the goodness of the other.

Next, there is the theme of "the nature of evil." In the NT, evil consists not of being created, nor in being other than God, nor in being material as opposed to spiritual, and nor in being transient.

"Evil then consists, not in being created, but in the rebellious idolotry by which humans worship and honor elements of the natural world rather than the God who made them...The result is that death, which was always part of the natural transience of the good creation, gains a second dimension, which the Bible sometimes calls 'spiritual death'...Worship that which is transient, and it can only give you death. But when you do commit that idolatry, evil is unleashed into the world, setting off chain reactions with incalculable consequences."

Third, there is "the plan of redemption." And this theme is developed by taking into account the first two:

"If you tell this story from the point of view of the good creation, the coming of Jesus emerges as the moment the all creation had been waiting for. Humans were made to be God's stewards over creation; so the one through whom all things were made, the eternal son, the eternal wisdom, becomes human, so that he might truly become God's steward, ruler over all his world. Equally, if you tell the story from the point of view of human rebellion and the consequent sin and death which has engulfed the whole world, this again emerges as the moment all creation had been waiting for: the eternal expression of the father's love became the incarnate expression of the father's love, so that by his self-giving to death, even the death of the cross, the whole creation can be reconciled to God. If you put these two ways of telling the story together, and cast them into poetry, you will find you have rewritten Colossians 1:15-20."

Wright then explores several of the central NT texts that deal with the cosmic dimension of the Christian hope and explores some of the primary metaphors used in those texts:

The metaphor of seedtime and harvest in 1 Corinthians 15;

The metaphor of the victorious battle, also in 1 cor. 15;

The metaphor of citizens of heaven colonizing the earth in Philippians 3:20-21; Wright here emphasizes the notion of "citizenship" within the context of 1st century Roman Empire. In that world, where that phrase was penned, a “citizen” was someone who lived outside of Rome in one of the many provinces that Rome had established, but who nevertheless enjoyed all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of Roman citizenship. In other words, the goal of citizenship was not to return to Rome one day, but to embody the principals of Rome outside of her boundaries.

The metaphor of God flooding the creation with Himself in 1 Cor. 15:28, which is itself an echo of Isaiah 11:9, where the prophet declares that "the whole earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

The metaphor of new birth, as by the image of birth pangs in Romans 8:22, which "highlights both continuinty and discontinuity...The very metaphor which Paul chooses for this decisive moment in his argument shows that what he has in mind is not the unmaking of creation, nor simply its steady development, but the drastic and dramatic birth of new creation from the womb of the old.

The metaphor of the marriage of heaven and earth as set out in Revelation 21 and 22, where the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband. Wright seems to give this image particular significance in contrasting the two myths set out in Chapter 5:

"This is the ultimate rejection of all types of gnosticism, of every worldview that sees the final goal as the separation of the world from God, of the physical from the spiritual, of earth from heaven. It is the final answer to the Lord's Prayer, that God's kingdom would come and his will be done on earth as in heaven...It is the final fulfilment, in richly symbolic imagery, of the promises of Genesis 1, that the creation of male and female would together reflect God's image into the world."

"There is a sign here of the future project that awaits the redeemed, in God's eventual new world. So far from sitting on clouds playing harps, as people often imagine, the redeemed people of God in the new world will be the agents of his lovegoing out in new ways, to accomplish new creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love."

Wright then sums up this review of the pertinent NT passages dealing with the ultimate Christian hope, and their contrast to the prevailing myths of progress and souls in transit:

"What creation needs is not abandonment on the one hand, nor evolution on the other, but redemption and renewal; and this is both promised and guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This is what the whole world's waiting for."

In the next chapters, Wright will begin to discuss this cosmic theme in light of the personal presence of Jesus himself.

Stay tuned. And go out and buy the book already! Its legal now.

Grace and Peace,

Raffi