‘That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.’ (Bertrand Russell, 'A Free Man's Worship')
I actually find Russell's statement here to be a refreshingly consistent one compared to the recent ad campaign of unaccountably sunny atheism from the so-called 'New Atheists': 'There's Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life.'
'Not even a story, forever and ever'
The Christian theist, C. S. Lewis, agreed with Russell's assessment of the atheist worldview. When atheistic secularism wants to urge you to work in hope toward a humanistic utopia, they're leaving something crucial out of the picture:
‘Lest your longing for the transtemporal should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man on earth, yet still each generation would lose it by death, including the last generation of all, and the whole story would be nothing, not even a story, for ever and ever’ (C. S. Lewis, ‘The Weight of Glory’).
A Great Hole Ripped in History
But Christians claim something has occurred in history to blow the lid off this atheistic pessimism. It's utterly radical and worldview-shifting, worldview-expanding, but we're convinced there's just no other explanation than that given by the New Testament and the church throughout history.
‘If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested by the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole of the size and shape of the Resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with? … the birth and rapid rise of the Christian Church. . . remain an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the church itself.’ (Cambridge scholar C. F. D. Moule,The Phenomenon of the New Testament, 1967 , cited in William Lane Craig, 'Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ')
The Astounding and Worldview-Challenging Claim
More recently, an Oxford New Testament scholar and historian put it this way:
Historical investigation, I propose, brings us to the point where we must say that the tomb previously housing a thoroughly dead Jesus was empty, and that his followers saw and met someone they were convinced was this same Jesus, bodily alive though in a new, transformed fashion. The empty tomb on the one hand and the convincing appearances of Jesus on the other are the two conclusions the historian must draw. I do not think that history can force us to draw any particular further deductions beyond these two phenomena; the conclusion the disciples drew is there for the taking, but it is open to us, as it was to them, to remain cautious. Thomas waited a week before believing what he had been told. On Matthew’s mountain, some had their doubts.
However, the elegance and simplicity of explaining the two outstanding phenomena, the empty tomb and the visions, by means of one another, ought to be obvious. Were it not for the astounding, and world-view-challenging, claim that is thereby made, I think everyone would long since have concluded that this was the correct historical result. If some other account explained the rise of Christianity as naturally, completely and satisfyingly as does the early Christians’ belief, while leaving normal worldviews intact, it would be accepted without demur.
That, I believe, is the result of the investigation I have conducted. There are many other things to say about Jesus’ resurrection. But, as far as I am concerned, the historian may and must say that all other explanations for why Christianity arose, and why it took the shape it did, are far less convincing as historical explanations than the one the early Christians themselves offer: that Jesus really did rise from the dead on Easter morning, leaving an empty tomb behind him. The origins of Christianity, the reason why this new movement came into being and took the unexpected form it did, and particularly the strange mutations it produced within the Jewish hope for resurrection and the Jewish hope for a Messiah, are best explained by saying that something happened, two or three days after Jesus’ death, for which the accounts in the four gospels are the least inadequate expression we have.
Of course, there are several reasons why people may not want, and often refuse, to believe this. But the historian must weigh, as well, the alternative accounts they themselves offer. And, to date, none of them have anything like the explanatory power of the simple, but utterly challenging, Christian one. The historian’s task is not to force people to believe. It is to make it clear that the sort of reasoning historians characteristically employ — inference to the best explanation, tested rigorously in terms of the explanatory power of the hypothesis thus generated — points strongly towards the bodily resurrection of Jesus; and to make clear, too, that from that point on the historian alone cannot help. When you’re dealing with worldviews, every community and every person must make their choices in the dark, even if there is a persistent rumour of light around the next corner. (N. T. Wright, 'Jesus' Resurrection and Christian Origins', 2002)
'Then The End Will Come'
But what does the resurrection of Jesus Christ mean? Its meaning is spoken of at great length throughout the New Testament and there are a number of implications. We'll just focus on one:
1 Corinthians 15:14-28:
'And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins... If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
'But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death... so that God may be all in all.'
We often hear 'the end' and think 'over', 'finish', 'no more'. But the Greek word here is telos, which speaks of teleology, of purpose and meaning, the goal of existence, the fulfilment of creation that all things are heading toward.
Jesus' resurrection is the 'firstfuits' (the very first round of produce reaped at the beginning of the harvest season) that are a sort of promise and guarantee of the whole resurrection harvest that will come in' the end', when history reaches its goal in God's wise and good plan.
THE WHOLE CREATION WILL BE RAISED TO GLORY!
Romans 8:21-23 - 'the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.'
2 Peter 3:12 - 'But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.'
We Will Forever Be Living Proof of the Wisdom of God in Making a Material Creation
We do not always value our cosmos, planet, or bodies the way we should as Christians. But that is exactly what Jesus' historical, bodily, physical resurrection indicates we should do. He died and rose to save, not just souls, but the whole creation.
‘It is important to insist on the resurrection of a real, physical body, not only for the reasons above, but also because this provides a clear affirmation of the goodness of God’s physical creation. We will live in bodies that have all the excellent qualities God created us to have, and thereby we will forever be living proof of the wisdom of God in making a material creation that from the beginning was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). We will live as resurrected believers in those new bodies, and they will be suitable for inhabiting the “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13)… In this renewed creation, there will be no more thorns or thistles, no more floods or droughts, no more deserts or uninhabitable jungles, no more earthquakes or tornadoes, no more poisonous snakes or bees that sting or mushrooms that kill. There will be a productive earth, and earth that will blossom and produce food abundantly for our enjoyment.’ (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 836)
The New Creation May Still Be Wild, But Without Suffering and Evil
I would just want to clarify that the sentiment of this passage from Wayne Grudem is definitely right – worldwide physical shalom (peace, harmony, well-being, and justice on every level). And perhaps Grudem's way of talking about it here has the most immediate, understandable, helpful impact on our thinking and feeling. But perhaps we should also keep our minds open as to how God will do this: it’s not impossible that he might still visit his renewed creation with things like floods and earthquakes and tornadoes, but that they will serve only purposes of good (e.g. displays of his awesome power and the clearing or upheaval of land that is to be reformed and used differently in the unfolding eternal drama) and we will be safely guided away from it with plenty of warning or carried through it in some sense and will not lose lives or property (or will not mourn the loss of property as we will know it was the right time for their dispersal and time to move on to other goods). And perhaps there will still be things like thorns and thistles for their own sort of ‘sharp’ beauty but that they will no longer cause us evil pain (perhaps a scratch from time to time in the new creation is still good for us, not to build our character through evil circumstances—there will be no evil—but simply the raw experience of moderate physical pain causing us to glorify God in a certain key; for this kind of ‘good pain’ is not ‘suffering’).
People Will Work at the Whole Range of Investigation and Development of the Creation by Technological, Creative, and Inventive Means
‘While we may have some uncertainty about the understanding of certain details, it does not seem inconsistent with this picture to say that we will eat and drink in the new heavens and new earth, and carry on other physical activities as well. Music certainly is prominent in the descriptions of heaven in Revelation, and we might imagine that both musical and artistic activities would be done to the glory of God. Perhaps people will work at the whole range of investigation and development of the creation by technological, creative, and inventive means, thus exhibiting the full extent of their excellent creation in the image of God… But more important than all the physical beauty of the heavenly city, more important than the fellowship we will enjoy eternally with all God’s people from all nations and all periods of history, more important than our freedom from pain and sorrow and physical suffering, and more important than reigning over God’s kingdom—more important by far than any of these will be the fact that we will be in the presence of God and enjoying unhindered fellowship with him… in that city this joy will be multiplied many times over and we will know the fulfilment of that for which we were created. Our greatest joy will be in seeing the Lord himself and in being with him forever… When we look into the face of our Lord and he looks back at us with infinite love, we will see in him the fulfilment of everything that we know to be good and right and desirable in the universe. In the face of God we will see the fulfilment of all the longing we have ever had to know perfect love, peace, and joy, and to know truth and justice, holiness and wisdom, goodness and power, and glory and beauty… When we finally see the Lord face to face, our hearts will want nothing else.’ (Grudem, 1162, 1164)
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