A Look Back Before We Go - Part 2

Dirt and Stone for Flesh and Bone - Part 15

Welcome, as I share part 2 of a closing review of the series we’ve been in for 14 weeks, called Dirt and Stone for Flesh and Bone. It’s a study on heaven where the Scripture has shattered our traditionally held views on the afterlife. We’ve discovered that heaven, as in our final resting place for all eternity, is not exclusively spiritual and immaterial, but is instead, as the series title suggests, a place of dirt and stone made for flesh and bone to dwell.

It is impossible, as far as I’m concerned, to refute the plain teaching of Scripture that if Jesus was given a flesh and bone resurrection body—and he most certainly was, according to his own words in Luke 24—then we will be given flesh and bone resurrection bodies on the Last Day as well. That is because Paul reveals in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus is the first fruits of our coming resurrection. This means that whatever is true of his resurrection is true of ours. And so, we logically deduce that flesh and bone bodies are intended to dwell in a physical place. It makes perfect sense, but does Scripture support this? The answer is a resounding YES. And you find support in the first few chapters of the first book of the Bible, where God made a world of dirt and stone for mankind’s flesh and bone bodies to dwell. This begs the question: If God’s ultimate plan for us is a solely spiritual heavenly existence, why were we created as physical beings to live in a physical place from the beginning? Consider the reality that had we not rebelled, we would be living right here in this material world in physical bodies for eternity.

Yet, we have embedded within our minds the idea that our goal as Christians is to break free from this material world, which is corrupt with sin, and finally live in a pure, spiritual world. In other words, put very simply, dirt, stone, flesh, and bone are bad. The spiritual, ethereal, and non-material are good. Genesis 1 proves that thinking is untrue. If the material world were inherently bad, we would have started out spiritual.

In our series, we learned a biblical truth concerning future heaven: as it was, so it will be. In the end, God takes us back to the beginning, so to speak. This truth has been staring at us all along!

So, the physical and spiritual are not at war with one another. But where did this idea come from? To answer that question, we must go back to ancient Greece, about 400 years before the time of Christ. There, we find a fellow named Plato. He was a Greek philosopher taught by Socrates. He was also the teacher of Aristotle and founder of the Academy in Athens, a famous school of philosophy. Plato taught that material things, including the human body and the earth, are evil, while immaterial things such as the soul and Heaven are good, a view called Platonism, where life’s aim is to escape the physical and live in the spiritual. Sound familiar? His ideas took root in Greek culture to the extent that they became part of the ancient world’s worldview. Since the Romans of Jesus’ day were heavily influenced by the Greeks (and that’s an understatement), they too were Platonic in how they framed reality. The Romans’ ultimate desire was to leave the physical behind, and, if they were fortunate enough, end up in a non-physical paradise called Elysium.

This is why the Gospel that Paul preached was so offensive to the Gentiles, the non-Jews of the civilized world, as well as the Jews. Paul wrote,

22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 1 Corinthians 1:22–23 (LSB)

It was a stumbling block to the Jews because they weren’t looking for a suffering, crucified Messiah. It tripped up the Greeks, however, because they could not fathom a religion that had people being resurrected into physical bodies to live in a physical world for eternity. A fact demonstrated when Paul went to Athens (the hometown of Plato and his Academy) in Acts 17 and preached the gospel to a bunch of philosophers in the marketplace. He wasn’t allowed to finish his message because when he brought up a particular truth about Jesus, this happened:

30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He determined, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from the dead.” 32 Now when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.” Acts 17:30–32 (LSB)

They were interested until Paul brought up the resurrection because, according to Plato, the goal is to get rid of this body and leave this place, not come back. And yet, the gospel still made miraculous inroads among the Greeks. But, as they say, old habits die hard. The early church fathers like Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine, “took up and adapted Platonic emphases such as the tendency to de-emphasize the body, elevate the soul, and stress the soul’s inherent immortality.”¹ They blended Platonism into the doctrines of Christianity and unknowingly birthed something you might call Christoplatonism, where the material and physical are bad, the spiritual is good, and Christians long for their immaterial souls’ freedom to finally flee to an immaterial heaven for all eternity when they die. Sound familiar?

To this day, some 2,000 years later, we unknowingly take this way of thinking to the Bible when we read texts like 1 Corinthians 15, also known as The Resurrection Chapter. There, Paul seems to say that we live now in natural or physical bodies, but one day we will have a spiritual one.

42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a corruptible body, it is raised an incorruptible body; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 1 Corinthians 15:35–44 (LSB)

But NT Wright, a world-class New Testament scholar I quote often, explains in his commentary on this text how Paul did not mean what we think he means.

Imagine standing outside a car showroom, a hundred or more years from now. An advertisement has brought you and lots of others to see a new type of car. Different from all that went before, the slogan had said.

‘Looks pretty much the same to me,’ says one person.

‘Well, it’s similar,’ replies another, ‘but the engine seems different somehow.’

The inventor makes a short speech.

‘I know it may look like an ordinary car,’ he says, ‘but what makes this one totally different is what it runs on. We’ve developed a new fuel, nothing to do with oil or petrol. It’s clean, it’s safe, and there are limitless supplies. And because of the type of fuel, the engine will never wear out. This car is going to last for ever.’

A fantasy, of course—or perhaps not, since you never know what inventions are going to come next (who in 1880 would have predicted the jet engine or the microchip?). But it gets us to the point of this long, dense and hugely important discussion. What sort of a body will the resurrection produce? And what will it ‘run’ on?

We may as well go to the heart of the passage, to the verse that has puzzled people many times in the past, and still does. In verse 44 Paul contrasts the two types of bodies, the present one and the resurrection one. The words he uses are technical and tricky. Many versions translate these words as ‘physical body’ and ‘spiritual body’, but this is highly misleading. That is as though the difference between the old car and the new one was that, whereas the old one was made of steel, the new one is made of something quite different—plastic, say, or wood, or some as-yet-uninvented metal alloy. If you go that route, you may well end up saying, as many have done, that Paul is making a contrast simply between what we call a ‘body’, that is a physical object, and what we might call a ghost, a ‘spiritual’ object in the sense of ‘non-physical’. But that is exactly what he is not saying.

The contrast he’s making is between a body animated by one type of life and a body animated by another type. The difference between them is found, if you like, in what the two bodies run on. The present body is animated by the normal life which all humans share... But the body that we shall be given in the resurrection is to be animated by God’s own spirit...

But when the spirit creates a new body, it won’t wear out.²

If you read Scripture without a skewed Platonic lens, you see something else. The Bible reveals that in the end, God doesn’t just take our old, corrupt physical bodies and resurrect them into a new, incorruptible physical body; he also, in the same way, renews the present creation into the New Heaven and Earth. Let me show you how I know this. Paul writes something very interesting in the heart of Romans.

18 I am sure that what we are suffering now cannot compare with the glory that will be shown to us. 19 In fact, all creation is eagerly waiting for God to show who his children are. 20 Meanwhile, creation is confused, but not because it wants to be confused. God made it this way in the hope 21 that creation would be set free from decay and would share in the glorious freedom of his children. 22 We know that all creation is still groaning and is in pain, like a woman about to give birth. 23 The Spirit makes us sure about what we will be in the future. But now we groan silently, while we wait for God to show that we are his children. This means that our bodies will also be set free. 24 And this hope is what saves us. But if we already have what we hope for, there is no need to keep on hoping. 25 However, we hope for something we have not yet seen, and we patiently wait for it. Romans 8:18–25 (CEV)

Creation looks forward to the resurrection as much as we do. Why? Because it’s finally set free from the curse put on it as a result of man’s rebellion against God. If the old creation is obliterated on the Last Day, why would Paul say it’s going to share in our freedom? Why would it look forward to the end of its existence, if that’s what’s going to happen? This can only mean one thing: the New Heaven and Earth is a remaking of the old. It is in this sense that we might say this world is our home and we are not just passing through, and that, in the end, heaven comes to us rather than the other way around. And yet, we dismiss the importance of the present creation. Listen to what one mega-popular and well-known pastor wrote:

…when redemption is complete, He will destroy the whole universe. The Old Testament says it, the New Testament says it, the book of Revelation describes it, 2 Peter describes it in detail. The elements will melt with fervent heat; there will be an atomic implosion of the whole creation.

We’re not responsible to take care of the planet in that sense; it’s a disposable planet. If you think we’re messing it up, wait until you see what Jesus does to it. It is a disposable planet. We’re not here to preserve the planet, we’re here to proclaim the gospel.³

That is one of the most unbiblical and destructive things I’ve ever heard. It’s that kind of thinking that leads to the abuse and misuse of this world, since it’s just going to burn up anyway. And we project that kind of thinking onto texts like (note this is KJV):

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 2 Peter 3:10 (KJV 1900) emphasis mine

Once again, Professor Wright sheds light on this.

Here, at the end of this passage, we have a statement which in older translations of the Bible came out one way, but which, with all the biblical manuscripts we now have, almost certainly needs to be changed. In the older versions, this passage ends with the warning that ‘the earth and all the works on it will be burned up.’ A cosmic destruction: the end of the physical world! Is that really what Peter wrote? If so, it’s the only place in the whole of early Christian literature where such an idea is found.

But in some manuscripts of the New Testament, including two of the very best, the word for ‘will be burned up’ isn’t there. Instead, there is a word which means ‘will be found’, or ‘will be discovered’, or ‘will be disclosed’. Perhaps ‘will be found out’ would be another way of getting at the meaning…

And look at the difference it makes! As with the rest of the New Testament, Peter is not saying that the present world of space, time and matter is going to be burnt up and destroyed. That is more like the view of ancient Stoicism—and of some modern ideas, too. What will happen, as many early Christian teachers said, is that some sort of ‘fire’, literal or metaphorical, will come upon the whole earth, not to destroy, but to test everything out, and to purify it by burning up everything that doesn’t meet the test.⁴

This truth is supported by almost all modern translations, which, unlike the KJV, use the older, more accurate manuscripts, such as,

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be found out. 2 Peter 3:10 (LSB)

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 2 Peter 3:10 (ESV)

So, in our series, we learn that God’s love for the present creation is holistic: he loves man and beast, body and soul, dirt and stone, flesh and bone. And he is going to redeem and resurrect it all. When you come to the end of the Bible, which records the end of this age at Christ’s return, sure enough, what John describes is not clouds and harps but a newly remade people and creation.

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain. The first things passed away.” 5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Revelation 21:1–5 (LSB)

Next week, I’ll finish the series by answering the question, “So what?” But for today, I’ll end our review with my paraphrase of CS Lewis’ final paragraph of the last book in his Chronicles of Narnia series, where the closing adventures of the Pevensie children and other characters mirror entering into the joy and wonder of the future heaven.

“When we get to the New Heavens and earth, we will realize with delirious joy that all our lives in the old world had only been the cover and the title page: now at last we will begin Chapter One of the Great Story which no one has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

1. Ritzema, E. (2016). Platonism. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, L. Wentz, E. Ritzema, & W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press.

2. Wright, T. (2004). Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (pp. 220–222). Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

3. John MacArthur, https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/80-431/The-Eyewitness-Account-of-Creation.

4. Wright, T. (2011). Early Christian Letters for Everyone: James, Peter, John and Judah (p. 119). SPCK; Westminster John Knox Press.