Risen Hope

I have said many times elsewhere that Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason (STR) is the clearest communicator of the Christian faith that I am aware of. I cannot think of anyone who is more precise and concise when it comes to either explaining the Christian faith or defending it.

One of the helpful things about his organization is that they produce short, succinct videos in response to questions that they receive. Today’s video is on the topic of prayer and I thought it appropriate to share.

If you are not a subscriber to STR and their materials, I would highly recommend becoming one. They are a wonderful apologetics organization and they have a wealth of information (much of it free) and resources (located in their online store for purchase) on their website to use and help you become better equipped at sharing and defending your faith.

In the synoptic gospel tradition Matthew, Mark, and Luke all share this story from Jesus’ ministry where the Sadducees challenge Jesus on the Torah and the resurrection (if you do not remember, the Sadducees denied there was such a thing as the resurrection).

Some Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection) came to Jesus, and began questioning Him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves behind a wife and leaves no child, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother. There were seven brothers; and the first took a wife, and died leaving no children. The second one married her, and died leaving behind no children; and the third likewise; and so all seven left no children. Last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection, when they rise again, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had married her.”

Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures of the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I Am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken.” (Mark 12:18-27)

Jesus addresses the Sadducees on at least three different levels here.

Marriage

Marriage and procreation are unnecessary functions of the resurrected in the life to come. The purpose of marriage and family is to continue the human race because we face death. God setup a system to keep us from dying out and going extinct. But in the life to come, there is no death and therefore no need to be married and have children. We live forever and do not need to procreate.

Life After Death

Jesus continues with his argument against the Sadducees by showing them their faulty thinking. Reaching back and using as an example a passage of the Torah that they would accept (the Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament) Jesus talks about Yahweh revealing himself to Moses in the burning bush. He says that Yahweh is the God of the living not the dead, yet Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived centuries before Moses and had been dead and buried long ago. The point here is that though their bodies had died, they were in fact still alive, but not only that, this pointed to the general resurrection that would happen in the future. Because they were still alive in a disembodied state, at some point they would be rejoined to their resurrected bodies.

Exodus and the Kingdom of God

Moses led the people out of bondage and slavery via the Exodus from Egypt. The Jews living at the time of Jesus were also under bondage to the Roman empire. They expected the Messiah to provide some sort of nationalistic/political exodus for them. Jesus, viewing all people being held in bondage to sin, saw the act he was about to undergo (death, burial and resurrection) as a spiritual exodus leading the people out of a bondage of sin and death and into the Kingdom of God.

Chapter 5: The Flag of the World

In this chapter, Chesterton makes his first encounter with Christianity as he sifts through and attempts to understand the world. At this point in his investigative journey he begins to see a half-buried parallel of his views to those of Christianity; he is beginning to see evidence that the path he is walking on is well-tread.

Up to this point he has been talking and making distinctions about the optimist and the pessimist. Then he writes this gem of a paragraph:

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself.

Chesterton has spent a little time discussing how loyalty comes before admiration; how one belongs to something before asking if it is a nice thing to belong to; how we can feel at once both at home and homeless in the same place.

This seems to echo that wise philosopher Paul of Tarsus who wrote these seemingly paradoxical statements:

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” ~ Romans 12:2a (NASB)

“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.” ~ 1 Corinthians 9:19-22 (NASB)

Previous posts from The Gospel Coalition (GC) and Mere Orthodoxy (MO) in this series:

1. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Introduction (GC)
2. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Chapter 1 (MO)
3. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Chapters 2 & 3 (GC)
4. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Chapters 4 & 5 (MO)

Previous posts from Risen Hope in this series:

1. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Part 1
2. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Part 2
3. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Part 3
4. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton – Part 4a