"Do you want to believe in the living Christ?" says Barth. "We may believe in him only if we believe in his corporeal resurrection. This is the content of the New Testament. We are always free to reject it, but not to modify it, nor to pretend that the New Testament tells something else. We may accept or refuse the message, but we may not change it."
Karl Barth - Witness to an ancient truth
Tag Archive for 'resurrection'
On Sunday I preached on the final day of the college mission to Larkhall, Bath. The text of the sermon can be found here.
Rather than preach directly from a passage, I preached on the meaning of Jesus' bodily resurrection, both for life in the future, and life here and now.
Since working at A Rocha two years ago, I have become more and more aware of how important it is that a) Jesus was incarnated, b) he spent three years preaching and healing the sick, c) he was raised bodily from the dead.
All these things amount to a wholehearted affirmation of God's good creation. Many evangelicals seem to be drifting to an almost gnostic position, hugely prioritising the 'spiritual' over the 'physical'.
We must remember that when God's kingdom comes, we will not be living in a vacuum, floating on clouds in the sky, but on this earth, transformed. Heaven comes down to earth, not the other way round.
A further thing I have often wondered is if we should translate 'spiritual' in the New Testament as 'Spiritual', i.e., of the Holy Spirit. I'm sure someone has thought this before!
design © bcg mmviii
Recent Comments