Featured NT Wright's view on Heaven

Not just heaven... so much of western theology and philosophy comes right out of neo-platonic thinking. Gnosticism still roots its ugly head when people focus on "going to heaven" and ignore the fact that God made us to have bodies, God created a place to dwell with humans (not the other way around), and the Bible ends with new creation not heaven.

 

And yet in the Resurrection, we will be like the angels: no marriage, no procreation, and by implication, no male or female. So, it isn't a mere restoration. It is a transformation. The New Heaven and New Earth will be such as that which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man.

That song "I Can Only Imagine" ? . . . unscriptural hogwash.

 

Quite right... however Piper not so much. I'm a big JP fan. And while he does maintain a view on new creation and resurrection (cf. his last few chapters in Future Grace for example), he doesn't seem consistent in his language. I mean that Piper uses heaven language quite frequently without making much if any distinction with new creation.

 

Does Wright believe in 'soul sleep'? That is, does he believe that those who die are unconscious until the Last Day? That would seem to be contradicted by verses like Luke 23:43 and 2 Corinthians 5:8.

However, if Wright is talking about where we shall be in the Eternal State, then the view that it will be on the New Earth is not peculiar to him. An excellent book on eschatology (especially if you happen to be Amil ) is The Bible and the Future by Anthony A. Hoekema, written in 1979. We shall be resurrected with new, material bodies and we shall live upon a new earth. 'Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.' Why would we want to inherit this present doomed world? We don't go to heaven; heaven comes to us! Revelation 21:1-3. God and the Lamb are present with us (Revelation 22:1-5), and the new heavens and the new earth are effectively one.

'And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another. How my heart yearns within me!' (Job 19:26-27).

 

What in the world has this to do with being a "Landmarker"??? I have taken the time to read what Wright says concerning justification. I have read his views on the sacraments. He make himself extremely clear about his views of the sacraments in relationship to salvation. I have carefully studied his careful definitions of "without works" in Romans 4 and he preaches precisely what Paul condemned as "another gospel" but does it skillfully so that many are deceived into thinking he has some new insights on the true gospel. He does not! He has simply repacked the false gospel in new language.

 

His scholarly abilities or training is the problem. The issue is his very skillful interpretations of specific Biblical passages that are designed by the Holy Spirit to be definitive in order to protect a given truth. The worst kind of heretic is not the person who simply contradicts what the scriptures teach. The worst kind of heretic imaginable is the person who takes those Biblical passages which are designed to be definitive statements to protect and defend a certain truth and skillfully reinterprets them to say the very opposite of what they actually are designed by God to protect. N.T. Wright has accomplished that with regard to the doctrine of justification especially his interpretation of Romans 4:5-11, 16-22. You would think that his unprotected and clear sacramental teaching would wake people up to his real soteriology, but many seem to be so enchanted by his "new" approach in packaging a false gospel in such a scholarly way, that they simply dismiss the obvious.

 

If what you say is true about him, then he is a sly deceiver indeed, as the scripture have a great deal to say about where we go when we die. Both Christ and Paul have a great deal to say about that subject. Obviously a soul-sleeper would attempt to shift the focus of his readers from what the scripture says about where one goes when they die to the more lovely subject of the final new creation without sin.

Of course the Second Adam is going to ultimately restore much more than what the first Adam lost. But it is how He does it that many are completely ignorant. The point of tremendous ignorance is concerning the Biblical issue of death. Such scholars don't grasp either the full impact of the first death much less the nature of the second death. One cannot properly understand "life" until they first understand the true nature and consequences of death. For example, look carefully at Matthew 10:28. Jesus is not merely denying that man's soul ceases to exist at physical death, but he is just as clearly denying that the soul ceases to exist between physical death and final judgment which does not occur until after the Second Coming of Christ.

 

Not at all in regards to soul sleep.

And he never claims his view is unique, only that the church has lost its emphasis on new creation and traded it for a disembodied heaven.