Featured NT Wright false teacher?

He believes that when people are baptized and celebrate the Eucharist (among other things) that they are in fact participating in the Kingdom (experiencing the Kingdom within a covenant relationship) in the present instead of just participating in a symbolic ritual in anticipation of a future Kingdom. Those wacky Anglicans and their Eucharist.


http://www.reformedworship.org/article/march-2009/nt-wright-word-and-sacraments-eucharist

 

You believe great great grandma is walking the streets of gold in her final, etneral home right now? If so, then do you have a passage to support that and how do you deal with passages that speak of a new creation, resurrected saints, a new body, etc. Are they just symbolic for what already exist in the sky? If not, then yea...wow. there will be a new, literal Creation and we will exist with new, glorified bodies.

 

Wright has clarified very strongly that he is speaking of that final home, so I take it you two are wondering about me. I agree with both Wright and DA Carson here. Heaven is a new creation.

 

I believe DA Carson hit it right (in his gospel series). What is spoken of is God's presence with man in a new creation where we will have physical, resurrected bodies. I do not believe my father is already glorified in a resurrected body waiting for the city to be lowered to earth.

 

How can there be anything "new" in timeless eternity?

 

I don't think anyone is claiming the resurrection has already occurred or that the saints in Glory already have their resurrection bodies.

It seems to me the resurrection bodies will be here, on Earth, in time, populating the earthly millennial Kingdom.

In fact I mentioned that way back in the thread that the saints in Heaven will either be disembodied, or have some sort of intermediate body, between their fallen sinful bodies and their resurrected glorified bodies.

 

I don't know. I wouldn't have used those words (I borrowed them from the Apostle John).

 

I agree, except that I do believe that where we go when we die is an "intermediate" heaven, a place where we await "that day", and our final home is a reconciled and perfect and physical Heaven which is the New Earth.

 

Yes. We all believe that. So what is the debate about? It seems to me the only question is, "Does the Heavenly City already exist?" (Hint: It isn't called "Heavenly" for nothing.)

 

Well, actually, you didn't. John is talking about a "new heaven" and a "new earth." The last part should give you a hint where those new things are located. (Hint: earth exists in time.)

 

Are you saying God, the Father, will have a physical body??

 

I think you two are talking past each other. Jon did not say his Heavenly Father, but was referring to his earthly father who, I assume, has passed away. He was saying he doesn't believe his earthly father already has his glorified body (which none of the rest of us believe either, or have even mentioned, so I am not sure why he brought it up).

 

I brought it up because it is essential to my view of Heaven. I believe that Heaven (as our final "abode") includes Creation itself re-created and reconciled to God. As Carson put it, what God did in raising His Son will be done to Creation, it will be resurrected from it's current state. Heaven is this new creation of which we, in Christ, will take part.

And yes, I didn't catch that he had misunderstood that I meant my earthly father. My bad for not being clear. I don't think that Father God will have a physical body.

 

I have not studied the matter to that extent. When I watched the videos by D.A. Carson, I noticed a few things he said that I had not considered. He relates the New Jerusalem as the presence of God and views Christ as the lion, slain lamb, and city. So in his view, Heaven (not our "in between time" is the presence of God coming to dwell with His children in this new creation. He also considered "time, times and half a time" to be akin to "four score and seven years ago". He said it was a common expression to which the Jews would identify (pointing to the Maccabeans and speaking to this current time...these "last days"). I haven't considered that very much either.