Death and the Afterlife Pt 1 Flashcards
What are the implications of Jesus’ resurrection?
- Resurrection did not mark the end of the world but the beginning of the Jesus movement and Christianity
- Jesus’ resurrection was a moment of hope over despair
- A moment where God acted mysteriously and spectacularly
What did Jesus’ teaching contain?
Jewish eschatology based on teaching of the Pharisees, not just about immortality but about world order
- His life was a sacrifice for sin
- His death would prompt the establishment of world order
- He would be raised with saints, martyrs and his followers would have a place in the kingdom
Quote Mark on the kingdom of God arriving
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom has come near” - Mark 1:14
- Many Christians thought they were near Parousia
What would Parousia do?
Judge the world and those who lived righteously would live eternally in God’s restored and renewed world
How does the Book of Revelations depict the Kingdom of God?
- New age as a time of no suffering where heavenly Jerusalem descends to Earth as a symbol of renewed world
Quote the Book of Revelations on the new age?
“God himself will be with them… Death shall be no more” - Book of Revelation 21:1-4
What are the 3 interpretations of the Kingdom of God?
- An actual place
- A spiritual state
- A symbol of the moral life
What is the Kingdom of God as a present moral and spiritual state?
- In the Gospels there was a call for moral and spiritual reform
- An Inaugurated eschatology (presentation as if the Kingdom has already started)
- Jesus’ healing miracles, e.g sight to the blind, are signs the new age has come
Quote OT prophet Isaiah on the Kingdom of God?
“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened”
- ‘Nowness’ of the kingdom
- time to overcome racial prejudice, discrimination and failure to practice religion
How is the Kingdom of God presented as a future redeemed state?
- Jesus’ eschatology is traditional
- Preaches that the future kingdom is a state where righteous live in perfect harmony with God in a redeemed world
How does St Paul represent the Kingdom of God as a future redeemed state?
- Says Jesus’ resurrection was a sign that the world is restored, we can ‘see’ and ‘know’ God
- Before Christ we were merely able to see heaven as a ‘dark glass’, now we can see ‘clearly’
How does John the Divine represent the Kingdom of God as a future redeemed state?
- The sacrificial death of Jesus washed away sin
- The righteous may now live in New Jerusalem and experience Gods joyous presence
- Other writers use NT as images of future state as perfect and completion of God-Human relationship
What question about punishment and justice does the OT raise? (Quote)
“Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” - Jeremiah
- Why do the wicked prosper and the good suffer?
How does the OT answer to the question of punishment and justice?
- Jesus says that the wicked have enjoyed their ‘reward’ and will be excluded from the kingdom of God
How does the Gospel of Mathew view hell?
- A state of Hades or Gehenna
- Hades in Greek thought was a shadowy half existence of human spirits awaiting judgement
- Gehenna in later Jewish thought was a place of torment and suffering
- OT Hades is Sheol
- Mathew combines ideas to warn unrighteous that hell is fire. torment. wailing and lament
Quote the Revelation on hell
“Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire”
The Second Death
What is the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus?
- Rich man who ‘feasted sumptuously’ steadily ignored ill man Lazurus
- Both died on the same day, Lazarus ended up in heaven, Rich man was in Hades
- Rich man was in flames and asked Lazarus to ‘dip tip of his finger in water and cool’
What does the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus teach us?
- The Rich man had an unchanged attitude towards Lazarus, using him as means
- “but now he is comforted here and you are in agony” - Luke
- Challenges the common belief that richness on earth is God’s blessing
- Rich man was perhaps a sadducee
What is the problem of the delay of parousia?
- First generations hopes for Jesus’ return and arrival of the kingdom for one of the earliest prayers ‘Maran Altha’
- Jesus was not here and an eschatology emerged to explain this
What did the eschatology about the delay of parousia say? (Quote)
- Jesus had warned against making exact calculations of his return “but about that day and hour no one knows” - Matthew
- Some of Jesus’ parables emphasised delay and sudden return, you must be morally vigilant as the kingdom arrives with no warning despite delays
What is the issue of ‘place’ in the kingdom of God?
- Where is the new kingdom and is it the same as heaven?
How did John the Divine deal with the issue of ‘place’?
- Vision in the Book of Revelations suggests heaven is not a disembodied state but a continuation of conditions of the world
- 1st, saints who undergone ‘first resurrection would rule in heavenly state for a thousand years
- 2nd, after vanquishing of satan the world will be replaced by the ‘new earth and new heaven’
What is the issue of time and judgement in the kingdom of god?
- Exact moment of judgement dat at the ‘end’ of time is unknown
- NT writers suggest ‘final’ judgement is less important than personal judgement
- In Richman and Lazarus it was straight after death
- Lukes Gospel contains Jesus saying to the robber ‘today you will be with me in paradise’
What does Matthews Gospel say about time and judgement?
- The righteous who died before Jesus are resurrected when Jesus dies and establish a new covenant with God
