Resurrection and the Reign of God
September 25, 2022
Sometimes I come across an idea that’s so new to me I don’t know what to do with it. Take this quote from theologian Richard B. Hays:
Precisely because the church’s dogma names a truth the world does not know, it rightly describes the truth about history in a way that a secularist historian is bound to miss. Another way to put this point is to affirm that the resurrection of Jesus is the epistemological key to understanding the world, and therefore the resurrection is the key to all history. If so, any history that does not begin from the vantage point of the resurrection of Jesus is perforce historically distorted, because it denies or fails to grasp the deepest truth about the history of the world.
What does it even mean?! Since the church takes the resurrection of Jesus to be true, we have a better understanding of history than a secular historian would. This is because the resurrection is the key to understanding the world. If we don’t put the resurrection front and center, then we are ignoring the single most important historical fact, the one which transforms every other historical fact.
That is a bold claim. My understanding of the world ought to have the resurrection at the center?
The other weekend we took a day trip to Newport, RI, to visit The Breakers. It was a lot of fun, seeing the grandeur that can be had with money. At some point I paused and asked myself, “what does God have to do with any of this?” I wasn’t sure then, and I’m not sure now. A lot of experiences are that way. Somewhere in the middle you pause and think, “where is God?”
Richard Hays claims that every facet of life is transformed, not by some generic faith in God, but by the very particular historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus. The historical fact of the resurrection says, not just that God exists, but that God is actively at work in creation, and has begun bringing his reign on earth as it is in heaven. The resurrection of Jesus means that the reign of God is not some esoteric, theoretical thing, some platonic ideal in the storehouses of heaven waiting to be realized, but is invading creation in real and tangible ways. The resurrection of Jesus is not just a misfire followed by a cease fire lasting some 2000 years; the war is raging all around us, if we will but have the faith to see it.
That last bit is the kicker—if we will but have the faith to see it. The resurrection does not have to be the center of our worldview. I don’t think it’s the center of my worldview. But it can be, and it should be, and until it is, we will have a distorted view of the world and God’s work within it. “If the resurrection isn’t real, our proclamation and faith are in vain.” (1Cor. 15.12-19) If we are not seeing the world through the truth of the resurrection, our view is distorted.
—John Coffey
