Easter and the Death of Death: Our Hope Springs Eternal

Bluejay perched on a gravestone.
Bluejay perched on a gravestone. by Michelle Frechette is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0


“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

1 Corinthians 15:20–26

Storytelling is at the heart of Christianity. God is a storyteller. We are either enraptured by and absorbed into this story, or we reckon it repugnant and run from the “Once upon a time”. Adam and Eve ate the fruit, bringing death into the world. Yet, in the primordial darkness, the first note of a grand symphony rang: Eve’s offspring would crush the serpent’s head. And two millennia before our time, a baby was born in Bethlehem. He would die and rise again, and in rising, as Paul notes in the passage above, He would secure our resurrection from the dead. In Christ was the death of death and the guarantee of life after death. For this reason, as the hymn says, “our hope springs eternal”. In this article, I seek to focus on one part of this story, namely our eternal hope.

We will begin our brief journey by contemplating what heaven is. It is where God “will wipe away every tear from [his people’s] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). Heaven is a great city with “no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:9-23). “By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, its gates shall never be shut by day”, and “there will be no night there” (Revelation 21:24-26). There shall be a “river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” and the “tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.” (Revelation 21:1-2). We shall behold “[God’s] face” and “reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:4-5).

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The Cross, Conversion Therapy, and the Countries Down Under

flag of australia
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“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…”

Ephesians 2:1-2A

Introduction

Recently, Australian news sources have been abuzz with plans for a bill outlawing conversion therapy to be passed in New South Wales. Though I do not think that we have any direct access to what the Australian bill contains, looking at our (New Zealand’s) conversion therapy act passed in 2022 will surely do some good.1 I will briefly provide an overview of the bill in this section, list two objections against our bill in the second section, and then address a deeper issue, namely the fundamental conflict of the Christian Gospel and conversion therapy bills.2

The explicit aim of the New Zealand conversion therapy bill is twofold: to “recognise and prevent harm caused by conversion practices” and to “promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender.” A conversion practice is defined as a “practice, sustained effort, or treatment” that “is directed towards an individual because of the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” and which is performed “with the intention of changing or suppressing the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

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Abortion and Peter Singer: Singing out of Tune

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ultrasound of an unborn child
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“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

Psalm 139:13

It is not a controversial fact that life begins at fertilization.1 For instance, a Princeton University webpage lists fifteen academic sources that support this point. One of the quoted sources clearly states that “fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed”.2 An article from PubMed states that “Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions… assessed survey items on when a human’s life begins and, overall, 96% (5337 out of 5577) affirmed the fertilization view [human life begins at fertilization]”.3 I could go on.

So, the abortion debate is now centred on philosophical considerations. One case study will do. Peter Singer, Emeritus Professor of Bioethics at Princeton, answers whether he would save a mouse or human being from a fire: in “almost all cases [he] would save the human being”. Interestingly, the reason for this saving is “not because the human being is human” but because “it matters whether a being is the kind of being who can see that he or she actually has a life — that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future”. Singer’s criteria for something that is worth saving involves some kind of temporal awareness. To explicitly connect this answer to abortion, “no newborn baby is a person” because newborn babies do not have “a sense of the future”.4

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Of Toolsheds, Marsh-Wiggles, Atheism, and the New Year

gray storage shed on brown sand
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“…in your light do we see light.”

-Psalm 36:9

Of Toolsheds and Marsh-Wiggles

A few minutes before the dawn of the New Year, I found myself on a steep and crowded street that overlooked most of the Auckland skyline. Most people (I included) aimed phones at the skyline in anticipation. A vague countdown began, and then the vast horizon blossomed with fireworks. I was struck by the sheer number of people fixated on recording, swaying their phones to and fro like wands by which memory and atmosphere could be captured.

The aim of this article is an indictment of modernity. As Michael Ward states: “The incessant spiritual orchestration that accompanies [the universe], that actually constitutes it, and that is normally inaudible, is now also considered incredible. The cosmos therefore comes to be regarded as nothing more than a very elaborate machine when in reality it is tingling with life…'”1 Ward claims that the medieval conception of the universe as a “festival not a machine” is now beyond belief.2 Our world has become disenchanted. In the words of Saturn by Sleeping at Last, we have lost the reality of, “How rare and beautiful it is to even exist”.

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On Christmas: Reflections on Homelessness

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Audio reading of the following article

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seem them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”

Hebrews 11:13

“In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you…”

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Homelessness

Home is a valued thing. Think about it. We all know John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads, where he sings: “Country roads, take me home / To the place I belong”. In nostalgic homesickness, the narrator1 describes West Virginia, where “Life is old there, older than the trees / Younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze”. He is constantly reminded of this home: “The radio reminds of a home far away / Driving down the road, I get a feeling / That I should have been home yesterday…”. Even the Bible speaks of home, for in Psalm 137, the Psalmist says: “By the waters of Babylon, / there we sat down and wept / when we remembered Zion.” When the Israelite’s captors demanded that they sing, their reply was: “How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” They were not home. They could not sing.

Or, ignoring the blasphemy and the terrible lyrics, observe how Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes casts home in a romantic light: “Home is wherever I’m with you”. Loving You’s Like Coming Home by Don Williams echoes this sentiment: “It’s a lonesome and endless highway I’ve been searching for so long / After all the miles I’ve travelled loving you’s like coming home”. Moving to Augustine’s Confessions, the African bishop describes his friendship with a childhood friend, “sweet to me above all the sweetness of that my life”. The friend was close to death and was baptised when unconscious. When he regained consciousness, Augustine attempted to joke with his friend about the baptism, but “he shuddered at me, as if I were his enemy”. The melancholic punchline hits: “A few days after, during my absence, he had a return of the fever, and died”. The friend died without reconciliation. Augustine’s world was rocked: “My native country was a torture to me, and my father’s house a wondrous unhappiness; and whatsoever I had participated in with him, wanting him, turned into a frightful torture.”2

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On the New Year: Reflections on Eternity

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Audio reading of this post

“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

2 Peter 3:8

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

C. S. Lewis

On the New Year: Reflections on Eternity1

Human recollection is a fickle thing. We quickly lose memories. For an event that occurred recently, we can recall more. But for an event that was further away, our minds hold blurred memories; mere snapshots and vague remembrances of atmosphere. For instance, in my first year of high school, our class went on an overnight tramp to Waitawheta. I can now remember snapshots of verdure, glimpses of swift rivers, chiaroscuros cast by swaying trees, a starry multitude residing in the night sky, glowworms nestled in rocks, the excitement of playing tag outside the hut, and an inordinate amount of tomato sauce ordered at a fast food joint. I still remember small details, like an elderly stranger advising me to roll up my sleeping bag because it would damage the seams less. But most of my memories have been consumed by time. Think of similar examples for yourself. How much could you remember right after the event occurred, and how much can you remember now? Perhaps there is a nostalgic veil over the entire thing, and you cannot remember much more.

Though human memory swiftly evanesces like a firework, God is different. The Scriptures tell us in bewildering, fascinating, and terrifying fashion that “from everlasting to everlasting [He is] God” (Ps. 90:2). “[W]ith the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Pet. 3:8). God “inhabits eternity” (Isa. 57:15). Traditional Christianity has interpreted these passages, along with a multitude of other passages, as teaching the eternity of God. Geerhardus Vos, the great Reformed Dutch theologian, described the eternity of God as the “attribute of God whereby He is exalted above all limitations of time and all succession of time, and in a single indivisible present possesses the content of His life perfectly (and as such is the cause of time)”.2 What I want to centrally focus on here is the phrase “in a single indivisible present”. This concept, upon further reflection, is mind-boggling. Let me explain.

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Christian Reflections on the Barbie Movie – Part Two

Barbie doll, blond beauty toy

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

John 1:4

Articles in this Series

Christian Reflections on the Barbie Movie – Part One

Christian Reflections on the Barbie Movie – Part Two

Feminism

In this section, I aim at a twofold goal: to provide commentary on the opening scene of the Barbie Movie, thereby leading to a discussion of demeaning children and abortion, and to present a Biblical case for the role of men and women.

The trailer or first scene of the movie begins with a landscape shot, shifting to depicting little girls playing with dolls and prams. The girls sit on a barren, rocky landscape. “Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls.” says the narrator dramatically. Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, a symphonic poem named after Nietzsche’s nihilistic philosophical work Thus Spoke Zarathustra, begins to play and continues in the background. The narrator continues: “But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls until…”. The music crescendos. A giant Barbie dressed in a black-and-white swimsuit appears. She lowers her sunglasses, smiles at the girls, and winks. The next shot immediately depicts a girl shattering a doll with a different doll. Another doll is thrown into the air.1

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Christian Reflections on the Barbie Movie – Part One

Polaroid Barbie camera (camera)

“And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,”

-Revelation 20:2

Articles in this Series

Christian Reflections on the Barbie Movie – Part One

Christian Reflections on the Barbie Movie – Part Two

Introduction

A few weeks ago, I had the unfortunate time watching the Barbie Movie in cinemas. It was an experience roughly analogous to having a wet cat dragged slowly over the nape of your neck, given that the cat was also brandishing its claws. However, in writing this review (mainly consisting of theological and philosophical reflection), I do not seek to lament or explore the psychological intricacies of this feline sensation. I fully recognise that in writing a review for a movie as especially pink, vibrant, and tongue-in-cheek as this one, I risk the labels of “Puritanical”, “bigot”, “fun-hater”, or other fallacious bullets contained in the liberal barrage. I will gladly accept the first: the Puritans were excellent theologians. I will deny the second and third while simultaneously wondering if those who utilise these terms have taken an elementary class in informal logical fallacies.

In the first section, I will briefly summarise of the plot of the movie (from my memory, so incomplete and perhaps inaccurate) and hopefully not risk the breach of any copyright laws. In the second section, I will seek to provide a theological framework from which we ought to approach our viewing of media.

The third and fourth sections will be in the next article. In the third section, I will critique the feminism permeating the Barbie movie, showing how it is perhaps more nuanced than expected, and provide some Biblical teaching against feminism. In the fourth section, I will evaluate the existentialism in the movie and provide the only alternative, namely the Biblical alternative. The conclusion, as the name suggests, will conclude. Let us proceed.

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The Irony of the Pride Flag

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

EPHESIANS 2:1-3

The Irony of Christ’s Trial1

The soldiers plunged the crown of thorns into Jesus’ head, undoubtedly rendering a skin-piercing agony. They placed Him in a scarlet robe, handed Him a scepter, and with malicious sarcasm, they hailed Him. They struck Him and asked Him to prophesy who had done so (Matt. 27:27–31; see also Mk. 15:16-20; Lk. 22:63-65, 23:9-11; Jn. 19:1-16). Later, on the hallowed ground of Calvary, Pilate hammered the sign above Jesus’ head that read “’Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’”. When asked to change what he had written to something less offensive, perhaps something less prone to misinterpretation, Pilate did not oblige (Jn. 19:19–22).

All of this harmonious cacophony served as a terrible yet joyfully juxtaposed irony. Those involved in Jesus’ trial knew not what they did, as our Lord prayed with dying breath (Lk. 23:34). But what they did was, in one sense, accurate. They crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8) but also crowned Him. They placed Him, the true King of kings and Lord of lords, in a scarlet robe (Rev. 17:14). The one prophesied to be the ultimate and true Davidic King who would shatter rebels with a rod of iron was handed a scepter (Ps. 2). The one asked to prophesy who had struck Him would be in a little while struck by His Father for the sins of His people (Is. 53:4). The one who hung on the cross as bystanders walked by and gazed at the sign above His head will, at the end of time, be rightly hailed as the King of the Jews by knee-bending humanity (Phil. 2:9-11).

Therefore, even in the depraved mocking and evil actions of wretched mankind, there shone this peculiar divine irony of what was to be: salvation for mankind, wrought by no other than the King of kings. Based on this wrought salvation, if the soldiers had faith in Christ, as the centurion presumably did (Matt. 27:54), then this irony became actuated in their lives in glorious salvation, in the transfer from the arena of darkness into Christ’s kingdom (Col. 1:13-14). If the soldiers did not, then their actions only furthered their condemnation. The incarnate Word, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:14), stood before them, and in their blindness, they rejected His gracious figure.

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Wisdom

One of our family practices is eating breakfast together and beginning the day with Scripture and prayer. Recently we have begun working through the book of Proverbs. The other day we came to the following section.

Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
    in the markets she raises her voice;
 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
    at the entrance of the city gates she speaks

Proverbs 1:20-21

It’s a verse we’ve come across before, but this time I paid more attention. I thought about the way wisdom is something that deals with the practicalities of life. Wisdom is about applying the Lordship of Christ to mundane and earthy things. Thus, it is interesting that wisdom cries out in the street, the market and at the city gates. These are the places where business, politics and justice are conducted.

Christianity is not a faith that remains a personal matter. It is not just about you and your quiet time with Jesus. It’s not just about a wonderful experience on Sunday in corporate worship. These things are important. But we are also called to live out this faith as we exercise dominion under the King of kings and Lord of Lords. That means our faith informs our everyday business and political life which sometimes concerns those of a more pietistic faith. A focus on the right doctrine and a personal faith in Christ is all very well and good, but if our private and public worship does not lead to wisdom in the mundane practicalities of life in God’s world, there is a problem.