Essay 80 (7-02-05)

THE APOSTLES' CREED AS COMMON GROUND (3)

One thing we are saying in this series on the Apostles’ Creed is that one’s faith may have its problems and still be viable. Honest doubt is better than an unexamined assurance. Truth has nothing to fear from rigorous examination of one’s presumptions. One can believe profoundly – a simple trusting faith – and still deal with difficult questions. She can still believe even when she can’t answer all the questions. Faith isn’t having all the answers as much as trusting in all the promises. One can glory in the promises even amidst all their mysteries.

Peter was talking about promises of God when he mentioned that "our beloved brother Paul" has written in his epistles "some things hard to be understood." That his fellow apostle was sometimes difficult to understand did not appear to bother Peter. True, he referred to some -- "the untaught and the unstable" – who wrested some things that Paul said "to their own destruction." But nonetheless those to whom he was writing could "grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord" in spite of difficulties in understanding.

The mind matters. As one works his way through this Creed it is all right to think and to question. Even to have reservations. That prayer in Mk. 9:24 -- "I believe, help my unbelief" – may sometimes be appropriate as we cope with difficulties in biblical interpretation.

The third day he rose again from the dead.

When we come to this line we are at the heart both of the Creed and of the Christian faith. All else stands or falls on the claim that he who was crucified became the risen Lord. If the resurrection of Christ is indeed a fact it stands as the most significant event in human history. It is the thing "most surely believed among us" that multiplied millions have lived and died for.

And yet at the outset we are confronted with an amazing truth: On Easter morning there was not one person on earth who believed that Jesus would rise from the dead.

It is nothing less than amazing – it is indeed a problem – that his own disciples were not expecting it, in spite of the fact that he repeatedly told them it would happen. It cannot be made plainer that this (Jesus has taken his disciples aside and is talking to them): "Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man is about to be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death and hand him over to the gentiles. who will mock him and spit at him and scourge him and put him to death; and after three days he will rise again" (Mk. 10:33-34, New Jerusalem).

This is the third time, according to Mark, that Jesus foretold his passion and resurrection to his disciples, and each time it could not have been clearer: and after three days he will rise again. And yet on the second occasion – after Jesus told his disciples that he would be put to death and rise again --- Mark says of them: "But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him" (Mk. 9:32).

Did they not understand or did they not want to understand? Jesus may give us the answer when he said to them on an earlier occasion, "Do you still not understand, still not realize? Are your minds closed? (Mk. 8:18). Even when the women brought word to the disciples on Easter morning that they had seen the risen Lord, it is said of them, "Their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them" (Lk. 24:11).

This excessive incredulity on the part of the disciples has led some scholars to conclude that Jesus’ predictions of his resurrection must not have been as clear as they later appeared in Mark, that they must have originally been more subtle. A better explanation may be that the idea of the Jewish Messiah, which they now believed Jesus to be, suffering, dying, and rising again was so overwhelmingly incomprehensible to them that their minds were indeed closed.

As unlikely as it may seem, the disciples’ slowness of heart to believe became strong evidence for the resurrection. The very ones who at first did not believe in time came to believe with such conviction that they were willing to suffer and die for their testimony. Those who were at first incredulous could not be accused of seeing visions or fabricating a story. In the end there can be but one reason for their remarkable change – they saw the risen Christ with their own eyes, touched him with their own hands, and even ate with him. They would make convincing witnesses in any court of law.

This was the point I made in an Easter address to the faculty and students at Harvard Divinity School when I was a graduate student there. I referenced a legal scholar from the nearby law school of an earlier generation. Prof. Greenleaf studied the testimony of the evangelists as to the resurrection of Jesus from the standpoint of a jurist, and concluded that their testimony was unimpeachable and would stand in any court of law. They could not be accused of deceiving or of being deceived. Their reluctance to believe strengthened their testimony.

Another impressive fact about the Easter story is that no one questioned that the tomb was empty. The Roman authorities, the Jewish leaders, and the disciples of Jesus all understood that the body was no longer in the tomb on that Sunday morning – a reality that they all dealt with in different ways. But there were only two possible explanations – either the body had been taken away or it was risen. The claim that the disciples stole the body away goes back to the very beginning, but it is baseless to the point of being ludicrous.

That several Roman soldiers would fall asleep – at the risk of their lives for dereliction of duty – all at the same time, and remain asleep while a huge stone was rolled away and a grave robbed was not just highly improbable, it was impossible. Anyone would be a fool to attempt such nonsense. Besides, the disciples had no motive to contrive a resurrection, neither believing in one nor expecting one.

Too, the facts are clear that the burial cloths were left behind – collapsed in such a way as to reveal a missing body with the wrappings still in place. Hardly the scenario for a purloined body! This scene was so convincing – that resurrection was the only explanation – that it gained the first convert among the disciples. The apostle John tells us (John 20:8) that when he entered the tomb – after running to it along with Peter that Easter morning – and saw the condition of the cloths that "He saw and believed."

But the strongest evidence for the resurrection is that the Sanhedrin – which was really in a bind with the disciples out preaching a risen Jesus of Nazareth whom they had crucified – could not produce the putrefied body of Jesus. They arrested Peter and John for healing a lame man in the name of the risen Jesus. They threatened them and charged them not to preach, only to hear Peter boldly declare, "Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands before you whole" (Acts 4:9).

They marveled at Peter’s boldness. They were fearful over what it might all lead to. But they had an easy way out – expose it all as a fraud by producing a dead Jesus. Peter was bold because he knew that this was the one thing they could not do.

He ascended into heaven.

Chances are you’ve never heard a sermon on the ascension of Christ, and yet it has made its way into the creeds of the church all through the centuries. If we rarely speak of it, it may be because the New Testament rarely makes direct reference to it. Only in Acts 1:9-11 do we have a detailed account. There the disciples watch in wonder as "He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." While they are still gazing into heaven, two angels who are standing by say to them, "Why do you stand gazing into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner, as you saw Him go into heaven."

The context makes it clear that this occurred some forty days after the resurrection, which poses a problem in reference to time, for the same writer, in his gospel, indicates that the ascension took place on the same day as the resurrection (Lk. 24:51). That some manuscripts omit "and taken up into heaven" suggests that some well-meaning scribe (or scribes), seeing the conflict between the two accounts, struck that line in Lk. 24:51. This is a good example of how some scribes and preachers go out of their way to "protect" the Bible from any semblance of error. But it isn’t necessary, for such conflicts do not affect the message. What matters is that following his resurrection Jesus ascended into heaven, and Luke makes that clear in both accounts.

The word "ascension" can be misleading if we interpret it as did the ancients with their Ptolemaic view of the universe. To them God and heaven were "up" while Satan and hell were "down." In our modern world we see these spatial terms as symbols. Jesus was not literally "taken up" to "the right hand of God." There is no up or down or across in the universe. That Jesus was "taken up" or "ascended" means that he departed into the presence of God. And that he sits or stands at God’s right hand means that he joins the Father as sovereign over the universe.

While the word ascend itself rarely appears, there are synonyms that are frequently used, such as "exalted to the right hand of God" in Acts 2:33, "taken up" in Acts 1:9, "received up in glory" in 1 Tim. 3:16, and "gone into heaven" in 1 Pet. 3:22. During the forty days between the resurrection and the ascension Jesus appeared numerous times to his disciples. He would appear for a time, and then disappear. The only difference between these appearances (and disappearances) and the ascension is that the ascension was the last time. This means that Jesus ascended into heaven in the same resurrected (spiritual) body that he had during the forty-day interval, and Philip. 3:20 indicates he now has that same "glorified" body in heaven – and that our bodies will be transformed into the likeness of his glorious body.

That is the meaning of the ascension to us -- not only that Jesus becomes the exalted and glorified Lord to us, but our forerunner as well. He has gone before us into glory. As he is now we one day shall be. As he was taken up or departed into the presence of God so shall we. Paul said it well, "If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together" (Ro. 8:17).

(To be continued)

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