Birth, Death, and Life In Between

The changing of seasons, the church year, and Husband's current group book study have me thinking about the passage of time as it relates to people's earthly lives. This week, I'd like to explore a few of those concepts more closely. (And, on November 8, please wish the late Conrad Hal Waddington a happy birthday commemoration--he is the unintentional namesake for this blog!)

Birth and New Birth

In the Christian church and elsewhere, birthdays of significant people are celebrated or at least remembered annually. On November 10, many denominations remember Martin Luther’a birthday.

Martin Luther

The father of the Reformation, Luther spent most of his life in his native Germany. Important literary sources for his reinterpretation of the story of Scripture, particularly his understanding of how one is justified (courtroom sense) before God, were Galatians and medieval mystics. At least one recent commentator--I forget who--opined that if Luther had started with Ephesians and not Galatians, the Reformation would have looked much different. Check out New Perspective on Paul (NPP) scholars for more details.

New Birth

Of comparable or greater significance to a Christian’s birthday is his or her baptismal remembrance. No matter your stance on what happens through baptism, if you are baptized, you’re aware that it’s important and that something did happen. 

In my understanding, there is consensus in Scripture and the Church fathers (first generations of Christians) on the following points:

• Baptism is normally associated with the Holy Spirit's creation of faith in the baptized individual; a verbal profession of the learned faith may occur at the same time or at a later time as one is discipled over a lifetime in the faith
• Baptism in the triune God's name means that the focus is on the authority of the One commanding it (i.e., humans "are baptized" and the work is God's through the hands of others)
• Baptism-faith is the boundary marker to the new covenant, that replaces circumcision as bringing one into the family of God
• Infants should be baptized as soon as possible for the above reasons (the fact that infant baptism is almost never mentioned in Scripture and other writings most likely means that it wasn't a controversial issue that needed to be addressed at the time)

Life Before Death

Lately, I've been reading enough theological/philosophical books to make myself automatically think of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life when this topic comes up. A few common questions that may come up for the thinking reader (Christian or non-Christian), that are somewhat easily answered as long as one is not > 80% skeptical, include

• Why were the four canonical Gospel accounts written?
• To recall for early-generation Christians the key events (from 4 perspectives) of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. (John's gospel has typically been held to have been written later than the others, but still within well under 75 years from the time of Jesus' crucifixion.)
• Why were the four canonical Gospel accounts, but not others, included in the Scriptures?
• Church Fathers' writings provide the bulk of the explanation.
• Are the Gospel accunts reliable/preserved in essentially the same form as when the original manuscripts were written?
• Yes, Bart Ehrman's nitpicking notwithstanding.
• Why are there differences in the Gospel accounts? Scholar Michael Licona has written a book with essentially this title, with a (predictably) negative review from an Evangelical perspective.
• Ancient biography and historiography had different "rules" than what post-Enlightenment people would expect today in terms of precision and other factors.

What does that mean for your perspective on the Gospels or the rest of the Scriptures? Your stance on apologetics? Your life on earth related to your perspective on Jesus Christ?

Death and Life After

When a Christian dies, the historical/orthodox teaching is that the body rests while the soul goes to be in paradise/heaven with Christ immediately. The Greek word chosen by New Testament writers to express "paradise" connotes a temporary resting place ("mansions" or "rooms" of John 14:2 among others). So, yes, Christians do go to heaven (not a physical place, but more like a dimension that touches our known dimensions) when they die. However, they don't stay there forever (next section)!

One other note on death is that, like birth dates, death dates of various people are also commemorated or celebrated in some way. Martin Luther's death day is February 18. From what I could find, the largest-scale example of this is Day of the Dead (pagan in origin). In the Anglican tradition, the weekly prayers include a petition about the saints who have died in the faith:

We remember before you all your servants who have departed this life in your faith and fear, [especially _____________,] that your will for them may be fulfilled; and we ask you to give us grace to follow the good examples of [N., and] all your saints, that we may share with them in your heavenly kingdom. 

Life After Life After Death

For the Christian, death--and heaven--are not the end! We await the bodily resurrection once God has determined that the new heavens and new earth are fully ready. This is why we steward this creation (people, environment) and give effort and attention toward our vocations in the present.