From the Revd Christopher Miles
Sir, - Recent letters (12 and 19
April) about the resurrection of Jesus speak of God's
contravening or superseding his laws of creation. I suggest that
God is contravening or superseding only our limited understanding
of the laws of God's creation. "As the heavens are higher the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than
your thoughts" (Isaiah 55.9). Our scientific understanding of the
laws of nature is a developing understanding, which, we hope,
approximates to and approaches God's laws of his creation.
Consider Newton's laws of motion and gravity. For most practical
applications, they are valid today. Einstein, however, developed
and refined these laws in his theories of relativity. Work on a
cosmic scale must take into account this development. We wait to
see what developments and refinements will take place in the 21st
century.
Many mathematical functions have what are known as "points of
singularity", at which the value of the function changes suddenly
from a quite ordinary, finite, value to an infinite value. In God's
unique plan of salvation, it should not surprise us if there are
"points of singularity" that we do not fully comprehend.
Nevertheless, God prepared us for Jesus's resurrection by the
raising of Jairus's daughter, the widow's son at Nain, and in the
sixth sign in St John's Gospel, Lazarus, when Jesus deliberately
waited for four days so that there was no doubt about Lazarus's
death.
There is, of course, a difference between the raising to
ordinary life here on earth of these three people and Jesus's
resurrection. These three had to die again in the first century AD,
whereas St Paul writes of Jesus that death has no more dominion
over him (Romans 6.9).
He also tells us that Jesus's resurrection is the first-fruits
from the dead (1 Corinthians 15.20). I look forward in the sure
hope that, in due course, I, with many others, at a point of
singularity known as the last trumpet call (1 Thessalonians 4.16),
will receive our resurrection bodies in a multidimensional heaven
far more wonderful and glorious than life here on earth, and fully
in accord with God's plan of salvation and the laws of his creation
of this world and the next.
CHRISTOPHER MILES
2 Spa Close, Hadlow
Tonbridge
Kent TN11 0JX
From the Revd Diana Spencer
Sir, - A point about the resurrection which needs to be
emphasised is its significance rather than the bare fact that Jesus
was seen to have survived death, and still be alive.
The truth of Christianity depends on whether the disciples saw
God in human form in the Risen Lord, (rather than just "the human
Jesus" whom they had known previously), and suddenly realised that
the union of humanity and divinity in Christ was not only a
reality, but one in which we can share if we "abide in him".
"Abiding in Christ" was one of Jesus's main teachings (e.g., the
metaphor of the vine and the branches); 2 Peter 1.4 refers to our
becoming "partakers of the divine nature"; and St Paul elaborated
on this union with God through Christ by saying that if someone is
"in Christ", that person becomes a new creation; and he referred to
Christ as "the first-fruits" of that new creation.
Some of Jesus's most profound teaching may well have been done
after the resurrection, when the disciples could see him as he
really was, both God and Man, and more easily understand the
significance of what was being said, seeing for themselves humanity
and divinity united in him. (Luke's Gospel recounts how "He
interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself," and John's Gospel records that "His disciples did not
understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they
remembered that this had been written of him and had been done to
him.")
The resurrection revealed to the disciples that we truly can
come to union with God, in this life and the next, our humanity
being reconciled with divinity, in him, as we intentionally come to
"abide in him, he in us" ("Not I, but Christ in me"). It was much
more than Christ's being "with them in spirit as much as he had
ever been". Their understanding had been completely enlightened:
the resurrection was a life-changing experience, both in their new
confidence and courage, and in their understanding of who he was,
and how he has made it possible for us to come to union with God
through him, which is what our faith is all about.
DIANA SPENCER
Apt. B.406, 2100 Bloor Street West
Toronto, Ontario M6S 1M7
Canada