The Resurrection and the Life

Following on from Good Friday, here’s another hymn from John Newton for Easter Sunday. This was published in the Olney Hymns, 1779, Bk. i., No. 116, under the title ‘The Resurrection and the Life’.

Notice the first three stanzas are set around by quotation marks, with Christ addressing the believer, to which the rest of the hymn then provides a response.

“I am,” says Christ, “your glorious Head,”

(May we attention give,)

“The Resurrection of the dead,

The life of all that live.

“By faith in me the soul receives

New life, though dead before;

And he that in my name believes,

Shall live to die no more.

“The sinner sleeping in his grave

Shall at my voice awake,

And when I once begin to save,

My work I’ll ne’er forsake.”

Fulfil thy promise, gracious Lord,

On us assembled here;

Put forth thy Spirit with the word,

And cause the dead to hear.

Preserve the power of faith alive

In those who love thy name;

For sin and Satan daily strive

To quench the sacred flame.

Thy power and mercy first prevailed

From death to set us free;

And often since our life had failed,

Had it not been in thee.

To thee we look, to thee we bow,

To thee for help we call;

Our Life and Resurrection thou,

Our Hope, our Joy, our All.

Rebecca McLaughlin on Easter

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (March 2025) it’s Is Easter Unbelievable? Four Questions Everyone Should Ask about the Resurrection Story by Rebecca McLaughlin, a short but excellent exploration of the reality and significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which is available in exchange for an email address here.

Foundations 87 (February 2025)

Issue 87 of Foundations: An International Journal of Evangelical Theology, published by Affinity, is now available from here (requiring an email address for a link to a downloadable pdf, though check here) which includes the below essays (abstracts posted where available).

Donald John MacLean

Editorial

Ian Shaw

Slavery, the Slave Trade and Christians’ Theology Part Two: Theological Themes

Stephen Steele

Garnishing the Sepulchres of the Righteous: Textual Criticism in the Free Church Fathers

The continued publication of the “Textus Receptus,” for example, a new edition by Grange Press, the publishing arm of the US Presbytery of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), provides the incentive to investigate the text-critical principles of the Free Church fathers. How did they view the Textus Receptus? Did they defend it in the face of new manuscript discoveries in their own century? The clear evidence is that they did not hold to a “Received Text” that was “fixed”, indeed, the leading figures among the Free Church Fathers explicitly disowned such a view. Advocates of the so-called “Textus Receptus” have a track record of claiming support from figures in church history who were far from claiming its perfection. Famously, the Anglican Dean John Burgon (1813-1888) would not be admitted to the Dean Burgon Society (founded in 1978). The society named after him exists “To Defend the Traditional Received Greek Text of the New Testament which underlies the King James Version.” Yet while believing the TR to be “quite good enough for all ordinary purposes”, Burgon was “far from pinning my faith to it”. “In not a few particulars”, he wrote “the ‘Textus receptus’ does call for Revision”.

Alison Umpleby

Review Article: She Needs

Nick Meader

Resurrection: Apologetics and Biblical Theology

Mark Roques and Steve Bishop

The ‘Christian’ Mysticism of Meister Eckhart and Terese of Ávila

In this article, we probe the so-called “Christian” mysticism of Meister Eckhart and Teresa of Ávila. We scrutinise the Orphic creation myth and Neoplatonism’s roots. We unpack how these two mystics would answer the six worldview questions. What is God like? What is the universe like? What is a person? Why do we suffer? What is the remedy? What happens after death? We conclude with a critique of “Christian” mysticism and show how it is both world-denying and auto-salvific. Neither option is Christian.

Book Reviews

Jesus Shall Reign

For this year’s Easter Sunday…

One of my favourite hymns (with more than the standard five or six stanzas we’re familiar with) from one of my favourite hymn writers (Isaac Watts), based on one of my favourite psalms (72).

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun

Does his successive journeys run;

His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,

Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

Behold the islands with their kings,

And Europe her best tribute brings;

From north to south the princes meet,

To pay their homage at His feet.

There Persia, glorious to behold,

There India shines in eastern gold;

And barb’rous nations at His word

Submit, and bow, and own their Lord.

To Him shall endless prayer be made,

And praises throng to crown His head;

His Name like sweet perfume shall rise

With every morning sacrifice.

People and realms of every tongue

Dwell on His love with sweetest song;

And infant voices shall proclaim

Their early blessings on His Name.

Blessings abound wherever He reigns;

The prisoner leaps to lose his chains;

The weary find eternal rest,

And all the sons of want are blessed.

Where He displays His healing power,

Death and the curse are known no more:

In Him the tribes of Adam boast

More blessings than their father lost.

Let every creature rise and bring

Peculiar honours to our King;

Angels descend with songs again,

And earth repeat the loud amen!

Great God, whose universal sway

The known and unknown worlds obey,

Now give the kingdom to Thy Son,

Extend His power, exalt His throne.

The sceptre well becomes His hands;

All Heav’n submits to His commands;

His justice shall avenge the poor,

And pride and rage prevail no more.

With power He vindicates the just,

And treads th’oppressor in the dust:

His worship and His fear shall last

Till hours, and years, and time be past.

As rain on meadows newly mown,

So shall He send his influence down:

His grace on fainting souls distills,

Like heav’nly dew on thirsty hills.

The heathen lands, that lie beneath

The shades of overspreading death,

Revive at His first dawning light;

And deserts blossom at the sight.

The saints shall flourish in His days,

Dressed in the robes of joy and praise;

Peace, like a river, from His throne

Shall flow to nations yet unknown.

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Rebecca McLaughlin on Easter and Resurrection

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (March 2024) it’s Is Easter Unbelievable? Four Questions Everyone Should Ask about the Resurrection Story by Rebecca McLaughlin, a short but excellent exploration of the reality and significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which is available in exchange for an email address here.

McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 23 (2021–22)

The latest McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry is online, containing the below articles along with a goodly collection of book reviews.

Articles and reviews are available to download from here.

Stuart Blythe

Preaching as a Rhetorical Act: Practices and Possibilities with Reference to the Rev. Dr. John Gladstone (1921–2005)

Laura Reece Hogan

Poetry

Vilma Blenman

Poetry

David J. Fuller

Fault Lines in Evangelical Hermeneutics: Divergent Accounts of Patristic and Reformation-Era Interpretive Approaches in Recent Works by Carter and Provan

Earl R. Bunch Jr.

Will the Cosmos Be Destroyed and Re-created or Instead Renovated?

Stephen J. Bedard

Jesus, the Resurrection, and Disabilities in the Afterlife

Reviews

Rebecca McLaughlin on Easter

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (April 2023) it’s Is Easter Unbelievable? Four Questions Everyone Should Ask about the Resurrection Story by Rebecca McLaughlin, a short but excellent exploration of the reality and significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which is available in exchange for an email address here.

The Journal of Inductive Biblical Studies 8, 1 (2021)

The latest issue of the Journal of Inductive Biblical Studies is now available online, with the below articles and their abstracts (where available). Individual essays are available from here, and the journal is available in its entirety as a pdf here.

David R. Bauer

From the Editors

Suzanne Nicholson

The Two Spotlights of Inductive Bible Study and Narrative Criticism

Narrative criticism and inductive Bible study share many key features, such as intensive investigation of textual details, recognition of the importance of viewing a book as a whole, and specific techniques for analyzing passages. Biblical narratives do not simply describe the events in the lives of Israelite kings, prophets, or Jesus and the early church. Rather, these highly crafted narratives lead the reader to theological conclusions through creative plot structures, characterizations, point of view, and other tools. Theological truth springs from literary art. When IBS intentionally includes narrative criticism as part of its analysis of biblical narrative, a deeper understanding of the text will emerge. This paper will focus on examples from the Gospels and Acts, with a more detailed look at Acts 15.

Wilbert Webster White

The Resurrection Body “According to the Scriptures,” Chapter Four

Wilbert Webster White

The Resurrection Body “According to the Scriptures,” Chapter Five

Dorothy Jean Weaver

On Serving and Sitting: A Curious, Upside-Down Story about Discipleship (Luke 10:38–42)

This sermon presents the biblical text of Luke 10:38–42 and offers a “traditional” interpretation of this text. This “traditional” interpretation hinges (1) on Jesus’ rebuke of Martha (10:41) and (2) on Jesus’ commendation of Mary (10:42). Such an interpretation, however, leaves the almost unavoidable impression that Jesus is ungrateful for Martha’s efforts in doing the “women’s work” and cooking a meal for a large crowd of people. The sermon then deconstructs this “traditional” interpretation as it re-examines the text of Luke 10:38–42, paying special attention to the broader Lukan usage of the key vocabulary here, namely “serve” (diakoneo): 10:40a/b) with regard to Martha and “listen/hear” (akouo: 10:39) with regard to Mary. This reexamination leads to the paired conclusions that (1) Mary the contemplative will be called to active response to her “listening/hearing” (cf. Luke 6:46–49; 8:19–21; 11:27–28), while (2) Martha the activist – whose “service” reflects nothing less than the “service” of Jesus himself (22:25–27; cf. 12:37) – is even now called to “listening/hearing” as the foundation for her life of activism (cf. Luke 10:42).

9Marks Journal (December 2020) on Heaven

The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available from here in various formats, looks at ‘Heaven: Rejoicing in Future Glory’.

In the Editorial Note, Jonathan Leeman writes:

‘There’s been a lot of talk about politics and pandemics lately. These are important things to talk about. Disciples of Jesus should care about justice in this world and about physical well-being […]

‘Still, unless the saints continually focus the eyes of their hearts on the eternal, we will wrongly prioritize the temporal over the eternal, what we can see over what we cannot see – our present cities over the city whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10).

‘Therefore, as we come to the close of 2020, with all its important talk about politics and pandemics, 9Marks wants to help all of us once again cast our eyes toward the eternal – toward heaven. After a tough year like this one, we need to recalibrate. We need reminding of what’s of first importance, lest we lose our way […]

‘The world yanks our eyes to focus only on right now. But we must always fight to look toward eternity. Only then will politics and pandemics, work and play, the world or life or death or the present or the future, assume their right places (see 1 Cor. 3:22).’

On Being Overwhelmed [Redux]

I wrote this piece for ‘Connecting with Culture’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. If it sounds familiar to the two regular readers of my blog (Hi, Mum! Hi, Brett!), that’s because it’s a beefed-up version of a piece I wrote last week.

It was Harold Wilson who allegedly said that ‘a week is a long time in politics’. In these recent momentous days, it looks as if that should be reduced to five minutes.

In the space of a very short time, life has been turned upside-down. Work, school, family life, daily routines, leisure activities, as well as that number one pastime – shopping – have changed for all of us, almost overnight.

It’s easy to see why our nation – nay, our world – is uneasy. You may feel it yourself, identify it in friends and colleagues, or see it reflected in your social media feeds. We’re experiencing what theologian David Ford has called ‘multiple overwhelmings’. Whether personally, professionally, or politically, it’s one thing to have a single event that knocks us off our feet. But what if the knocks continue to come thick and fast? Is it any wonder we’re confused, anxious, distrustful, and fearful?

In all this, though, shafts of light manage to break through – the neighbours forming WhatsApp groups to support people in their street, the already-exhausted NHS workers coming in for the next shift, the rainbows in windows of houses saying more than the occupants of those homes perhaps know about the commitment of God to his creation.

They’re all traces of grace, showing something of a refusal to be shaped by the prevailing culture, which Christians of all people should understand. Because while some ‘overwhelmings’ wound and crush us, others are life-giving and transformative. As David Ford says, the wisest way to cope is ‘not to expect to be in control of everything’, but ‘to live amidst the overwhelmings’ in a way that lets one of them shape the others.

During this period of Lent, Christians remember that Christ himself embodied ‘multiple overwhelmings’ – baptised in the Jordan, driven into the wilderness, tempted by the devil. Then, at the climax of his life, betrayed, deserted, tortured, crucified. But, as Ford writes, ‘then came the resurrection, the most disorienting and transformative overwhelming of all’.

Given that death-and-resurrection pattern, what would it look like at this time to be overwhelmed by gratitude? Overwhelmed by generosity? Overwhelmed by a commitment to pray? Overwhelmed by a desire to see others thrive, even if it comes at our expense? Overwhelmed by an assurance of God’s love?

Given the resources available to us in the gospel, what might we be overwhelmed by today?

Centre for Public Christianity (March 2016)

The Centre for Public Christianity has posted an audio interview with John Smith and Collett Smart ‘about where true self-worth might be found’, and an audio interview with screenwriter Paul Aiello and producer Patrick Aiello on their latest movie, Risen, talking about ‘the writing process, casting Jesus, and why the resurrection is still an important story to tell’.

Also posted are some video interviews with Roland Chia ‘about why theology and the humanities generally are relevant to questions of biomedicine and biotechnology; why bioethics is an issue for everyone; why we should resist the commodification of the human body; and how people with very different worldviews can have a productive dialogue about these issues’.

Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 18, 4 (2014)

The latest issue of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology has been posted online. It carries the below main articles on the resurrection, and is available as a pdf here.

Stephen J. Wellum

Editorial: Reflections on the Glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ

Mitchell L. Chase

“From Dust You Shall Arise:” Resurrection Hope in the Old Testament

Raymond Johnson

Matthew 27:51-54 Revisited: A Narratological Re-Appropriation

Lee Tankersley

Raised for Our Justification: The Resurrection and Penal Substitution

A.B. Caneday

God’s Incarnate Son as the Embodiment of Last Day Resurrection: Eternal Life as Justification in John’s Gospel

David Schrock

Resurrection and Priesthood: Christological Soundings from the Book of Hebrews

Ted Cabal

Defending the Resurrection of Jesus: Yesterday, Today and Forever

SBJT Forum

Book Reviews