Brian has refused to engage in any further debate, which is disappointing. Come back and fight, Brian! It’s only a flesh wound!

#6 I think the verse Brian referred to was Acts 10:42, but the phrase occurs 3 or 4 times. 2 Timothy 4:1 sounds particularly imminent:

“I charge [you] therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom”

In 1 Peter 4:5, the they who would be judged were still living.

The Jewish war was a judgment upon the Old Creation, centred in the Temple worship. But the events leading up to it were also judgments. Basically I think Brian’s contention was nitpicking. Did Jesus judge the dead in AD70? I believe he did. He judged–assessed–between who would be resurrected and who wouldn’t, and the believing Gentiles including the Queen of the South and the men of Nineveh helped him do it. (Luke 11:31-32).

#7 We need to put ourselves in Paul’s shoes. The Jews disputed who were the true sons of God (the mediatorial “body”). It was those who walked in the Spirit, evidenced by their lives, and that same Spirit would resurrect them. No, I think this quickening is resurrection but for Paul these things were linked and it was a pressing issue!

I don’t see how the hypers can say this “resurrection” happened to those still alive and they stayed around. The Tabernacle structure, and Revelation, imply it was governmental. The names of the tribes and the apostles are on the New Jerusalem. It is one big Laver made to stand up as walls like the Jordan. The crystal sea is now SQUARE. And the laver always refers to resurrection in the OT literary structures. You can see this in Totus Christus. Even David’s washing after mourning his dead son is put at this point.

I take your point on “bodies.” I am all for consistency, and the unity with prostitutes is a good point typologically.

#9 The Tabernacle “levels” are Word, Sacrament and Government. What happened in the Garden was measured out in the Land. And what happened in the Land is being measured out in the World.

But this trinitarian structure also qualifies each judgment.
The Father judged in the Garden and raised the Son.
The Son judged in the Land and raised the church.
The Spirit —incarnate in the church— will judge the world.

Revelation 1:7 refers to the first century. All the tribes of the Land, not earth.

The final (“second” resurrection) and judgment are in Revelation 20. All those “put on hold” at the Land judgment (the rest of the dead, Satan) will be despatched. When released, Satan will again take a human “body” and attack the saints, and again there will be a resurrection. But Christ said the terrors of the Jewish War were the worst the church would suffer. They firstfruits were the foundation.

“uttermost parts of the Land” At this point it was the Gentile oikoumene. God scattered the Jews, but resurrected them as priests in a bigger Tabernacle – described in Daniel 2. This is also the definition of Ezekiel’s Temple. Like the New Jerusalem it was a building made out of people, and in the Gospels, and especially in Acts, they start coming out of the woodwork – Gentile believers. This was harvest time. The fields were white because of the synagogues throughout the empire, despite the Jewish leaders.

I’ve probably missed stuff, so let me know if I haven’t covered everything.

Thanks, Joe.

#7 – Leithart’s arguments about Romans 8:18ff are certainly novel, but I didn’t seem him mention Rom 8:11. Are you saying that “quicken mortal bodies” is not a reference to bodily, physical resurrection, but to spiritual resurrection (in a governmental sense, or something like that)?

What’s more, Leithart’s argument about the singular of “body” in Rom 8:23 doesn’t take into account the fact that both Greek and English have a distributive singular in which a plural pronoun is used with a singular noun in a distributive sense (i.e. “our body” = “our bodies”). Rom 8:16 has an example where “our spirit” has a plural pronoun and a singular noun but doesn’t refer to some corporate spirit we have. The Spirit testifies to each of our individual spirits that we are children of God. See also 1 Cor 6 where the same construction (plural pronoun, singular noun) is used to refer to the uniting of individual bodies with prostitutes.

And even if Leithart is right, Rom 8:11 refers to mortal bodies, with “bodies” being plural in Greek. So whatever Rom 8:11 means, it happens to our individual mortal bodies. What exactly do you think this quickening was and, if it happened in AD70, did it happen to all Christians (or only the apostles and martyrs)?

#9 – Orthodox eschatology has traditionally consisted of at least 4 beliefs: 1) future, bodily resurrection of all men, 2) judgment of all men, 3) transformation of physical cosmos, and 4) personal, physical, visible return of Jesus to earth. I can see how you maintain 1 and 2 from Rev 20 and the three resurrections (Jesus, firstfruits, everyone). And I can see how you could get 3 from Rev 21-22 and in the final climax of Rom 8 (even if you hold that the progressive transformation “began” in AD70). But if you see Acts 1:8-11 as AD70 (as well as all of the “every eye shall see him” texts), then what texts support your confession of personal, visible bodily return? The creed says “He will come to judge the living and the dead.” Can you affirm this, and if so, on the basis of which texts?

Thanks Mike