Biblical Studies

When and from where is Jesus ‘coming on the clouds’?

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The phrase ‘coming on the clouds’ is commonly misread as referring to Jesus’ return at the end of the age—when reading it in context and noticing its source in Daniel 7 paints a very different picture.

I have spent the week at Lee Abbey in Devon (if you have not been, you should go!), teaching on Hope and the End of the World.

In my teaching and reflection on issues around eschatology and the ‘second coming’ of Jesus, there is one phrase that keeps coming up, and to which people thinking about these things keep returning: the language of the Son of Man ‘coming with the clouds.’ When I have offered an alternative reading to the key passages in Matthew 24 and Mark 13, this is one of the main things that people get stuck on. I think the reason for this is that people assume that the key questions have obvious answers—so we don’t even need to ask them. But it is important to reflect on: in this phrase, where is Jesus coming from, and where is he coming to? When will this happen? And what is the origin of the phrase?

The end-times Spirit comes at Pentecost in Acts 2

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This Sunday is the feast of Pentecost, fifty days from Passover (hence the name), in the Jewish calendar the festival of Shavuot (‘weeks’), one of the three great pilgrim festivals (with Passover and Sukkot, ‘Tabernacles’). It was the beginning of the wheat harvest, but also celebrated the giving of the Torah on Sinai, and so had new significance in the light of Jesus. Where the Torah was our guide for living faithfully to God, now the Spirit not only shows us what obedience is, but empowers us to live in obedience. And those who receive the Spirit are now the first harvest (the ‘firstfruits’, 2 Thess 2.13, James 1.18, Rev 14.4), as the Spirit is the first harvest (Romans 8.23) of the wonderful things to come when Jesus returns, and shapes us in the life of Jesus, himself the first harvest of the resurrection from the dead (1 Cor 15.20).

The passages set in the lectionary are Acts 2.1–21, John 7 or 20, and 1 Corinthians 12. You can find written commentary on 1 Corinthians 12 here, and video discussion of it here.

The reading from Acts 2 is a long passage, and there is much to say about it. Against some popular readings, we need to note that the wind and fire were not literal but similes for Luke. There is powerful symbolic resonance with the ‘tongues as of fire’ being one thing which is divided amongst them, and these ‘tongues’ give them ‘tongues’, that is, languages, to speak. Fire in Scripture is a symbol of purification, and this denotes the presence of the Holy Spirit. The language of ‘as the Spirit gave…’ resonates with Paul’s language of the Spirit giving gifts in 1 Cor 12.

The spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12

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The lectionary New Testament readings for the Pentecost, this coming Sunday, are 1 Corinthians 12.3b-13, Acts 2.1-21, and John 20.19-23—but the first or second reading must be from Acts. So I suspect most churches will read Acts and 1 Corinthians 12. Written commentary on Acts 2 can be found here, and video discussion here.

Here I offer commentary on 1 Corinthians 12, with the link to the video discussion at the end.

What we call Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is clearly part of an exchange with the faith community there, since Paul makes reference to the previous correspondence back and forth; we actually have Paul’s second and fourth letters (depending on how you reconstruct the exchange). This because significant at key points in this letter, as Paul makes it clear that he is responding to questions asked or issues raised by the Corinthians themselves—but of course we don’t know what they have said, and can only speculate. It is an important window into Paul’s exercise of authority; I wonder if today, in a Church of England church, we could imagine the congregation challenging and questioning their bishop in an exchange of correspondence!

Ascension Day: the key moment of the New Testament?

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What would you identify as the climax and completion of Jesus’ life and ministry? Surprisingly, this is not a trivial question. One of the key differences between John and the synoptic gospels is that, where the synoptics portray the crucifixion as a necessary but incomplete act on the way to the resurrection, John portrays it as the climax and completion of Jesus’ ministry in itself. In place of Jesus’ cry of despair (Matthew 27.46, Mark 15.34), John records a cry of triumph ‘It is finished!’ (John 19.30). The promise of ‘living water’ springing from the belly or side of the one who believed (John 7.38), best understood in reference to the Temple prophecy in Ezekiel 47, is fulfilled in the blood and water from Jesus’ side at his death (John 19.34). No wonder the true testimony of this leads to faith (John 19.35).

But most of the NT would point to the resurrection as the completion. Paul’s theological linking of Jesus’ death and resurrection to our movement into and out of the water of baptism (Romans 6.3–4) suggests that crucifixion and resurrection belong together, and this is evident all through the proclamation of what God has done. This Jesus, whom you crucified, God raised from the dead, Peter tells the Pentecost crowd in Acts 2, and we are witnesses of this. Paul, in Luke’s parallel depiction of his ministry, also talks of ‘Jesus and the resurrection (anastasis)’ (Acts 17.18), so much so that his hearers think that Anastasis is the female consort goddess to the male god Jesus. Paul’s summary of the gospel for the Corinthians is that ‘Christ died for our sins…was buried…and was raised on the third day’ (1 Cor 15.3–4).

Yet most of the New Testament actually sees a third movement as an essential part and completion of Jesus’ work: the Ascension. We might miss this because of our theological tradition,

Jesus’ prayer to the Father in John 17

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The lectionary reading for Easter 7, the last Sunday of the Easter Season before Pentecost, is the first part of the ‘great prayer’ of Jesus in John 17.1–11. The lectionary divides the chapter into three parts over Years A, B and C, which either assumes that preachers and people have a good memory from year to year, or perhaps suggests that we think about the whole passage, but only read one section each year.

(The epistle is the two passages from 1 Peter 4.12–14 and 5.6–11; the video discussion of that passage is here and linked below, and the video discussion of John 17 is here and also linked below.)

Our chapter divisions do, for once, follow the logic of the narrative; the end of chapter 16 concludes the farewell discourse that began in John 13.31, and John 17.1 highlights this, as John turns from the disciples to speak to his Heavenly Father. (The phrase ‘he lifted up his eyes to heaven’ is a standard indicator of prayer directed to God.) But this part of the discourse, though formally directed to God, otherwise continues the form and style of the previous discourse. There continue to be abrupt changes of subject, and a kind of circling around from one subject to another, with summary apophthegms along the way. And the prayer is marked by a distinctive mix of past and future, so that things that, within the narrative, are future are referred to in the past tense:

Standing firm in 1 Peter 4 and 5 video discussion

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The lectionary reading for Easter 7 in Year A is split over two chapters in 1 Peter: 1 Peter 4.12-14; 5.6-11. The first part returns to the question of suffering, and both connects with previous teaching on suffering, and adds in new striking dimensions, in particular the mention of the Spirit.

The second part includes well-known encouragements to cast all our cares on God, because he cares for us.

In both, Peter echoes the teaching of Jesus, draws on the Old Testament, but also points to the reality of suffering for his readers.

The gospel reading for this week is John 17.1–11, the start of Jesus’ so-called High Priestly prayer.

The video discussion of that is here, and the written commentary is here.

What does Jesus have against us?

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Each year, during November, the Morning Prayer weekday lectionary takes us through the first few chapters of the Book of Revelation. In chapters 2 and 3, we have messages to the ekklesiae in seven cities of Roman Asia, the west end of what we now know as Turkey—and I happen to be sitting in one of those cities as I write, having just led a study tour around the seven. There are some important and challenging things to note about these messages.

First, these are not ‘letters’ as they are commonly called, since they do not have the features of first-century letter-writing. In fact, the whole of Revelation is a letter, with part of the introduction looking very similar to Pauline letters elsewhere in the NT. There is some debate in scholarship about how best to characterise this section, but the most persuasive suggestion is that these are royal proclamations from the risen Jesus who, having been raised, ascended and vindicated, exercises royal power from the throne he shares with the One seated there. And they are not written to ‘churches’ in the way we often think—institutions with buildings and leadership structures. They are addressed to the collective (and occasionally gathered) new Israel of God in Jesus.

Secondly, as is easy to see, the seven messages are striking in their consistent structure of seven main elements, including opening and closing phrases which are repeated word for word: