Dispatches from the Front Line - Reporting from the NT Wright Conference at Wheaton

Did St Paul go to heaven when he died?  Lecture by Markus Bockmuehl

This lecture raises the discussion about the traditional Christian eschatological belief about life after death - explicit in Surprised by Hope, and also touched on in Resurrection and the Son of God.

The Bodily resurrection of Jesus is the most fundamental element of Christian faith - "early Christianity was a resurrection movement" - NTW.  

Traditional Christianity is fundamentally at odds with the idea of resurrection for believers - biblical eschatology involves the resurrection of the body and God's return to Zion, in Jesus coming to God on earth.  

But how did Paul envisage this?  Did Paul change his mind and views on this?  Paul's view changes markedly in second Corinthians that he would get to see the Parousia.  How did Paul's surprisingly complex 'life after death' passages work on his readers?  2 Cor 4 and Eph 1, Wright sees as this as 'restful bliss' only.

2 Cor 5:1,6-8.  The use of the word 'heaven' does not do justice to the Hope we are meant to have.    So what did Paul really say?

• Rom 8; 1 Cor 15 etc.  Paul describes the Parousia as the time when the resurrection will take place.  Thos still alive at the time will be transformed.  1 Thes 4:14-17 seems to be problematic amongst the literal types - esp the Biblo Sci-Fi 'Left Behind' series.
• Wright calls this interpretation abusive and Gnostic.  If we read the Pauline part in light of the Pauline whole, we get to see the two-stage view of temporary rest and final resurrection.
• Paul's view on the afterlife - it is in the contested letters of Paul, we see even greater interest in the sense of the 'heavenly' afterlife.
• Col 3:1-4 and Eph 2:5-6 - Seems to be Paul's final view of 'heaven'.  What would this have meant for the early Christian readers?  Origen sees an abiding and future reality; Didymus speaks of the two different houses.  In other words, the resurrection body is seen as a key part of orthodox Christianity.
• For the early church fathers, there was never a belief in the disaggregation of the resurrection of the body.  When hopes surface for an earthly location of millennial hope.  
• Scholars have arrived at surprisingly different conclusions in Paul’s post mortem hopes.  Most early scholars agree
• NT’s view is that eschatological hope exists on earth, without the destruction of the space-time universe, but instead sees the key as the healing of this.
• The use of the word ‘heaven’ does not do justice to the Christian hope. 
• So, did St Paul go to heaven when he died?  Tom would say no, while Markus would say yes.  Markus ends by suggesting that Paul would probably go along happily with what NT affirms, but less so than what he denies.