I am currently in a doctoral program, studying semiotics—cultural symbols—which requires a great deal of reading. Probably the greatest benefit of an education is the wise guide (teacher) who can give a curated tour of the best there is in any given subject, and such is the case with this program. Dr. Leonard Sweet has opened the door to an entire world of scholars and theologians who look beneath the surface of things and reveal mysteries. Now I would like to open that world to you.
I can tell, at the end of a read, how engaged I was by how many dog ears the book has. A Leonard Sweet book typically is in the dozens. This book is no slouch, though, it has fifteen (too many for one post).
Jesus Was not Abandoned
Hastings and I are in the camp of unbreakable trinity, that felt pretty good. He took several opportunities to say in the sternest tone possible that there is no way the Son was actually abandoned at the cross. Hear Here.
We Have Agency
“The opposite is true. We are never more ourselves than when we are in communion with Christ” (121).
Yes, This Is Mystical
At one point he emphasized this is not mystical. Not sure who he was worried would call him a mystic, something he seems to think is pejorative. I wanted to pat his hand and say, “There, there, this is absolutely mystical, which is a good thing.”
Atonement Parsing
There are lots of doctrinal words that seek to describe and explain this journey we’re on.
The main gist is that we participate with Christ, reflecting His glory, in every aspect of his death, resurrection, ascension, reign, and intercession, for we are in Him as He is in the Father (the trinity). There was a great deal of parsing on when exactly the atonement was complete (the cross) when the atonement was fully accepted (the ascension), and what is Jesus reign and intercession, that is the application of atonement.
Consecrated
At one point, Hastings turns to 1 John 3:3, and I would like to just say that in Greek, the word typically translated “purify” is better translated, in my opinion, as “consecrate” (185). All who have the hope of resurrection, ascension, glorification, and seeing Jesus as Who He is because we will be like Him consecrates themselves just as Jesus is Himself consecrated.
Wounds or Scars?
I spent a little time asking the internet when it was that Christ’s wounds came to be called scars, because eternal wounds and eternal scars hold very different implications from a semiotic standpoint. Hastings says wounds. That is new to me, and a bit gripping (106).
Metaphysics, Metaverse
We experience all this in the domain of earth, which is to say three-dimensional linear time. However, all these things take place also in heaven which is outside the fourth dimension and is, in fact, infused throughout what we know as the cosmos. This blends Wrightt’s work with Hastings work.
Eucharist
As Evangelicals, we have really lost the bouncing ball. In fact, it’s debatable whether we are even really singing the same song anymore, having updated the chords and added a praise refrain that actually shifts the old-time hymn to somewhere else. Hastings is enamored with Calvin, which was helpful since I am not. Here, Hastings said even Calvin understood there is something more than mere symbolism and remembrance happening during communion (199).
Hastings calls it “trans-participation” I think because that blends well with his whole argument that we, in communion with Christ, participate in the heavenly even now.
Embodied Christ in Heaven
Hastings has questions, and so do I, but he stands on the reality that this is so, and again, so do I. I have been worrying about this for nearly sixty years (216). How can this work? If you all have some thoughts, I am all ears.
Cleansing the Tabernacle
The writer of Hebrews depicts Jesus sprinkling blood throughout the heavenly tabernacle to cleanse it, Day of Atonement style. But why is this necessary? This tabernacle is in heaven, the quintessential symbol of clean and pure! Because we have been in Christ from the cross on. He accomplished atonement for us all within Himself as He died, and when we are baptized (heavenly timing) we enter into that. Hastings hints that perhaps the cross is a “now” that exists for eternity.
So the tabernacle must be cleansed on account of our presence in Christ, and perhaps also because of the great angelic war described in the book of Revelation (231-232, 236).
Two things I would love conversation on:
- Semiotics of Heavenly Rule What does “reign” mean from a heavenly perspective? We know how our type of king rules. But is that really heavenly rule?
- Semiotics of Heavenly Suffering Is there really no suffering in heaven? I do not think Hastings was convincing on that one. God has been suffering since Genesis 3, and Genesis 6 is a vivid description of God’s suffering. Jesus continues to suffer with us. And the martyrs in Revelation were suffering, swirling in the blood trough of the altar before they were helped out.
On the semiotics of heavenly rule, it seems to me that Jesus’s stance on humility would not change because, as God the Son, this is Who He is in every setting.
- “The first shall be last”
- “It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters”
- “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters.”
- “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.”
- “Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.”
- “The greatest among you will be your servant.”
- “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
- “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.”
The way Jesus describes His relationship with the Father in John 5 describes a mutuality that both hierarchalists and egalitarians use as proof texts.
Hastings insists we have agency, but that agency is the most authentic when we are fully aware of and surrendered to our union and communion with Jesus. I agree. So what does “reign” look like from the heavenly perspective? Is it really about force and armies and a conquering king brandishing a lethal sword as he rides on Caesar’s white horse through the enemies he is slaying? Or is the blood on his robe his own, the blood of atonement, and the enemies he slays, are they perhaps sin, corruption, and death, freeing their captives, and is it possible that the reign of heaven is as welcome and organic as a bird who flies because that is what it is designed to do?
When we reign with Christ in heaven, are we really recognizing the gifts and design of all around us and building them up to live fully into their destiny?
Or am I in woo woo la la land?
As to the semiotics of heavenly suffering, Hastings had a priori assumptions that I am not sure I can accept, and with those assumptions he crafted a way for Jesus to be eternally wounded and suffering while leaving heaven out of it. I find myself perplexed.
He talks about the eternal wounds of Christ on page 106, and has a rock solid passage to confirm his assertion. This is yet more evidence that we who must speak of “before time began” and “eternity past” are allowed a glimpse of how heaven exists outside of time.
but then on page 111, Hastings maintains “There can be no continuance of atonement in heaven, for there can be no suffering in heaven.” I noted in the margin the martyrs who were definitely suffering in heaven
“I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’”
Revelation 6:9-10 NRSVUE
So … what gives? How can Jesus have eternal wounds which do not hurt? And be in heaven?
And on page 125, Hastings does away with the immutability of God (that was a silly doctrine, built upon human logic) and acknowledges that God does indeed suffer.
Do you see my dilemma?
God suffers, Jesus, God the Son, is eternally wounded, there are at least some in heaven who also suffer, yet in heaven there is no suffering. to consider that God experiences both the temporal and eternal, the physical and heavenly all at once, while we, even in a transfigured state, will still be human, and therefore linear and finite. That tracks.
So the era of our experience of earthly, tearful, suffering will come to an end on That Day. There will be many tears, I suspect, during that time, but they will all be wiped away. I imagine tears of joy, of love, of laughter, and all the other fulfilling and empowering emotions may be left to roll happily down our cheeks.
