Resurrection, Apocalypse, and the Kingdom of Christ. Stanley S. MacLean
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on that Easter evening? It is this. “The resurrection is the complete movement from God to God that passes through the lowest point of our humanity.”23 He uses a parabola to illustrate the doctrine. God descends to us, down to the pits of human experience—to guilt, death, hell—before he ascends in the resurrection. And the all-important turning point in the parabola is the “but” Paul used. Soteriologically, this turning point is also God’s “breakthrough in the realms of human bondage, sin and death.”24 God’s victory over these is an objective reality, but it has to become a subjective actuality for Christians. Otherwise, he argues, this great event will be a “mere story” for us. “Until you know the resurrection with power, till you’ve broken through with the risen Christ, you have not begun to know the real joy and liberty of the Gospel.”25
No such breakthrough will occur, however, until we are taken to the edge of our thoughts, beyond the limit of what we consider possible. That is because the resurrection is “totally incomprehensible by any human standard.”26 We need to “make room for the supernatural,” Torrance pleads, so God can “knock a hole in the midst our world” with the force of “Eternity.”27 Easter is a miracle. It is the miracle of miracles. The world is not the same since Jesus rose from the dead. The resurrection is what separates Christianity from all other religions. Indeed, from Torrance’s perspective, it is not even proper to call Christianity a religion. Christianity is “a person.”28 The resurrection of Jesus Christ, we must not forget, was the resurrection of a man, who is “bone of our bone . . . flesh of our flesh.”29 Because he is risen, this man Jesus can be the personal presence of God to us. That is why he ends this Easter sermon with the great news that Christ is risen not only “for you, but . . . so that he can be near you.”30
2. “Nunc aeternum”
The resurrection of Christ also opens up an encounter with “Eternity.” “Eternity has come plumb down from above and intersected our beggarly time,” allowing us to “take to the wings of the spirit.”31 This language too goes back to Auburn, where the incarnation is viewed as the entry of eternity into time.
The best illustration of this type of eschatology is found in Torrance’s sermon on 2 Pet 3:8. The entire third chapter from Second Peter is one of the best sources of primitive Christian eschatology. It is a defense of the return of Christ—and its cataclysmic impact—in response to doubts about his return. But Torrance shows no interest in these things. Instead, his message is about meeting the eternal God in the midst of time. “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day.” The real value of this verse, then, is that it enables us to see the world from God’s point of view, which is infinitely different from our view of it. If this is done, we will have wings with which “to soar above tensions and limitations of a temporal world.”32 How is this so? The first part of this verse applies to God’s being. “One day in the Divine Mind overrides all finite thinking; for every day has its roots in eternity.”33 It is natural to break time into future, present, and past. But Torrance thinks this distorts the real truth about time, because with God every moment is the eternal moment, the eternal now. This is what is meant, he explains, by the words: “He is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8). God is indeed the eternal one, but eternity should not be conceived as duration without end. It is better to see eternity as a vertical extension, not a horizontal one. “With God you do not live in the past or the future—but in the eternal now. Each day is as a thousand years; each day is crammed with eternity.”34 Since every moment is of the “utmost importance” to God, it should be of like importance to us. “‘Now is the day of Salvation’; each day you make history, for each day is loaded with destiny.”35 If we look upon time from God’s perspective, every moment can be a moment in eternity, in the presence of God. “Do not crowd tomorrow into your today; don’t divide up your life with yesterday, today and tomorrow. Rather, carry Eternity with your today.”36 Here then we have the first wing needed for our flight.
“A thousand years as one day” refers to the second wing. Torrance is convinced that sin distorts time. It makes the days long. “Sin is sin against the infinite majesty of God and therefore in its guilt; and when God opposes you, your conscience burns and time becomes endless.”37 That is why one day can feel like a thousand years. But when we are justified before God and thus free to remain in his presence, time can fly by without us realizing it. Still, we feel small against the backdrop of history. Perhaps that is why Torrance urges us “get inside Eternity” to find “God’s view,” for then “you’ll see that the whole panorama of history which unfolds before your eyes is all meant for you.”38
Although we can talk about the two “wings” of time separately, Torrance insists we need both “to fly.” In other words, the two parts of the verse must be “telescoped” together like “twin spectacles” in order get God’s view of the world. “It is only in the supreme effort in which we look through both at once that we get a proper perspective which will transfigure this flat world of time into the bold relief of eternity.”39
Torrance was not just interested in changing attitudes. His real aim was evangelical, to bring people into a life-changing encounter with the living God, with eternity. What is more, we can detect a “theology of crisis” in his words. He tells his church that if they heed his advice they will be brought to a “moment of decision” in which they will be “confronted by God Himself.”40 As such it will be a moment like no other. It will not be fleeting, like the passing moment of illumination created by a bolt of lightning. “This moment is an eternal crisis, an eternal moment; for you find that eternity has become your contemporary; contemporaneous with every instant of your life, impinging on you at every moment. Face to face with God, faith has reached out and in an everlasting decision grasped eternity and thrust it in its bosom– and now a thousand years are as a day and a day a thousand years.”41 In conclusion, he calls them to “seize both these truths in the hand of faith” so that “God will plant eternity in your heart.”42
This sermon is remarkable for what it lacks, that christocentism that is so typical of Torrance. The experience of eternity is central, but the resurrection of Christ is not the sole condition for this experience.
3. Death and the Afterlife
The nunc aeternum is also Torrance’s answer to concerns about death and the afterlife. One would expect a heightening of these concerns during a time of war. Christians of all stripes have traditionally viewed death as the gateway to eternal life with God. Later, Torrance would write enthusiastically about Calvin’s Psychopannychia, which is a defense of that traditional view. For Calvin, death promises a better state than anything in the present. But Torrance tries to show how the future state can be a present possession. Preaching from John 14:19, he argues that these words contain the promise of a new life in the present. Christ’s resurrected life can be a “present power in the believer,” “not simply a fact outside of us.”43 And this life is no ordinary life but one in which the “Eternal” is a “present possession.”44 It is not necessary, he concludes, “to wait for a great change at the end of life.”45 When “Eternity comes into the soul” the “bitterness of death” is behind and “the power of the endless life becomes our experience.”46
4. Resurrection and History
In the summer of 1940, Britain was bracing itself for a German invasion. It was a dark time in history, even darker than the summer before, but you would be hard pressed to know this from reading Torrance’s sermons. They are primarily concerned with the timeless truths of the gospel and with the soul’s relationship with Christ. Here we can gauge the influence of Mackintosh.
The soul’s relation to Christ is important, of course. But what does a minister of the Word say during a time of war, when historical events are making a mockery of God’s love and justice? What does he or she say about last things in the midst of terrible things?
To be sure, Torrance does not ignore the historical situation. It seems to have inspired an early sermon on peace. The world will never give us peace, he says. Its offers of peace are as “as shallow as the German offers of peace.”47 Besides, the source of the “dispeace” in the world is the human heart. “Each man carries a troubled kingdom within him”—in “passions,” “conscience,” and “desires.”48