Death is the last weapon of the tyrant, and the point of the resurrection, despite much misunderstanding, is that death has been defeated. (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 50)

I’ve gotten into a bad habit where every post turns into a mini-dissertation of sorts. Honestly, I can’t promise that this’ll be all that different; but at least to start things off here, I’m going to skip over a lot of the technical debates over the various theories of the soteriological/hamartiological significance of Jesus’ death (or, in simpler language, how his death helps humans attain salvation or deal with sin). If you want to read more about that, I’ll refer you to my post here.

Instead, I’d like to take my starting point by exploring something that’s assumed by most of these theories about the effects of Jesus’ death and resurrection: that it vanquished “sin” and “death.”

Now, what exactly it means for his death/resurrection to have conquered sin and death is, in many ways, the crux of the matter (no pun intended). It’s something that a lot of people say; but what it really means isn’t clear at all—and, at worst, is hopelessly subjective or even meaningless.

Nevertheless, we can certainly point toward a few different ideas that people might associate with this—though I’ll suggest that pretty much all of them are highly theologically problematic.

In the following, I’m not listing competing ideas, but really just different aspects that mostly proceed from the same framework. As such, I’ll start from the most general one, and then go on to more specific aspects.

• Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, “sin” and/or “death”—as something that, before this, had prevented humans from truly attaining salvation—was defeated.

In a general sense, I take this to be an expression of something absolutely fundamental to Christianity itself, both ancient and modern: Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished something that was unprecedented, and could not have been achieved before this.

But I think the ubiquity and familiarity of this idea among Christians sometimes belies how truly bizarre and revolutionary it is (or was) from a historical perspective. It represents an extraordinary event in the history of religion: a new phase of eschatology—or, really, a new view of history itself.¹ It seems to suggest a certain sense in which everything was “on hold” until the events of the first century CE; or, rather, that everything was building up to it.

The apostle Paul expresses this poignantly in his epistle to the Romans: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now” (8:22).

Now, it’s not clear what Paul exactly meant by the groaning or “decay” of creation. Yet I think it’s undeniable that much of this had to do with humans’ earthly life, and mortality in general—and sin. In the verse immediately prior to 8:22, just quoted, Paul looks forward to how “creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay”²; and this idea of freedom from decay is easily connected with the inaugural verses of the chapter, i.e.”the law of the spirit of life in Christ . . . has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (8:2).

Here we find a collocation of sin and death. But there’s something else about this and its context that I think is important, as well as problematic. Although “law of sin and of death” itself is mostly figurative language, the subsequent verse after this is clearly talking about the Jewish Law—the Torah: “For God has done what the Law, weakened through the flesh, could not do: by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh…”

Some of what Paul says about the Law in these sections is obscure, as are many other things in Paul’s remarkably malleable (and some say inconsistent) theology on this. To be charitable and attempt to make more sense out of this than he perhaps makes, though, it seems that Paul wants to take things in a psychological direction here. Although the Jewish Law certainly prescribed various methods for atonement—though whether Paul would agree that all of these were effective is unclear—it doesn’t itself curb the impulse to sin.³

Much of this was the focus of the previous chapter, Romans 7. Yet here we read, for example, that “apart from the Law sin lies dead” (7:8; see also 4:15; 5:13). But this causes all sorts of problems: first and foremost because, at least in traditional Christian thought, Gentiles were never under the Law in the first place! Further, Adam,who lived well before the Law was given (to Moses), sinned; and with profound effects, obviously. In fact, sin “came into the world through” Adam (5:12); and Paul writes that death emerges as a consequence of sin—and, clearly, “death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses” (5:12-13).

So, for Paul, obviously “sin was indeed in the world before the Law.” Yet at the same time, he follows this by suggesting that “sin is not reckoned when there is no L/law.”

How can sin be so powerful in the world as to lead to death, and yet at the same time not be “reckoned”?

Perhaps we might think of effects vs. responsibility or culpability here—that even though sin still affected those “from Adam to Moses” (viz. in the form of death), the sin itself wasn’t quite forensically (legally) held against them in the same way that it would be to those after Moses.

But was Adam or Cain really not culpable for his sins? And what “law” is it exactly that imputes sin to Gentiles, and where did it come from?⁴

Beyond these questions, though, another problematic issue looms, relating to Paul’s emphasis on psychology in Romans and elsewhere.

Paul clearly views baptism into Christianity as the entrance into a profound spiritual or metaphysical state of reality, from which all sorts of positive changes are expected to proceed, especially relating to morality and behavior. The danger with this, however, is that this could easily be construed as encroaching on the territory of the empirical—that Christians should have (measurably) distinct ethical psychological/behavioral tendencies from non-Christians.

To be sure, it’s not clear how exactly the earliest Christians would have conceived of this spiritual transformation and what sort of tangible effects it was expected have⁵; but for those who’d concede that this was indeed an element of early Christian theology, there are innumerable case studies waiting to be undertaken to test this: for example, looking at those baptized at birth, for whom it would be relatively easy to compare their moral development to that of their peers.

However, it’s precisely here where some research has suggested the opposite of what might have been expected from the Christian view here—including an article in the most recent issue of Current Biology entitled “The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism across the World” (focusing on Christianity and Islam).⁵ᵇ

Before moving on to the next aspect though, I want to focus on the middle element of the first one, which I hadn’t really spent time on: ‘Through Jesus’ death/resurrection, “sin” and/or “death”—as something that, before this, had prevented humans from truly attaining salvation—was defeated.’

Perhaps the most obvious starting point here would be with the doctrine of the harrowing of Hell. This is the early Christian idea of

the triumphant descent of Christ into Hell (or Hades) between the time of his Crucifixion and his Resurrection when he brought salvation to all of the righteous who had died since the beginning of the world (excluding the damned)

One of the operative concepts here, then, is that the righteous dead were precisely that: stuck in a state of death. As suggested, a tradition developed that upon the death of Christ, he descended to the realm of the underworld.

The “underworld,” as the name suggests, was often—though not always—considered to be a realm below earth. (I’ve recently made a post on the harrowing of Hell, largely concerned with early conceptions of the location of the underworld; and I mention a few early traditions where “Hell” may have been understood to be located “up,” not down.) And early Christian tradition overwhelmingly took up a view of the underworld modeled on that of Hades, and in which the righteous resided in a “section” of reward, and the unrighteous in one of punishment. (In some conceptions, however, the place or condition they resided in was more nebulous.)

In any case: as things go, Christ (obviously) didn’t remain dead, and his power of life was enough to pull the righteous “up” from the underworld with him.

Now, this is just one description of these traditions; and in fact there were many different conceptions of what Christ did in the underworld, to whom, and what its effects were.

Writing about how many of these early traditions focused on the postmortem salvation of the righteous saints of the Old Testament, Jeffrey Trumbower notes that ‘[i]n Christian ideology these ancient worthies pointed forward to Christ and anticipated him, so there was no need for them to “convert” or change their fundamental stance toward God after death.’⁶ Other texts suggest, however, that “while Jesus’ descent to the dead was only for the benefit of the righteous of the Old Testament, those righteous ones were not perfect” (94); though after Jesus’ descent, they could now truly be forgiven of their sins. (In yet others, Christ preaches to a much wider audience.)

And this is all complicated by issues of cosmology and chronology as well.

In some of these traditions, that Christ pulled the righteous “up” from the underworld meant up to heaven—distinct from “paradise,” which was still associated with earth.⁷ But even heaven wasn’t the expected final destination of the righteous. Rather, after their intermediate stay in this postmortem realm, the expectation was that, at the end of history, their former earthly bodies would be resurrected and reconstituted, now glorified, to dwell in “heaven” on earth. (More on this in the final section.)

• Through Jesus’ death/resurrection, the power of “sin” or “death” as demonic powers that enslave humanity was defeated.

This ties into what was discussed in the last section. After all, Hades was not just a realm, but also personified as an individual god, ruling this realm (or otherwise representing death).

But these sort of personified “powers”—in Greek, archontes, a word used at various times to denote angels, demons, and other cosmic authorities—didn’t just haunt the afterlife. The ministry of the historical Jesus himself, as it’s portrayed in New Testament gospels (at least the first three), is one in which exorcism of demons plays a very large role. In Jewish and other traditions, demons were variously associated both with death and sin; and the New Testament texts clearly suggest Jesus’ authority over them.

Further, the New Testament gospels portray this authority over demons as one that Jesus conferred on his followers; and as such this has remained a part of Christian tradition ever since.

To the extent, however, that the power of exorcism might be conceived of as power over sin and death, this might be construed as a false authority for modern skeptics. Again, similar (possibly) to moral transformation discussed earlier, “demonic possession” has, upon the advent of modern science and psychology, conceded more and more to the territory of the empirical; and in least in Catholic thought, exorcism has receded to something of a measure of last resort when psychiatry fails.

That being said, I think that what’s usually understood as purported demonic possession—to the extent that there are indeed “usual” characteristics here—is an interesting subtype of psychosis worthy of more study; and I’ve long admitted that skeptics have done a poor job of (academically) engaging with the miraculous, even if only to challenge it.

That being said though, there’s a more immediate perspective to criticize these Christian claims of supernatural authority from. Even if “possession” is a particularly severe and perhaps rare phenomenon, in terms of mental affliction—and I think even those who think there’s a supernatural component to it don’t deny this—there’s a sense in which the mere ongoing reality of mental illness itself in the world suggests a sort of failure: the failure of the utopian eschatological reality, purported to be inaugurated by the advent of Christ, to really come to fruition in the way it’s supposed to have.⁸

Which naturally leads me to this claim:

• Jesus’ death/resurrection is what “secured” or inaugurated the general eschatological resurrection.

By eschatological resurrection, this means the literal resurrection of all dead bodies to life—to then face judgment, and consequently either vindication or condemnation.

The biggest problem here, naturally, is that even though the New Testament gave some very clear signs that this event was right around the corner (see especially Matthew 27:51-53⁹), this resurrection never happened. (I’ve discussed the earliest Christian expectations of this here and here.)

The near-universal apologetic response to this is, of course, that it will happen, sometime in the future. But the problem with this is that it diminishes the purported “power” of the effects of Jesus’ death/resurrection by making these dependent on a hypothetical (future) event. Even if we discard the fact that we have virtually impeachable evidence that the earliest Christians, including the historical Jesus himself, were absolutely convinced that the general resurrection was going to happen within the first Christian generation—thus the window for fulfillment has already closed—we still have absolutely no idea if this event will ever happen.¹⁰

Finally,

• Jesus’ death and resurrection corresponds to the believers’ “new life” (in Christ)

In a way, this actually connects with a few of the other aspects that I’ve already isolated here. Which may not be that surprising, because it’s certainly the most vague of the bunch. But it actually connects with these in some serendipitous ways, too.¹¹

Most substantially, this is parallel to the issue of Christian conversion/baptism and moral transformation, discussed earlier; and yet here it might not be a supernatural transformation as such, but more like a model for imitation that the Christian could use: for encouragement in avoiding sin, aligning their own will with righteousness, etc. That is, as Christ was obedient to God—through his life and, eventually, crucifixion—and was ultimately exalted for it, so Christians should be, too. (This is basically the moral influence theory of atonement.)

Of course, in itself this doesn’t at all entail a denial of some of the other effects of the death and resurrection of Jesus; but it’s certainly compatible with some more radical perspectives. And if one were to direct most of their focus to this aspect, you could let go of some of the more problematic ones that have been outlined here.

I write this as an atheist; and, naturally, here I don’t differ much from (m)any of my fellow atheists in thinking that, once we inch closer to the sort of radical subjectivity wherein Jesus’ death and resurrection doesn’t have much cosmic significance other than how it might be psychologically comforting or otherwise beneficial, we might as well just abandon the pretense to be Christian at all. (I’m aware of the category of “Christian atheism”; but it’s obvious here that I’m more concerned with actual supernatural claims about the effect of Jesus’ death and resurrection.)

To be sure, I did say that the “imitation” model doesn’t necessitate a denial of the other aspects. But if we accept the critiques that I’ve offered here, which problematize the other supernatural effects of Jesus’ death and resurrection; and if, say, Jesus himself was wrong about the general resurrection, is it really that far-fetched that the earliest Christians were wrong about Jesus’ resurrection, too?

Nevertheless, I’m actually “marketing” this post toward Christians themselves; so I don’t mean to be overly antagonistic. In fact, I’m deleting a couple of more polemical paragraphs. As always, my interest is these things is all ultimately academic and historical.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂



Notes

[1] Ultimately we could frame the unique element here in terms of the focus on the significance of an individual in a (true) cosmic or quasi-cosmic eschatological schema. For parallels and precedents, though, we might look at some of the language applied to Augustus by Virgil or in the Priene Calendar Inscription.

[2] Of course, in 8:20-22 we have what, from a logical perspective, seems to be an absurd idea: God subjected creation to decay “in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay.” James Dunn writes that this

shows a sensitivity to the possible charge that the inclusion of creation in the consequences of humankind’s failure was not entirely fair to creation. But the logic is that creation is the only appropriate home for humankind; an unfallen creation would be no place for fallen humanity. And Paul does add that all this was done “in hope” (8:20), strongly suggesting that Paul viewed the consequences of humankind’s turning away from God as always temporary in the total purpose of God. The subjection of humanity and all creation to decay was always in the sure hope of the future (eschatological, that is, final) deliverance of which Paul speaks in 8:21–23—when the redemption of the body will be accompanied by the redemption of creation, once again to provide the appropriate setting for now-resurrected humanity. (“Adam and Christ,” 136)

For several reasons, I find much of this explanation unconvincing, and Paul’s logic more muddled; but this isn’t the place to get into this. (Of course, the idea that something originally “good” was made “bad” just so that it could ultimately be made good again appears elsewhere in Romans: cf. chs. 9-11, and possibly things like 7:13.)

[3] The main problem is that it seems like Paul suggests at several points that the Law not only fails to help in countering the impulse to sin, but that it somehow actually actively encourages this impulse, too. In order to arrive this idea based on Biblical precedent, Paul basically reaches for the most implausible interpretation there is. (Ezekiel 20:25-26 would be a good set of verses for him to have used; but Paul never mentions these—though that might be understandable, as in their original context these verses admit that God demanded child sacrifice in the Law.)

[4] The answer usually given in response to this is that Paul plays on two different sense of “law”: one specific, referring to the Jewish Law, and then a broader conception of law, akin to natural law. But the latter is nebulous throughout Paul’s writings; and, needless to say, Paul doesn’t bring much clarity to the issue of law. Cf. Heikki Räisänen’s Paul and the Law. (On all this, cf. Romans 2:12-16. See also Galatians 5:1; Rom 8:4; 13:10.) Beyond the issue of “law” in general, however, lurks one of the most problematic and misunderstood aspects of Paul’s though relating to Jews vs. Gentile, in terms of the issue of conscience (which is especially problematized by aspects of subjectivity/relativity in his theology here).

[5] Cf. Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transformation and Empowering for Religious-Ethical Life. If Christians might object that this is an unfairly (and polemical) supernatural or even “quasi-magical” view of what baptism is supposed to do, I’d encourage people to take a more openminded look at the presence of such thinking in early Christianity in the first place. Surely the conception of sin in Romans that I’ve discussed tends toward the supernatural (or quasi-magical)—and in a way that I’m sure many more critically-minded Christians are similarly uncomfortable with.

Of course, from another angle, there’s also a ready-made apologetic explanation in that, if a Christian has failed to manifest these positive changes, it could be argued that their original baptism (etc.) was not sincere and/or legitimate. This is precisely the direction that the first epistle of John seems to take things. How this is related to Pauline theology is unclear—or at least would take much more space to cover than I’ve allotted.

It should also be noted here, though, that the idea of the Christian spiritual transformation which will tangibly prevent sin is perhaps most strongly stated in Canon 111 from the Council(s) of Carthage:

It has pleased the Council to decree that whosoever should declare that the grace whereby we are justified through Jesus Christ our Lord to be effective only for the remission of sins already perpetrated, and not to afford help by way of preventing perpetration of other sins in addition thereto, let him be anathema (Ὁμοίως ἤρεσεν, ἵνα, ὁστισδήποτε εἴποι τὴν χάριν τοῦ Θεοῦ, ᾗ τινι δικαιοῦται διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν, πρὸς μόνην ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν ἰσχύειν τῶν ἤδη πεπλημμελημένων, καὶ μὴ παρέχει ἔτι μὴν βοήθειαν πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἕτερα πλημμελεῖσθαι, ἀνάθεμα εἴη).

(In the Latin Canon, Item placuit, ut quicumque dixerit, gratiam Dei, qua iustificamur per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum, ad solam remissionem peccatorum valere, quae iam commissa sunt, non etiam ad adiutorium ut non committantur, anathema sit.)

[5b] This study has come under some criticism. See also the debate epitomized in (and fostered by) Galen, “Does Religious Belief Promote Prosociality? A Critical Examination.” Similarly, cf. Sablosky, “Does Religion Foster Generosity?”

[6] Rescue for the Dead: The Posthumous Salvation of Non-Christians in Early Christianity.

[7] Trumbower quotes Origen that

I think that the saints as they depart from this life will remain in some place situated on the earth, which the divine scripture calls “paradise.” This will be a place of instruction and, so to speak, a lecture room or school for souls, in which they may be taught about all that they had seen on earth and may also receive some indications of what is to follow in the future.

Trumbower describes that, following this, ‘After passing through this spiritual academy . . . the souls are continually perfected, passing through the heavenly realms, until they finally come to see the rational and spiritual beings “face to face”’ (116).

[8] There’s an idea in Christian theology known as cessationism, which purports that the spiritual powers of Jesus and the earliest Christians are no longer available to the world. However, there’s also at least some precedent that the supernatural abilities of even Jesus himself could occasionally fail: cf. Mark 6:5 (though this is already altered by the author of the gospel of Matthew [13:58], who was clearly uncomfortable with the implication).

[9] Weren argues, however, that “that the end of the age has already begun is at odds with the fact that elsewhere in Matthew the eschaton is a future reality.” By contrast Hutton, in his dissertation “The Resurrection of the Holy Ones (Matt 27:51b-53),” insists that “[t]he entire thrust of the tradition in its Matthean form is to witness to the penetration of the eschaton into history at the crucifixion of Jesus.”

That this event is “proleptic” for the eschatological resurrection itself I think is clear in the clear connection of Matthew 27:52 with Daniel 12:2 (πολλὰ σώματα τῶν κεκοιμημένων ἁγίων ἠγέρθησαν || πολλοὶ τῶν καθευδόντων ἐν γῆς χώματι ἐξεγερθήσονται). (Cf. also Troxel, “Matt 27:51-54 Reconsidered: Its Role in the Passion Narrative, Meaning and Origin,” who draws a connection to 1 Enoch 93:6. Further, cf. Witherup, “The Death of Jesus and the Raising of the Saints: Matthew 27:51-54 in Context”; and now also Anderson’s dissertation “The Origin and Purpose of Matthew 27:51b-53,” who suggests that in this “Matthew was perhaps trying to reconcile two contradictory positions: (i) a Jewish belief that the Messiah’s coming would initiate the final End, and (ii) the Christian belief that Jesus the Messiah’s advent initiated the age of salvation but not the final End.”)

In terms of over things mentioned in this post, in their commentary on Matthew, Davies and Allison suggest that in these verses, one idea is that “Jesus’ death is a resurrecting death: the dead are revived by his dying. As he passes from life to death they pass from death to life,” also mentioning 2 Kings 13.20-1 here, “where a dead man comes to life almost as soon as Elisha dies.”

Davies and Allison also call attention to Petersen’s article “Romanos and the Diatessaron: Readings and Method,” which examines a variant of the Matthean verse(s) in the 2nd century Diatessaron in which it’s not “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep” who were resurrected as it is in the Greek of Matthew 27:52 (πολλὰ σώματα τῶν κεκοιμημένων ἁγίων), but rather “the dead” in general who were raised. Petersen goes on to note that

Romanos is most specific on the point in his Hymn on the Ten Drachmas (XLV.17). In line 3, ‘all (πάντα) the tombs’ are opened, and in line 4, ‘all (πάντες) the dead’ are raised.

(More fully, Romanos has ‘Suddenly, the bodies of the dead, being animated, were raised and trampled on Hades, crying, “O Unrighteous One, where is your victory? Where is your sting, O Death?” Then suddenly all the tombs were opened automatically, and all the dead leaped out and danced.’)

I think Petersen’s ultimate conclusion that “the Diatessaronic reading is earlier than the Matthean reading,” however, is to be firmly rejected.

Petersen attempts to draw a connection between the Diatessaronic reading and Pauline theology. I actually wonder if we might do this in another way than how Petersen does it. Matthew’s tradition where “saints” are resurrected first might be loosely connected with the Thessalonian concern over whether the dead will be at an advantage at the eschaton, in terms of the resurrection. Or, rather, perhaps both the Matthean and Pauline concerns here could be connected with a third tradition, e.g. in y. Kilayim:

…ר”ש בן לקיש משום בר קפרא ארץ שמיתיה חיין תחילה לימות המשיח R. Shimon ben Lakish said in the name of Bar Kappara: Those who die in the land [i.e., Israel] are revived first in the days of the Messiah. But from this it follows that our Rabbis who die in the Exile lose out!

Of course, in 1 Thessalonians 4:15, Paul doesn’t use exact language of the alive “losing out” (הפסידו), but rather its converse, of the dead not preceding (φθάνω) the living.

See Matt in his edition of the Zohar: “[d]evoted students of Torah rediscover the Tree of Life and will taste resurrection first. See Zohar 1:1270-128a (MhN), 140a (MhN), 175b.” (For more on the early interpretation of who was resurrected according to the Matthean verses, see Davies and Allison’s “Christian tradition has gone so far as to identify some of the individuals who were supposedly raised…”)

[10] Of course, as long as one can deny that there was ever any sort of temporal window for fulfillment that expired—which is done by garden variety shoddy apologetic exegesis—then, as long as history marches onward, one can always claim that the possibility of resurrection hasn’t been disproved. From here, it’s a short to path to another classic apologetic maneuver, wherein absence of evidence is somehow transmutated into proof of truth: if it’s not clearly false, it must be presumed to be true. (This is a sort of negative version of the possibiliter ergo probabiliter fallacy.)

[11] In the New Testament, 1 Peter 4:6 is often taken as one of the most unambiguous—and only—verses in the New Testament that may indeed support the idea of Jesus’ harrowing of “Hell.” However, I’ve long maintained that once a careless oversight in virtually all translations (and interpretations) is recognized, it becomes infinitely more plausible to see this as having nothing to do with an actual mission to the underworld, and merely speaks to the figuratively “dead” state of Christians prior to their terrestrial conversion.

Another issue that I’ve done a lot of original research on involves Romans 11:15. Here, this verse that the eschatological resurrection will only happen once a certain number (or all) non-Jews have accepted Christ. Yet in so specifying this, this causes a host of serious problems for the idea of general resurrection in general. I’ve discussed this in detail here.