Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, And The Mission Of The Church

“[M]ost people simply don’t know what orthodox Christian belief is.”

In one of the major premises of the book, Wright argues that authentic Christian belief has been covered by an overlay of influences from outside Christianity—notably from Platonism. A major purpose of the book is to dust off the Platonic residue and get back to bedrock Christian teaching, which Wright identifies with the founding documents of Christianity: the New Testament and the early church fathers.

“[D]eath is important; it is an enemy, but for the Christian, it is a beaten enemy.”

Wright extracts this message from the sonnet “Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne. In contrast to Scott Holland, Donne presents the orthodox Christian message about death, granting its power and importance but emphasizing that Christ’s sacrifice has destroyed its hold on humanity.

“Frankly, what we have at the moment isn’t, as the old liturgies used to say, ‘the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead’ but the vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end.”

According to Wright, modern society—including the Christian church itself—is engulfed in deep confusion about the nature of death and the afterlife, lacking the bearings provided by an orthodox Christian faith and not knowing what to believe. Wright hopes that the book will provide a compelling argument that will help reorient the church and society, explaining how Salvation’s Effect on Both Body and Soul leads to The Necessity for Christians to Help Shape the Present World.

“Scripture, in fact, teaches things about the future life that most Christians, and almost all non-Christians, have never heard of.”

Wright stresses that authentic Christianity presents teachings about the afterlife that have been pushed aside and replaced by “semi-Christian informal traditions” (27). The book will question these traditions, expose authentically Christian beliefs for the benefit of modern society, and present the argument for Life as a Three-Stage Journey.

“Resurrection meant bodies.”

Wright emphasizes this point in the strongest terms throughout the book. Resurrection, to the ancient mind, by definition implied a resuscitation of the body and was not merely equivalent to “life after death.” Wright will draw some crucial and wide-ranging consequences from the bodily nature of Jesus’ resurrection to lay the foundation for the theme of Salvation’s Effect on Both Body and Soul.

“Resurrection is not the redescription of death; it is its overthrow and, with that, the overthrow of those whose power depends on it.”

Wright makes two points in this quote. Noncorporeal ideas of life after death fail to overcome one of death’s most serious effects: the loss of the body. Secondly, the bodily resurrection has a social dimension: It demonstrates that Jesus is the Lord and, therefore, more powerful than tyrants who kill for power. Thus, the resurrection is an instrument for defeating the forces of evil in this world. By contrast, a noncorporeal life after death does not have this revolutionary power.

“Jesus is raised, so he is the Messiah, and therefore he is the world’s true Lord; Jesus is raised, so God’s new creation has begun—and we, his followers, have a job to do!”

This quote is the implied message of the resurrection narratives in the New Testament: a “this-worldly” message that announces the arrival of a new era in human history, with a new set of tasks for believers in Jesus. In particular, this proclamation emphasizes that the resurrection shows Jesus to be Lord over the world.

“The disciples were hardly likely to go out and suffer and die for a belief that wasn’t firmly anchored in fact.”

The fact that many of the disciples willingly accepted martyrdom for their faith in Jesus’ resurrection suggests that they really saw Jesus alive after his crucifixion. One of three main arguments commonly advanced in support of the veracity of Jesus’ resurrection, this point is a pillar in the book’s argument as a whole. Jesus’s physical resurrection attests to Salvation’s Effect on Both Body and Soul.

“It is not an absurd event within the old world but the symbol and starting point of the new world.”

Wright stresses that the resurrection must be seen as a truly novel and significant event in human history, bringing about a new order of creation. We will not understand it properly if we see it as merely a freak incident of nature that has no further significance.

“What is at stake is the clash between a worldview that allows for a God of creation and justice and worldviews that don’t.”

Wright grapples with the intellectual challenge that Jesus’ resurrection poses. He argues that it is, at heart, a question of worldview: Do we believe in a closed universe or in an open one ruled by a creative and all-powerful God? An affirmative answer suggests The Necessity for Christians to Help Shape the Present World.

“Love is the deepest mode of knowing because it is love that, while completely engaging with reality other than itself, affirms and celebrates that other-than-self reality.”

A notable thread running throughout the book is the theme of love. Wright argues that the resurrection is an event that demands a personal response of love as a way of knowing and understanding it. However, love itself has an objective aspect because it is directed to something outside the person who loves. In this way, Wright reconciles objective and subjective aspects of knowledge.

“The real problem with the myth of progress is, as I have hinted, that it cannot deal with evil.”

The myth of progress cannot deal seriously with the existence of evil because it assumes that human life is steadily improving, and the existence (and persistence) of evil contradicts this. Wright argues that Christianity provides a solution to the problem of evil, both intellectually and in practice.

“[I]t is not we who go to heaven, it is heaven that comes to earth.”

Jesus’ resurrection is the event that the whole world is waiting for because it signals the redemption and renewal of the created world. This solution to the problem of evil is able to interact with science and history in a way that theories involving the destruction or transcendence of earthly life cannot do.

“This is what the whole world’s waiting for.”

Jesus’ resurrection is the event that the whole world is waiting for because it signals the redemption and renewal of the created world. This solution to the problem of evil is able to interact with science and history in a way that theories involving the destruction or transcendence of earthly life cannot do.

“Part of Christian belief is to find out what’s true about Jesus and let that challenge our culture.”

Speaking specifically about the ascension, Wright makes a broader claim that Christian orthodoxy has a countercultural potential: one of speaking truth to power. In Wright’s analysis, doctrines like the resurrection and the ascension exalt humanity against forces of tyranny, arrogance, and injustice. This speaks to Wright’s larger social goal for the book, which is The Necessity for Christians to Help Shape the Present World.

“Jesus’s appearing will be, for those of us who have known and loved him here, like meeting face-to-face someone we have only known by letter, telephone, or perhaps e-mail.”

Wright is speaking of how believers will meet Jesus after death or at his second coming. Whereas here on earth, we know Jesus in a veiled or remote way through scripture and sacraments, in the end, we shall know him face to face. This speaks to the larger theme of how the church helps bring about the fulfillment of God’s kingdom, the goal of which is full fellowship with God and Jesus.

“[T]he fresh grass growing through the concrete of corruption and decay in the old world.”

This is Wright’s trenchant metaphor for the way that God’s kingdom gradually infiltrates or seeps into our present world. This is one of the major motifs of the book: While finding its fulfillment in the future, God’s kingdom starts now and makes a difference here on earth.

“[A]ll Christian language about the future is a set of signposts pointing into a mist.”

As he does twice in the book, Wright advises that all language and images we use about the afterlife are only approximations. He tacitly acknowledges that although Revelation specifies some things about the future life, others remain only partially known or shrouded in mystery. These reminders serve as cautions not to take every image as a literal transcription of truth.

“The ultimate destination is (once more) not ‘going to heaven when you die’ but being bodily raised into the transformed, glorious likeness of Jesus Christ.”

As he does throughout the book, Wright insists on the transformative view of the afterlife that orthodox Christianity preaches. The ultimate goal is not going to heaven but sharing in Jesus’ bodily resurrection, as shown by Salvation’s Effect on Both Body and Soul. It is not merely about our own happiness but about reflecting God’s glory as revealed in Christ. Thus, our future is both bodily and relational—not disembodied and individualistic.

“Judgment—the sovereign declaration that this is good and to be upheld and vindicated, and that is evil and to be condemned—is the only alternative to chaos.”

This claim is central to Wright’s argument on behalf of the doctrine of hell. It rests on the necessity of moral judgment—of recognizing the distinction between right and wrong and the belief in God’s justice. To deny this, for Wright, is to collude with evil. Wright argues that, in minimizing hell, liberal Christianity has been indiscriminately tolerant and fearful of moral judgment.

“What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it.”

This statement sums up both Salvation’s Effect on Both Body and Soul and The Necessity for Christians to Help Shape the Present World. The second principle follows from the first since the goodness of the body implies the need to do good in our earthly life—even more so since God intends to rehabilitate our bodies at the end of time.

“We are saved not as souls but as wholes.”

Again, Wright stresses the unity of body and soul in the Jewish and Christian worldview, in contrast to Platonism. This was reflected in Jesus’ healings as well as his forgiveness of people’s sins, in which he addressed himself to both body and soul. Salvation includes the body, matter, space, and time.

“God is to become king of the whole world at last.”

This is part of the meaning of the resurrection and second coming: that Jesus will finally claim all of humanity and creation as the Lord. This implies the importance of bodies and material creation and fulfills God’s original intention from the beginning of creation to be Lord over all.