The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion

by N.T. Wright

Where does all this take us? To a fresh understanding of what I have called the “goal” of the gospel through a fresh understanding of the early Christian use of the phrase “forgiveness of sins” (which obviously relates directly to the early gospel formula “The Messiah died for our sins”). The goal is not for people “to go to heaven when they die.” That is never mentioned in Acts. The whole book of Acts assumes, first, that God’s kingdom has already been well and truly launched through the death and resurrection of Jesus (1:6; 8:12; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31); second, that this kingdom will be fully and finally established when Jesus returns (1:11; 3:21); and, third, that in this final new world all God’s people will be raised to new bodily life (4:2; 24:15, 21; 26:23). The book has not one word to say about people “going to heaven”—except, of course, for Jesus himself in 1:9–11, and his “ascension” has nothing to do with the popular image of people “dying and going to heaven” and everything to do with his enthronement and the commencement of his worldwide reign (as in 1 Cor. 15:25).