To recognize the fulfilment of his [God's] promises, you must base your expectations not on the minimal but maximal interpretation of their terms’
David Gooding An Unshakeable Kingdom (Pg 30)
David Gooding’s small commentary on Hebrews ‘An Unshakeable Kingdom’ is among the finest of its kind on this book. And it is free for download here along with others he has written!
A number on the evangelical left (for evangelical left read neo-liberals) are intent on foisting some version of universalism (that all will ultimately be saved) or quasi-universalism on the evangelical community. Unfortunately, among many they are likely to find an open ear for not only do many have a woefully inadequate basic knowledge of what the Bible teaches but the salvation of all is naturally appealing. One example of a quasi-universalism is the belief that in hell there will be a further opportunity to repent and trust in Christ. We are told that holding out such a hope is surely, at the very least, a generous and loving approach. Is it not better to hope that all may ultimately be saved than to say that millions will be in hell?
Well, it is only a generous and loving hope if it is true. If, however, there is no biblical ground for such a hope and every indication that the opposite is the case, it is far from loving. It is not loving for a doctor to tell a patient with a life-threatening illness that although they would be better to get it treated immediately nevertheless if they don’t they shouldn’t worry for they can get it treated at a later date. This is not loving, it is criminally irresponsible and negligent. Doctore are likely to be struck-off for such advice.
Likewise, those who preach that there is an opportunity for sinners to be converted in hell when no such optimism is merited from the biblical revelation (which is after all the basis for all Christian belief) are not acting in love but are being criminally negligent and are also in danger of being ‘struck-off’.
The whole thesis of universalism (that all will be saved) whether as a belief or a hope faces intractable opposition from Scripture. In the previous post we noted that Jesus himself, when asked about the number who will be saved, is guarded in his response.
Luke 13:22-30 (ESV)
He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.’
His words, ‘“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.‘ by themselves would lead any responsible teacher of Scripture to be chary of any universalistic inclinations they may cherish. His immediately following words would be enough to close completely the mouth of any who fear God from positing or preaching postmortem conversion.
‘When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
The picture is clear. There is a time of opportunity but it is not forever. God’s patience and grace is not extended forever. The invitation to the heavenly Kingdom is not indefinite. There is a point when some may wish to enter but find they are too late. Yes, undoubtedly people from every nation will be in the kingdom (it will be universal in its scope and vision and embrace), but not all from every nation will be there. Undoubtedly, the ultimate fulfilment of Jesus’ words lies at his Second Coming and his Kingdom is completely realized. Then the door is shut. Ironically those who are ‘shut out’, and are on the outside in this text are some who assumed they were on the inside (we ate and drank in your presence and you taught us…). There is a ‘cast out’ group who wish they were not. And their bitterness and gall is because they know they will have no further opportunity to enter. They are told to ‘depart’, a word pregnant with finality (Cf Matt 7:23).
Jesus (and it is nearly always Jesus who spells out the terrible fate of the damned) says something similar in Matt 25. In the parable of the Wedding and Ten Virgins the five careless virgins find themselves shut out from the wedding celebrations (another image for the Kingdom of God) with no prospect of a late entry.
Matt 25:10-13 (ESV)
And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Once again (with the arrival of the bridegroom) the door is decisively shut against them and there is no hope of it opening, however much they plead. Notice again, here they wish to enter and are refused. At the end of the chapter the parable gives way to plainer language when Jesus says,
Matt 25:41-46 (ESV)
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
However, one interprets this text it is clear that on the day of judgement there are two final and unalterable destinies for humanity. Everyone finds himself in one or the other and there is no further possibility of a switch.
In the story of the rich man in hell (again recounted by Jesus) the rich man in hell is told,
Luke 16:26 (ESV)
And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’
Two points are worth observing here. Firstly, the chasm or gulf is not the unrepentant heart of the rich man (a weak and specious suggestion some forward). It is clearly a gulf God has fixed. Again we are reminded of doors that God has shut; people do not remain in hell because they want to be there but because their fate is now fixed. Secondly, from this insight (however parabolic) into the state of the damned, N T Wright’s view that those in hell are effectively de-humanised has a hard time justifying itself. The rich man seems only too human and that is part of the terror of the picture.
In desperation, some tell us that the gates of the New Jerusalem are never shut (Rev 21:25) so that those outside (the lost in hell) can enter. But this interpretation is as derisory as it is desperate. The open gates signify the security of the city – it has no enemies to fear . Indeed nothing that defiles it can enter (v27). Only the redeemed can enter (Rev 22:14) while eternal outside are those with unwashed robes – the unholy (v15). To try to introduce some kind of postmortem salvation here is not only contrary to the rest of Scripture but to the thrust and intention of the text itself. Indeed, the angel who gives the vision, far from speaking of a postmortem evangelism (salvation after death), speaks of destinies already drawn and decided.
Rev 22:10-13 (ESV)
And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
The writer goes on to make a very solemn pronouncement. He says,
Rev 22:18-19 (ESV)
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
It is a very serious thing to meddle with what God has revealed, one may find oneself among the ‘shut out’.
This post does not by any means tackle all the arguments of those who espouse a universalitic hope. But I hope they will help reassure some believers that what evangelicals have taught for centuries is truly biblical; that ‘today is the day of opportunity’, that hell is forever and fixed for those who find themselves there, and that of all things that are unloving the most unloving is to allow sinners to think that they may stall in trusting Christ now for they will have an eternal opportunity to do so, perhaps damnably unloving.
In the words of Mike Wittmer,
‘I wish that God would empty hell, that he would save everyone who has ever lived. But I can’t say I hope for that, because I don’t have a promise from God to hang my hope on. Christians may have lots of good wishes for deceased atheists, but we don’t have hope. Not because we are mean or stingy, but because we dare not offer more hope than God promises in Scripture. That would be false hope, the cruelest hope of all.’
It has become quite trendy to assume asking questions in the Christian faith is a good thing. And of course by and large it is. However, not all questions are good. We saw in the last post that questions ostensibly asked to inquire can really be intended to subvert. Satan is a master at this type of question. His, ‘Has God said’, in the garden has been asked a million times since. The motivation behind a question must be discerned.
Some questions are asked merely to trip up. Jesus was asked questions he refused to answer because he recognized the motivation was insincere and ulterior.
Luke 20:1-8 (ESV)
One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” So they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Some questions are simply not ours as creatures to ask. The big question we hear people ask is, ‘How can a God of love send billions of people to endless punishment in hell’. It is essentially the question Jesus was asked by someone as he travelled through Judea and he refused to answer it.
Luke 13:22-24 (ESV)
He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
Jesus didn’t answer it because the question was merely philosophical and not related to the inquirers own eternal well-being. What real business was it of his whether few or many were saved? What good would it do him to know the answer? There are issues that belong to the Creator that not ours as creatures to judge or know. Jesus tells the inquirer the real matter that should concern him is ensuring he is one of the number who are saved – be they many or few.
There is an arrogance and impropriety about the question that asks ‘Can we really believe in a God who consigns billions to hell’. It is hardly surprising that an improper question pursued leads to conclusions that are as inappropriate and as audacious as the question; irreverent questions lead to irreverent conclusions. We are told that since many are not converted in this life in the life to come (in hell) they must have further opportunity to repent and believe. This assumption flies in the face of what Jesus goes on to say. Having said, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door.’ he proceeds to say, ‘For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.’
But that is another issue for the next post.
Andy Hunter has a first class post reflecting on the tactics of Love Wins and its protagonists as they seek to make a place for this kind of theology at the evangelical table. Please make a point of reading it.
Rob Bell implies universalism was a common belief in the Christian Church.
Richard Bauckham writes,
‘The history of the doctrine of universal salvation (or apokastastasis) is a remarkable one. Until the nineteenth century almost all Christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in hell. Here and there, outside the theological mainstream, were some who believed that the wicked would be finally annihilated (in its commonest form. this is the doctrine of ‘conditional immortality’).1 Even fewer were the advocates of universal salvation, though these few included same major theologians of the early church. Eternal punishment was firmly asserted in official creeds and confessions of the churches.2 It must have seemed as indispensable a part of universal Christian belief as the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation. Since 1800 this situation has entirely changed, and no traditional Christian doctrine has been so widely abandoned as that of eternal punishment.3 Its advocates among theologians today must be fewer than ever before. The alternative interpretation of hell as annihilation seems to have prevailed even among many of the more conservative theologians.4 Among the less conservative, universal salvation, either as hope or as dogma, is now so widely accepted that many theologians assume it virtually without argument.’
The article can be found here.
If you want to keep abreast of the ‘Love Wins’ debate I suggest a good place to begin would be here (then here and here). All are links to the same site – Patheos. You will not agree with everything said (I certainly don’t) but the analysis is helpful. Plus, and its a big plus, the links connect to other significant links on the book. Definitely a site to explore.
I confess, I do get wearied by these whirlwind evangelical debates that whip up leaving destruction and chaos in their wake. I get especially wearied when at their epicentre lie books by writers deliberately using smoke and mirrors. Anything I have read by Bell is so wrapped in equivocation and paradox it’s virtually impossible to extract a clear statement of belief (see here for an example). For Bell, questions are statements, but of course they are not really statements for they are questions. And questions lie behind the questions. Just when it seems a rabbit trail may lead somewhere it peters out in a dead-end of contradiction and obfuscation. To get a grip on Bell is like trying to grasp quicksilver. He is an expert in the art of displacement. However, trendy and arty this ambiguity may be it does not commend the gospel and should set warning bells clanging (pun intended). The gospel is commended by plainness of speech not subtle wordplay and rhetoric.
But ultimately the debate is not about Bell or his book. It is about a growing mood in evangelicalism, a growing chasm between the effete evangelicalism of the day and a God who is holy and a consuming fire. The cognitive dissonance means something must give. As Timothy Dalrymple writes,
‘… this is not about Rob Bell. Bell is influential, especially amongst younger Christians. But this book is just the logical consequence of much longer trends in evangelical Christianity. It’s hard to believe in hell if you don’t believe in sin, and countless evangelical churches scarcely speak of sin any more. One of the gravest dangers to the church today is a rapidly dissipating consciousness of sin. It’s also hard to believe in hell if you do not emphasize the holiness of God alongside his love, the fear of God alongside his grace. Hell has no place in moral therapeutic deism; it has no place in the “Your Best Life Now” deformation of Christianity; it has no place in a vision of Christian faith that has devolved into social justice activism. Even in strong churches, I suspect that the teaching from the pulpit and through the songs and hymns have made it difficult for Christians to believe that the infinitely gracious and forgiving God they experience in worship would ever countenance one of his creatures suffering endless torment.’
The book is barnstorming because it hits a raw evangelical nerve. The attempt to raze hell is unlikely to go away. It fits with the mood of a generation of Christians whose faith has been a Christianised western humanism, whose beliefs arise from the mood of their culture and not the Word of God. So wearying or not responsible leaders must engage with Bell’s book and its trojan theology and expose it for the treacherous beast it is.
John Richardson has an excellent article on hell in the Guardian newspaper. See here.
Given the present trend in trendy evangelicalism to pooh-pooh hell and promote variations of universalism (all will ultimately be saved) we should remember the first lie in the garden was to deny judgement.
Gen 3:1-4 (ESV)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
The serpent’s words may change but his lie remains the same.
The Big Questions (a UK TV show that discusses moral and religious questions) was tackling its normal three questions on Sunday. Predictably the leading question was whether faith in a benevolent God is called into question by the recent tsunami in Japan. Just as predictably the biblical answer was not given, or, at best, partly given.
The apparently self-evident virtue of the human race makes it shockingly and morally reprehensible that tsunamis, earthquakes or any other catastrophe should be visited upon us. If there is a God, and he is responsible, then he is in the dock, and guilty. Confronted with natural disaster (and most other evils) the normally forgotten God takes centre stage as the Machiavellian villain with humanity the innocent and hapless victim.
As a parody, it would be side-splittingly funny if it wasn’t so serious.
Such a view is, of course, the mythology of orthodox humanism; in fact, precisely the opposite is the true state of affairs. There is nothing innocent about humanity. Humanity is no oil painting. Our whole history is one of perennial selfishness, hostility, inhumanity, hatred and destruction – and that’s just towards each other. Our attitude to our Creator over our history is even more damnable. Without exception we have rebelled against his creatorial kindness. We know he exists but live resolutely as though he did not, refusing to give him the honour and thanks and allegiance that we ought. We will take his daily provision of life and good things as our due without a thought of thankfulness but if a tsunami happens he will be the first to get the blame. We are brazen in our arrogance. The wonder is not that tsunamis happen but that they don’t happen more often.
For, let me be as crystal clear, just as seed-time and harvest, sunshine and rain come from the hands of God so too do natural disasters. In the Bible, these are judgements that warn of a coming cosmic judgement. They are, according to Jesus, birth-pangs of the end.
Matt 24:3-8 (ESV)
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
They serve as a trumpet call to repentance… the fore-shadowing of judgement soon to come. All too often, however, the warning is ignored and the judgement simply serves to reveal the latent hostility of the human heart towards its Maker. In Revelation, having described in vivid imagery various plagues inflicted by God upon rebellious humanity as a wake-up call, John comments,
Rev 9:20-21 (ESV)
The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
Yes, tsunamis are divine judgements, but they are deserved judgements. That some paint divine judgement (in the form of tsunami) as reprehensible shows a breathtaking lack of moral self-awareness. The self-evident reality of life and a truth the Bible regularly asserts is that no-one, absolutely no-one, deserves anything other than judgement from a holy God, even if he is also (as he is) a God who loves. The putting of God in the dock is the very essence of our moral depravity. It shows a complete lack of moral and creaturely compass; the risible spectacle of the creature holding the Creator to account – a creature, let it be said, with a moral track record that should inspire anything but self-confidence.
That we, to a man, deserve tsunamic judgement is the fundamental reason the Bible gives for human suffering yet no-one so much as hinted at it on the programme, not even those who were representing Christianity (Roms 1:18-22; 2:1-16; Rev 6,8).
Of course, why God should visit a tsunami and earthquake on Japan and not the UK, we do not know. There is a mystery to suffering as one participant ably pointed out. Why one should suffer and not another we do not know. But the mystery is not that some suffer, it is that others do not. It is the mystery of God’s patience with a world ripe for judgement. That God should send cosmic wake-up calls, warning shots across the bow, is an act of incomprehensible mercy and grace. This is precisely the point Jesus makes to his own people.
Luke 13:1-5 (ESV)
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
God speaks to our world in disasters. He reminds us that we are not the powerful self-determining race we think and calls on us to repent of our idolatries, submit to his majesty and fear him. Japan is one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world but is exposed as utterly powerless when God speaks. If we are wise we will see this. But we are rarely wise.
On The Big Questions one participant declared his belief in man, not God. Man was the shaper of his own destiny. Man in his goodness and ingenuity would rise above disaster and overcome it. I hope and trust that many will help those in Japan who have suffered such loss. Many who do will be Christians rightly expressing God’s own ongoing grace and mercy to those who survive. But this defiant and deranged humanism is precisely why judgements come, precisely the response that John predicted, and precisely why a final tsunamic judgement on our world of cosmic propotions is sure and certain.
From it and in it none will escape.
There will be no heroes rocketed into space to avert this meteoric judgement. None, who will burrow into the earth’s crust to kick-start its stalled motor or who will travel to a dying sun to re-ignite its combustion. Humanity will not be, as in the movies, the architect of its own salvation. Only in God is salvation. Only in repentance and self-humbling lies hope. Salvation is available now. It is full and free if we but repent of our rebellion and submit to God and his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who rescues from the wrath to come. God offers salvation now for those who repent and believe the gospel.
This is the Christian perspective on tsunami. It is a message the world needs to hear even if it is outraged by it. It is the message we Christians must have the courage to proclaim.
As Rob Bell attempts to pour cold water on hell De Young questions the force of his fire hydrant. Read De Young’s in-depth review here.
De Young has an excellent post on the dubious virtue of doubt. It is in the main the quotation below.
David Hansen:
There is an important place in the ministry for honest questioning over doctrinal issues. But I’m not proud of my tossing and turning over hell. Some pastors wear their agnosticism about hell as a badge of honor. I’ve tried it. I’ve acted as if struggling to believe our Lord’s words were a virtue. But I always found that when I became proud of my doubts, they suddenly become the sin of unbelief. For me, finally, waffling over hell became the sin of unbelief. (The Art of Pastoring, 78)
Another writer commenting on a post sympathetic to Rob Bell’s celebrated ‘doubt’ over hell writes,
“But my suspicion… is that Rob is less a heretic and more a critic of biblical answers that don’t speak in ways that make sense to people.”
Nope, unless by “make sense” you mean conform to a 21st century mind. It is not that Bell is just making things easier for people to understand; he is bringing the Bible into the 21st century by misinterpreting it. There is only a one way street here. You are far far too charitable to him. These doctrines don’t make sense to Rob and some people because they want to be the judge jury, and executioner of Scripture. He has no category for understanding some aspects of God because he has closed his mind to anything that doesn’t seem fair.
As Ray Pennoyer writes re Bell
Bell has a history of not allowing his theology to be controlled by the text of Scripture. This gives him the “freedom” not only to ask the questions we are all asking, but to give us the kind of answers we all want to hear.
And Al Mohler observes
Bell plays with theology the way a cat plays with a mouse.
Exactly.
It is right on hell and any other subject to ask what the bible teaches on it. It is even legitimate to confess ‘this is a hard saying’. What we may not do is imply, however subtly or unctuously, ‘this is a wrong saying’. It is one thing to enquire from a position of uncomprehending faith (the Psalms are full of this), it is another to question and prevaricate from a position of assumed moral superiority. Tantalizingly suggestive and subversive questions that play fast and loose with the text of Scripture are not clever or courageous but corrupt. Theological agnosticism in the face of clear biblical evidence is not ‘honest doubt’ it is unbelief.
Col 3:3 (RSV)
For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
In a previous post I argued that the fundamental reality that shapes our attitude as believers in this world is that we have died to it. Our new creation status teaches us that through death to the old creation (age, world) we are free from the enslaving forces that rule in it.
But what of the features of that old world that we may call ‘creational’? We understand that belonging to new creation means I need not lie or cheat or embrace sensualism or drunkenness but am I therefore free to ignore God’s initial ordering of the original creation? Am I free to ignore for example the old creation’s structures for marriage? After all in the full realisation of new creation there will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage. Such questioning and reasoning is perhaps not as outlandish and improbable as it may first seem. It was precisely this kind of reasoning that led to some of the bizarre behaviour of the C1 Corinthian Church.
Th Corinthian Church recognised they were new creation. They knew that new creation was a creation profoundly different from the old. They rightly grasped new creation was based not on ‘flesh’ but ‘Spirit’. They knew that in the ultimate new creation there would be no marriage and so they reasoned that they should not marry in the present, nor should they have sexual relations within marriage. Indeed married couples, eager to live ‘spiritually’ in the full realization of new creation ,they argued, would be better divorcing. Read 1 Cor 7 for a more complete grasp of their thinking.
In fact, many of the other problems of Corinth stem from their new creation deductions; an over-confidence in how wise and spiritual they were (1-3); living as kings and not under the cross (4); as new creation people they believed the authorities of the old no longer applied and so all things were permissible – a view Paul does not so much contradict as qualify (6); sexual immorality didn’t really matter because physical things like sexuality were part of the old order not the new creation which was spiritual (6-8); an obsession with spiritual gifts, especially those that seemed most ‘spiritual’(12-14); women discarding symbols of male authority and taking a leading role in churches (11,14); no need for a physical resurrection for they were already ‘spiritual’ and living in the eschaton (15). In fact, they suffered from what some call ‘over-realized eschatology’, that is, they thought new creation had arrived in its fulness not simply in a first phase. Furthermore, they seemed to have a Greek idea of ‘spiritual’ where spiritual means immaterial.whereas in the Hebrew biblical world spiritual is not opposed to the ‘material’ but to the ‘natural’.
It is of course not only the Corinthians that struggled with understanding the implications of new creation, so too do modern Christians. Some point to Scriptures like Galatians 3
Gal 3:28 (ESV)
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
and ask why we uphold hierarchical creational distinctions within marriage and the church which belong to the old creation. We, they say, are new creation and these no longer apply.
So how do we grapple with this issue? If a controlling paradigm in Scripture is that we are new creation people living out the implications of new creation in the midst of the old creation how does this work? If being dead to the world means no longer viewed as living in at and thus no longer bound by its authorities and codes then what about male and female roles, the place of marriage, attitudes to authority etc. Am I free in some areas but not others? Does the Bible teach that some aspects of the old creation may (must) be discarded but others upheld?
In fact that is exactly what it does. It argues that as new creation people we uphold all that God intended for creation before the fall and are free from all that is added to creation after the fall. Some say this is because new creation (grace) is simply Eden (nature) restored. But that is clearly not so. As egalitarians point out there is no hierarchy based on gender in the final new creation. In fact, as we noted earlier, there is no marriage in the new creation. In the old creation Adam was given Eve as a wife – a valuable companion and help – but in the final form of the new creation there is neither marriage or giving in marriage. New creation is not simply old creation restored.
Although there are continuities between the old creation prior to the fall and new creation in its final reality there are significant discontinuities above and beyond marriage. In the first creation before the fall man was innocent; he had no knowledge of good and evil. This is not so in new creation. In new creation humanity there is no such naïve innocence, a knowledge of good and evil is intrinsic (think of Christ as the prototype of new creation). New creation is holy (abhorred by sin) not innocent (ignorant of sin). Mortality was possible in the first creation (and happened after sin entered) but new creation in its fulness is life and immortality (2 Tim 1:10). So great are the differences that Paul (speaking of the body specifically but which we may probably regard as a metonymy for the whole) could refer to the first creation as corruptible and the new creation as incorruptible, the first ‘natural’ the new ‘spiritual’, the first ‘weakness’ the new ‘power’, the first ‘humiliation’ and the new ‘glory’ (though some of these may refer specifically to fallen creation). In other words it simply won’t do to frame new creation as little more than a return to Eden, however beguilingly simple a soundbite it is to describe grace as nature restored.
The relationship is more complex.
Let me suggest a way of thinking about the relationship of new creational believers living in old creation that, although it doesn’t quite satisfy either, seems much nearer the mark.
New creation believers living in an old creation recognize and respect its God-given realities, regulations, and rationale while being free from them.
It is more complex, I know, and we don’t like complexity but sometimes answers are not as simple as we would like. Let me try to unpack it a little.
It is a mistake to think we have died only to the sinful and fallen. We have died to the whole creation as a controlling paradigm. Paul insists we see our true identity not in terms of our role in the old creation but our place in the new. Our obligations flow now from our new position in Christ. The springboard for our behaviour and our responsibilities is who we now are ‘in Christ’. Although we live in this world and respect and ratify its God-ordained structures, we do so out of honour to God who created it and not because we belong to it and so are obligated to it. All that God created was good and we uphold and honour it while here out of honour to God. Thus we obey authorities because they are appointed by God (Roms 13). We submit, as Peter writes, ‘for the Lord’s sake’ to every human institution (1 Pet 2:13). In fact, this text in 1 Peter helps us understand our relationship (as new creation people) to the old creation to which we no longer belong but in which we still live.
1Pet 2:11-25 (ESV)
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly…
Peter establishes our true relationship to the world: we are sojourners and exiles (pilgrims and strangers) and live separate from the passions that belong the world we are passing through. In reality, as new creation aliens, we are not properly subject to old creation authorities. We are ‘free’. However, we do not use our freedom to rebel, instead we subject ourselves to human institutions ‘for the Lord’s sake’ and because we are ‘servants of the Lord’ who recognise he has appointed them for good. We recognise we are serving and submitting to the Lord and not to men (Col 3:23). Thus Peter defines new creation identity and our dynamic for living in the world, in the old creation.
Paul does the same in 1 Cor 7. There Christian slaves are reminded that they are the Lord’s freemen and Christian masters that they are the Lord’s slaves (1 Cor 7:22) Christians are to think and function in terms of their new creation identity and dignity not their identity in the old. Elsewhere in Scripture Christians are said to be the judge of angels and so should be able to judge (1 Cor 6) and should be judged by no-one (1 Cor 2:15). As new creation heirs together with Christ we are to remember that we are not subservient to anything or anyone for everything belongs to us (1 Cor 3:21). We share in the reign of Christ. We are sons of God. This is our identity and destiny. Paul recognises even when he is destitute his true position in Christ – he is someone ‘having nothing yet possessing all things’ (2 Cor 6:10).
Yet Peter calls for submission to authorities. Why? For the Lord’s sake. It honours God when we subject ourselves to what God has ordained in creation. Thus wives submit to their husbands (good or bad) not simply as obliged by creation or even convention but as ‘as unto the Lord’ (Eph 5) and, ‘children, obey [their] parents (good or bad) in everything, for this pleases the Lord’ (Col 3:20), and, ‘slaves, obey [their] earthly masters… as [they] would Christ… as servants of Christ’ (Eph 6). Old creation hierarchies are honoured while we live here as strangers and pilgrims (1 Cor 11:1-10; 1 Tim 2:12-14)
The true model of this tension is of course Jesus himself. He was new creation living in old creation. He was the heir living as a servant. He came to be about his Father’s business yet returned to Nazareth and was subject to his parents (Lk 2:51). As the Son he could have commanded stones to become bread to alleviate his hunger (as Satan suggests) but he chose rather to live as a man depending upon God. He truly had nothing (birds of air have nests… son of man nowhere… show me a penny…) yet possessed all things (Peter sent to find coin in the fish’s mouth… multiplied loaves and fishes…). Authority was rightly his but he submitted himself to the authority of others (Jn 5:26; Matt 26:53). His submission to authorities was really a submission to God.
1Pet 2:18-25 (ESV)
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
Christ was ‘the Son’. He was ‘the Lord’. All the powers of the universe were rightly his. Yet knowing this he did not exploit this right rather he was content to remain unknown and unrecognised and suffer what ever indignities came his way as in faith he waited God’s time to ‘act justly’. He had come to live out all the relationships of everyday life in this world as an act of devotion to God and was content to wait for God’s day of vindication when who he really was would be revealed and every knee would bow.
As Christians, we are like Christ, sons of God and new creation living incognito in the old . We live with our true life and identity hidden (Col 3:3). We are free from all things but subject ourselves to all. We are poor but possess everything. We await by faith the day when we will be vindicated and revealed for who we really are to the whole of creation (Roms 8).
The final blog in this series will consider the tension between living in the old creation while living for the new creation.
The Cave promotes the Christian Gospel by interacting with Christian faith and practice from a conservative evangelical perspective.
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