what is the mission of the church?

Kevin De Young and Greg Gilbert have written a book called ‘What is the Mission of the Church?’.  It has touched a raw nerve in the younger American evangelical scene.   Some have written fairly critical reviews of it (see here for an inventory of these).  De Young and Gilbert have responded here.

The debate is important for it affects what we understand to be our responsibility to society as Christians.  It is well worth taking the time to read the online discussion at the very least.  I have not read De Young’s book but I know my overall position is nearer to De Young and Gilbert than to those in the ‘missional’ camp (followers more of Christopher Wright and N T Wright).  The problem with the more ‘missional’ or ‘transformational’ paradigm, to my mind, is the biblical meta-narrative assumed.   Its advocates believe the story of the Bible starts with creation and see God’s mission as restoring creation.   They are, in my view, wrong in both counts.

• While the biblical narrative begins with creation, creation is not the beginning of the story.  The ‘true’ beginning is only revealed as the plot unfolds.  The real beginning is God’s plan in eternity.   God’s plan is Christ and all who find their election in him, information not available in the story’s first chapter (Eph 1).  In other words, God’s goal was never Adam and the first creation but Christ and the new creation.  The End does not complete the Beginning; the Beginning is simply a prologue for the End.  Adam was only the type, Christ is the antitype.  Or, if you like, the Second Man was always the First.
  

• If ‘transformationalists’ get the beginning of the story wrong, they also get the end wrong too.  The dénouement is not a return to the beginning but a new beginning that eclipses all that has gone before.  New creation is not creation restored or regained, it is creation radically reconfigured.   The missional perspective builds too much on continuity and does not give nearly enough credit to discontinuity.  They do not credit new creation with being just that, ‘new’.

The result of a misread plot is a skewed understanding of the act in the drama where we find ourselves now.  The task of the church is not to transform society but to bear witness to society of God’s new creation by proclaiming the gospel in word and life.  Of course, with the life of Christ in our hearts we will seek to do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith’ (for that is what Christ did) but that is somewhat different from seeing our mission as ‘the flourishing of creation’.  We will of course respect creation as good stewards of it but what we wish primarily to see flourishing is not creation, but new creation, which in my view is a very different thing.

we are not simultaneously sinners and saints (2)

In the previous post on this topic, I endeavoured to demonstrate that the NT regularly presents believers as ‘saints’ and not ‘sinners’; who we are ‘in Christ’ and not what we were ‘in Adam’ is pressed as the way believers should think of themselves.  Sometimes this raises the protest, ‘but does not Paul speak of himself as a ‘sinner’ in 1 Timothy?’

The passage referred to is the following:

1Tim 1:12-17 (ESV)
I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

At a cursory glance, this text appears to be Paul referring to himself, a believer, as a sinner.  After all, he uses a present tense (‘of whom I am chief’).  Now let me say, if Paul does describe himself, a believer, as a ‘sinner’,  I do not think this undermines the central thesis that Christians are saints not sinners and should view themselves as such.   We should look at the rule and not the exception to guide our theology.  If we build our thinking on a topic, biblical or otherwise, on the exception and ignore the rule we will soon find ourselves in trouble.

We must ask rather the purpose of the exception.  In this case the ‘exception’ is intended to inspire confidence in unbelievers that God’s grace can extend to them.  If God saved the chief of sinners (Paul) then no-one is beyond the pale of his mercy.  Now, if believers today describe themselves as ‘sinners’ for similar reasons, I doubt if any would object, certainly not I.  This post is not a wooden, blanket objection to Christians referring to themselves as  ‘sinners’.

Yet, the question is begged:  is the ‘exception’ really an exception?  I doubt if it is. In my view, when Paul terms himself ‘the chief of sinners’ he is so doing on the basis of what he was in his pre-conversion days and not his present life in Christ.

The present tense serves to emphasize that in Paul’s mind none has surpassed his wickedness. No-one has overtaken his distinction as the greatest sinner God has saved. He is certainly not saying that he thinks of himself as the chief of sinners on the basis of an assessment of his present Christian life: it is  an assessment based on his past life as a persecutor and blasphemer, a life so opposed to the gospel that it gives hope to all. Paul’s  life as a Christian would be no encouragement to the ungodly that they may find mercy, rather the opposite. Now, he recognises, the Lord judges him faithful, ‘ I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful…’. No, it is his pre-conversion life that gives hope to every sinner… if Paul acted as he did yet God showed him mercy there surely can be mercy for me. The chief, the most active, the most inveterate of enemies, was the best and most powerful of witnesses that the grace of God abounded over sin, and that the work of Christ was perfect to put it away.

And so the ‘exception’ is not as clear as some believe.

Why is ‘the rule’ important?

It is important, for if we regularly think of ourselves as sinners then we will live as sinners.  If my ‘faith-perspective’ tells me I am a sinner then it inevitably excuses sin; I am a ‘sinner’, that is what I am, therefore I should not be surprised if I sin, or dismayed by it, I am acting according to my nature.  To think of myself as a sinner simply puts me in bondage to sin.  For the word ‘sinner’ describes a state, a nature, or a condition.  The psychology is immensely damaging; give a dog a bad name…

This is why the NT is so vehement that believers are not sinners but saints.  Over and over again, Paul tells believers ‘this is what you once were… here is what you now are’.  He wants us to grasp the perspective of faith that we are God’s ‘holy ones’, his ‘set apart ones’.  We are ‘new creation’.  And his reason is blatant; it is that we live according to who we are.   Take an urchin and put him in a palace as a prince but keep telling him he is really an urchin and he will behave like an urchin for that is how he thinks of himself.  However, put an urchin in a palace as a prince and keep insisting he is a prince and must think and act like a prince and he will do so.   Who we believe we are affects how we think of ourselves and how we behave.  It’s hardly rocket science.

And so, repeatedly, Paul reminds believers of what they have become ‘in Christ’ as the rationale for godly living.  ‘How can you who have died to sin live any longer therein?’ (Roms 6:2). ‘ If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?’ (Col 2:20). ‘Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self  with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.’ (Col 3:9). ‘If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.’ Col 3:1).

Is Paul asking us to believe a fiction?  Are we simply sinners trying to be saints?  No, a thousand times no.  Paul wants us to grasp that union with a dead, risen and glorified Christ in the Spirit, has made us an utterly new people.  We are no longer ‘in Adam’ but ‘in Christ’.  Our real identity is ‘new creation’.  As God looks at Christ in heaven he sees us too.  Christ glorified is our identity.  As Christ is, we are.  Beyond condemnation. Beyond sin.  Beyond accusation.  Beyond law.  Beyond this world.   And the present reality of this is conveyed to us by the indwelling Holy Spirit (who mediates the presence of Christ).  In his words to his disciples,

John 14:18-20 (ESV)
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

He came in the person of the Spirit, that the life he received in resurrection his followers may receive too (because I live [in resurrection] you also will live).  We share in the resurrection life of the risen Christ.  We share his position and power (Eph 1:15-23).  As he is so are we in this world (1 Jn 4:17)… ‘holy and without blame before God in love’ (Eph 1:4).  Our lives are hid with Christ in God (Col 3:3).  This is our true identity and position and by God’s grace we have all the resources in Christ (everything necessary for life and godliness) to be who we are.; not sinners but saints.

in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing…

I am no longer in the first flush of youth.  In fact, if truth be told, I have passed the hump (or am passing, depending on your perspective) of middle age; I won’t see my fiftieth birthday again nor some following it.  And you know what dismays me?  I find that the flesh is just as devious and disgraceful and debasing  and demanding as it ever was.  Sinful desires, ugly and vile, readily suggest themselves.  Passions that are viciously self-regarding all too readily raise their pernicious heads.

In some ways the passions change.  They are no longer the passions of youth.  The desire to be heard (though I rarely was) , to be cool (which I never achieved), to impress (so shameful I am reluctant to admit it), to be liked (how pathetically weak)  and other drives common to youth are not so strong.  Or more accurately, they have morphed into other shapes and different forms have gained ascendency.  The desire for reputation takes on a different hue, now I want to be a sage not a spearhead.   I no longer inordinately lust after the buzz of windsurfing but the tranquility of sea kayaking.   Where once I may have held my counsel to protect myself and facilitate wider acceptance now I am inclined to curmudgeonly behaviour impatient at being ignored.  I confess, the flesh is just the same as it always was in John Thomson; it is ever self-important, self-regarding, self-promoting, and hostile to every competing authority – especially God.   I have given you the barest glimpse of the stinking cesspool that is my flesh for I am ashamed of all it contains.  Indeed, I am horrified to look too closely myself.

I say, I am dismayed, but I oughtn’t really be.  Dismay shows just how poorly I ‘hear’ what God clearly says.  Scripture leaves no doubt that the flesh never improves. Flesh’ is always ‘flesh’ and can only produce ‘flesh’ (Jn 3:3).  It is ever and only wicked.  In ‘flesh’ dwells no good thing (Roms 7:18) and  ‘profits nothing’ (Jn 6:63).  You can educate flesh, civilize and manner it, make it sophisticated and even make it religious but you can’t change it.  ‘Flesh’ remains the same: rough or refined, crude or cultured, in casuals or cassock, flesh is always viciously self-regarding and opposed to God.  It does not submit to God nor can it (Roms 8:7).  Flesh is invincibly evil.

Flesh, of course, in the sense I am referring to it and Scripture often speaks of it is simply humanity in a fallen Adam.  Sometimes, in Scripture, ‘flesh’ simply means being human without reference to whether humanity is fallen or not, but most often it refers to fallen humanity, sinful humanity.  It is the heart of which Jesus speaks when he says,

Matt 15:19 (ESV)
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Its works, Paul reminds us are obvious to all.

Gal 5:19-21 (ESV)
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

These are the murky passions that rage in the human heart.  These are the nature of flesh.  It is human nature controlled and corrupted by sin.  In this humanity, in this nature, says Paul, ‘dwells no good thing’.  And there is nothing more vital than learning this if we are to live  in the full liberty and power of the gospel.  We must first grasp the bankruptcy of self if we are to learn to live by grace in the power of the Spirit.  We must come to an end of self-trust in every shape and form.  There is no good in self.  All good lies in Christ.

And so I say, don’t be surprised at the loathsome eruptions of flesh that swell in your breast yelling to be noticed.  Never look within for a power to live for God and to please him.  If you look within you will only find lusts and sin vying for expression.  Salvation has not improved your old nature and never will.   The flesh cannot be renovated or rehabilitated.  It cannot be remediated.  Flesh is always flesh.  It is a rotten tree and remains a rotten tree until the day you die or Christ returns (Matt 5:17,18).  Flesh is beyond redemption.  All that God can do with flesh is what he warned Adam would happen if he ate of the forbidden fruit.  ‘The day you eat of it you will surely die’.  God was not issuing an idle threat.  He was not exaggerating for effect.  God can do only one thing with recalcitrant flesh – put it to death.  Adam must die.  Flesh is condemned; it is beyond salvage.

And put it to death is precisely what God has done.  In the death of Jesus not only did he punish our sins as sons  of Adam, but he brought to an end Adamic humanity itself.  He finished once and for all the life of ‘flesh’.  Adamic humanity met its terminus at the cross.  Romans 8 puts it like this:

Rom 8:3 (ESV)
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh…

The verdict of condemnation and death passed on ‘sin in the flesh’ was executed at the cross.  The execution of Christ was the execution of humanity in Adam.  It was the end of ‘flesh’, of humanity as we know it.  At the cross, he who knew no sin became sin for us, made in the likeness of sinful flesh, he was treated as sinful flesh.  The death that he died he died to sin once and for all (Roms 6).  In his resurrection, Jesus entered into a new life, a life of a different kind and order.  The man Christ Jesus, lived now by the power of a life that could never end, a life that was indestructible (Hebs 7:6), a life that would never again have to do with sin or death.   In this resurrection life he ascended to heaven as the firstborn of a new creation, no longer like sinful flesh he now had a body of glory.  Christ has become the source,  the archetype, and the heir of this new creation; it is a new creation from him, for him, and like him (Col 1:15-20).

And in this resurrection life of Christ we share.  As he was raised by the Spirit of holiness so we live too in the Spirit in holiness and righteousness.  We are born by the Spirit (Jn 3) and have a life that cannot sin.  Our life is Christ’s resurrection life, through the Spirit.  The Spirit of Christ, of God, now lives within us (Roms 8:9).  As far as God is concerned, our life in Adam, our flesh and all it is, came to an end at the cross.  It is finished.  It is gone.  We are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit (Roms 8:9).   What does this mean?  It means that when I see the passions of the flesh seething within me I need not be dismayed.  I need not be condemned or despair.  Why?  Because, by faith I recognise  this cauldron of corruption is not the true me.  It once was me but is so no longer.  I will not hate myself because of it.  I will hate it but not myself for it is no longer the true me. A Christian is not ‘in the flesh’.  A Christian’s identity is in the Spirit.  He lives in the realm of the Spirit.  In Paul’s gloriously liberating words:

Rom 8:1-17 (ESV)
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.  So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. 

The cross has condemned flesh and finished our relationship to it.  We are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit and by walking in the Spirit we fulfil all righteousness.  What do I do when I observe within me the tug of sin and the surging of the flesh?  I remind myself this is not the true me.  These passions belong to an ‘I’ that died on the cross.  God does not see me in terms of ‘flesh’ and nor will I.  I have begun a new life in the Spirit.  I will not listen to these siren voices of flesh, I will not give them my allegiance or heed them (I will not set my mind on them).  I will treat them as they ought to be treated – as something dead.  I will mortify all inclinations flesh advances.  Flesh is that which is all about ‘self’.  It loves self, believes in self, trusts in self, and exalts self.  I will have nothing to do with it.  I will not look to self for strength or for approval.  I will not feed self or feed from self. For to look to it for one moment is to stumble and fall and lose the joy and power of salvation.   Instead, I will steadfastly, by the Spirit, put self in the place of death and so find life.  I will live in the Spirit, listening to and following his leading as he guides and empowers the inclinations of my new life into righteousness and holiness.

When Satan accuses and points to sinful lusts within I will not be depressed and defeated.  I will agree with all he says but point out that this ‘me’ has ended.  I no longer accept it as the person I am.  I am a new creature in Christ.  As long as I am in this body I know that sin still has a foothold because of indwelling sin.  Thus I must always be vigilant.  But, in confident faith that one day I will have a body like Christ’s  body of glory which will be entirely free of sin, I will presently put to death the temptations that arise from within, and, if in weakness and foolishness, I heed flesh (trust it) and sin, I will repent.  I will humbly confess my sins knowing that forgiveness is mine for Christ died.  I will feel the sorrow of sinning and hate it for all it is.  But  I will not be defeated by it.  I will remind myself that sin has no rights over me.  I am no debtor to it.   In the Spirit I have a new heart that longs for righteousness and not for sin and it is my true centre and being.  I will look to self for nothing and find everything in grace.   I stand in the grace of God.  Grace is the realm of my existence.  It is the power by which I live, my only resource and the only resource I need and it is mine in abundance.  I live in grace.  I live in the Spirit.  I live in Christ.

In Christ, I am free from sin’s condemnation and sin’s control.  Therein, and only therein, is my peace and my victory.  And so daily I will put on the Lord Jesus and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil its lusts (Roms 13:14).

how would you persuade christians to turn away from adultery?

I have regularly argued that the way to holiness is not through teaching that the Mosaic law is binding on the Christian conscience and that it must be obeyed.  A mentality of ‘law-keeping’ is not the way to grow in grace.  This does not mean that we cannot learn from the OT  law.  We can.  Christians living in the Spirit mine the Scriptures, for they know that among other things  they are profitable ‘for training in righteousness’ ‘(2 Tim 3:16).  Yet they frame all they discover about righteous living within gospel realities.

Let me illustrate what I mean.  How should a preacher persuade believers to turn away from adultery?  Below is an example of how such an exhortation may be made.  Note it uses the OT but does so recognising its redemptive-historical setting.  And note too that the gospel provides the main framework and rationale for rejecting adultery.

‘My brothers and sisters, we ought to loathe adultery.  David’s adultery, although forgiven, brought ramifications that devastated his family.  God is opposed to adultery and adulterers.  Don’t you know that in the OT the very heart of the law of Moses condemned adultery in its Ten Words.  So great was God’s hatred of adultery among his OT people that the law demanded the sentence of death for adulterers.  Does this not tell us how seriously God views it?   Indeed the law was only codifying and formally forbidding what men universally know in their hearts.  All cultures oppose adultery.  All codes of behaviour condemn it.

But brothers and sisters, unconverted folks may need to be reminded adultery is a sin and will bring judgement for they harden their hearts against God, but we should not. We have the life of God in our souls. This life finds adultery unthinkable. Every instinct of your renewed nature is repelled by adultery. God’s Spirit within lusts for purity not impurity. 

It is to this end of purity that we have been justified in Christ.  Why did we seek justification? We did so because we wanted to be cleared of sin. We wanted to be done with it. We saw how sinful and offensive it was and how deserving of judgement. We wished to be finished with it.  That is what we were saying when we came to God in repentance seeking his forgiveness.  How then can we allow ourselves to be attracted again to that same sin that we died to in the death of Jesus that we may be freed from it?  We wished to cease being slaves of sin and become instead slaves of righteousness (Rom 6).  That is what we have been freed from accusation and sin to become.  Our calling is to yield our bodies as instruments of righteousness and not impurity.

How can you abuse your body in this way? Your body is not yours to do with what you will. It is bought with a price and belongs to the Lord. Glorify God with your body do not use it to bring disgrace on his name. Christ’s death was precisely because of the horror and ugliness of adultery. He died that we may be cleansed from sins like this and lives that he may enable us flee them.  The grace of God renews us and recreates us in the image of Christ.  Don’t you want to be like Christ?  Of course you do, this is the desire of every renewed heart.  It is the longing of every son of the Kingdom.  The Kingdom of God and Christ is a kingdom of righteousness, loyalty, truth and faithfulness. Adultery is the very opposite of this. Don’t you know that no adulterer will inherit the Kingdom of God.  The Eternal City of God in which the righteous dwell has no adulterers.  Nothing impure enters there.  We read in Revelation that ‘outside are adulterers’

Brothers and sisters, we are people who have been delivered from sin, we have a nature that is altogether new, we are a new creation in Christ living for a new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells let’s put off these impurities of the old life because of which the wrath of God is coming and let us live as the people of God with pure hearts that hate every suggestion of sin and unrighteousness…’

Much more of course could be said but I think this sample-sermonette illustrates how the gospel creates a godly people and how turning away from adultery can be considered an imperative of the gospel.

holidays and a hunger for god

Hi folks.

Apologies to those who have been dropping in and finding nothing new.  Posts are likely to be sparse over the next couple of months – breaks and building maintenance are likely to distract.  We (my wife and I) are just back from two weeks holiday on the Isle of Skye.  Skye is a beautiful Scottish island we love to visit.  A little walking, some sea kayaking, and lots of relaxing were the order of the day.  The West coast of Scotland from the Mull of Kintyre until Cape Wrath has scenery that must rival the best in the world.  One is stunned by the grandeur of creation.  Truly our God has a wonderful imagination.

It is our privilege to enjoy this creation.  It is a feast for our senses and all speaks of the glory of the Creator.  Believers hearts, especially those whose lines have fallen in ‘pleasant places, respond in worship and thankfulness.  Yet, glorious though God is in creation, it is not this glory that primarily fills the heart of the believer.  What our hearts pant after is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.   I know God most deeply and intimately when I know him not only as Creator but Redeemer.  Indeed, in a fallen world if I do not know him as Redeemer I will never know him as Creator.  My knowledge of God is not found in my oneness with nature but my union with Christ.  In creation, I know his goodness: in redemption, I know his grace.

I find my heart needs and longs for the intimacy and glory of the God of all grace.  It is not in creation that I find the Father but in Christ.   Adam (even in innocence) could not reveal the Father, only the Son who dwells eternally in the bosom of the Father, could do this.  Only the ‘only-begotten’ can reveal the Father. I know God in Christ far better than Adam ever did in the garden.  In Christ, the grace of God and the truth about God are fully revealed.

As a sinner, I need the God of all grace.  My heart finds peace and contentment and joy in God, my Redeemer.  I find personal meaning, purpose and place in the story of redemption.  I find satisfaction not in creation but the prospect of new creation.  My heart find worships not simply when I consider, ‘all the works his hands have made’  but supremely ‘when I think that God his son not sparing sent him to die… to bear away my sin’; and with this the glad hope that Christ shall come ‘with shout of acclamation and take me home’. In the gospel I find food not simply for my senses but also my soul.  In Christ, I have come to know the Father and I am filled.  I shall be satisfied too when I awake in his likeness.

Even as I absorb the beauty of the old creation, like creation itself, I long for the day of renewal, the birthing of the new.  I cannot do other, for I belong to the new, I am a firstfruit of it. Thus, for me, the beauty of the Lord  lies not in creation but in Christ.  Like the Psalmist, it is not to nature I turn to see God in his beauty, but to his temple.  Jim Reeves (now I show my age) sang of nature as ‘God’s Cathedral’ but he was wrong.   God’s temple is not creation but his people.  He is revealed and known among his people.  Christ is found there.  Thus my heart is truly filled when I meet with his people in communal worship and expectation. When on the Lord’s Day we meet to ‘remember him’ and ‘proclaim his death’ being fed by his presence in his people through Word and Sacrament, there and only there, my pilgrim heart is sustained and satisfied.

Holidays are good but ‘holy-days’ are better.

living as new creation… in old creation (3)

Col 3:1-3 (ESV)
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

This short series has reflected on the most fundamental reality we need to grasp when as Christians we consider our relationship between the world and the Christian, or, if you like, between creation and new creation.  The basic controlling reality the Bible stresses when we think of creation, the first creation, is that we have died to it.

This final post reflects on the tension Christians face living in the old creation yet living for the new creation.  Our focus is not the tension created by sin.  Sinful things are just plainly wrong and our duty as Christians is to put sin to death.  The more complex issue is the tension between what is God-given and good in the old creation which is ours even as ‘strangers’ to enjoy (1 Tim 6:17) and the responsibilities, rewards and greater riches of the  new creation to which we are called.  Some believe there is no such tension but that is to ignore the plain teaching of Scripture.   Jesus speaks of the tension when he juxtaposes life in this world and ‘seeking first the Kingdom of God’ (Matt 6:33).  It should be beyond dispute that Kingdom (or new creation) living makes demands that may cost us dearly in this life.  That is why Jesus says

Matt 10:34-39 (ESV)
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

again

Luke 14:26-27 (ESV)
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

and again

Matt 19:29 (ESV)
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

Loyalty to Christ and his Kingdom is costly.  It means putting new creation priorities before family and friends and many of the apparently legitimate things of life.  Jesus teaches those who follow him that the cost is not simply our sin but involves legitimate things too.

One Scripture that makes this tension plain is Matt 19.  Note carefully his argument.

Matt 19:3-12 (ESV)
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

Jesus is asked his view on divorce.  He makes it clear that divorce is an accommodation to a fallen creation and is not God’s primary will.  He further forbids any breaking of the marriage bond by divorce except where it has already been broken by fornication.  In terms of our above definition Christians living in new creation eschew what is fallen and sinful in old creation (in this case improper divorce). However, whatever the wrongs of divorce,  Jesus makes plain that marriage is a good thing by sourcing it in creation.

Christ (and so Christians) recognises and respects  the good creation order.  Yet it is just here an important qualification must be added.  The disciples, dismayed at his strict limiting of divorce, say, ‘If such is the case it is better for a man not to marry‘.  Observe carefully Jesus’ reply,

“Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given…. there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

A very important principle is drawn out here.  It is that what is good and legitimate for Christians in creation they may well forego for the sake of the higher good of the Kingdom of God; old creation gifts may be trumped by new creation priorities.   The example here is marriage.  Some Christians with the faith and gifting from God to do so will remain unmarried for the sake of more effective service in the Kingdom of God.

Now it is important to emphasize there is no rule here.  It is not wrong to marry.   Indeed we can go further, it is good to marry.  Yet some choose to remain unmarried because they believe that they will more effectively serve Christ if free from family commitments.  What is ‘good’ is sacrificed for a greater ‘good’.

Paul  echos this teaching of Jesus in 1 Cor 7.  In his view, those who can remain single should do so.  He believes this will mean less ‘worldly cares’ and better facilitate service for God.

1Cor 7:25-39(ESV)
Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that…

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband…

I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.  If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry-it is no sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.  A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

Notice the fine line Paul wishes to walk.  He thinks singleness is better but he is careful not to insist upon it; there is no command.  To marry is no sin, not at all.  He recognises singleness is not for everyone.  Each has his own calling and gifting from the Lord (cf. Matt 19:12).   Married believers are not second-class Christians.  Yet, he thinks, on balance, singleness is preferable.  Here Paul is grappling with this tension between the good and the better, between the permitted in this creation and the pressing of the new creation, of the Kingdom.

Jesus in Matt 19 and Paul in 1 Cor 7 both discuss this tension in terms of marriage and foregoing marriage for Kingdom ends.  But of course marriage is only one of many areas to which this applies.  Indeed Paul widens the issue out in 1 Cor 7 when he writes,

1Cor 7:29-31 (ESV)
This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

Here is the tension again.  The priorities of the Kingdom and the urgency of the hour mean that we live with constant tension.  We find that the  possibilities of the first creation must always be weighed against the prerogatives of the second .  We are new creation people living in an age that is passing and the life of the age to come presses its concerns upon us; the future impinges on the present and the eternal eclipses the temporal.

As Christians we are always balancing creation and new creation living.  How much time do I give to my marriage, my family, my career, my hobbies and so on?  What comes first my family or my faith?  When do I put down a good book and read my Bible or pray to nourish and feed my spiritual life?  Do I put a night in relaxing before the prayer meeting?  Is my free time sacrosanct or do I share it with others in need?  How much of my salary do I spend on myself and how much do I  give to the Lord for the good of others?   The examples are endless.

How are we to decide?  In many ways this comes down to a personal decision as we are guided by the Spirit..  However, there are a few principles that seem to particularly govern the big picture if not the details.

• We must weigh is whether we have the gifting or grace for whichever Kingdom-sacrifice we are considering making.  Paul does not wish those who will function better if married to choose a life of singleness.  Singleness for the sake of the Kingdom of God is not given to all, it is only for those who can ‘receive it’ (Matt 19).  Virtually enforced celibacy has brought great disgrace to the name of Christ as many who have embarked on it were never suited to it and fall into sin.  Christians are not called to embrace that for which they have not been equipped by grace.  Gifting, grace and faith play an important role in determining what our service and sacrifices for the Kingdom should be (Roms 12:6).

• All sacrifice flows from a faith that produces love for Christ and his Kingdom.  We are considering here what in the OT was a free-will offering.  The only constraint upon the offerer was faith-love for his God.   There is no explicit sin here to be forsaken.  No rule saying you must do such and such.  We give up the legitimate in this world not out of duty or a law but because of the pearl of great price we wish to purchase (Matt 13:45,46).  Christ becomes the treasure we will sell all that we have to own (Matt 13:44).  Treasure in heaven captures our heart  and enables us to turn away from treasure on earth (Matt 6:20,21).  Love for Christ will motivate us to leave our comfort zone and walk on stormy water (Matt 14:29), just as love for Christ will break a very expensive box of alabaster  over his head (Mk 14:3).  There is no duty or rule can provoke devotion, only love.   That’s why I get so frustrated by those who try to frame Christianity in terms of law-keeping.  It is so impoverished a view of Christian devotion.  Only a heart that loves Christ is willing for his sake to lose his life (and possessions) in this world (Matt 10:39).  To any heart where love is nor pulsating the idea of sacrifice doesn’t even make sense.  Judas considered the burst perfume a waste.  He could not understand it because he did not love Christ.  Laws, morality, ethical codes don’t guide these decisions only love.

• Paul considered whatever he once valued as acceptable loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, he counted everything as loss because ‘of  the surpassing worth of  knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. For his sake he suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that he may gain Christ… and know him ‘(Phil 3:7-10).  Make no mistake, love for Christ is what guides our creation/new creation life balance.  It is it that will enable us to make the sacrificial choices, the giving up of the good now for the better to come.  The Christian life is faith working through love (Gals 5:6).  The motives of the heart are everything here.  Nothing less than love for Christ will constrain us to Kingdom cross-bearing (2 Cor 5:14) and in any case nothing other than this love has value to God. ‘Elder brother’ devotion is of no value to God (Lk 15).  The question is always to us as it was to Peter, ‘Do you love me more than these’?

• Christian love grows as we feed our hearts on Christ in the gospel.   Jesus says the person who realises he has been forgiven much will love much (Lk 7:47).  As we reflect ever more deeply on the love of God in the gospel, fill our hearts with the fullness of all God’s love towards us in Christ, and dwell on the dimensions of all God’s plans for us in Christ, the overflow is love.  We will live the new creational life God wants when our hearts grasp the great realities of the gospel.  As Paul says,

Col 3:1-4 (ESV)
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

the second man… the last adam

1Cor 15:45-47 (ESV)
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.

God’s purposes never lay in the first man, Adam, but in the second man, Christ.  What came first was not God’s final intention.  When God the Father planned history as we know it, it was always all about Christ.  It was always Christ who was appointed ‘heir of all things’ and to whom God intended to subject the world (Hebs 2).  God’s ‘firstborn’ is Christ, not Adam.

Col 1:15-20 (ESV)
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

The OT regularly indicated God’s preference for the second.  Cain was rejected and Abel was accepted.  God’s son of promise was not Ishmael  but Isaac.  Jacob the second twin not Esau would receive the birthright.   David, the second King, not Saul was God’s choice and the man after God’s own heart.  Not Adonijah but Solomon would be David’ successor. ‘  The principle from the ‘types’ was clear, Christ, not Adam, was God’s choice and heir.  Indeed we may use the language that is used for the old and new covenant to describe the Adam – Christ parallel: ‘he sets aside the first that he may establish the second’ (Hebs 10:9).

We should note too that there will be no ‘third man’ for the ‘second man’ is the ‘last Adam’.  No further humanity head will appear, no other is required.  Christ is not simply one prophet in a stream of prophets, he is a humanity head, a humanity source, and there will be none to follow.  There can be no advance on Christ, no improvement. To see and know him is to see and know the Father.

Thou art the everlasting Word,
The Father’s only Son;
God manifestly seen and heard,
And Heav’n’s belovèd one:

Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

In Thee most perfectly expressed
The Father’s glories shine;
Of the full deity possessed,
Eternally divine:

Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

True image of the Infinite,
Whose essence is concealed;
Brightness of uncreated light;
The heart of God revealed:

Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

But the high mysteries of Thy Name
An angel’s grasp transcend;
The Father only—glorious claim!—
The Son can comprehend:

Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

Throughout the universe of bliss,
The center Thou, and sun;
Th’eternal theme of praise of this,
To Heav’n’s belovèd one:

Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.

Worship Jesus.

living as new creation… in old creation (2)

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.

Christ is new creation

Our thoughts about Christ leave a lot to be desired.  All too often they are inadequate and demeaning.  Two notions I have been disputing over the past few months illustrate this well.   I have been inveighing against a rising tide that seems to suggest that new creation is simply Eden restored.  Christ takes us back to a pre-fall Adam.   At the same time I have been decrying the notion that Adam was created with the promise that if he obeyed he would gain eternal life for himself and his posterity; he failed, however, where the first Adam failed, Jesus, the second Adam, succeeded and by his law-obedience gained eternal life for himself and his posterity.

Both notions reveal a disturbingly low view of Christ.  They place far too small a gap between the humanity of Adam and Christ.  All agree that Adam and Christ are heads of two humanities, indeed of two creations.  All agree there is real continuity between Adam and Christ.  In a real sense Christ is the son of Adam (Lk 3:38).  ‘Since… the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil and deliver all those who l through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery… it is not angels that he helps, but… the offspring of Abraham’ (Hebs 2:14-16).  For the purposes of salvation, ‘… he had to be made like his brothers in every respect’ (Hebs 2:17).  Thus he is truly ‘the seed of the woman’.  His humanity is neither false nor phantom.  There is real continuity, real organic union with the race.  However, there is also real  discontinuity, or, perhaps better, distinction, and all too often this discontinuity or distinction is downplayed.

We must understand that  Adam and Christ are contrasted as much as they are compared, perhaps more so (Cf. Roms 5:12-20).  At the very least we must say Adam (before sin) was humanity in a state of infancy while Christ (even before resurrection) is humanity in maturity.   We may put it another way.  Adam (pre and post fall) was humanity as ‘flesh’ while Christ (pre and post resurrection) is humanity ‘in Spirit’.  Or, in the language of 1 Cor 15

1Cor 15:45-49 (ESV)
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Let me express this difference in a specific example: Adam was morally vulnerable, Christ was not.   We must never think that there was any possibility that Christ would fail to realise a new creation beyond sin.  He was not Adam trying to achieve new creation; he was in himself new creation.  The OT itself had asserted the certain triumph of his mission.  Hear the ringing confidence God has in Christ in Isaiah,

Isa 42:1-13 (ESV)
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.  ​​​​​​​​He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;  ​​​​​​​​a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.  ​​​​​​​​He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.  ​​​​​​​​Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:  ​​​​​​​​“I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations,  ​​​​​​​​to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.  ​​​​​​​​I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.  ​​​​​​​​Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”  ​​​​​​​​Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants.  ​​​​​​​​Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits; let the habitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the top of the mountains.  ​​​​​​​​Let them give glory to the Lord, and declare his praise in the coastlands.  ​​​​​​​​The Lord goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his zeal; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.

The servant is invincible.  It is an invincibility borne of the fact that he is anointed by the Spirit of the Lord (I have put my Spirit upon him) and upheld by the Lord himself (I will take you by the hand and keep you); the Lord who is ‘mighty against his foes’ is with his servant.

When we turn to the NT we see that Christ is the one to whom the Spirit is given without measure (Jn 3:34).  He is not old creation in the flesh but new creation in the Spirit.  He is sustained by the Spirit in all he does.  He is born (conceived) of the Spirit (Lk 1:35, Matt 1:18)  He is led and filled by the Spirit (Matt 4:1; Lk 4:1).  The Spirit of the Lord anoints him and remains on him in his baptism (Jn 1:32,33) appointing him as the Spirit-empowered Messianic Redeemer who would bring salvation  (Lk 4; Isa 49, 61).  His Kingdom revealing miracles are miracles of the Spirit (Matt 12;28) and his words are words of the Spirit (Jn 6:53).   He is the Messianic Son who not only was himself baptised in the Spirit but would baptize others into this new covenant, new creation, life in the Spirit (Jn 1:33).   The Spirit who indwelt him he would sent to indwell his own new creation people (Jn 15:26).   As flesh can only give birth to flesh so only One who is ‘Spirit’ can give birth to ‘Spirit’ (Jn 3:6).  It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all, and the words of Christ are Spirit and life (Jn 6:63).   ‘Flesh’ never produces ‘Spirit’, old creation never produces new creation, only that which is already Spirit can produce Spirit, only new creation can produce new creation.  Again, in the words of  1 Cor 15, Christ is no mere Adam, of the earth and mere dust, he is ‘a life-giving Spirit’ (1 Cor 15).

Isaiah’s Servant had the promise that the Lord himself would take him by the hand and lead him.  When we come to the NT this translates into the Father and Son relationship that John’s gospel particularly develops.  Christ cannot fail because he can do nothing of his own accord, he can do only the things he sees his Father doing (Jn 5:19).  He and his Father are One (Jn 10:30).  He lives in the bosom of the Father (Jn 1:18), he is in the father and the Father in him (Jn 10:3, 14:10).  He dwells in the Father and the Father dwells in him (Jn 14:10).   All that the Father has he gives to Christ (Jn 16:15).   He lives by the Father, is consecrated and sent by the Father (Jn 10:36), does the works of his Father (Jn 10:37), speaks the words of the Father (Jn 12:49, 50), and follows the commands of his Father (Jn 14:31).   He and the Father work side by side (Jn 5:17).   To see and know Christ is to see and know the Father (Jn 14:9).  He had come from the Father and would return to the Father (Jn 16: 28, 13:1).  He had come from God and would return to God (Jn 13:3).  His origin is heaven not earth.  The first Man is of the dust of the earth, the second Man is the Lord from heaven (1 Cor 15).   In fact, he is a divine person.

Christ, the man,  is no mere Adam, he is no mere ‘Son of Adam’ trying to find the reward of eternal life through obedience and trying to rise from the humanity of flesh (old creation) to the humanity of Spirit (new creation).  Such ideas are woefully inadequate.  Christ has life ‘in himself’ (Jn 5:26).  In him was life (Jn 1:4).  He gives life to whomsoever he will (Jn 5;21).  His words are life ( Jn 6:63).  He is the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25)  No-one takes his life from him.  He has authority to lay it down and to take it up again  (Jn 10:17,18).   He is the bread of Life (Jn 6:35).  He is the light of life (Jn 8:12).  He not only brings light, he is ‘the light’ (Jn 8:12). the ‘true light’ that lightens every man (Jn 1:9).  Language like this cannot be used of Adam.  This can only describe someone substantially different from Adam (pre or post-fall).  This is not simply a description of a new sinless Adam seeking to gain eternal life.  This language can only describe someone who is and brings others into a new order of humanity; Christ is not Adam restored, he is Adam reconfigured.

Adam was innocent, innocence implies an absence of sin: Christ was holy, holiness implies an abhorrence of sin.  Adam did not hate sin, he chose sin.  Christ loved righteousness and hated lawlessness (Hebs 1:9).  We are not encouraged to praise Christ because in moral vulnerability he faced sin and triumphed.  Rather we praise him because in the integrity of a humanity opposed to sin root and branch he bore all the opposition and grief that such a humanity would experience in a fallen and foul world to the extent of being made on the cross by God his Father what his holy humanity shrank from above all else , namely, sin.

Christ is invincible life, invincible new creation.  This is his great glory.  But this invincibility was at great cost.  He suffered being tempted.  Christ would not fail but the cost in not failing for him was enormous.  As new creation living in the hostile world of old creation he knew what it was to experience the opposition of sinners against himself (Hebs 12:3). He would not turn away from the Father’s will, he would drink the cup his Father gave him to drink, although that cup involved immeasurable suffering (Jn 18:11).  It was the cup drunk when through the eternal Spirit he offered himself without spot to God (Hebs  9;14), the cup of being the flesh in which sin was condemned (Roms 8:3).  His faith as a true man was tested to the utmost.  He made faith chart new territory (Hebs 12:3) for he never faltered or deviated from the divine will however demanding  or distasteful (Matt 26:39).  He may face great odds but he will do so with confidence and boldness; he is certain he will triumph and not be shamed for the Lord is with him.

Isa 50:4-11 (ESV)
The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.  ​​​​​​​​The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward.  ​​​​​​​​I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.  ​​​​​​​​But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.  ​​​​​​​​He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me.  ​​​​​​​​Behold, the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

This is the Christ of Scripture.  This is the Christ I know, worship and serve.  Not a weak uncertain Christ but an invincible Christ.  A Spirit-empowered Christ.  A Christ filled with all the fulness of the Godhead.  A Christ who is the man from heaven. Man in perfect and holy communion with God.  The Christ of new creation, a new creation whose fulness he enters finally and forever upon resurrection.  We, united to him in his resurrection, share in this new creation which before and without his death and resurrection we could not, for, ‘unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abides alone but if it dies it brings much fruit’.

Let’s have great thoughts, biblical thoughts, of Christ.  He is God the Son who in incarnation not only introduced us to the Father but in becoming human introduced eschatological humanity, eternal life humanity, humanity in the Spirit, the humanity of new creation.

living as new creation… in old creation (1)

How do people who are new creation live in an old creation?  Or to put it more popularly, how should Christians relate the world?

What a huge question?  In a sense the whole of the NT is an answer to it.  In a few posts I want to tease out some of the implications of the fundamental point the Bible makes concerning the Christian and the world.  What, you might ask, is that?

The main point the gospel burns into Christian minds regarding the world is – we have died to it.

Let me say it again – we have died to it.

And again – we have died to it.

What is that you just said?

I said – we have died to it.

And just in case the point has slipped your attention, let me repeat it again – we have died to it.

There is nothing that is more significant for us as we think of our relationship to the world than to recognize that we have died to it.  We have died to the whole order of the old creation.  We are no longer ‘alive’ in this world (Col 2:20).  Christians are a new creation.   In the death of Christ we died to the old order or creation and in his resurrection we find ourselves with him raised to live in a new order a new creation.  We no longer belong to (we have died to) the old creation of which Adam was the head but belong to (now live as) the new creation of which Christ is the head.  We live in the present world but are not really part of it.  We are like expats, or, resident aliens (Phil 3:20).  We live and function on foreign soil; in a country but not of a country.

What does this mean?  What are the implications of this for life?

The Bible spells out a number.  We discover that the various destructive forces that control the people of the present world, no longer control us.  The old fallen creation is controlled by various powers:  the world itself (Eph 1:1);  Satan (1 Jn 5:19; Eph 1:1); sin (Roms 6:6); rebellious flesh (Eph 2:3; Gals 2:24); God’s Law (Roms 7:1-6) and so on.  As people dead to this world we are free from them.  They have no rights or authority over us.  We need not listen to them or be intimidated by them.  The world’s allure is broken, Satan’s vice-like grip is unprised, sin is no longer a tyrant to be obeyed, the flesh is no longer the power on the throne of our hearts, the law (Mosaic)  is no longer an authority that accuses and to which we answer, death no longer has holding rights,  and God’s wrath is no longer a reality we need fear.  All are gone.   They are forces that have rights and threaten only in a world to which we are dead.  If we allow any to gain control it is because we choose to not because we must.  To be intimidated by any is a lack of faith.  It means we do not really believe we have died to this world.  As Paul says to the Colossians,

Col 2:16-23 (ESV)
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.  If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations- “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)-according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Mere pseudo-spiritual taboos and legalistic ascetic practices for their own sake (such as belong to many man-made religions and even the God-given faith of Judaism) are of no value in promoting spiritual life.  They are all examples of ‘flesh-religion’.  They have not grappled with the one radical truth that truly liberates, the truth that believers have died with Christ and are no longer ‘alive in the world’.  Once we grasp this and see that the source of our life, our joy, our satisfaction our holiness and all else is in heaven the superficiality and futility of these ‘recommended’ routes to holiness are seen for what they are.

It is wonderfully liberating to understand that death broke all debilitating relationships  and new creation means I may live free from them.  If I live for a time in another country they may have all sorts of habits, customs, histories, philosophies and cultural trappings that shape them.  I am shaped by none of these.  I come from another country.  I have been shaped by a different history and a different culture.  I am not a prisoner of the culture of my temporarily adopted country.  I am here only as a short-stay resident. I exist on a visa.   I am  passing through on my way home.  I am a pilgrim. To all that fashions and controls the world in which I live, I am as one dead.

does god care more for people or plants?

The malevolent ingenuity of Satan and the muggable incredulity of Christians never ceases to amaze.  If there is a cockeyed way of thinking then Satan will suggest it and we will embrace it.  One that  deserves a place in Satan’s Hall of Fame for C21 delusions is the idea that somehow God cares more about plants than people.  Or to dress the barmy belief up in more respectable clothes (and let’s face it to be credible it demands all the theological help it can get) the trendy teaching that God’s big concern is the salvation of the Cosmos rather than the Church.

Now if we were simply hearing that God intends to renew creation that would be fine.  It would be eminently biblical and have an honourable tradition.  Evangelicals have always believed this despite the efforts of some to suggest otherwise.  But we are not simply being told that God cares for creation and intends to renew it.  We are being told this is God’s main concern.  We are being told the gospel that focuses on the salvation of individual sinners is a gross distortion of the gospel.  The salvation of individual sinners from sin is a selfish concern, a ‘redemptive myth’, or at best ‘bit part’ in God’s great Cosmic drama of salvation.

Kevin De Young, obviously aware of this trend, has a helpful blog about it here.  He well says,

Do not think that salvation comes to sinners because God has a cosmic purpose for the universe and individual sinners happen to be a part of that universe. The movement of salvation is not from everything to individuals, but from individuals to everything. Don’t mistake regeneration, redemption, and adoption as byproducts of the larger work God is doing to restore creation. That logic is backwards. Biblically, it’s the renewal of all things that rides in on the coattails of the salvation of sinners.

Precisely. It is hard to believe that any could read their Bible and think anything else.  Read the story of creation.  The great drama of creation in Gen 1 does not reach a crescendo in v1 when God creates the heavens and the earth.  Nor is it in the creation of light (day one), nor the separating of waters below and above the firmament (day two), nor the separating of land and seas (day three)… the climax and crescendo of creation is day six when God makes man in his own image and likeness and personally breathes into him the breath of life.  Man is the focus and prime purpose of creation.  He it is, who bearing the divine image, God intended (and intends) to ‘crown with glory and honour’ and give ‘dominion over all the works of his hands’ (Ps 8).

It is not the plants in the garden that God comes to savour in the cool of the day, he comes to have fellowship with Adam.  The heavens and the earth, an arena of divine glory, were nonetheless designed for man’s blessing (Gen 1:26-30; 9:1-3).

When sin enters the world and brings destruction, God’s first concern is man.  It is man he clothes.  Indeed, it is in Man that a serpent-slaying deliverer will be found.  God will himself become man (in the final analysis this nutty notion is an assault on the value of Christ himself).  God’s love ultimately is not creation, nor even angels, but the seed of Abraham (Hebs 2).

Throughout the OT, while God is concerned about his creation, his chief desire is a relationship with humanity.  The rich images of OT relationship underline this.  He is a Father to Israel.  He is a Husband to his People.  He is a Lover to those he has set his love upon.  He does not ‘know’ creation, he ‘knows’ his people (Amos 3:2).  It is his people he loves ‘with an everlasting love’ (Jer 31).

The NT is exactly the same.   Joseph was told in Matthew’s gospel to call the child ‘Jesus’ because he would ‘save his people from their sins’.   The gospels, we are told, are concerned with a bigger picture, yet here, right at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, we discover that Jesus has come to ‘save his people from their sins’.  Yes Matthew will speak later of the renewal of all things (Matt 19) but his concern even then, as he speaks of the ‘new world’ are those who will share with him in the life of that new world, the sons of the kingdom (Matt 19:23-30).

In new creation, as in old creation, God’s primary concern is not with property and plants but with people.  Like any good Father his primary love and chief absorption is not with his capital or chattels  but his children, not his real estate but his sons and daughters.  They are his heirs, a new heavens and earth is but part of their inheritance. In marvellous, staggering, dumbfounding grace God has made us his kin and bequeathed to us all he has (1 Cor 3:21).

Jesus argues from the self-evidently greater value of people over plants to convince his people not to worry.

Matt 6:25-30 (ESV)
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

De Young points out that in Roms 8 creation’s future is contingent upon Christians and not vice versa.

Rom 8:18-22 (ESV)
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

We could glance too at the picture of new creation in Rev 21.  What is interesting in this chapter is that only the first verse of the chapter mentions the new heavens and earth.  The rest of the chapter is taken up with describing, not the glory of the new heavens and earth but of the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ and it is in her that the glory of God resides.  The high point of redemption is not a new heavens and new earth wonderful though that is but as the loud voice from the throne cries in joy and triumph,

Rev 21:3-4 (ESV)
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Just in case the point has evaded us, God’s joy and glory and fulfilment is in his people not plants.  That evangelical theologians are prepared to argue otherwise is simply a proof of how wily Satan is and how wacky (though wise in their own conceits) some theologians can be.