Story of the Universe–Part 4: Firstborn Son of all Creation

January 21, 2010 in Uncategorized with 6 Comments

If, as I’ve been arguing for the past couple of days, Christ rather than Law is the ultimate piece in the narrative of the cosmos (especially as it pertains to God’s relationship with humanity), what might that mean for creation? I’ve tried to get the law piece out as I’ve reread the two creation narratives from Genesis over the past few days–but what does the Christological alternative look like?

The NT points us in this direction: Christ is not only the telos of the Law, he is also the source and the telos of humanity. God created us as “little Christs”, representations of the Son, and his person and work were the original, and will be the climactic, description of our calling as people.

Who is the “image of God,” the “firstborn of all creation”? Well, clearly, (to conflate the two stories), it’s Adam/ Adam and Eve. But this is the language of Colossians for Jesus: “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

In Colossians we have a description of Jesus as image of God that is not tied to the Christ event, but to his pre-creation existence. In other words, even more foundation than Jesus coming and filling the role of Adam (which is the next thing Col 1 says and what Paul talks about in Rom 1:4; Rom 5; and 1 Cor 15), we see that Adam himself was created to play the role of Christ. As the firstborn, image-bearer of God, who rules the world on God’s behalf, Adam fulfills the work of God the Son.

Let me stress again that this is another angle which undermines the idea that the fabric of the universe is Law or covenant–neither of which exist as the governing structures of either God’s intratrinitarian relationship or God’s pre-fall relationship with humanity. Neither Law nor covenant are needed because these beings were begotten/sent/made in relationship with one another. No covenant is needed for the same reason that I didn’t need a covenant to be my children’s father: they are born into that relationship (unlike the marriages they’ll undergo, Lord willing, down the road).

One further note on Christ as archetype of Adam in Colossians: note what he does in that role: he creates every throne, dominion, rule, and power. This is a further reflection on the nature of the power entailed in ruling the world for God: the Christ is the one who is the King over the kings, the ruler of the rulers–God’s own regent. This was the earthly role given to Adam. Adam is the embodiment of the Son (but not Christ incarnate, of course).

But this is not the end of the story, of course. As Adam was created to be an earthly christ, in a relationship governed not by the law; so Christ came to earth and died and rose as second and last Adam, representing people in acts and a covenant not governed by the law.

The Christological pattern is then repeated: as Adam was created in the image of the image, becoming the firstborn like the firstborn, so after Jesus becomes the firstborn from the dead, becomes the human son who reigns for God then those who are united to Christ are renewed after the image of Jesus’ own firstborn-/resurrection-sonship (Rom 8).

Christ himself determines the core of our identity as humans in relationship to God. He did not come with the goal of establishing the validity of the eternal law forever and ever. Law was given with the goal of reestablishing the validity of Christ’s eternal reign–and that of those who are in him.

This, of course, has tremendous implications for the question of the missional identity of God. Christ as the sent sender is something we see with crystal clarity after his earthly mission. However, we learn that Christ’s sending of little Christs into the world to represent his gracious reign begins far earlier–at the very beginning. Not only is our “Christian” calling to be on mission; not only is God eternally the sending God; this quality of God and our Christian calling is at the core of what it means for us to be human.

At root we are not law-keepers or law-breakers. At root we are sent ones: to be human is to be sent into the world to represent to it the reign of the firstborn son–the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from the dead.

The Story of the Universt–Part 3: The Father-Gardener

January 20, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 7 Comments

Genesis 2-3 has functioned as a veritable treasure-trove throughout the Christian tradition. Here is where we get indications of male-female relations, here is where we indications of rules set forth by God. Here is where things fall apart when people break the rules so that God has to figure out a new set of rules by which to bless people.

For a universe whose basic ontology is law, what is said about this passage? (1) God gives the moral law, summed up in the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (2) This was, of course, the covenant of works by which, had people kept it, we would have had fruition of God as our benefit and reward. (3) The failure of humanity to keep this covenant leads to the institution of the covenant of grace whereby God promises a new way for his of-late-incapable of earning salvation people to enjoy God forever. (4) The covenant of grace is, of course, a place holder until someone can come along and make good on the law that has not gone away–both bearing the penalty for its transgression and earning the reward of its fulfillment.

A law-based understanding of the cosmos, covenant theology, the idea of double-imputation and the active righteousness of Christ, and penal substitutionary atonement are all mutually reinforcing and interdependent. I’ve been chided for taking on too many red-flag issues, and for brushing with too broad strokes in my recent set of series. But the driving questions of how do we articulate the gospel and why are pushing to the surface how our understandings of law, God’s relationships with people, the work of Christ, our participation in that work, ethics, etc. are all mutually interdependent.

To put a finer point on it: even if a strong promoter of, say, penal substitutionary atonement does not believe in the covenant of works, that atonement theory is the bequest of a system of theology within which both were developed and given prominence due to the architectonic principle of law.

So what happens to Genesis 2-3 if we leave the law east of Eden?

We encounter God the gardener. Like Gen 1, there is no sense of an infinite chasm to be bridged in order for God’s presence and blessing to be known–though the story is vastly different. Here, we have God literally planting a garden, working the dirt, creating a specially cultivated place for humanity to tend not a wild place to tame (contrast Gen 1).

Humans are created with special attention and intimacy: God literally getting God’s hands dirty to form a man; God placing his mouth on the man to breath in the breath of life. Like Gen 1, God then calls on the Man to partner in the sovereignty over creation as ‘Adam names the animals. Later, we hear of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day–God come looking for Adam and Eve.

What’s the point of this picture (from which, I know, I have so far eliminated the trees)? Just that there is a relationship here in which people are enjoying a fullness in their relationship with God and are participating with God in God’s work of cultivation and lordship–and that this is a function of a created relationship, not the function of a legal system. The relationship and the shared work and sharing of space is a picture of shalom that does not come from a from the result of a fulfilled law. If I may risk invoking 1 Timothy here: “We know that law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient.”

So what of the trees? There are three kinds of trees: (1) pleasing to eye and good for food; (2) tree of life; (3) tree of knowledge of good and evil.

This has been the source of the idea that here, in fact, is the nascent law in the garden, and also a reward for obedience: don’t eat like God says, and you’ll get to eat from the tree of life.

A couple of thoughts here about why this situation isn’t intended as “probationary.” First, this becomes the vision for eschatological restoration in both Christianity and Judaism. The idea of a garden with a tree of life, etc., is the expectation for the restoration of the cosmos (even if that garden becomes a city in Revelation, the garden imagery is ubiquitous–see also the tabernacle and temple). The point is, this passage is read not only as a starting point, but an ending point. After all is said and done the “benefit and reward” of being in God’s presence is to be restored to this relationship, where God walks among God’s people and God’s people live in God’s presence. This is not the prelude, this is paradise.

Second, notice that God gives blanket permission to eat from every tree except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God does not forbid them to eat from the tree of life or ask them to wait a few weeks.

Finally, I do think it’s important to take the story of undoing seriously. In the course of the story we find: (1) God’s relationship with humanity is ruptured; (2) people’s relationships with each other are ruptured; (3) people’s relationships with the animals are marred; (4) people’s relationship with the dirt is cursed; and (5) life comes through suffering, toil, travail.

What we need in the light of this disintegration of the created order is restoration, redemption, renewal of our relation to the cosmos from dirt to God. Although subsequent narratives will make it clear that we need right standing before God the judge, the story as it is propelled into a world of sin and falleness is primarily a world in need of restoration: a rightful realigning of everything under the reign of God.

And this is why we ultimately need Christ rather than ultimately needing Law. We need someone who will faithfully restore the rule of God–as we see Jesus doing in the Gospels; we need someone who will reconcile rebellious humanity to God–as we see Jesus doing on the cross; we need someone who will subject the opposing powers–as we see them subjected in the death and resurrection; we need someone who will make us one with each other–as we are made one in the new humanity which is in Christ; we need someone who will make all things new–as Jesus brings about new creation through his and our resurrections.

Authenticity Part 1: The Good

January 19, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 2 Comments

On Facebook and Twitter a couple days ago I expressed some concern about the rampant use of “authenticity” as our litmus test for what we, as Christians, should be doing.

In 140 characters, one sometimes is not able to give a fully nuanced view of things, hence the glory of the blog where I can give a less-than-fully- nuanced view of things in as many characters as I please.

There is something very good about the pursuit of authenticity.

Too often, in cultures such as churches, the goals and standards of holiness and perfection (and less noble standards such as the social mores du jour) create a pressure to be disingenuous about our lives. We get pulled into the trap of thinking that our job is to be a perfect demonstration of the perfection to which we’re all striving, so we hide our flaws, failures, and shortcomings and create images of competence and perfection.

The ante is often upped for religious professionals. We might fear that acknowledgment of our failures or struggles will cost us our jobs–and we may be right. In some circles, this applies not only to personal piety but also theological convictions. People mask what they truly believe because they live in fear that the truth will set them freer than they’d prefer from their source of income.

So when we talk about authenticity, one of the most important things to say is that it represents a healthy, godly, and pastorally powerful alternative to the inauthentic facades we too often take up.

From my limited experience, sermons (for example), and teaching are much much powerful when the preacher or teacher is honest about being a person in process–both personally in the muck and crap of the world and theologically.

While we don’t want to wallow or glory in our failures or air our dirty laundry, people resonate with leaders who are fellow travelers, people resonate with fellow travelers who are honest about the valleys as well as the peaks.

Such a call to “authenticity” is in step with the narrative we’re called to live into in Jesus Christ. When Paul or Jesus speak of embodying Jesus’ ministry in our own lives, as often as not they are speaking of a life that embodies the one thing that makes us distinctively Christian: the cross of Christ. Authentic discipleship will walk the way of the cross. This means that “authenticity” that admits struggles, weakness, even failure (from an earthly point of view) is not only relatively better, but the type of discipleship that sets us apart as Christians.

Authenticity is not only good, or a happy fad, but essential to Christian discipleship.

Up next: The Limits of Authenticity as the rule for Christian ethics.

Story of the Universe–Part 2: The Father-Creator

January 19, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 7 Comments

Otherness. Distance. Unbridgeable gap. Creator.

Humans. Proximity. Creatures.

In the world structured by the transhistorical law of the King Who Is Other, we start off in quite a hole with respect to God: all is duty and obligation by the order of creation, and a special act, an added gift is required, if God is to overcome the fact of our creatureliness and allow us to enjoy the benefits of his love and kindness.

If my representation of this seems stereotyped or clunky, here’s another way of putting it: “The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant” (WCF 7.1).

On the one hand, I think that this way of putting it displays at the outset a faulty presupposition that the only way to really be blessed by God is by being rewarded for keeping the Law. But putting that quibble aside, the stories of creation are stories of the Father God creating Children–relationships that entail experiencing full blessing appropriate to the relationship apart from an externally imposed covenant to make way for enjoyment of God in return for our servitude.

To confess belief in “God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth” is not just a claim about the God Who Is Out There, but about God as God stands in relationship to humanity.

Genesis 1:26-27: And God said, “Let us create humanity in our own image and in our own likeness and let the them have dominion…”

1. In creating people, God begets children. The closest parallel text for seeing the connection between the language of “image and likeness” and “sonship” is Gen 5 (likely from the same source as Gen 1): God created Adam in the image of God, and Adam then has a son, Seth, in his own image and likeness. This is relational language: we can have “benefit of God as our reward” not because God imposes something to overcome the creator-creature distinction, but because God has created us to be God’s children. (Of course, the fall changes things, but we’re at the beginning of the story here, so bear with me.)

“Image of God” indicates a functional identity for humans: we are created with the purpose of representing the rule of God to the world. I would say that a truer representation of the story than what we read in WCF 7.1 would go something like: “Although God created all the creatures and ordered their lives for their own good, they would know nothing of the continuing sovereign reign of God were it not for God’s giving them an earthly representation of God’s own rule–which he has done by way of humanity.”

Getting caught up in our need to fulfill God’s rules of the cosmos, in our need to find something yet to come in our relationship with God, we too easily lose sight of the fact that we had everything, and that we were God’s gift to the world. Which brings us to…

2. In creating people, God displays his missional character. Again, I’m looking at how we know God though the dynamic and deeply contingent realities of how God has worked in history. And in this culminating act of creation (creating people) we discover that God sends a representative, bearing his authority, to represent God to the world. Humanity is created to act for God, to speak for God, to rule over the world that is God’s sovereign prerogative to rule on His own. The plan for people, and their unique commission, is to be God’s emissaries.

When we begin the story, we are not on the outside in need of getting in. When the story starts we are not confronted with a cosmic set of structures put in place with the hope of sending us into the orbit of eternal beatification. When the story starts we are not lacking in the benefits of God’s blessing and “reward.”

In the beginning, God creates a family: princes and princesses who are charged to keep up the King’s work of bringing fruitful life and flourishing to the King’s Dominion. In the beginning, God is Father–of humanity. In the beginning God is the Sender–of humanity. In the beginning, God ties Himself to creation not through a legal code or covenant, but through His image-bearing sent ones ourselves.

Story of the Universe–Part 1: A Storied God

January 18, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 8 Comments

(The following is an encore presentation of a post from the dearly departed Sibboleth blog. The series, posted here this week, will serve as an introduction to the project of this particular blog: what it’s called “Storied Theology” and what it means to speak of a “story-bound God”.)

When our idea of the fundamental fabric of the universe is law (as has been the case in numerous traditions throughout Christian history), we end up with saying some strange or, better, all-too-familiar-but-not-exactly-Christian things about God. When we think of God, what really starts to matter are eternal, unchanging attributes; descriptions that articulate in the clearest way possible that God is other; and, as we’ve discussed with law itself, quite earthy depictions of God get catapulted up into the realm of ideal, trans-historical norms.

An anecdote that lodged itself in my mind: a Turretin scholar was doing a presentation to some pastor-types on God’s self disclosure to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” The punch line of the presentation? “This is God revealing to Moses who God is in Himself–this is who God is in His ontology.”

When everything that really matters is outside of space and time (covenants, law, grace) then divine self-disclosure, showing us what really is true of God must also be outside of time. Of course, I find this claim concerning ontology to be ridiculous. But it is a way of thinking about God that fits perfectly within the system. And in this, the Reformed Tradition is not any more or less guilty than any other–it has adopted a large swath of the church’s posture in thinking that what really matters about God is that God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, etc.

All of this assumes that we know who God is and that our real challenge is to figure out what God is. The implication, though, is that what God is will tell us what God is like. And once we’ve gotten to that point, I’d argue that we’ve gone down the wrong trail altogether. To find out what God is like, we need to get our minds around who God is.

And here’s the punchline: the most pervasive way of saying who God is in Scripture is tied to this-worldly particulars: YHWH is the creator, but one who creates in a certain way and not in another; YHWH is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The whole point of the Exodus narrative is to “introduce” Pharaoh to this God that Pharaoh does not know (and to show how YHWH’s power stacks up to the powers of other gods). God is “the Holy one of Israel”, such that the fate of Israel is reflective of God’s own character and standing in the world.

And, as Christians, our confession about God is tied up with the Christ event: we say that God is the One who justifies the ungodly; we say that God is the One who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not exist; we say that God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have not spoken of the Christian God when we have spoken of a “spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” We have talked about an ideal for a divinity. We speak of the Christian God when we speak of the God who has acted to send His own Son, to give that Son up for us all, to raise that Son from the dead, and to see to it that the message of this son is sent to the ends of the earth. (You may have read something like this somewhere.)

In other words, one of the most important pay-offs for being willing to have our transhistorical theological categories exchanged for the biblical categories is that it creates space to reconceive of the identity of God as put on display in the biblical narrative itself: a God who is relentlessly on mission to draw the world to Himself.

Why Blog?

January 16, 2010 in blogging with 9 Comments

In a follow-up of sorts to the “what is a / my blog?” discussion I want to say a few words about why I’d engage in this sometimes confusing, muddy enterprise.

The short answer is that I believe the Bible is important and that I have something to say about it.

A story: A couple of years ago I found myself driving my brother’s car from our parents’ house in Concord, NC, to Durham, NC. Two hours and change. Since my brother is an InterVarsity staff worker, he has edifying and helpful things to listen to in his car, so I found myself listening to talks from a Willow Creek Leadership Conference. One talk was about leadership.

The guy giving the talk offered his take on the two indispensable qualities of a leader: “leaders are optimists, and leaders have an ego.” I was a little disheartened when I heard this, because despite having more than my fair share of ego, I’m not usually accused of interpreting the world through rose-colored glasses. Dangit.

But then he went on to explain what he meant: leaders are people who believe that there is a better future ahead and that they are part of it. Oooh, that was starting to sound closer. In the words of Cornell West, “I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.” And in the words of Thomas Wolfe (the older one!), “He was so bitter with his tongue because his heart believed so much.”

I want to put my thoughts out there for the world because I do believe the Bible, and God’s people who read it, have a bright future. And I think I have a role to play in seeing that future dawn. I blog because I believe there is a better future ahead and I’m part of it.

But even that is probably not enough to bring me back into the blogsphere after a 5+ month hiatus.

One driving reason that I return to blogging is because of the global character of the church/mission of God. Blogging is a way to both “give away” what might otherwise only be purchased through books, magazines, or tuition dollars and to engage in a conversation that embraces more voices than any of the community spaces I or my published writings can physically occupy. Numbers aren’t everything, but in the first day this blog was up and running I had more readers than I will teach in one year in Fuller Seminary classrooms. Yes, I blog because I believe that I am part of the better future ahead, but I also blog because I believe in the world-wide nature of the “you” who also have a role.

The third and final reason I blog: I am more theologically creative when I am constantly thinking about what I want to share with this world-wide community. My next couple books have had their seed as blog posts, which sometimes show before I’m fully aware where there is a cluster of issues I’m passionate about. The next several articles I want to write are all the fruit of putting some musings on the internet, getting some – from my readers, and continuing to wrestle through the issues.

So I’m back. And for now, my desire to say something, to say it in dialogue with the world, and to keep my sayings fresh are enough. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Communal Story & the Face of God

January 15, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 18 Comments

Romans 15 calls Christians to seek each other’s good ahead of their own, even to please each other rather than themselves.

Such self-denial is done in imitation of Christ, living out with one another the story of Christ, who also did not please himself. Instead, as singer of a psalm, Christ says, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell upon me.” The cross of Christ, where he bore reproach, models life in Christian community. (Indeed, I would argue that the reason Paul says that the things written beforehand apply to us is precisely because they apply to Christ first.)

But right now I want to suggest that there is a surprise awaiting us as we start delving more deeply into Paul’s call that we imitate Christ’s self-giving.

The psalm Jesus recites, Psalm 69, is a song of a righteous sufferer, a song addressed to God. The reproaches that fall on Christ do not refer to the sins we should have borne but to the mockery heaped up on the God of Israel.

When Paul calls us to dramatize the story of Jesus in our community, he is not calling us to look at ourselves as the savior and our brothers and sisters as sinners who need us to deliver them. He calls us to look at ourselves as the one who bears ridicule directed at God. He calls us to bear with one another because when we look at the face of our brothers and sisters we see in them the image of God, the ridicule of whom denies the truth about the very structure of the cosmos.
This is a call to live into the future that awaits us, seeing  those “without strength” as though they are, already, “perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.”

The family of God bears the family likeness. I seek my sister’s good, I seek my brother’s good, rather than my own because in so doing I live into my family’s story, the story of the elder brother who died for the honor of the Father. When I set aside my own desires and seek to please my siblings, I also am giving up myself for the honor of my Father whose likeness I see in them.

To be like Christ entails aligning myself with God by aligning myself with God’s family–even at the cost of myself.

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