God’s Rest

September 1, 2009

Why does God need to rest? Is he fatigued? It must have been exhausting work for God to create the cosmos, the earth and everything in it, right?  NOT!

So, why did God rest?

In some of the ancient creation myths the gods built their own heavenly sanctuary when they finished their creative work (or battles) and sat down on their heavenly thrones to rule the new cosmos. Yahweh is a bit different. Yahweh does not construct a heavenly sanctuary or temple, but the earth and sky are his sanctuary.

Architectural construction is one of the more common metaphors for creation in the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, when Yahweh questioned Job about creation his questions are framed in architectural language:  “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?…Who marked off the dimensions?…Who stretched a measuring line across it?…who laid its cornerstone?…set its doors and bars in place…” (Job 38:4-10).

When God created, he was constructing his temple, a sanctuary, in which God would live with his people. The Psalmist parallels the creation of the earth with the construction of the Tabernacle. “He built his sanctuary like the heights, like th earth that he established forever” (Psalm 78:69). The Tabernacle was a poor substitute for the earth, but it was the beginning of a renewal of God’s redemptive presence among his people.  God would come to the Tabernacle (Exodus 40), and then he would come to the Temple (2 Chronicles 6:40-7:3). When the first couple was excluded from the Garden of God’s Temple, God did not forget them but pursued humanity through the calling of Abraham and his presence in the Temple.

God would then come in Jesus as the incarnate presence of God in the flesh. The flesh became God’s temple, his dwelling place (John 1:14). When Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, God poured out the Spirit upon his people and the Spirit of God rested upon them and dwelt in them. Now we are the temple of the living God (1 Corinthians 6:18-20; 2 Corinthians 6:14-16). In the new heaven and new earth there is no temple except that the whole of the new creation has become the temple of God because the Father and the Lamb are there (Revelation 21).

But the story began with creation. It began with the construction of God’s temple in which God would dwell with his people. The whole of creation is God’s temple or at least would become his temple with the sanctuary located in the beginning within Eden. “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool,” Yahweh declares. “Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” (Isaiah 66:1-2a).

When God finished his temple, the creation, he “rested” in it. He came to dwell in it, to love his people, walk with them in the Garden and enjoy the shalom he created. When God finished creating, he declared it “good,” that is, pleasing, beautiful, and delightful. God rejoiced in his works (Psalm 104:31) and rested in them.

God’s rest is his delight and joy in his creation; he enjoys what he created and blesses it through his presence within it.

God created the cosmos as his dwelling place–a place where he can dwell with humanity and the rest of creation, a place of communion, delight, righteousness and peace. The earth is his sanctuary and we are his people. God invites us into his rest that we might enjoy him (Hebrews 4:1-11).

9 Comments | Theology | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Two Stories: Humanity’s Foolish Detour (SBD 5)

May 13, 2009

[Note: I am attempting to keep these SBD installments under 2000 words each, but that is--of course--quite inadequate for the topics covered. Consequently, these contributions are more programmatic than they are explanatory or defenses of the positions stated. You may access the whole series at my Serial page.]

God partners with humanity as divine representatives within the shalom-filled creation, but humanity–and creation with it–degenerates through a series of crises.

Created and crowned with glory and honor as royal creatures within the creation, humanity chose a different route to the divine nature than God intended. While God invited humanity to share divine communion and gave them the status of divine imagers within the creation, humanity wanted more. We wanted to be God and consequently we created our own story within the creation.

Rejecting God’s offer to share the “divine nature” with the Creator (2 Peter 1:4), we pursued our own agenda to embrace the divine and created our own gods (ranging from idols of stone and wood to the contemporary gods of money, power and sex).

The Divine Image

Fundamentally, the “image of God” (Genesis 1:26-31) is “godlikeness.” This is unique to humanity among God’s creatures (Genesis 5:1-2; 9:6) which affirms the dignity and worth all humans. But it also limits humanity because the image is not the thing in itself. It is, in some respects, unlike the original. We are not God, but we are the image of God.

But what is this “image”? There are, generally, three primary ways of understanding it.

1. Substantive — The image is identified as some definite characteristic or quality within the makeup of the human (e.g., rationality, personality, morality, spirituality, etc.). The locus of the image is within human nature; it is a quality, substance or capacity resident in our nature or even inherent in our ontology.

2. Relational – The image is identified with the quality of experiencing relationships (e.g., relationship with God, male/female relationships, social relationships, etc.). The image is displayed as humanity lives in particular relationships. That relationship is the image. It mirrors God’s communion and God’s own relational ontology.

3. Functional (Dynamic) — The image consists in something that humanity does; the function it performs (e.g., stewardship, partnership with God, “dominion” over the earth, etc.). The image is not something present in the makeup of human nature nor is it the experience of relationship. Humanity is God’s representative on earth as a vice-regent and shares the divine mission regarding the creation. This is humanity’s honor and glory (Psalm 8).

I understand the “image of God” broadly, inclusive of all of the above. Humanity is substantively invested with gifts that enable us to live in relationship with others and to serve the function God has invested in it. The image of God is not one thing but the reality that we are divine icons who resemble and represent God within the creation. Understood in this way, the idea is pervasively present within the story of Scripture from “be holy for I am holy” to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” to “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” We mirror God in substance, relationality and function.

Humanity is forbidden to make “images” (idols) of God. Those images have no “breath” in them (Habakkuk 2:19; Jeremiah 10:14; 51:17). God has no humanly made image, because God has already made the image he desired, that is, humanity as male and female. God does not need an image because we are the image of God.

The image of God, however, is fully revealed in Jesus who “is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Hebrews 1:3). He becomes the fountainhead of a new humanity. Whereas the old humanity in Adam bears his likeness with an earthy natural body characterized by dust, the new humanity in Christ bears his likeness with a heavenly spiritual body energized by the Spirit (Genesis 5:2; Philippians 3:21; 1 Corinthians 15:42-49). Our original human identity is restored and renewed in Christ.

Ontologically, humans have always retained their identity as images of God (divine representatives) and thus were entitled to dignity and respect (James 3:9). But the human detour through sin and death transformed that image from full color to a dark negative which needed renewal in the image of God (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). The process of re-colorification begins with our spiritual renewal and ends with our eschatological glorification in the resurrection of the body (Romans 8:29-30).

Human Vocation

Humans were not only designed to represent God within the creation, they were designed to commune with God, to enjoy God. They were intended to share the divine nature through the divine image which stamped their nature, role and function. This is the human vocation, our human identity, that is, to live in communion with and partner with God in the management, development and care of the creation. Communion with God entails a divine vocation.

The mission of God (missio Dei) is to dynamically mature and develop the creation into the fullness of the divine intent. The human vocation is to share the divine task within creation. Humans are co-rulers and co-creators. They partner with God for the sake of the divine mission. God has invested in humanity a glory and a responsibility as divine representatives in the world.

The good creation was not complete at creation but only beginning. The creation would, according to the divine intent, emerge and grow into a maturity fitted for the eschatological dwelling place of the Triune God. Humans, too, would mature as diverse cultures emerged and technologies developed. God glories in both natural and human diversity. Humans who live near the Arctic Circle live differently and develop a different culture than those who live near the equator. Since God determined that the whole earth be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18-19), God intended this diversity, values it, and rejoices in it.

This involves every aspect of human life. The arts (music, literature, art) are expressions of human creativity as we image God and enjoy what is created. Technology manages resources, medicine serves wholeness, and social structures shape community. These are part of the human vocation, our partnership with God, as co-rulers and co-creatures within the creation.

A Rival Story Emerges

The human story took a detour. What were intended as expressions of the divine task given to humanity became modes of reversing the divine intent. Technology polluted the earth, social structures oppressed the weak, and the arts fostered human self-centeredness.

This detour is described in Genesis 3-11. God invested humanity with the freedom to choose between the “tree of life” and the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.” It was a choice between life and death, between partnering with God and autonomy. The episode in the garden of God’s temple (creation) symbolizes the plotline within God’s story of the fundamental choice human beings have between humility and pride (Psalm 138:6; Proverbs 18:12; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5), between covenant with God or independence (cf. Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:15; John 7:17; Matthew 23:37).

The detour is not simply about the “fall” in the Garden but about the emergence of a rival story throughout Genesis 3-11. Evil grows in the story and fills the earth to such a point God destroys it through the Noahic flood. But even that cleansing did not deter humans from their own agenda. The story climaxes in the building of the Tower of Babel where the agenda of God’s creation is turned on its head. While God’s self-deliberation resulted in the creation of humanity (“let us create…”) in Genesis 1, the human self-deliberation resulted in the erection of a tribute to human arrogance and the desire to reach the heavens, that is, to become like God (“let us build….”). Humanity wanted to build their own city as a testimony to their autonomy. From Genesis 3 to Genesis 11 humanity degenerated into a broken, fallen and depraved image of God.

This degenerative process structurally uprooted God’s creative intent. The relationship between God and humanity was severed (e.g., expelled from the Garden), the relationship between male and female was distorted (e.g., husbands would now “rule” their wives), social relationships were deformed into relationships of power, abuse and violence (e.g., Cain and its aftermath), and the relationship between humanity and the cosmos became hostile (e.g., death). This degeneration was the “vandalism of Shalom” (Plantinga). It perverted the goodness of creation and stripped humanity of any power to defeat the enemy they had embraced.

The creation, however, was not without grace. Adam and Eve lived to bear children. Seth introduced a new line of humanity distinct from Cain. Enoch walked with God in the midst of a broken universe. Noah found grace in God’s eyes. And God would call Abraham in Genesis 12. God continued to pursue humanity and he did not forsake his purpose.

Sin

Though the word is rarely used in Genesis 3-11, sin emerges as a power within humanity as if it were an alien force. The dynamic of that power is larger than humanity itself and looking from the end of the God’s drama we see that power was demonic and Satanic. It became part of the “elements of the cosmos” itself. This does not mean that the creation became evil but that the creation was subjugated to the reign of evil powers.

Human choice, permitted by God’s will, gave that power to the chaotic and demonic elements within the cosmos. Humanity listened to the wrong voice. They chose sin and sin became a power within the human psyche; it became “second nature” to humanity. It is our “sinful nature” or sarx. The human condition degenerated into depravity and God gave humanity over to its desire (Romans 1:18-32). Sin reigned as a power within humanity and humanity was powerless to dethrone it (Romans 7).

Theologians have debated for centuries what the essence of sin is. The suggestions are wide-ranging, including disobedience, rebellion, pride, anxiety, law-breaking, idolatry and unbelief. Many of these metaphors are legal in character, others are introspective. But I tend to think that sin’s fundamental problem is relational.

The essence of sin, as Grenz argues, is the failure to image God. We were created as the glory of God, that is, to image God, and we have fallen short of that glory (Romans 3:23). We have missed the mark. We have failed to represent God in the world. Instead, through rebellious pride, we have asserted our own agenda. Sin is anything that fails to mirror God’s vocation, character and intent in the world. This includes individual but also social actions and structures which depress or subvert the divine agenda. Sin is not only personal but social; sin is not merely an individual act but a structural reality and dominating power in the world.

So What?

Every human person has intrinsic value and dignity. Our status as divine imagers is both our identity and vocation, and this gives worth to every human life. This is the root of a healthy self-esteem as well as the ground of a human rights ethic.

God intended change; he intended his creation to emerge, evolve and develop. Nature evolved, human society developed, and cultures emerged. The richness and diversity of the creation in all its biological forms is a testimony to God’s manifold wisdom. Just as God, humanity enjoys this diversity and learns about itself through the diverse expressions of human culture.

The human adventure is a fundamental conflict between two stories. One story humbly participates in the divine agenda but the other story arrogantly creates its own agenda. It is a contrast between humility and pride. Human conceit empowered evil in the world and rooted it in the fabric of the cosmos. The kingdom of God became the kingdom of Satan but intends to reverse that sad fact.

The human predicament is mixed. The divine image is present but blackened. The human vocation is intact but distorted. Humans are powerless to renew, restore or redeem the broken creation without divine grace. But God is present in the creation to redeem—present in Seth, Enoch, Noah…and ultimately Abraham. God has not forsaken his purposes and his intent will not be frustrated.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Reverse the Curse III – Israel

August 21, 2008

“The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:7-8).

“[Yahweh] brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Deuteronomy 26:9).

When the earth was defiled by human evil, God cleansed it with water. When the earth was defiled again by human arrogance who thought themselves gods, he chose Abraham and his descendents to be the heir of the cosmos (Romans 4:13). God will provide them land, and there God will dwell among them as their God and they his people.

By giving Abraham the land of Caanan God intended that through Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed, that the whole earth would come under the reign of God.  There was no intent to leave the rest of the cosmos under the dominion of evil. Instead, God would redeem the whole earth–all the nations and the cosmos itself–through Abraham’s seed.

As a promise of the future and an experience of the new creation itself, God gave Israel a fertile land “flowing with milk and honey.” The land itself was a foretaste of the new heavens and new earth; a foretaste of a renewed creation.

Israel, in their fertile land, was the kingdom of God in the midst of a broken world. God invested his love and gifts in them so that they might be a witness to the nations for the sake of calling them into communion with Yahweh, the king of the earth. They were to care for their land and animals with stewardly love, love each other, and love God with all their heart, soul and mind. God gave them the Torah to guide them, priests to mediate his redemption, prophets to exhort them, and judges to protect the weak.

Israel was, in effect, a new creation; a new beginning of God’s creative intent; a light in the darkness. A redemptive, royal priesthood through whom God would work to further his reign on the “cursed” earth.

But….

 ”I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable” (Jeremiah 2:7).

“I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone….I looked, and there wre no people…I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert…” (Jeremiah 4:23, 25a, 26a).

Alas, Israel defiled the land, themselves and turned to other gods. Like their ancestors, like Adam and Eve in the Garden, they chose their own autonomy over the divine invitation to participate in God’s reign. They set themselves up as rulers over the earth–or at least their parcel of land–instead of reigning with God and serving his goals for the sake of the nations and creation.

With this defilement, God returned the land–what was designed as a new Garden (Eden) upon the earth–to chaos, darkness, and death. The language of Jeremiah is quite striking.  The only two times the Hebrew terms ”formless and empty” are used are in Genesis 1:2, describing the cosmos before God’s creative ordering, and Jeremiah 4:23, describing the land of promise after Israel’s defilement. The divine inheritance was no longer “fruitful” but a “desert.”

This is a reversal of creation. This is the nature of the “curse.” It is a return to chaos, darkness and death. God promised that he would curse their flocks, land, etc. if they defiled his land, rejected his mission for them, and rebelled against God’s righteousness (Deuteronomy 28:15-68).

Israel, called to reverse the curse and live as new life within a broken world, chose chaos over creation, evil over good, and darkness over light. As a result, they experienced what the original couple experienced–their Garden existence turned into a desert filled with brokenness, a cursed reality.

Meanwhile, the curse continued to consume the earth (Isaiah 24:6). The world lies in the power of evil, lives in darkness, and chaos reigns.

But hope did not die because God yearns for his people, loves them, and does not give up on his creation.

“‘Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.’ …I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more….The wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food. ” (Isaiah 65:1a, 3, 25a).

“The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name” (Zechariah 14:9).

God intends to renew the heavens and earth he created; to create them anew.  He will yet fully reverse the curse. He intends to remove weeping and violence, even violence in the animal kingdom.  He will reverse what the serpent inaugurated with his temptations and defeat the serpent himself.  Shalom will reign in the whole earth; the kingdom of God will fill the whole earth.

Israel was not the creation’s last, best hope.  It was a divine project; a renewal of the divine mission for humans as imagers of God to co-rule over the creation and co-create the future with God.  It was a way for God to effect the renewal of the earth through human participation. It had its successes, but it also had its dismal failures as humanity continued to seek its own interest rather than participate in God’s life.

Israel was not creation’s last, best hope.  God is the hope of the cosmos. God will act. God will redeem. God will create.

God incarnate, the seed of Abraham, will bring light into the darkness and enlighten the world.  God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, is the creation’s last, best and only hope.

More to come….

18 Comments | Theology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Reverse the Curse II — The Beginning

August 19, 2008

“God saw all that he had made and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31a).

“….Cursed are you above all the livestock….Cursed is the ground…” (Genesis 3:14a, 17b).

God created order, life and light out of a chaotic, inanimate and dark earth.  By divine act, life emerged from nothingness, light appeared in the darkness, and order reshaped the chaos. The formless empty darkness became an ordered light-soaked reality teaming with life.

God created a garden on his earth (Eden) where life, community and peace reigned. What he created was “very good.” And God rested in his creation, enjoying his world and delighting in his people.

The story in Genesis, however, moves from peace to violence, from community to suspicion, from life to death. Chaos enters human experience, evil grows in the womb of human freedom, and human death becomes a reality on God’s good earth.

The transistion from shalom to chaos, initiated by the human desire for autonomy, is what I mean by the “curse.”  It is the language God uses as he addresses the serpent and the man in Genesis 3.  The serpent is cursed (3:14b) and the ground is cursed (3:17b).

This is not scientific language. It is metaphor for the reintroduction of chaos into God’s good creation. It is a metaphor for brokenness, for the vandalism of shalom (as Cornelius Plantinga calls). It is a detour from the divine intent for life, peace and community into death, violence and tyranny.  The cursedness of Genesis 3 anticipates the human spiral into inhumanity in chapters 3-11.  Humanity, designed to image (represent) God in the world as co-regents over God’s good creation, became in its own eyes a god who could reach into the heavens and make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:4). Humanity became its own curse as they lived in a broken world.

The curse, or brokenness, is played out over and over again in the human drama.  It is a story of death, destruction and dehumanization. Rather than imaging God, they create their own images to worship. Their images are not merely idols of wood and stone, but superstructures of greed, power, and genocide. They shed innocent blood.  They build palaces on the backs of the poor.  They seize power for its own sake.  They will themselves to power, wealth and violence.

This is the human condition. It has become natural to human beings, their “second nature.” Though designed for good–for peace, community and joy, they are warped toward evil–violence, tyranny and anguish.

But the grace of God does not leave us in our hurt and bondage. Rather, God acts to redeem, restore and renew.

My favorite scene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ is when Jesus, carrying the cross, falls to his knees under its weight.  His mother runs to him and their eyes lock.  With blood streaming down his cheeks and holding the symbol of Roman power and violence, Jesus says, “Behold, Mother, I make all things new.” 

This is the promise of God. It will be the eschatological act of God in the new creation, in the new heavens and new earth. There the old order will have passed away and the voice of God will declare:  “I am making everything new” (Revelation 21:5a).

A day is coming  when there will be “no more curse” (Revelation 22:3).  There will be no more darkness–the glory of God will fill the earth with l ight. There will be no more violence–the nations will receive healing and walk by its light. There will be no more death, mourning or tears–the Tree of Life and the Water of Life will nourish the people of God forever.

A day is coming when the curse will be reversed, revoked and rescinded.

“There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4b)

“No longer will there be any curse” (Revelation 22:3a).

8 Comments | Theology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

Women Serving God

July 11, 2008

In the first half of 2004, the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ (Family of God) in Nashville, TN, pursued a congregational-wide study entitled “Women Serving God.”

There were some preliminaries in the Fall of 2003, but the main focus was the Spring of 2004. This involved many different venues–sermons, Bible classes (Sunday and Wednesday), small groups, focus groups, leadership meetings, etc. Some of the resources utilized are now available online.

The homilies by Rubel Shelly, John York and Wes Crawford are available. There were four in January 2004 entited (1) The Creation Story; (2) Women in Israel; (3) Jesus’ Life and Teaching; and (4) The Early Church.

The Sunday Morning Bible Class teaching material that paralleled the sermons is available on my Bible Class page. The series is entitled “Women Serving God: Four Lessons.”

I have just uploaded the Wednesday Evening Bible Class series in the Spring of 2004 to my Bible Class page as well. It is entitled “Women Serving God: Eight-Lesson Dialogue.” There were multiple participants, each given credit in the teaching outlines, but the class was conducted by Mark Manassee (at the time a chaplin at Vanderbilt Hospital and presently the preaching minister at the Culver Palms Church of Christ in Los Angeles) and myself. We are primarily responsible for the outlines which represent both the complementary and egalitarian positions. The outlines are suggestive and general; they are not detailed presentations of positions. We hope you can learn from them but remember they are trajectories rather than formal position statements. In addition, they were written four years ago and opinions may have developed or changed since then.

Mark and I worked well together as well as with guests (mostly women in the Woodmont Hills family) who shared the lectern with us in the classroom. We attempted to represent both sides of the question in fairness and love. Our dialogue was healthy, engaging and productive of good will. There was no hostility or animosity though we disagreed on certain points. I felt it was a model of Christian dialogue about some difficult questions. Mark and I are still friends! :-) Imagine that! Especially after discussing such a “hot” and often divisive topic. Love does cover a multitude of disagreements.

I will see you next week after a restful weekend with my wife.

Shalom

John Mark

10 Comments | Theology, Hermeneutics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

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