A Tower to the Heavens

This is the 12th and final blog post covering Genesis 1-11, known by scholars as the primeval Genesis narratives.  What we've covered in these 11 chapters are not historical stories, in the modern sense of "history", but rather mythopoeic origin narratives with a monotheistic theological twist.  These stories were undoubtedly first spread by the Israelites orally, and then only much later were they written down in the present form.  In fact, these narratives were almost assuredly written down at many different times and formats and were only brought together in the form that we now have sometime around the time of the Judean exile to Babylon.  The final story from these chapters clearly demonstrates its exilic setting. 

Around 600 years prior to the birth of Jesus, most of the Judeans were taken by the Babylonians into captivity.  During this time, much of what later became the "Old Testament" or the Hebrew scriptures was compiled into its final form.  Some of these writings had been orally passed down from generation to generation, but many others had existed in various written manifestations.  Through time, these stories, poetry, and discourses had taken on an authoritative voice in the Jewish community.  Though clearly passed on and written down by humans, they were acknowledged to have been inspired by God and were given a unique status as a guide for the Jewish people and the basis for the Jewish religion.

So, as the Judean people lived their exilic lives in the shadow of Babylonian Ziggurats (rectangular towers climaxing in a kind of pyramid shape at the top - often used for temple worship to pagan gods), the final story of the Genesis primeval narratives took shape.

In a previous blogpost in this series, I mentioned how language differentiates humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom.  Here in Genesis 11, we discover that the use of language might very well allow humanity to become almost God-like. 

"Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.  And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.  And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.'  And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.  Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'  The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.  And the Lord said, 'Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech.'  So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.  Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth." - Genesis 11:1-9 (NRSV)

Just as Eve had done in the garden, so now the people of Babel reach up to the heavens to grasp the place of God.  They use their united speech and technology to transcend their human role and vocation.  Rather than spreading throughout the earth as God had commanded them, they congregate in Babel (Babylon) and seek to build a tower up to the heavens. 

In the earlier chapters of Genesis, we have seen the ever-widening effect of human sin and brokenness.  Can the use of human ingenuity and technology now solve all of human problems?  Genesis 11 tells us that actually, because of human sin and brokenness, technology has just as much a chance to simply exacerbate human problems, rather than fixing them.  Out of God's grace and mercy, he confuses the human language, forcing the various tribes and peoples to scatter out upon the face of the earth.  Better to limit human "progress" when it is used for selfish and idolatrous reasons, than to allow it to grow unchecked.

It is interesting how often we humans have expected our technological progress to solve all of our problems.  But it seems that for every problem we solve, we create a host of other issues that might be far worse than the original challenges we hoped to overcome.  

So, then what is the hope of the human race?  Is there a solution to redeem God's good, but now flawed and marred creation?  Can the confusion of Babel be reversed?  Will there be a re-creation, as in the time of Noah?  Can the curse of Cain be overcome?  Will Adam's and Eve's sin forever taint the human race?  Is there a solution?  

The Bible says, "Yes!" -  and this solution begins with a man, called Abram, who is later renamed, Abraham.  And with this man begins the story of how God will come to redeem and be with his people.  It's an epic story, and in the final chapter of this story, God unites every tribe, language, people, and nation on the face of the earth.  In the end, humanity doesn't climb up to the heavens, as in the story of Babel, rather God comes down to the earth to be with his people forever.  It's a big narrative, so read on! - Shay 

From De-creation to Re-creation

When I was growing up, I remember hearing about adventurers who believed that they had discovered Noah's ark.  It didn't take long for these discoveries to be discredited and discounted.  More recently, a large exhibit in Kentucky was created with a full-sized replica ark and of course, accompanying gift shops and other money-making add-ons.  The problem with these ventures whether of the exploratory or exploitative variety, is that they fail to understand the nature of the Noah literature in Genesis 6-9 and thereby literalize it, rather than grasping its symbolic nature and significance.  They literally miss the forest for the trees, or rather the ocean for the stream, as it were.

Centuries before the Biblical narrative of Noah's flood was compiled, in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, a Noah-like figure named Utnapishtim, survives a global flood by building a giant ship where he and his family, along with the world's animals are carried safely through the storm.  And it's not only the Babylonians who rehearsed similar tales, but throughout the ancient near east, epic tales like Utnapishtim's flood were spread far and wide.  

It's clear that neither Utnapishtim nor Noah are historical figures.  They may be based on a real-life person who survived a localized flood, but in their current versions it is obvious that the facts of the original story, if in fact there was an historical anchor to it at all, have been altered in the service of a mythopoeic narrative.  And since the Epic of Gilgamesh pre-dates the Old Testament Pentateuch, the Biblical compilers obviously borrowed from Gilgamesh, and not vice versa.  

However, this does not mean that there are not great truths to be learned from both Utnapishtim's, as well as Noah's story.  Since this blog covers the big narrative of the Bible, we will focus on the story as told by the Biblical authors in Genesis 6-9.

As Genesis winds its way through the fall of humanity in the stories of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, a pattern of the ever-widening effect of human sin and brokenness becomes evident.  This pattern grows unchecked until even spiritual beings are affected by human rebellion (Genesis 6:1-4). 

As YHWH looks down on humanity, he discovers that wickedness is rife and that "every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually." (Gen 6:5).  That's amazing!  You would imagine that at least occasionally someone might have had a nice thought, if not at least a neutral thought.  But no, humankind had gone to hell in a handbasket!  The state of humanity is so twisted and disgusting that we are told that it brought God himself to repentance.  God was sorry that he had initiated this whole human experiment to begin with and so he decides to undue his creation.  After initiating the creation process, YHWH begins a de-creation event, beginning with people, moving to the other animals, and even reaching the birds of the air.  This order is the exact opposite of the order of creation as told in Genesis 1.  It is clear, God has moved from creation to de-creation.  But is this the final word in the story?  

Thank God, no!  There's one man, who compared to the sorry scumbags of his generation, is a fairly stand-up guy.  His name is Noah, and not only does he walk with God, but he will also be the one through whom humanity, the other animals, and even creation itself will be rescued.

If you have forgotten the Noah story, go back and read Genesis 6-9.  You will read about Noah building a gigantic barge where he, his family, and a representative selection of the earth's animals will ride out the storm and the global flooding catastrophe to come.  After several months, the flood waters subside and Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark eventually walk back out onto dry land.  

Rather than destroying the entire creation with the flood, YHWH instead uses the global catastrophe to cleanse the world.  The de-creation of the flood leads to a re-creation, so that when Noah and his family walk out onto the soil, they are entering a whole new world.  Noah now becomes a kind of "Adam and Eve" like figure.  Just as Eve reached out her hand to take the fruit, so Noah plants a vineyard, but then misuses God's good creation and gets drunk on the wine, the fruit of the vine.  In fact, he gets so plastered that he is running around naked and making a fool of himself.  His son Ham makes matters worse by mocking his own father, bringing down a curse on him and his descendants.  Ham's story reminds us immediately of the curse of Cain and the brokenness and sin that proliferated through his genetic spawn. 

So, we are in a sense, right back where we started.  Out of his love, grace, and mercy, God made a new creation.  But the human beings in this renewed world were just as broken and sinful as the humans in the previous iteration of creation.  Like the earlier stories in Genesis 1-5, the Noah story is "fictional" on the surface, but as deep as the mighty ocean in its depth.  It is as true in a universal sense as any story ever told.

The Noah story gives us a clear glimpse of where the Biblical narrative is going.  Because like in the Noah story, the story of the Bible is the story of "Creation to New Creation".  It's the story of God and how he comes to dwell with his people.  But where will this story end?  Is there a solution to human sin and brokenness?  Where is this story going?  Read on... - Shay      

Cain and Abel: The Tension between Human Evil and Flourishing

From the current conflicts in the Middle East and Europe, to the brutal battles of antiquity, human history has been littered with war and violence.  Millions and millions of human lives have been taken through the actions of other human beings.  Sadly, it's been this way from the beginning.  Genesis 4 gives us deep insight into the human proclivity for violence.  Let's dig into the story.  

Anger and Resentment Leads to Murder  

In Genesis 4, we read of conflict between two sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.  We are told that both brothers offer a sacrifice to God, but only Abel's sacrifice is deemed acceptable.  We're not even told exactly why this is the case, but it seems to have something to do with the quality of the two sacrifices.  Certainly, Abel's offering is from the first fruits of his flock, while Cain's may be a less choice offering.  At any rate, anger and resentment bubbles up in Cain's heart and God confronts him with this, warning him that sin is crouching at his door, waiting to master him.  However, Cain has the freedom to resist this temptation to sin and can choose a productive path, if he so chooses.  But if he chooses poorly, and rather than mastering sin, sin masters him.  Cain invites his brother out into the field where he murders him.  God confronts Cain, and like his parents had done in the garden, he tries to cover up his action, but God of course, knows better.  Faced with the reality of his sin, Cain will now suffer the consequences of killing his brother.

Cain the Wanderer and the Widening of Human Violence and Sin

As the story continues, we learn that Cain becomes vagabond, wandering from place to place.  Fearing that like his brother Abel, he too will be murdered, God places some kind of mark on Cain to prevent others from killing him.  He eventually settles in the land of Nod, East of Eden.  To be East of Eden is to be in exile, just as the Jews would be centuries later.  He finds a wife and begins a family of his own.  This part of the story raises some interesting questions for the careful reader.

First of all, Cain and Abel, along with their parents, Adam and Eve, are the only other people mentioned thus far.  Where did all of these other people come from?  And where did Cain find his wife?  In a sense though, these questions miss the point.

Just as in the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, the story of Cain and Abel is not historical.  And just as Adam and Eve were not individual people, so neither were Cain nor Abel.  As Adam and Eve represent all of humanity, so Cain and Abel are representative of some of the best and the worst traits of humans.  At our best, we are all Abel (pun intended), and at our worst, we are all Cain.  

The Big Picture 

Ultimately, what we discover in the story of Cain and Abel is that when humans fail to love God with all of their heart, soul, and strength, not only does this sever our relationship with God, but it also distorts and destroys our relationship with others, eventually leading to the violence and destruction that we see all around us. 

Now, this does not mean that all of human existence is only strife, hatred, and killing.  We also discover that many of Cain's descendants are skilled in the arts, sciences, and technology.  Humanity lives within the tension of human flourishing and human brokenness.

But a question must be asked.  Is all of life simply the delicate balancing act of living within the tension of flourishing and brokenness, or is there something more?  Will there, could there ever be a solution the problem of human sin and evil?  We must read on to discover the answer.  But warning - it's gets worse before it gets better. - Shay 

Unoriginal Sin

 I lived in Nottingham, England in 1999 and 2000.  As you probably know, if Nottingham is famous for anything, it's famous for Robin Hood.  There have been debates for centuries about the validity of the Robin Hood stories.  Some academics believe that Robin Hood was a real-life person, while others believe that he never really existed.  Still other scholars think that Robin Hood is a kind of amalgamated character formed from legends of many different individuals who lived in parts of Britain throughout the centuries - a bit like King Arthur.  What is certain is that the stories we now have about Robin Hood are "fictional".  Certain aspects of the stories might have been based on real events at different times, but they are almost certainly not based on the exploits of any one individual.  But does that make the stories untrue?  I would argue no.  There are many truths to be gleaned from stories like the Robin Hood tales.  

Something like what occurs in the Robin Hood stories is happening at the beginning of Genesis.  The human characters in Genesis 2-11 are not real historical individuals (though some of them may be based on real people or may be the amalgamation of many different historical figures into one individual).  Rather, the people we read about in Genesis 2-11 represent all of humanity.  We are all Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, Noah etc.  And Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, and Noah are meant to represent all of us.  Though these stories might be described as "fictional", they are true in ways that transcends basic facts and figures.  

So, when one considers "The Fall" or the first "Original Sin" of humanity, one should expand this idea to encompass all of Genesis 3-11.  All of these stories describe in various ways and from different angles the story of humanity's sinfulness and brokenness.  These stories do not describe sin in the sense of being inherited or passed down from generation to generation, rather they describe a world in which sin is inevitable for everyone.  We are not born sinners, but it doesn't take long for us to become sinners.  

So, as we begin our journey through these foundational narratives, let's go back to the garden with Adam and Eve.

Idolatry is at the Heart of Human Sin 

If you've never read Genesis three or if it's been a while, I encourage you to spend five or ten minutes perusing this narrative.  We've all been exposed to artwork depicting the serpent seducing Eve into eating the fruit (note the text doesn't say which kind of fruit - just picture your favorite).  We've probably also seen paintings of Eve sharing the forbidden delicacy with her husband.  But on the surface the idea of one tree being off limits for the first humans seems a bit arbitrary.  Why were they not allowed to eat from this particular tree?  This is where the symbolic nature of the story comes in.  The tree is described in chapter two as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It is implied that by eating of its fruit an individual would gain the understanding of the difference between good and evil.  As the serpent says to the woman, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God.

The idea that Eve might become like God is what is so tempting to this archetypal woman.  It is the temptation to usurp God and to place him in a lower place than his status rightly demands.  It is a form of self-worship.  Essentially it is idolatry.  And as Eve shares this idolatrous act with Adam, both of their eyes are opened, and they discover that they are naked.  They recognize that they have sinned and so to cover the shame of their sin, they cover their bodies with fig leaves.  

Adam's and Eve's idolatry immediately damages their relationship with one another.  They are no longer as innocently and intimately connected.  As chapter two ends, the man and the woman are naked, but feel no shame.  Now they must cover up their exposed flesh.  But it's not just their relationship with each other that is damaged.  So too is their relationship with God. 

As God walks in the garden in the cool of the day, the humans hide from their creator.  Their shame has extended vertically, as well as horizontally.  At the heart of this story, we discover that every act of human sin is on some level an act of idolatry on our part.  Rather than seeking God's way, we search out our own way.  We seek to be the divine authority in our lives, and we alienate ourselves from the truly divine.  

 Sin Has Consequences 

The remainder of Genesis three describes the consequences of human sin.  Again, it is important to remember that this story is highly symbolic.  On a literal level, women don't have pain in childbirth because Eve partook of the fruit.  On a literal level, women have pain in childbirth because human babies have enormous heads, and it stretches a woman's birth canal to the extreme to give birth to these big-headed babies.  Likewise, farming is hard because the soil produces thorns and thistles as well as grasses and grains.  But on a symbolic level, we learn that life is not made easy in the wake of human sin.  Life becomes harder for all of us as we sin and as we are sinned against.

And relationships are damaged by our short-sighted and selfish human choices.  Consider the relationship of men and women.  In the garden, they related to one another on an equal plane, but east of Eden, it is the man who will dominate and the woman who will yearn for the man's position.  We've seen this played out in the world throughout human history.  Notice, God does not prescribe this breakdown in the male and female relationship, rather he simply describes it.  God's ideal is for men and women to both complement one another in their relationships and to form a partnership of equality.  That's one of the things that will be finally realized in the age to come.  But in this age, unfortunately, we continue to struggle.

And struggle is at the heart of this narrative.  We discover from the very beginning that life will often be a struggle.  Our idolatry and sin have made life far more difficult than it had to be.  The story of Genesis three is not the story of original sin, it is rather the tale of unoriginal sin, because all human sin begins with idolatry and leads to broken lives and broken relationships.  

God's Grace is Evident from the Very Beginning 

Though this is the first story of human sin, it won't be the last.  But it is not only a story of brokenness, it's also a story of grace.  In verse 21 we learn that God provides the humans with skins to cover their nakedness and their shame.  And even the cherubim and flaming sword guarding the garden of Eden from the man and woman is an act of grace.  Transformation and redemption must first be accomplished before flawed, sinful, and broken people are fit to partake of the eternal life of the age to come, for otherwise eternal life would not be worth living.

There's far more to explore in Genesis chapter three, but that can be for another time.  In the meantime, read on...Genesis four is waiting! - Shay  

Formed from the Soil: Did Humans Evolve?

One of the most controversial scientific theories of the past two hundred years has to be Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.  Even non-religious people may not relish the thought that we share common ancestors with not only chimps and other great apes, but even with non-mammalian creatures.  In fact, if Darwin's theory is accurate, we share common ancestors with cockroaches and even plants.  On the surface, this seems to diminish humanity's special place within the cosmos.  But is that really the case?  Read on.

First of all, let me confess, not only am I not a biologist, but I also struggled in my college biology classes.  Having said that, I love what biologists, and other scientists can teach us about life, especially human life.  My struggle in the sciences comes down to details.  I am not very strong in the minutia of mathematical and scientific formulas, but I enjoy scientific concepts from the macro level.  I just need really smart people to dumb it down and communicate it to me in ways that I can understand.  So, I am not in a position to argue for or against Darwin's theory from a scientific perspective, but I do feel qualified to comment on it from a theological and philosophical perspective.  

Second, in this blog I am not arguing that a person should necessarily embrace evolution, but rather that there's nothing inherently heretical for followers of Jesus to do so.  A great resource on this is the BioLogos website and organization (BioLogos ). The founder of the organization is Dr. Francis Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health.  Collins is a committed Christian and endorses Darwin's theory of evolution.  

In this post I just want to shed some light on a short passage in Genesis 2 that might provide us with a different way of considering the way in which God created humanity.

"...then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." - Genesis 2:7 (NRSV)

There is a lot of intimacy and care in how this verse describes God's creation of humanity.  He doesn't just speak mankind into existence; we are told he forms or fashions the man from the ground - the soil. In fact, the name Adam is the Hebrew word for man and comes from the same Hebrew root word for land, ground, or soil.  God uses the stuff of creation - dirt - to create humanity.  I don't believe that this passage is a historical, much less scientific description of how God created humanity, but rather a symbolic account of the significance that YHWH places on humanity from the very beginning of creation.  It's not an accident that the "name Adam" literally means "man".  But there was not literally one man, named Adam in the Garden of Eden. Rather, the Adam of the Genesis 2 story represents all of humanity.  The stories in chapters 2 and 3 give us insight into the plight of all of us, not simply two individuals in the beginning.  In a sense, we are all Adam and Eve.

So, how does this relate to evolution?  If God is able to create humanity from the dust of the earth (from the molecules and atoms of creation), then he is capable of creating humankind from lesser and lesser developed organisms going all the way back to the primordial soup of the primeval Earth.  What distinguishes us from other living things, and the rest of creation isn't our chemical and material makeup, but that God used the chemicals and materials of his creation to form us in his image.  The process (or the length of the process) isn't the defining factor.  Afterall, none of us place a great deal of importance on a shovel full of dirt, but it's pretty cool that our God can take basic stuff like that and create all of us!  

So, whether or not evolution turns out to be 100% accurate, what all of us can be sure of is that we have been created in the image of the God who loved us and in fact became one of us.  And that gives humanity its ultimate dignity. - Shay 

The Goal and Destination of Creation (part three)

 

This is the final post in a three-part series on the goal and destination of creation. The Biblical story as a whole can be summed up as: "Creation to (re)New(ed) Creation".  It is the story of God and his people, a story of becoming.  It begins like this.

In the Beginning 

"In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind (or spirit - ruach in Hebrew) swept over the face of the waters." - Genesis 1:1-2 (NRSV)

God's creation begins with the heavens and the earth, but in the beginning, they are without form and are void of the necessities for life and meaning.  Though Genesis 1 describes God's creational process symbolically and poetically as a seven-day journey, in our human way of reckoning it has been a multi-billion-year evolution.  God is far more patient than the average 21st century person!

As God's story with his people progressed, through gradual and unfolding revelation, it began to emerge that this grand epic has a goal and destination.  The prophet Isaiah described it like this, "On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.  And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  Then God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken." - Isaiah 25:6-8

In the next chapter of Isaiah, we discover a cryptic description of how God will defeat death. Some scholars believe this to be the first reference of resurrection in the Hebrew scriptures.  "Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.  O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!  For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead." - Isaiah 26:19

So, in these chapters of Isaiah we see that God has a hope and future in store for his people that goes beyond the grave.  It is not an ethereal, non-physical, non-bodily, spiritual existence, rather it is a full-bodied, robust, and ultra-physical reality.  Later in Isaiah (chapters 65-66) we discover that this new reality is not to be experienced in some distant heaven, but rather that God will create new heavens and a new earth, just as he had done in the beginning.  These later chapters in Isaiah do not describe the life of the age to come as eternal, but as a full, well-lived, and meaningful life. However, as the doctrine of the resurrection of the body became the norm in much of Judaism, Isaiah's visions in chapters 25 and 26 were combined with the visions found in chapters 65 and 66.   By the time of the 1st century of our era, most of mainstream Judaism held to a belief in a future bodily resurrection leading to eternal life in a new age and a renewed creation.  They believed this was the goal and destination of creation, but there were questions of how and when God would bring this new reality about.  In stepped Jesus, believed to be the Messiah by many of his Jewish brothers and sisters.  

Jesus' Death and Resurrection: The Gateway to the Age to Come 

The earliest Christians (both Jews and Gentiles) believed that through his death and resurrection, Jesus ushered in the age to come.  In their minds and hearts, the new creation had already been launched on Easter Sunday.  However, as the Apostle Paul so ably communicated in Romans chapter 8, this new age has come not all at once but can best be described as simultaneously as an "already" and "not yet".  The renewal of all things has already begun, but it has not yet been brought to completion.  When will it all come full circle and why has it taken so long?  The writer of 2 Peter answers these questions in chapter 3 of his short letter.

God's Timing is Not Our Timing 

"But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.  The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be disclosed...But in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home." - 2 Peter 3:8-10 & 13 

The writer of 2 Peter claims that Christ has not yet returned and brought all things to completion because God is still at work bringing the good news of salvation to all people and helping those people to realign their lives with his new creational purposes under the Lordship of Jesus.  Like he did through the flood in Noah's day, God will one day cleanse the creation again, but this time with fire.  On the other side of this cleansing will emerge a (re)new(ed) heaven and earth where righteousness is fully realized.  

The New Heaven and the New Earth 

At the end of the book of Revelation, John sees the goal and destination of creation up close and personal.  He describes it thus, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more...And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among (people).  He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.'  And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'" - Revelation 21:1 & 3-5a 

John describes the consummation of creation as the coming together of heaven and earth.  In other words, God's will is finally done on earth as it is in heaven.  And God comes to live with his people in the renewed creation.  He makes all things new.  Though we cannot fully grasp what this new reality will be, here are three brief things to consider and imagine.  

1. All Wrongs Will Be Made Right 

Anyone who has lived long enough in the present world knows that things don't always go as we would hope.  The world is broken, and all people are also broken.  So often, injustice reigns and those on the margins are exploited and left without a voice.  One day, these wrongs will be undone and those things left undone in our own lives will be made right.   

2. Humanity's Vocation Will be Fully Realized 

We discussed in a previous blog that baked into creation is God's plan for humanity to live meaningful and productive lives.  When we engage in purposeful and impactful work, we not only bless others and the creation, but we also become who we were created to be.  In the age to come, we will fully realize our potential as human beings and we will creatively work alongside one another and alongside God himself (Revelation 22 says that we will reign with him) in stewarding the world.  This work will not be "toil", but rather "productive play".  

3. The New Creation Will Include Unfolding Drama and Adventure

Just as the initial creation is not static, so the new creation will include an element of unfolding drama and adventure.  This is probably where we need to harness our imaginations the most.  In fact, we can probably only skim the surface of the adventure that lies before us in the age to come when we dream about all that we hope to experience and achieve in this lifetime.  We probably all have regrets about those moments and areas in life where we failed to live up to our full potential.  In the renewed creation we will be given the opportunity to plumb the depths of who we truly are and where the longing of our hearts might take us.  The best movies, plays, books, and dreams are foretastes of the drama and adventure that is yet to come.  But as compelling as we might find these stories now, the narratives we will continue to write and live out in the age to come will far exceed anything that we can conjure up in the present.  The goal and destination of creation is not so much an ending, but rather a new beginning.  No wonder the early disciples cried out, "Maranatha!" (Come Lord Jesus!). - Shay  

The Goal and Destination of Creation (part two)

In the previous blog we explored the goal and destination of creation, and this is where we will pick up again in this post.  

The Freedom of Creation to Become 

It is often supposed that God created a kind of static or steady-state universe.  It is imagined that God said, "Let there be mountains!" - and then there were 20,000 feet mountains dotted everywhere across the landscape.  But the sense of the "let there be" phrases in the Hebrew of Genesis 1 carries more of the idea of both being and becoming.  It might be better to translate these verses as, "let there be the power of (mountains - or anything else, including humans) to become".  

Even the name, YHWH carries within it the sense of both being and becoming.  YHWH is the God who is and also the God who "becomes".  Theologically, this has a profound impact on how we understand God, creation, and ourselves.  

Within God's very nature is freedom.  In fact, there is no being or entity with a greater freedom than God.  Humanity is also given the freedom to not only "be", but to "become".  This is true of the creation itself.  But becoming is a process, it is not static.  To put it bluntly, it takes time.

If you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, then you have seen what the slow trickle and flow of water can create, if given enough time.  Like Rome, the Grand Canyon was not made in a day.  In fact, it didn't take thousands of years, rather it took millions of years for the Grand Canyon to be carved by the forces of nature that God established.  Mount Everest and the Himalayas did not automatically tower over Asia and the Indian subcontinent overnight but were formed through millions of years of plate tectonics.   

In Genesis 1, like he does for the rest of creation, God speaks humanity into existence.  In Genesis 2, he forms the human out of the dust of the earth - using the elements of creation to sculpt humankind.  Neither of these descriptions tell us exactly how God created humanity, nor do they tell us how long it actually took.  Instead, they describe the significance and role that humanity is given within God's creation plan.  Like mountains and canyons, humanity's formation took not thousands, but millions of years to complete.  

And here is the interesting thing.  The job of forming and creating humanity is not yet complete.  Like the rest of creation, we too are on a continuous journey of becoming.  And like the rest of creation, God has allowed a freedom in our journey.  What we will become is not set in stone.  There is an open-endedness to not only creation as a whole, but for individual lives within creation.  God's plan for the creation - and for us - includes a great deal of latitude.  

Though we are given freedom to become, some of the free choices that we make, ironically lead us into a path of slavery, rather than freedom.  The Bible describes these free, but suboptimal choices as "sin".  Sin limits our freedom to become the true humanity we were originally created to be and instead condemns us to slavery and eventually death.  The message of the New Testament declares that through Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross, he destroyed the power that sin has over us, setting us free to truly become human.  Through Jesus' resurrection, we can be sure that death will not have the final word on our lives.  Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so all of God's faithful people will one day overcome death through bodily resurrection.  At that moment, we will truly be free to become.  And so will the rest of creation be set free. 

 The Creation Will Be Set Free 

The apostle Paul, in Romans 8:18-21, describes it like this: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."

Paul tells us that one day, we will be set free from death and decay and will obtain the ultimate freedom to become the humanity that we were created to be but failed to be.  In the same way, the rest of the universe will also be set free to freely and truly become that which it was always meant to be.  Creation isn't just about "being", but much more about "becoming."  But what will that (re)new(ed) world look like?  What will it be like?  We'll tackle that question in the next post.  In the meantime, consider who you are now and who you wish to become one day in the future.  We are all on a journey of "becoming" and who we are becoming has not yet been determined. - Shay