Creation and Salvation

Tony Reinke Biblical Theology, Creation

Typically we do not think of the topics of creation and salvation together. The topic of creation typically arises for discussions about origins and science and even marriage. But not deliverance. Yet the topics belong together.

One benefit to living through 50 inches of snow in 5 days is that you get a chance to work on your core muscles. The second benefit: lots of reading time. And in my reading I came across several unexpected references that in some way wed the themes of creation and salvation/deliverance. I’ve typed them out for my own future reference and reproduced them here for anyone interested:

1. Creation and deliverance as the structure of the Pentateuch. John Sailhamer: “In the Pentateuch, as elsewhere in the Bible, the twin ideas of creation and salvation are inseparably linked. This is expressed compositionally at the macrolevel in the fact that the Pentateuch begins with an account of creation (Gen 1:1) and reaches its culmination point in the salvation story of the exodus (Ex 14). … The compositional macrostructure of the Pentateuch (Gen 1–Ex 15) therefore is a witness to the centrality of creation in the biblical notion of salvation.” [The Meaning of the Pentateuch, pp. 578–579]

2. Creation and covenant. Francis Watson: “Creation represents the beginning of the history of God’s covenant relationship with mankind. It is only the beginning of that history, and not the totality; it establishes the foundation or stage upon which the rest of history can unfold. And it is truly the beginning of that history, and not an independent topic that can be considered in isolation from its narrative context.” [Text and Truth, p. 267]

3. Creation as deliverance. The creation account seems to presume some type of primordial dualism. Bruce Waltke: “the creation narrative is a story of redemption, of the triumph of light over darkness, of land and sky over water, both of which are essential for life” [An Old Testament Theology, 181]. Rolf Knierim: “Creation and Israel’s own history are correlated under the aspect of Yahweh’s salvific actions. Creation out of chaos is seen as the first in a chain of salvific actions. Here, world order and Israel’s history are united under one purpose, liberation from chaos and oppression. Thus, it can be said that Yahweh is the creator of the world because he is its liberator from chaos, just as he is the creator of Israel because he is its liberator from oppression. Therefore, the notion of liberation belongs to both creation and Israel’s history.” [The Task of Old Testament Theology, p. 209–201]

4. Creation and deliverance in Psalm 136. Note the connection between vv 4–9 (creation) and vv 10–22 (deliverance). God the creator is God the deliverer.

5. Creation as deliverance in Psalm 74:12–17. John Goldingay: “God won a victory at the Beginning as one who effected great deliverance. ‘Deliverance’ [v 12] usually refers to God’s acts in Israel’s experience … But reference to smashing the sea monsters’ heads would more directly suggest a conflict at the time of creation. That is confirmed by the subsequent reference to God’s establishing the plants” [Old Testament Theology, 1:67].

6. Cosmic order and social order in Isaiah. L. H. Osborn: “The prophetic use of creation imagery is even more striking in many parts of Isaiah 40–55; the prophetic promise to the exiles is built upon reminders of God’s creative activity. If God can bring the cosmic order into being God can certainly restore order to Judah. The correspondence between cosmic order and social order is also implicit in the OT concept of salom” [New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, 431].

Extravagant Beauty

Tony Reinke Marilynne Robinson

From Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer winning novel, Gilead [(Picador, 2004), pages 245–246]. These are some of the concluding reflections of John Ames, an old pastor who serves as the novel’s narrator.

It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance—for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light. That is what I said in the Pentecost sermon. I have reflected on that sermon, and there is some truth in it. But the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it? …

There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world’s mortal insufficiency to us. Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true. “He will wipe the tears from all faces.” It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required.

Theologians talk about prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave—that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.

The Psalms as Temple Surrogate

Tony Reinke Psalms

Speaking of the best books of 2009, I’d list John Sailhamer’s The Meaning of the Pentateuch (IVP Academic, 2009). This from page 504:

“[Matthias] Millard argues that the Psalter, as such, originated in the Persian period. It was conceived as a collection of prayers for the Diaspora and functioned as a replacement for temple worship. In reading the Psalter, one was both oriented to the temple and, at the same time, absolved from actually having to worship there. The Psalter thus was intended to promote the importance of the temple pilgrimage while at the same time being a substitution for the temple itself. It was a private surrogate for the pilgrimage to the postexilic temple in Jerusalem.”

Sailhamer next focuses on the three strategic psalms: 2, 72, and 145. A nice little bonus in a book on the Pentateuch!

Why does God love me?

Tony Reinke Election, God's love

At some point every Christian has frankly evaluated their own sin and has stood amazed by the grace of God. This leads us to ask the question: Why would God send his pure and eternal Son to be smudged and murdered at the hands of vile sinners—for me? Or said more directly: Why does God love me?

The answer to this question is simple and profound.

In a sermon on John 3:16, Puritan Thomas Manton (1620–1677) answers the question this way—

Love is at the bottom of all. We may give a reason of other things, but we cannot give a reason of his love … Why did he make so much ado about a worthless creature, raised out of the dust of the ground at first, and has now disordered himself, and could be of no use to him? We have an answer at hand: Because he loved us. If you continue to ask, But why did he love us? We have no other answer but because he loved us, for beyond the first rise of things we cannot go. And the same reason is given by Moses, Deuteronomy 7:7–8: “The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you…” That is, in short, he loved you because he loved you. All came from his free and undeserved mercy; higher we cannot go in seeking after the causes of what is done for our salvation.*

Similarly, in his devotional treasure, Light and Truth, Horatius Bonar’s (1808–1889) writes that God does not love us because of Christ’s work on the cross. Bonar writes—

This free love was not produced or purchased by Christ’s death. That love existed before in all its largeness and freeness. Christ’s death did not increase that love. It was wide as the heart of God, and could not be increased. Christ’s death did not make the sinner a more suitable object for that love. The sinner was loved before; and it was love to the sinner that made the Father send the Son: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” That love rested on the sinner before. His circumstances as a sinner, so far from quenching God’s love to him as a creature, increased it; for they added all the amount of misery, and gloom, and exposure to eternal ruin, which called up that profound and unutterable compassion which a father feels toward a prodigal child that has ruined himself. Nothing in us, nothing in the world, nothing in heaven or earth, nothing in man or angel produced the love of God. It was uncreated, unbought, undeserved, and unfathomable. God loved the sinner because He was God, and because the sinner was a sinner. That is the end of the matter.**

God loves you because he loves you.

This is a simple question with a profound answer.

————

* Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (Solid Ground, 2008), 2:340-341
** Horatius Bonar, Light and Truth (Dust and Ashes, 2002), 3:12

The Absurdity of Liberal Theology

Tony Reinke Christopher HItchens, Liberal Theology

One of the most endearing features of atheist Christopher Hitchens is his intolerance of intellectual posturing. Do you believe Jesus was God incarnate and raised from the dead for sinners? Fine. Hitchens will respect your position and argue with you in honest debate. But claim to be a Christian and doubt the essence of the faith and Hitchens will sniff out your inconsistencies, find them, and slap you in the head with them. Like he did recently with Unitarian Marilyn Sewell. You’ve probably seen this, but if not, this is from a recent interview. And if you have seen this, it’s worth reliving again:

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Sewell: Let me go someplace else. …

… like the nearest cave.

Nietzsche’s Pity

Tony Reinke Atheism, Atheist, N.D. Wilson

If I had a list of favorite books from 2009 … the more posts I begin with this phrase the closer I come to completing the list. But really, if I had a list of favorite books for 2009 Graham Cole’s God the Peacemaker: How Atonement Brings Shalom would be my choice for the coveted BOY award. But the runner-up bouquet would fall on the neck of N. D. Wilson for his Notes From the Tilt-A-Whirl. And here is what I believe to be the finest excerpt from the whole darned thing (pages 124-125):

Nietzsche published The Anti-Christ in 1888. Along with many other things, he had this to say about pity: ‘Pity thwarts the whole law of evolution, which is the law of natural selection. It preserves whatever is ripe for destruction; it fights on the side of those disinherited and condemned by life; by maintaining life in so many of the botched of all kinds, it gives life itself a gloomy and dubious aspect.’

One year later Nietzsche entered into madness. True or false, the story is that he was overcome by the sight of a horse being whipped. Unhinged by pity. He wouldn’t die until 1900. For a decade he was kept alive and maintained through his insanity, strokes, and incapacitating illness. At the age of fifty-five, partially paralyzed, unable to speak or walk, he discovered what life waited for him beyond the grave.

Nietzsche lashed out at his Maker with his tongue, the only notable muscle he had—his greatest gift. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

There was little that Nietzsche loathed more than the heritage of his Lutheran father.

I have never been irritated by Nietzsche, never annoyed. At his most blasphemous, at his most riotously hateful and pompous, I have only ever been able to laugh. But even then, there is something bittersweet about the laughter. I know his story. I know how his bluff was called, how he was broken.

Again from The Anti-Christ: ‘The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.’ Spake the paralytic. The man fed with a spoon by those who loved him.

‘What is more harmful than any vice—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity….’

And yet, because I see the world through my eyes and not his, I have sympathy for Nietzsche himself. Bodies and minds are not all that can be botched in a man. Souls can be hollow, twisted, thrashing, more bitter than pi**.