THE WORLD'S BORN AGAIN

A Brief Introduction to Whitsunday

Alastair Roberts on Pentecost

Biblical Regeneration

THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD- 1:4

BOOK ONE
CHAPTER TWO

In Which God Likes His Stuff

(with illustrations drawn on a napkin)

GENESIS 1 & 2, again

It’s good- all of it.

That’s the place to start. Stuff is God’s idea.

Trees, water and sparkling stone, beautiful eyes, round bottoms and muscular thighs all began in the imagination of a god- the God; but also dirt, wiggling worms and the wasp’s sting.

These things- and all others- are here because he wanted them to be. Stuff was God’s idea, and he was immensely pleased with it. In our story, he says so.

This might seem too simple a point to make. Surely, everyone understands it. I wish that were true.

Thousands of years from the beginning, our God came down and put on the creation he had made. His people would summarize this surprising twist with the concise phrase- “He was born of the Virgin Mary.” They still tell it that way.

Today, many object at the word “Virgin,” but at the time of his Incarnation it was another word which gave them difficulty. Miracles they believed in. True divinity having anything to do with matter, they did not. “Virgin” they accepted. “Born” they could not.

Gnosticism was one of the earliest subversions of the Christian story. Like our story, it had room for a great deal of diversity in its telling. And there were many key elements in its plotline- too many to mention here. But chief among them was an abhorrence for all things material. In fact, evil was said to be located in matter. In their narrative, the creator god couldn’t be the true God for the simple reason that he was creator. He had the stench of stuff on his hands.

In the Gnostic version the true god emanated a lesser god, who emanated a lesser god, who emanated….down, down, down until we finally reach a god with a mind dirty enough to think up matter.

Like all deviant ways of telling “the true story of the world,” Gnosticism was cruel and dehumanizing. The body was either treated with contempt or total indifference. It either needed to be destroyed or totally ignored- what you did with it didn’t matter. One approach encouraged harm to oneself, the other- the use and harm of others.

Many who sincerely desire to live out the Christian story are inadvertently adding scenes from this incompatible tale. This is a radical departure, because it comes at the very beginning, and is sure to skew the end. In fact, it is in the telling of the end that the deviation is most clearly seen.

How does “The True Story of the World” conclude?

The Christian can only answer, “It concludes well.”

That’s certain enough, but what do we mean by “well.” Is the destiny of this creation- the trees and worms and muscular thighs we mentioned above- is it their destiny to be finally erased? Does the salvation of mankind involve the destruction of his humanity- for human beings are nothing if not flesh and bone?

We’re jumping ahead, but surely you can see that it must end in a different way. Stuff is God’s idea- perhaps his favorite one. What must that mean for the end? Maybe more importantly, what must that mean for how our lives write the middle chapters?

It is very tempting to take the Gnostic perspective on spirituality. Cars, sisters, clogged pipes, bosses, weeds and burnt roasts are surely beneath our spiritual goals- distractions, every one. But, no; Genesis roots our calling as human beings and our walk with God (one and the same, really) firmly in the stuff of this world. Others have pointed out that while many of the men and women we look to as spiritual leaders fill their minds and speech with otherworldly phrases and concerns, a few minutes spent with a Concordance will demonstrate the sorts of things that occupy our God’s thoughts.

Look up “Infralapsarian.” Bet it’s not in the Bible- anywhere.

Find “Immediate Imputation.” No luck.

Now, try “Semen.” Got it.

“Excrement?” It’s there.

“Blood, taxes…menstrual period, roof railings and baby birds” All there.

This world matters. All of it, because in the beginning God- the one true God- created the heavens and the earth.

God crafted with the precision of an engineer, but he also dreamed with the extravagance of an artist. There is much that spun from his imagination and will that is extra and unnecessary from a “just get it done” point of view. Apparently, “it” could not be accomplished with the bare necessities.

Creation was meant to do more than simply run and function. It was meant to speak. It was meant to sing. “The earth is full of the glory of God,” an ancient brother wrote. Yes, “The World is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; it gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil. Crushed.” a contemporary brother answers from across the centuries.

We’ve tasted this glory in the sights, sounds, and sensations of our world. It is his glory reflected that we are sampling. They can break our hearts with their power and sublime pleasure. Like a gentle tug on the sleeve, creation pulls at our attention and then points us towards the source of all Life.

Creation was made to reflect the glory of God. It’s the road sign that points beyond itself; a finger pointing at the moon. But that is how it can go terribly wrong.

The glory is so dazzling that we can mistake the sign for the destination. Men and women grasp the gift while rejecting the Giver. But sadness lies along that path. Not only do we loose the greater when we ignore it outright, but we eventually forfeit the lesser, as well. Creation glows because it’s lit from behind. Try to sneak it away so that you can really enjoy it and you’ll pull a dull rock from you pocket when your crouching alone.

There are two truths to maintain at once: Creation is God reflected, but Creation is God reflected. A denial of the first is the rejection of God’s gift and our own humanity. The rejection of the second is idolatry pure and simple.

Untold centuries from our story’s beginning a bush would burn in a wilderness without being consumed. A man of God would bow before it, because God was there- in it. This is the end for which every creature was made.

Perhaps it will help to remember these lessons, if we flip our Creator/Creation Distinction symbol around.

The large and small circles can remind us that God created Heavens and Earth. They were his idea and joy. Maybe you can see a stylized Earth with a circling moon in the diagram now. He made them to reflect his own glory- to be a lesser image. Do you see Original and lesser image in the two circles?

BOOK ONE
Preface / Intro / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 /
Chapter 4 / Chapter 5

DR. LEITHART ON STRIPPING THE YEAR

There are two radical concepts that I hope to pass on to my children regarding time and God's purposes.

The first is an understanding of Christ's kingdom as "the end" come back into the present. We are colonists from another age. This is hugely important. The second is an appreciation that the story begun in Genesis is our story. It didn't come to an end with the last chapter of Acts; our God kept right on writing. He's writing still.

Dr. Leithart has a thought provoking comment regarding how the rejection of the Christian Calendar undermines this understanding of continuity.

THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD- 1:3

BOOK ONE
CHAPTER ONE

In Which Everything has a Beginning, Excepting One

(with illustrations on a napkin)

GENESIS 1 & 2

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Our story will take many bizarre and unexpected turns before we are through, but each one of them will be a simple unpacking of the profound statement above.

How are we to understand God and his creation?

Human history is the record of how that question has been answered and of the consequences of each proposal. Understanding both God and his creation truthfully is the point of our story; it will take the entire story to do so. But here, at the beginning, we can see the whole picture being “roughed in” on the artist’s canvas.

Listen to the nomad’s story:

“Our God called all that is into existence- things in heaven and earth and under the earth. He fashioned each over the space of six days; calling things as they were to be, and behold- they were as he spoke them. At the end of each day, he took his handiwork into his hands and turned it and examined it and declared that he was pleased with what he had fashioned. Then he rested from his work and enjoyed the things that he had made.”

That’s not the official version, of course. You can find that in the book of Genesis- chapters one and two. But it is a fair summary: something you might have heard coming from inside the tent as a conscientious father, though in a hurry to get back to the campfire, granted his daughter’s request for a bedtime story.

If you happened to be outside of the Babylonian tent, you would have heard another summary- one distilled from the opposing tale we heard earlier. The differences are significant.

The story as told by God’s people begins in Peace. It will take the full revelation of God in Christ to fully appreciate the ecstatic, festive and communal nature of that eternal Shalom of God, but even here in the earliest of verbal revelation we see the fact that before history’s beginning, there was peace.

Israel was alone in telling the story in this way. The nations around her described Chaos as the fountainhead of reality. Chaos lurked behind, above and below everything- seen and unseen. Reality began in chaos and one day it would end there, as well. In such a world the only path to order and security is a violent one. Gods and goddesses wrestled a short lived peace through force and overwhelming might. Creation itself was carved from the slain body of a conquered opponent. If divinity could not escape from bloodshed, then humanity should despair of such a dream.

The ancient world (and all those who place chaos as nature’s ultimate foundation) existed in a constant state of war. Reality is war and war, reality.

Good and evil, chaos and order, suffering and joy. Each is simply one part of the whole. Each will have its turn, and then the other will take its place. Each must be accepted. Neither has claim to humanity’s ultimate allegiance. For who can worship at the feet of chaos, destruction and death (although there have been the few who have tried)? And the champions of order, security and life are destined to be swallowed up by the hideous void; their temporary victory secured through a compromised use of the adversary’s weapons.

How different the world of our nomads. The image of a creator God, forming his handiwork in leisure, could not have been more opposed to the prevalent view. He speaks and all is as he commands. Like a child on Christmas morning, He is pleased at what he sees. He pushes back from his worktable, wipes his hands and then takes the day off to enjoy life.

Foundational to this vision was the distinction declared between Creator and Creation. This has always been the minority position. The god’s of surrounding nations (and those who were not so close, as well) were seen as a part of Nature. Clearly, according to message of our story the Lord God was Other than creation- not a part of it. He could not be identified with any single part, nor any sum of the parts of that which he had spoken into existence.

The Creator is infinite and eternal. Creation is finite and temporal. The Creator is original and independent. Creation is contingent.

Occasionally groups would arise who would maintain this distinction, but only at the cost of making the Infinite and Sovereign originator of all things absent and uninvolved.

Thousands of years after our story was first written down, a famous Roman outlined the options as he saw them. They hadn’t changed much. In his treatise On the Nature of the Gods, Cicero explained that one could side with the Stoics- declaring the divide to be present in all of creation. If you are looking for god, then you must only look within. Or, he pointed out that you could join the Epicureans- believing that this world is certainly not divine. There is divinity, but he, she, or it had left the scene long ago. The only thing left is to make oneself as comfortable as possible. Finally one could go the route of the Skeptics- acknowledging that the whole gods thing was more than you know, but counseling that we continue to show respect lest we cause to much turmoil. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it- even if the “it” was a scam. These options were viable before Cicero wrote; they are alive with us today.

People have always collided with each other. People have always acted selfishly (our story will tell us why in a bit). But for those who have rejected or have never heard our story, this is so out of principle. Reality is conflict. The “divine” standard, depending on the option you choose, is either man himself or a divinity that is unknown and absent… so that we are left with man himself.

Against those who would agree with the Stoics, the Christian story maintains the fundamental distinction between God and his Creation. This has been illustrated as in Fig. A. The being of God does not overlap with the being of creation. They are distinct. They may not be confused. The opposing view might be represented with a totem pole or a ladder. Divinity is just one end of a long pole of being. Theoretically, something might be able to climb up or down this scale of glory.

Against the Epicurean understanding of creator and creation we would say that though distinct from his Creation, God is not separate from his creation. He is daily and actively involved in preserving and governing his handiwork.


With the Skeptics we would question the reliability of our knowledge of gods who do not act in
history, but we would point to our God’s continual interaction with his people- not least in the gospel. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Take a moment to draw Figure A. It will come in handy later.

BOOK ONE

Preface / Intro / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5

THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD- 1:2

BOOK ONE

AN INTRODUCTION

In Which Some Nomads Are Used and the Right Questions Asked

(with illustrations drawn on a napkin)

It might help to imagine a fire.

It’s small for the number of people who are sitting on the ground around it. Their bodies seem to hold back the almost perfect darkness of the desert night, but inside the circle the fire’s light dances warmly on each face. They’re eating and talking; they seem happy and relaxed. Above them stars bristle brightly, unchallenged by the manmade light of future centuries.

This is where we will start- with this group of nomads sitting in the sand over 3000 years ago. Not because they’re the beginning of our story, but because they’re the first to write it down; because they were the ones it was given to. It was their ancient lives that the strange opening of our tale was meant to shape and inform.

“Why don’t we just jump back to the beginning…the real beginning?” you ask.

Well, we will. You’ll see, but to understand the story that God actually gave we need to hear it through the ears of those for whom it was originally given. They lived in a different world from ours. Their lives were concerned with things we have never considered. Ours are filled with concerns that would mean nothing to them.

The question of “what’s with this stuff” is a good example. When we ask it, we’re likely asking about atoms and energy waves, big bangs, evolving monkey-men and the exact age of the whole shebang. None of that would have occurred to our nomads. When they looked upward into the night sky they saw a huge bowl, above which sat the throne of God. When we glance heavenward we’re likely to think about vast cold blackness and gaseous stellar wombs.

Different worlds create different questions.

When God gave these people his story, it was to answer their questions- not ours. Do you see?

So, what kind of questions did their world generate? If we leave them behind and travel westward a few hundred miles we’re sure to come upon another circle of friends. The children in this group are listening intently as an old turbaned man begins a story. The rest remain quiet but seem more interested in silently working on the many repairs a caravan camp like their’s requires. They’ve heard the story many times since they were kids- as their parents had heard it and their parent’s before that.

Let’s move in closer…and listen.

“In the beginning there was only the sea- raging, hateful and uncontrolled.” The old man wiggled his fingers as he swept his arms from side to side. “...a hideous hag whose angry arms whipped and swirled into frenzied storms. From her fertile belly Chaos brought forth her glorious children- the gods and goddesses of our great city”

A child sat up proudly, “Marduk!” he said

“That’s right. Marduk was one of her children, but he’s not part of the story yet” the old man affirmed.

“It wasn’t long before she was at war with her children, seeking to devour them and bring all things back into her gnawing belly. She called to her demonic children to aid her in wiping the divine ones from the heavens- their names be praised.”

“Marduk be praised”, the child added, once again sitting upright, gripping his dirty toes in his hands.

“That’s right” the old man nodded “Marduk be praised. For it was difficult to find a champion among the holy ones to stand and fight against the fury of the hag and her lashing waves”

“Marduk did!” the child exclaimed.

“That’s right. Marduk led his brothers and sisters against the ancient one’s fury. He beat her back and slew her demonic champion. He formed the earth, sky, sun and stars from his lifeless body.”

The child grinned. He loved that part.

“In return for his valor, the holy ones made him Lord of their number”

“And of our city” the boy added.

“That’s right, and of Babylon.”

This story and its numerous variations formed the common understanding of those living in the Ancient Near East. Everyone- everyone, that is, but the people to whom our nomads belonged- understood the world around them according to the assumptions of this story:

Reality consisted of two equal powers- good and evil, order and chaos. These two have battled eternally. One would triumph for a time, only to be conquered by the other…only to be overturned by the other….

Order is a result of violence and conflict…

And even the gods are part of this process. There is no ultimate victory or escape from this conflict- even for them.

These were the “rules” that governed the lives of men, women and children of that place and time. No one dreamed of questioning them. No one could imagine why you would want to do so.

This is the story that our nomads are intent on rejecting. They tell of creation’s origin in a radically different way.

But this is the point you need to see- if you want to understand the central truths of our story, you need to note where it collides with the commonly held story being told by everyone else. When you find them disagreeing, you need to pay attention.

“But isn’t it all truth?” I can hear you asking.

Well, yes. Certainly! But only if you understand it properly. If I say I have a frog in my throat, do you believe me? It depends, doesn’t it? If I mean that I have swallowed a warty amphibian, then you probably shouldn’t take me seriously.

Let me try it another way. When Jesus told the famous parable of the Prodigal Son, was it true? It depends on what you are asking. Are you asking about the truthfulness of the image of God that this story presents or are you asking about whether someone could have recorded the whole event on a video camera if they had been present? Are you asking “Is God really like that?” or are you asking “Where did that ungrateful boy live and who was his mother?”

One set of questions understands the point of the story. The other does not.

Many people have understood the opening scenes of our story in just such a “documentary way.” If that is true of you, I don’t want to discourage you from continuing to do so. It may be that a video journalist present at the Beginning would have captured events precisely as they are chronicled by our story teller. Nothing we have discussed would deny that in any way, but…such details are not the point of the story. It was given in order to reveal our God to us. It was not meant to be an insider’s cheat sheet for a game of Cosmic Trivial Pursuit: “How old is the earth?” or “How many seconds did it take to create all things?”

Doesn’t it seem more than a little arrogant to believe that the story could only be truly understood by those who would live 3000 years after it was written - people with the necessary cultural and scientific understanding to ask the appropriate questions that this text was meant to answer… people like, well, you and me.

Our nomads were the intended audience. They understood its message completely. We can be molded by that message, as well; but only if we hear the same message- only if we hear through their ears.

BOOK ONE

Preface / Intro / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5

THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD- 1:1

I thought I’d blog my way through Redemptive History.

Not that I’m particularly qualified to do it (how’s that for a teaser), but everyone has a way of explaining the meaning of “life, the universe and everything.” In my home we refer to it as The Story.

I’m using “we” rather loosely. Mostly I mean me, and mostly I use it when meeting those young men who have expressed interest in one of my daughters.

When the conversation begins to drag awkwardly- usually a good 15to 30 seconds into it-I ask, “So, how do you tell The Story?”

“What story, sir?” They always say “sir.”- The ones that last, anyway. This is the South.

“The story. The story! There’s only one story.”

It’s a bit unfair, I know. They’ve come prepared to tell me where they want to take my girls to eat and how safely they drive and I ask them to tell me what life’s about. But obviously, it’s a fair question.

We all tell the story in one way or another. Our lives betray how we really believe it goes. In fact our lives are our most obvious way of telling it.

Christians will refer those who inquire to the Bible. Our story (everyone's true story, we believe) is to be found there; but we’re not always good at telling it from beginning to the end as one story.

Moses and Gideon we know, but how they fit together with Noah’s boat or Christ’s transfiguration…that’s often more than we know.

I hope this attempt at just spelling it all out will be helpful for my kids.

We’ll see.

So, here we go. I offer you- A Story Told in Six Acts with the Fifth Being Primarily Impromptu

BOOK ONE

Preface / Intro / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5