I couldn’t resist, I started Spiritual Renewal Leave early last night. I’m reading N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Scripture and I just wanted to share two parts that line out just how breathtaking the work of God is.
First, I want to share this:
“The early Christians, even Paul, did not develop a detailed doctrine of creation. They did not need to, since they inherited one: the ancient biblical vision of Genesis. But, as they well knew, the Genesis account is a highly poetic, highly complex narrative whose main thrust has nothing to do with the number of twenty-four-hour periods in which the world was made, and everything to do with the wisdom, goodness, and power of the God who made it. And one feature of the Genesis account that always strikes a nonspecialist like me is the fact that God is said to have made a world that will then make itself: trees and plants that bear fruit containing seed for more of the same, animals that reproduce after their kind, and above all humans, called to reflect God into the world and the world back to God, who likewise are to be fruitful and multiply, to be dependent cocreators [sic].” [1]
That’s a lot to take in. I find it interesting that one of the ways we have misinterpreted the stories of creation in Genesis is to focus on creation (which includes us) instead of God (who does not include us). We know the story from there; we fell from grace and dragged all creation down with us. But God wasn’t done yet. God wasn’t just about creation; God was and, is, and will be about new creation as well:
“The four Gospels, completely in line with Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah, and the rest, tell of how God became king: how the creator God, in and through Jesus of Nazareth, launched his new-creation project for the world. On every page, what we are looking at is precisely new creation: not just a new spirituality, certainly not a system for rescuing people from this world, but a movement of God’s creative spirit, anointing Jesus but also breathed out by him, through which humans are called to become genuine humans at last, rescued from all that thwarts that, and so equipped to carry forward God’s plan of new creation.” [2]
Both of the above sections get at a point that Wright has made before, but I never tire of hearing. Our ideas and conceptions of God’s salvation are too small. We need to think bigger. Much bigger.
[1] N. T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 19.
[2] Ibid, 23-24.