When Jesus rose from the dead, splendor returned to the world. From the depths of death’s dark gloom, Jesus emerged triumphant and the light of new life shone out permeating the entire earth. God’s redemptive purpose to not abandon the earth to its decay, death and misery, but to restore, renew and indeed re-create it with greater glory than it possessed in its pristine state, though prophesied throughout the Old Testament, was enacted in and through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

In the last post I discussed the Jewish concept of “resurrection” as an expectation which was

bodily (entailing a return to the life of the physical body),

earthly (as opposed to other-worldly),

corporate (it happened to all the people of God),

simultaneous (all at one time), and

eschatological (as the transitional event between this age and the age to come in which all things would be restored).

In such, I began to assert the notion that the resurrection of Jesus was not simply a fantastic miraculous event, perhaps the best of all the miracles in Jesus’ career. Rather, the resurrection of Jesus, as understood in its Jewish context, marked the irruption of the life of the Age to Come into the present. This Age to Come, was heralded by the Hebrew prophets as a time when death would be no more (Isa. 25), when all areas of life would be renewed and restored, whether they be ecological, agricultural, physical, political, economic, relational, etc., and God’s people would forever rejoice with gladness (Isa. 35:10).  In short, the entire earth and all that is in it would be renewed and re-created. When Jesus was raised from the dead, this re-creation began. The restoration of all things had its inauguration. As Jesus stepped out of the tomb, the springtime of all creation started to blossom and the age-anticipated promises of God for life, righteousness and freedom began to find their fulfillment. This notion is termed inaugurated eschatology, meaning that eschatological realities of the age to come have been inaugurated, that is, they have begun, even now in the middle of the present age, while yet awaiting a future consummation of fullness (this is often discussed in terms of the Kingdom of God being both “already but not yet”).

To continue to demonstrate this idea of the resurrection of Jesus heralding the advent of God’s New Creation (i.e., inaugurated eschatology), I would like to quickly breeze through the Gospel of John – a whirlwind tour perhaps, and show how the notion of “new creation” is present in this work.

To begin with, the familiar opening words of John are “In the beginning…” What is strikingly obvious to us, would have been equally apparent to hearers/readers in the first century. John is intentionally mirroring the initial words of Genesis, the famed creation story. While this would not be conclusive in itself (but will be made much more clear as we proceed), why might John be intentionally beginning his Gospel with the first words of Genesis? He continues to speak of the incarnation in terms of “light shining in the darkness,” a further allusion to the first chapter of Genesis. Is it possible that John is setting us up for precisely what it sounds like – a second (new) creation story?

In John 5:24-25, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and  believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and  does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you,  an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

Three points are of note.

1)    The person who believes has, that is, currently possesses eternal life. This phrase translated “eternal life” literally means “life of the age” and was used in Jewish writings from or before the time of the New Testament to mean the “life of the age to come” (Dan. 12:2; Pss. Sol. 3:12; 13:11; 14:10; 1 Enoch 37:4; 58:3). Furthermore, in the Synoptic Gospels, the terms “eternal life” and “Kingdom of God” are used interchangeably on a number of occurrences (Mk 9:43, 45, 47; 10:17-30; Mt. 19:23-29; Lk. 18:24-30). Thus, when we come to the Gospel of John and see that the term “Kingdom of God” only occurs twice, it seems very likely that the often used phrase “eternal life” (i.e., “life of the age”) is John’s preferred way of referring to the same reality the Synoptic Gospels prefer to call the “Kingdom of God.”[1] This life of the age to come, this experience of God’s Kingdom is available in the present as the possession of those who believe in Jesus.

2)    This possession of eternal life entails “passing out of death into life.” Here we see clear resurrection language, as will be confirmed in the following verses. This further clarifies the reception of the life of the age to come. There is a sense to which the believer in Jesus transfers from the present evil age into the Age to Come, while yet remaining in the present age. Jesus uses a verb of motion, “passing out of,” to describe the believer’s participation in eternal life. This militates against the pure internalized understanding of these verses, as if Jesus is speaking mostly of an internal, immaterial, “spiritual” change in the believer. Jesus does not view this change as internal, but as external. It is not a “change of heart,” but rather a change of location for the entire person. Their “inner being” does not move, but “the one who believes” in their entirety of personhood moves beyond the realm where death has sway and into the resurrection life of the age to come.

3)    Finally, if this wasn’t already clear, Jesus emphasizes that the time in which this happens is now. This is significant because the resurrection events that will soon happen to Jesus in the narrative cannot be construed solely as an isolated incident for Jesus. We are meant to understand the dynamic connection between what happens to Jesus and what is available to the believer. As Jesus rises from the dead in the life of the Age to Come, so likewise all believers are able to participate in that life in the present.

In John 11 Jesus makes a remarkable statement: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

As Christians, we have heard this verse so often, I think it ceases to strike us as strange. Jesus claims to be the resurrection. But the resurrection is an event. How can a person be an event? Furthermore, how can a person be an event that properly belongs to the entire people of God at an eschatological transition between the Present Age and the Age to Come? It seems like Jesus is telling us that he is somehow God’s future in person. He is the personal presence of the life of the Age to Come. Here among us, in the midst of a world inundated with decay and death, the light of God’s New Creation is beginning to shine. It is walking among us in the person of God-himself made flesh.

However, is this New Creation life restricted to the person of Jesus, as in, he possesses the life of the Age to Come, but the rest of us need to wait until his return to experience it? Does this New Creation, resurrection life, Kingdom of God presence leave the earth when Jesus ascends to heaven? The previous passage addressed (John 5) expresses the contrary quite emphatically, but even in this verse, Jesus informs us of the participation of the believer in the same eschatological realities. Since “life” and “eternal life” are interchangeable in the Gospel of John[2],  and since “eternal life” means the “life of the Age to Come” (see above), it stands to reason that the phrase “resurrection and the life” is a hendiadys, in which the two words joined by “and” should be taken together as a single idea. If not, since “life” certainly means the “life of the Age to Come,” we should at least see “resurrection” as the event which initiates the “life”[3] In either case,”life” in verse 25 certainly means “resurrection life” and thus the occurrence of the same word in the next verse, the “everyone lives” in verse 26, would mean, “everyone who has the life of the kingdom of God.” This is further advanced by Jesus’ assertion that unless one eats of the bread of life they have no life in them (John 6:51), meaning they do not have the “life of the age to come.”[4] The one who believes is the one who truly lives, who shares the life of the resurrection that Jesus himself embodies in the present.

If we skip forward a bit, we come to Holy Week.

On the sixth day of the week (Friday), after flogging him, robing him in purple and crowing him with thorns, Pilate displays Jesus to the crowd with the words, “Behold the man!” (John 19:5). Note that in Genesis 1 (remember our previous discussion about John 1 quoting Genesis 1 – “in the beginning…”), on the sixth day of the week, God created the human beings, those who were meant to rule the earth. Now on the sixth day of this week, Jesus is displayed as the true human, as a mockery dressed in royal attire, yet refusing to retaliate to the false rulers, to those whose greed and violence had corrupted their humanity to the point of unrecognizability.

The power hungry inhuman forces of violence succeed in killing the one who truly embodied what it meant to be fully human. The rulers of this world put to death the world’s true Lord. After doing so, he was laid to rest in an empty tomb. It was here that Jesus spent the seventh day of the week. As God rested from his labors on the seventh day of the creation account, so too, Jesus spends the seventh day in a Sabbath rest – the utter stillness of death.

John 20 begins with the words, “on the first day of the week.” Is it possible that more is going on here than a mere temporal indicator? As we observed this Gospel starting by alluding to the Genesis 1 account of creation, saw how Jesus understood himself as embodying the life of the Age to Come and sharing it with those who believe in him, and walked through days six and seven of creation during the weekend proceeding the first Easter, are we meant to understand that the timing “on the first day of the week” signals something much bigger than we were expecting? As Jesus rises from the dead, we are beholding the advent of God’s New Creation life bursting forth from the tomb! The Jewish concept of resurrection and new creation seems sufficient in itself to indicate such, but there is more in text itself. In verse 15, John tells us that Mary, seeing the resurrected Lord, believed him to be a gardener. What an odd detail. Why would Mary mistakenly believe Jesus to be a gardener, unless they were actually in a garden? And does not being in a garden, yet again allude to the biblical creation account? As Jesus rises from the dead, he is the New Adam in a renewed Garden of Eden. Eden has been restored and humanity once again has been given access to this Paradise once Lost.

In verse nineteen, we are told that “it was evening on that day, the first day of the week.” Apparently we need reminding that this is not any day – it is the FIRST day of the week. John repeats himself in order to emphasize, however allusively, the full scope of what happened on that day. Though the doors were shut, Jesus comes and stands among them saying, “Peace be with you.” After showing them his hands and side, “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.” Just as God breathed the breath of life into an inert Adam and he became a living being, so now Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into his disciples at the dawn of God’s New Creation. Yet this new life of the Kingdom of God, is not merely for the disciples’ enjoyment. He charges them, “as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” As the Father sent Jesus to be the living presence of the life of the Age to Come, so now as the followers of Jesus share in that life by believing in him, they are commissioned likewise to be agents of God’s Kingdom and resurrection life.

Though not in the Gospel of John, one more verse bears mentioning. In Luke 24:30, Jesus is sitting at a table with two disciples with whom he has walked from Jerusalem. When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, Luke tells us that immediately “their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” Where else in Scripture do we have two people, who upon eating, have their eyes opened? Adam and Eve, after consuming the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, experience their eyes being opened into a shameful self-awareness of their nakedness. In Luke however, the resurrected Lord is reversing the curse of Adam’s sin. He is inaugurating the life of the Kingdom of God, the New Creation, whereupon partaking of blessed and broken bread (a clear allusion to the Church’s practice of the Lord’s Supper), eyes are opened from woeful disillusionment into a hope-filled recognition of the Risen Lord. After this experience, the two disciples immediately run out and announce the  Gospel: “Jesus is risen!” The experience of the life of the Age to Come, the initiation of overturning sin’s curse, in John’s Gospel results in being sent just as Jesus was sent, and in Luke results in the proclamation of the Resurrected Lord. The presence of God’s Kingdom is in our midst, inaugurated through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This new life is the very impetus behind the Church’s mission in and for the world. Through proclaiming the Gospel of the Risen Lord and the arrival of God’s Kingdom, we become those who share and impart the life of the age to come amidst a world embroiled in the challenging yet, for those who believe, inevitably triumphant conflict with death.

[2] ibid.

[3] George R. Beasley-Murray, John (Dallas: Word, 1999), 190.

[4] ibid, 191.

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If you were to summarize the overarching story-line of the Bible, what would you say? What if you had to do it in only one sentence? I will attempt to do exactly this in only seven words and I have a hunch my conclusion will be somewhat surprising to many.

But before I divulge my answer, I should note that this post is part 4 in a larger series concerning what I am calling “Reading the Bible in the Right Direction.” By this I am referring to the narrative order given in the Bible, most basically, Old Testament first, New Testament second. The ideas, stories, concepts, and expectations formulated in the Old Testament must be the primary base from which we interpret and understand the New Testament, rather than vice versa. More can be read on this in the previous posts, but now I am concentrating on concisely explaining the overarching storyline of Scripture. Understanding and interpreting the New Testament in light of this narratival framework causes the Scripture to first of all, make much more coherent sense, and second, to come alive in its intended dynamic vigor. This approach is critical because the early apostolic community, the original hearers of the New Testament, indeed, the people who wrote the New Testament, would have approached and understood the Bible in this way. They would have come to the New Testament writings living within the story of Israel, deeply entrenched in its expectations, animated with its hopes yet vexed with longing for this yet unfinished drama to come to its appointed consummation.

I will first give my seven word summary of the Bible’s story and then explain it. Here it is: God sends humanity to rule the earth. Surprising, eh? Yet if we read the Bible’s opening and closing remarks, we see that this is the original intent for God’s creation, and this intent comes to pass. Everything else that happens in the Bible is a subplot to seeing this overarching plot line find fulfillment.

When approaching a story and attempting to summarize its plot, a simple system has been developed to diagram the plot by identifying the six main components of the story:

1)    The Sender, who commissions an

2)    Agent, who is sent by the sender to accomplish a

3)    Task, for the benefit of the

4)    Receiver

5)    An Impediment attempts to block the accomplishment of the task and only through the aid of the

6)    Helper, is the agent able to accomplish the task.

This can be illustrated with a diagram, using the story of Little Red Riding Hood as an example.

Now what happens if we apply this type of plot analysis to the Bible? We would have to start at the very beginning – in Genesis 1. In verses 26-28, we are told that the original commission of humanity is to rule over the earth. This of course does not mean that they should function as exploitative tyrants. In Genesis 2:15 humans are told to cultivate, expand and grow the Garden of Eden. Rather than tyrannical domination, these verses mean the original purpose of human beings was to be the co-regents of God’s gracious, loving and life-giving rule, expanding both the Garden of Eden and their habitation (through having children and a family) to fill the earth with the glory of God. We often think of both the original creation and the Garden of Eden as being perfect and then subsequently getting spoiled. The texts more so tell us about something that, though perhaps not having particular flaws, was an unfinished project. The earth needed to be subdued. The garden needed to be cultivated. The ground needed to be worked. The earth needed to be inhabited. In other words, human culture, in all areas, needed to be developed and matured as part of God’s unfolding purpose for the earth.  The task of humans was then, in cooperation with God, to work on this creation project and ultimately bring it to completion (i.e., “fill the earth”).

Under our schema from above this would make the main components of our plot:

Sender – God

Agent – Humanity

Task – rule

Receiver – the earth

Hence my summary, “God sends humanity to rule the earth.” Now, it doesn’t take long to realize that this plot gets at least somewhat derailed rather quickly. However, we know this plan does not come to an end, not in Genesis 3, and not anywhere else in history. We can be assured of this because the final narrative sequence in the Bible, in Revelation 22, immediately before the concluding epilogue, says of redeemed humanity on the renewed earth, “and there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 22:5). The original plot succeeds! Humanity is sent to rule the earth, and apparently, whatever happened between Genesis 4 and Revelation 21 succeeded in restoring this original storyline and bringing it to fulfillment (although perhaps, it is arguable that Revelation 22 still does not yet show a complete “fulfillment” but that humanity’s gracious rulership of the earth will continue into the ages to come).

So far we’ve only named four of the main six components of our plot. The impediment is readily identifiable. Genesis 3-11 documents the downward spiral of humanity, not in the gracious expansion of God’s life giving presence, but in the exploitative, pernicious and cancerous expansion of violence, sin, hatred, alienation and death. In a word the impediment, is sin. But note in our storyline what sin is the impediment to. It is not the impediment to getting into heaven, but rather it is what blocks, even destroys the development and expansion of a communal cultural life on earth infused with God’s goodness, truth and beauty.

So who is the helper? Enter Abraham in Genesis 12. It seems easy to completely disconnect Genesis 12 from Genesis 3-11, as if perhaps it was just the next event in history. But Genesis 12 is a dramatic turning point in the book, both in terms of its content and the overall biblical plot. Genesis 1-11 covers a very long period of time and many generations in rapid succession. Genesis 12-25 covers the life span of one person. We also notice the issues that arise in Genesis 12 parallel those in Genesis 1. Abraham is unable to have children yet God promises he will be the father of many nations, akin to the original command to be fruitful and multiply. Abraham is told he will be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. This parallels the blessing humanity received in Genesis 1, and the curse that came upon the earth in Genesis 3. Abraham’s promise concerns “the land.”  Interestingly enough, this is the same Hebrew word as “earth,” thus forming at least a intriguing linguistic connection. All in all, Abraham (and thus his progeny, the nation of Israel) are God’s response to Genesis 3-11. God’s plan to reestablish the original plot and purpose for humanity is to be executed through God’s covenant people. God’s answer to the problem of sin is the covenant.

It also doesn’t take long to realize that this new plot line (Plot Level 2) was riddled with difficulty, whether it be family dysfunction, political conflicts, military engagement, or agricultural disaster, only to find the family of Abraham, God’s agents of reconciliation and restoration, to be held captive as slaves in the nation of Egypt. Enter “Plot Level 3″ – God sends a helper to bring deliverance to his people, in this case Moses. But as the story of the Old Testament progresses, the people of Israel get into one mess after another, usually related to wide-scale national sin. The people who God raised up to be his answer to the problem of sin, themselves became part of the problem. So God sends helper after helper, whether they be judges, prophets, kings (the epitome of which was David), to preach repentance to God’s people and to bring them deliverance from their enemies. The function of this “Plot Level 3″ however, was always to restore “Plot Level 2″ – Israel being a “light to the nations” and bringing “blessing to all peoples of the earth.” The purpose of this “Plot Level 2″ was always to restore “Plot Level 1″ – God sends humanity to rule the earth.

The final helper in this sequence (Plot Level 3) was none other than Jesus himself. This can be seen in Jesus’ resoluteness that he came only to help the “lost sheep of Israel” (Matt. 10:6; 15:24), as well as the emphasis that Jesus had come to save Israel (Matt. 1:21; Luke 1:68; 2:25). Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, “Plot Level 2″ has been restored because Jesus then sends out his company of 12 Jewish young men with a task to “make disciples of all the Gentiles/nations” (Matt. 28:19). Interestingly enough, in Acts 1, the apostles ask Jesus, “Lord,  is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus answers in his usually interesting fashion, here by giving neither a clear yes or no answer and then continues, “but you will receive power  when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and  Samaria, and even to  the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Many people assume that Jesus’ answer is “no,” as in “you are stuck on thinking about politics, but I am going to have you go around and preach a new spiritual, inward reality.” It seems rather, if we compare the second half of his answer with our plot diagram, if twelve representatives of Israel are being sent out to “disciple the Gentiles” through preaching to “the remotest parts of the earth,” then the answer to their question is more like “yes, but not in the way you are thinking.”

So then, Jesus, through his death and resurrection, restores Plot Level 2. The ultimate goal of redemptive history however, is the recovery of Plot Level 1 – and human beings restored to gracious rulership over the earth. Rather than develop this here, in what is already a too-long blog-post, I will quote four passages that demonstrate this cosmic aspect of redemption’s goal. These passages are often enigmatic when the Bible is read in context to overarching stories that are in fact foreign to the Bible (i.e., the stories of Western affluence, escapism, rationalism, secular hedonism, etc.). However, when read starting with the narrative framework of the Old Testament as the foundation, these passages make perfect sense:

Acts 3:19-21 – Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out,  so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus,  who must remain in heaven until the time of the restoration of all things that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.

Ephesians 1:9-10 – he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,  as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Colossians 1:19-20 – For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,  and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Romans 8:19‐23 – 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.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;  and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Links to earlier parts in the series Reading the Bible in the Right Direction: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

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In my last post, I quoted a line from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, an English poet who lived between the years of 1844 and 1889. The poem is so magnificent, I felt compelled to reproduce “God’s Grandeur” in its entirety. If some of the lines seem a little dense, try this commentary for assistance.

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. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

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Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; 23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. 24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

The next section that brings in creation ideas continues along the same lines of the previous one in asserting the supreme power of Yahweh as creator. He is enthroned on the highpoint of the firmament that sits like a dome over the earth. From that vantage point, the inhabitants of the earth are like insects. Creation language comes into play in verse twenty-two by speaking of Yahweh as the one who “stretched out the heavens like a curtain” and “set them up as a tent.” Here the establishment of the entire earth by Yahweh as a habitable sphere supportive of life is compared with the construction of idols. While the later takes strenuous effort for the idolaters, the former is done with ease of unfolding a curtain.

In verse twenty-three the assertion of Yahweh’s power is made additionally concrete by specifying the realm of international politics. It now becomes clear that the concern in this larger passage is not simply to declare the power of Yahweh in an abstract sense (“god can do anything”) but with specific reference to the contemporary political powers. The goal is to promote confidence in the hearts of the people concerning Yahweh’s certain promise regardless of how powerful political rulers may seem and how permanent their kingdoms may appear. The prophetic message is that things are not as they seem. That which looks secure and strong is not in fact inordinately vulnerable. That which appears permanent is in fact transitory. That which evokes terror and submission is in fact a joke. This difficult to comprehend vulnerability and transience is on account of a power which is so great that the earthly kingdoms are “nothing” in comparison. This superior power, this transcendent king is about to effect a great reversal on behalf of his people. The weak and powerless can rejoice in their great fortune. Those in disparaging circumstances can be steadfast in hope. Yahweh is the “Lord of history” and perceives that history in radical difference from the unaided eye.

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Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? 13 Who has directed the spirit of the LORD, or as his counselor has instructed him? 14 Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? 15 Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; see, he takes up the isles like fine dust. 16 Lebanon would not provide fuel enough, nor are its animals enough for a burnt offering. 17 All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

After the first eleven verses of chapter forty introduce the themes of comfort, forgiveness, the word of promise and the ending of exile, this section is the first unit in a transition to a discussion of “the incomparability of Yahweh as creator and Lord of the world.” While the former verses centered on the joyous announcement of Yahweh’s faithful salvation and Israel’s liberation, verse twelve begins vehement argumentation. Here, Isaiah passionately sets forth reasons why those hearing should believe the exuberantly optimistic report, when by experience they know well the decades of desolation that have followed the fall of Jerusalem. He aims to persuade them that God has the power to bring to pass that which He has said. He calls them to consider the incomparability of Yahweh. His word can be trusted because there is none like him. He occupies a status that is unrivaled. This is seen in the repetition of the rhetorical question “who” in verses twelve and thirteen and four more times through verse twenty-six.

Immediately it is made clear what exactly constitutes the incomparability of Yahweh: his role as creator of all. Verse twelve contains five rhetorical questions which highlight the formation of the cosmos in the traditional order of creation: waters, sky, earth. [creation as separation] Verse thirteen continues by asking whether anyone has performed the same activities of limiting on Yahweh himself that he executed on the boundaries of water and sky with verse fourteen inquires as to who was Yahweh’s teacher.

The cumulative effect of this barrage of rhetorical questions is verses fifteen to seventeen. If he is the creator of all than superlative metaphorical expressions (drop from a bucket, layer of dust on a scale) do not suffice to explicate Yahweh’s superiority to every other created being, particularly with respect to power. He not only possesses a greater quantity of power than they but also maintains that power over them as the one who is the source of their very being. As creator, Yahweh’s power is so great, that the cumulative strength of the entirety of earth’s nations is accounted as nothing.

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Discussion of the doctrine of creation in Christian theology often centers around a few loci. In fundamentalist circles, it at times revolves around the creation-evolution or the young-earth/old-earth debates. Others, having reconciled with Darwin, explain the contributions of evolutionary thought to the understanding of God and the world. In much contemporary theology, the doctrine of creation centers on providing a justification for ecological and environmental initiatives, responding to critiques that the biblical command to “subdue the earth and have dominion over it” is at the root of the current ecological crisis. For others it centers on discussions of the plausibility and implications of creatio ex nihilo.

The author has been greatly interested in the doctrine of creation as it provides a counter-affirmation to Gnostic “schizoid spiritualities.” In the present day the primary heresy the faithful routinely gird themselves for is a denial of either the deity of Jesus, the mere existence of God or the reliability of the Bible. However, in the early church, no false teaching “was as dangerous, nor as close to victory” as Gnosticism. This Gnosticism was not eradicated then but has continued in the church both implicitly and explicitly. In our day Gnosticism is seeing a revival and is being touted as an alternate version of Christianity that was marginalized and suppressed in the early centuries of the church. This is especially so with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi corpus, the promotion of the Gospel of Thomas by the Jesus Seminar and recent discussions of the Gospel of Judas. Gnosticism’s basic premise is that matter is inherently bad or evil. In its Christian versions, the Jewish god Yahweh who created the world is not the true highest God, but a foolish lower god who attempted to make something on its own and the resulting mess, or “abortion,” was the world. Salvation is of profound importance for Gnostics, which they understand as when the divine sparks imprisoned in bodies are liberated by knowledge (gnosis) from an enlightened spiritual messenger.

While some teachers are actively or subversively propagating these concepts, the basic dualism between the material and spiritual, material and immaterial is common in many circles in the body of believers. While creation may not be accounted to the abortion of a foolish lower god, it is remains mystifying what the purpose of the material order may be. The “flesh” commonly seems to get in the way of “spiritual” progress. Specific verses in the New Testament are not helpful in this regard, even beyond the plethora of “flesh/spirit” tension passages. 1 John 2.15 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world.” James 4.4 declares, “Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” The gospel of Luke (14.26) records the words of Jesus himself saying, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” If we follow the admonitions of these passages where does that leave us in relation to the “world,” the “earth,” or the material world? Many Christians respond with a variant of what the author terms “schizoid spiritualites.” These spiritualities introduce a split (dualism) between the believer and those things which are foundational to our lives: the earth, our emotions, our bodies, and our relationships. In this dualism the spiritual is at a more important level than the physical. This gradation often intensifies to the point where the “spiritual” is of extreme importance and the “physical” is of little or no importance, if not of negative value.

In our day, when little is heard in the pulpits about the dangers of Gnosticism nor the doctrine of creation beyond the few points mentioned earlier, it almost seems preposterous that it could be a called a, if not the primary danger to the Christian faith. When the doctrine of creation withers it is not soon before a gnostic or quasi-gnostic spirituality takes its place. As this happens many of the other doctrines of Christianity begin to wither: Anthropology loses its celebration of embodiment and sexuality forged in the image of God. Incarnation is no longer the untold union of God with humanity and the ultimate “hallowing of human flesh” (to borrow a phrase from George MacDonald), but rather Jesus only appearing as human (at least in the docetic version of gnosticism). In the cruxifixion, God neither joins with the suffering of humanity nor atones for the sins of the world as the human either was only an appearance (docetism), was vacated of the divine before suffering, or was the pathway to freedom from the body (as in the Gospel of Judas). Jesus’ resurrection is certainly not of the body and is not the inauguration of God’s renewal of the earth. Pneumatology no longer envisages the revivification of life that has been lost, imbibing us now with the joy of the Kingdom and passion for life, but instead offers the proleptic escape of an unsalvageable world. Ecclesiology loses its mission of renewing the earth but merely with aiding souls in eluding their doomed fate, if they are in fact ones with the divine “spark” within them.

Thomas Aquinas once said that, “any error about creation also lead to an error about God.” Wrong ideas about creation systematically deconstruct the true Christian meaning of almost every doctrine. For that reason it is critical to have a biblical understanding of the cosmos. However, as we have previously mentioned, of the common approaches to creation theology, almost none of these issues were concerns in the minds of the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures as they either formed underlying assumptions (embodiment, the good of creation) or were irrelevant (creationism debates, ecological crises). Less studies focus on how the concept of creation actually functions in the Biblical text and to what ends authors employ it. This will involve unearthing some of the underlying assumptions that emerge from the text in our far distant reading of these ancient documents.

The goal of the present study will be to begin with the biblical text, rather than an ideological goal, although the author has no delusions that he is without them. Our method will be primarily to observe how the concept of creation functions specifically within Isaiah 40-55 and then to conclude by drawing together the common streams of thought that emerge. We will seek to answer the question of how the text of Isaiah employs the concept of creation, which will in turn provide insight into how it was understood by the inspired author of the text.

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