More on the Biblical doctrine of Christ as redeemer for a disordered
Creation.
"Christianity is a historic religion. In complete contrast to the
Colossian religion of intellectual speculation and philosiphising, Paul
stresses the acts in human history by which God revealed the fullness of
His nature and love in Christ and by which he perpetuates the saving
influence of that self-revelation through the historic church, of which
Christ is the head... the beginning, the first-born. The following
points are to be noted:
a) A cosmic redemption is being affected through Christ. The Christ
through whom creation took shape becomes the incarnate Christ, the
Christ of human history...
It is through his redemptive work wrought out in the history of man,
the highest order of creation, that the whole disordered world, and the
universe itself, will be brought back to him as its center and goal (see
1Cor 15:27-28)
b) The focus of Christ's redemptive action is in the life of man, not in
the physical universe considered apart from man. It is not cosmic
forces, nor natural and physical processes - the modern equivalent of
the Colossian belief in the "elemental spirits of the universe" (2:8) -
that will turn the world back to God, but the redemptive operations of
God's love in Christ on the minds and will of men. The order of creation
was first the universe, then man. The order of redemtion is the reverse
of this. The redemption of human life and society is the crucial task
which must precede, and when once achieved, will inevitably lead on to
the restoration of the disordered universe to harmonious union with God
(see Eph 3:10)...
c) The universe is redeemable. The world and human life are not in their
essential nature alien from God and necessarily evil. Redemption is the
restoration of an original good relationship that has been distorted and
lost. God is dealing with that which is his own."
G. Preston MacLeod, The INterpretors Bible, abingdon press, 1955
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Rv:4:11: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for
thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
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Paul Durham
Oakland, Maryland
pdd@gcc.cc.md.us