Doctrine of Creation

All right, team, shall we give it a go?

Well, we're continuing on our series on creation,

! and we will be taking up the topic of a theology of culture,

some reflections toward a theology of culture.

It has often been observed that the Bible begins in a garden

and ends in a city.

And that arc from Eden's garden to the heavenly city

involves a storyline of creation, fall, and redemption.

But it also involves the progression of culture.

And while the redemption theme is the one that receives most prominent attention,

in theological reflection at least,

the cultural motif is also deserving of attention.

Heman Bavinck, the Dutch theologian, goes so far as to say

culture, in its broadest sense,

is the purpose for which God created man after his image.

What is the cultural mandate that comes to us in creation?

And what is the cultural calling that it summons us to?

That's the subject of our investigation this morning.

Our cultural mandate, its origin, its nature, its complication,

and perhaps, if time favors us, a glance at its destiny.

As Bavinck observes, our cultural mandate comes in the context of our being fashioned in God's image.

So Genesis 2.27, we've heard this before.

So God created mankind in his own image and said to them,

Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion.

We might say that our being fashioned in the image of God

enables the fulfillment of our unique calling.

It is our qualification for our commission.

Now, the image of God is not entirely a translucent concept.

There's a longstanding and continuing debate over what precisely it is to be in the image of God.

And Nick has illuminated that from every conceivable angle,

so I won't spend more time on it, or much more time on it.

The historical and cultural background from Moses' day

helpfully illuminates the meaning of image.

You see, across the ancient Near East,

kings, emperors, and potentates would erect images of themselves

throughout their lands to represent their dominion.

And these images were representations of the potentate's authority.

In making us God's images,

He is saying, in effect,

I give you authority to represent me in my world.

And we do so by exercising dominion in the world,

which reflects God's values, purposes, nature, and character.

In other words, kingdom values.

Another contextual clue to the meaning of image of God

arises when we appropriately ask,

how is God set forth in this narrative?

If mankind is patterned on God,

how is God portrayed?

What image of God is conveyed

in the context of the creation narrative?

Well, what we see in the opening chapter of Genesis

is God as creator exercising breathtaking creativity.

He speaks into existence,

sun, moon, stars, land, and sea,

a veritable tropical profusion of life forms,

both plant and animal,

oaks, art of arcs, whales and snails,

the peacock, the platypus.

It's a stunning and delightful effervescence of creativity.

That is the image we are given of God.

But you'll remember also that God is portrayed as ordering.

Genesis 1 gives us a sequence of his ordering acts.

He divides.

First, he divides order from chaos.

The earth was initially formless and void.

Then he divides light from darkness,

heaven from earth, land from sea.

It seems he is ordering a suitable environment

for the things created so they can flourish.

Heaven for stars, sun and moon,

land for plants and animals,

sky for the denizens of the air,

the sea creatures for those that swarm in the water,

the sea for creatures that swarm in the water.

So here we have an image of God as orderer,

as cultivator of the environment,

separating, setting bounds, and sustaining it.

So we see God as creative cultivator.

And we humans, fashioned in his image,

are to image him precisely in that.

We are to be creative cultivators.

And notice the concrete, explicit task that God gives to Adam.

It reflects this very imaging of God.

He gives Adam the task of naming the animals.

Every beast in the field and every bird of heaven,

God brought before Adam to see what he would name them.

Make up any name, Adam.

Something suitable and fitting to this particular animal.

What will you call it?

So Adam images God in exercising his creativity here.

And I love that phrase in verse 19.

There's almost kind of a wonder and surprise in it, is there not?

And whatever the man called the living creature,

that was its name.

God lets Adam's creativity stand.

God had really given Adam dominion.

The sovereign creator, the really creative one,

did not critique, improve, or reverse Adam's creative adventure.

Does God come back to Adam?

Oh, Adam, hold on, hold on, steady on.

Do you really think that's a good name, Adam?

Does that really penetrate the essence of this animal?

Wouldn't this be better, Adam?

Well, come to think of it, I guess so, God.

Why don't you name the next one until I get the hang of it?

You're better at this, God.

No.

Whatever the man called it,

that was its name.

The creator seeds creative dominion to mankind.

Here.

Here.

You do it.

It's hard to avert sharing a little bit of Moses's wonder here.

It's remarkable.

God also gives Adam the concrete task of cultivating and tending the garden.

God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

From the foregoing description of Eden,

you get the impression that God had fashioned a very special place.

Now, do you tend to hand off your most special things to someone else,

for someone else, especially a junior partner to handle?

As I occasionally heard our girls, our three girls, when they were growing up,

Hey, can I borrow that belt you got from Italy?

Oh, no, not that one.

That's special.

Can you imagine Adam's reaction to God's commission?

A God?

Are you sure this is a good idea?

I mean, this garden is a very special place.

Are you sure that you shouldn't be the one to take care of it in case anything goes wrong?

I mean, after all, it was a pretty intricate place with a plant department, an animal department, water department, gem department.

No, Adam, you take care of it.

You keep it thriving.

You make it continue to flourish.

You be my cultivator.

You do it as my image.

Well, what did that involve?

Well, what did God, in an exemplary way, do with it?

It says, God planted a garden in Eden and made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

Adam, I have given you something beautiful, pleasant to the sight, and useful, good for food.

You cultivate those things.

Preserve and bring out the beauty and usefulness of what I have given you in this garden.

And notice, even in Eden, it seems like there was entropy.

At least it required Adam's intervention to sustain its beauty and functionality.

He needed to invest to do it.

Here's a question.

Were there weeds in Eden?

Were there weeds in Eden?

I think there were.

For isn't a weed no more than a plant in the wrong place?

And surely, eventually, there must have been.

Don't you think sycamore seeds and shoots sprang up in the wrong place?

Too dense right under the sycamore tree?

Or do you think that the beavers didn't damn the pishon?

These concrete tasks God gave to Adam help us to exegete his commission to Adam and Eve.

And through them to us.

Their posterity.

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and exercise dominion.

So rightly, we recognize that this be fruitful and multiply involves procreation.

Certainly that.

But, from what we've understood from this context, be fruitful and multiply involves not simply procreation, but creation and cultivation.

That's how we image God.

As Adam with the animals, we bring our creativity to bear on his world that God has given us.

We fashion things.

Not perhaps entirely ex nihilo, out of nothing at all, but, to use Tolkien's term, as sub-creators.

We sub-create things that are beautiful and useful.

We are to spin things, like Adam's animal names, out of our creative imagination.

Stories and snow angels, sonnets and skyscrapers, deploying the raw material that God has given us.

Eyes that see and savor proportions.

Vocal chords that render sounds as songs.

Fingers that move a paintbrush or work a crane.

This creational commission has been rightly called a cultural commission, for it calls us to make something of the world.

Homo faber, man and woman, as maker of cultural artifacts.

Or perhaps better, homo ludens, from the Latin ludus, which has the delightful semantic range of both school, where we seriously work, and play.

For is not to create both to work and play?

I'm trying to catch something of the note of exuberant joy of God's, oh, good, good, good, very good.

Work and play mingled together.

It's wonderful.

And how else could it be but to combine them, as there's always both a seriousness and a mirth when we are doing what we were created to do.

Now, our culture tends to valorize this creative aspect of image bearing.

We tend to laud and lionize creative types, don't we?

Artists, not administrators, tend to capture our imaginations.

We prize innovation over conservation, though conservation is coming into its own lately, and rightly so.

For, remember, we also and equally image God in cultivation as we do creativity.

Keeping a garden beautiful and functional requires a lot of nurture and cultivation.

And so it is with the world that God has given us.

Think of families, forests, highways, water supplies, snow removal, research libraries, traffic signals.

I mean, things threaten to slip into the primordial chaos over which God's Spirit first brooded.

I mean, just look at your desk or your lawn or even your sock drawer.

I mean, you'd think we could get dominion over our sock drawer, but it's challenging.

The chaos just seems to breed.

We image God as we keep chaos at bay from slowly and surely encroaching on our ordered environment.

Neither were Adam and Eve simply to kind of hold up an Eden, holding back the onslaught.

Is it the Alamo or something?

They were to advance, to push the ordered beauty of Eden out into the world.

Their multiplying fruitfulness, their creative cultivation was to fill the earth.

What expansive horizons for our calling to image God.

There's a lot out there for Adam and Eve and their offspring to creatively encounter.

Unless deaf to this music, there should be something here of the feeling like a kid in a candy store.

Don't you feel it?

As a start, they just got to jump on naming the beasts of the field, zoology, and the birds of the air, ornithrology.

But what about the fish?

The monsters of the deep, marine biology.

Surely they need creative suitable names too.

Adam's posterity will need first creatively to invent, I guess, like the snorkel and the underwater iPad to get that done.

And what about the stars?

God names them all.

We've named a few, but only a few.

How gloriously expansive is this calling?

Cultivate.

That is, bring out the potential, the latent beauty and blessing.

Expose and expound it for our wonder and worship.

Draw out and multiply the fruitfulness of the earth.

And indeed, exercise our own creative and cultivating fruitfulness in the process.

Map words on realities.

Accurately and artfully.

That's one of my favorite parts.

This is what it means to subdue.

Now, the term may sound violently extractive, but actually, it is to take some portion of God's creation and to master it in the sense of order it,

that it is to image God's creation and to master it in the universe.

That it is to image God.

The physicist discovering and delighting in the laws of motion, which govern the universe, and then putting them into creative usefulness in the game of billiards or landing on Mars.

Notice how to image God is to exhibit a nature expressed in an activity.

It's being at work.

It's not just an endowment, but an exercise of that endowment in dominion.

And we may represent him as his image because we resemble him.

Just as the large images of the ancient Near East depicted Aserbanipal or Amenhotep,

we image him as we display his communicable attributes.

We love mercy and do justly.

We show grace and truth, etc.

Now, in this calling to be image bearers,

although we all have this generic calling in common,

we will each fulfill it in a unique way.

Clearly, God delights in variety,

and he has fashioned us, each of us, uniquely as snowflakes when it comes to image bearing.

Sure, we all have a sense of justice.

And an impulse to compassion.

We all are creative cultivators.

But we have those bits in different relations and proportions.

Some tend to the creative side.

There's Jeff over there.

Others to the cultivation pole.

Probably point to a few there.

I'm looking at Susan.

Who knows?

Some could kind of be happy ladling out soup in shelters, in homeless shelters, all evening.

Just happy to do that.

Compassion oriented.

Others, you know, we're ladling out soup for a while,

but pretty soon we kind of drop the ladle and we're stepping back and we're scratching our head.

And we're thinking, why is this line so interminably long?

What are the structures in society that make this an issue?

And how could we get it?

What if we were to Jimmy?

There we go.

There's someone who's maybe justice oriented.

Some compassion, some justice oriented.

And this helps us to account for our individually adapted callings as image bearers.

And ideally, this calling will reflect our passions, our gifts, our sensibilities, our judgments, our skills, our delights.

What particularly do you notice acutely?

Love, relish, discern.

Those will be clues that will kind of elbow you in the direction of your calling.

Once at the Louvre, standing in front of the Mona Lisa with a friend,

to my wonder, my friend remarked, observing the painting,

look at how that frame is grooved.

I hadn't even noticed the Mona Lisa was in a frame.

And I just thought, wow.

I was staring at the face, trying to make sense of the mercurial smile that's there on the Mona Lisa.

What expression is this?

One of the guards seemed to relish my awe and excitement at viewing the art,

evidenced by his slightly raised mustache, just betokening a bit of a smile.

Wow.

The other guard, there are always two in each room there in the Louvre,

the other guard seemed to care more that I not lean in too close to the canvas.

With subtlety and grace, he cleared his throat just to catch my attention.

And with a graceful, only just perceptible motion of his hand,

restored me to the proper distance and reestablished the carefully cultivated environment for the Mona Lisa.

How delightfully variegated is our image-bearing agency?

Just, people are a wonder to see how the image got.

It's just a wonder.

Well, thus far in our exploration of our calling as image-bearers,

we've been entirely positive about our expressions of creativity and cultivation.

But, our divinely given culture-making capacity is subject to a contaminating influence.

Sin.

In Genesis 3-7, we see the first pair of image-bearers creatively stitching together fig leaves to fashion garments.

But notice how they are deploying their talents evasively,

to conceal, just as they will deploy the trees of the garden to hide themselves from God.

The contamination of sin to our creativity.

The reflection, that is the image of God, gets refracted.

From those very first fig leaves, cultural creativity gets entwined with sin.

And notice how language itself is also stained, deployed for evasion, to conceal truth,

to distract from it, rather than to voice truth.

Oh, Lord, it was the woman who you gave me.

So, let's briefly consider the contamination of capacity for creative cultivation.

If we just look at one episode that's illuminating,

the Tower of Babel stands as emblematic of the powers and perversion,

both the powers and the perversion of our culture-making.

I'm not going to take time to read it because it's a pretty familiar story.

If you have your Bibles and you're eager to look on, it's in Genesis 11, right at the beginning, 1 through 9.

But, I won't say notice, if you don't have the text, but remember.

Remember the animating motives for this great cultural endeavor.

Not to glorify God by representing Him.

Indeed, they rebelliously repudiate His directive to fill the earth.

They rather are motivated by their pride, let us make a name for ourselves,

and fear, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

On the surface, the story reads like a human Promethean reaching

met by the peak of a challenged divine rival on first surface.

Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language,

and this is only the beginning of what they will do.

And nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them.

Let us then go down and confuse their language.

Is this just divine pique at being challenged?

No.

More insight suggests we better understand the episode as exhibiting

simultaneous absurdity and gravity.

It's Derek Kidner's phrase, marvelous phrase.

Simultaneous absurdity and gravity.

As to absurdity, while they aspire to have their tower reach to the heavens,

God has to come down in order to see it.

Is there something down there?

I don't know.

I see a new speck.

It's akin to the absurdity of trying to hide from God behind a tree.

We've already done this before.

Absurd.

Absurd.

And as to gravity, the phrases, this is only the beginning,

and nothing impossible, strike an ominous note.

God interferes with the execution of this cultural enterprise,

not so much nor even only from its hubristic spirit,

but chiefly from fidelity to his promise

that the sinful development of humanity would not again issue

in a repeated catastrophe on the scale of the flood.

If this was to be averted,

the progress of sin had to be checked.

If the whole of humanity had remained concentrated,

the power of sin would have likewise remained united

and doubtless soon again reached stupendous proportions.

It is a powerful testimony to the puissance of our cultural powers as image bearers

and the capacity of sin to co-opt those powers

that God had to break up the unity of the race

to retard the potential for evil, sorrow, and loss.

As many a teacher has discovered,

these three boys better not sit next to each other in the class

or something really bad is going to happen.

You just divide it, you know, divide and conquer that way.

Artfully, the builders' words are subtly laden with indications

of their cultural powers gone awry.

So there's this wonderful Hebrew scholar, Robert Alter,

and he observes that the words for, in Hebrew,

for make bricks and for stone and build for ourselves

all contain the sequential consonants of n-bo-ol,

which spell mixed up or babble

and evoke the words in Hebrew folly, flood, folly, flood.

It's marvelous, marvelous piece.

Clearly, there's a good way to be like God.

Reflect him, reflect him.

And there is a bad way to be like God,

to seek to replace him as center.

And it is no literary accident

that the passage has a chiastic or palistrophic form

where it all kind of parallel meets in the middle,

which is double-struck.

And right in the middle structure,

there is the word God,

who is to be the hinge of all things

that we try to displace.

It's a wonderful passage.

So, sin is a contaminant to our cultural projects.

It twists them away from their God-glorifying purpose.

Thus, every cultural artifact

will be ever only an alloyed good.

Like its human fashioner,

it will be an amalgam reflecting both

the image of God and the stain of sin.

Now, this awareness should make

the biblically thoughtful Christian

a penetrating and nuanced critic of culture.

She will recognize some goodness

in every cultural artifact,

for it will somewhere reflect the image of God,

inevitably.

Her assessment can therefore never be wholly negative.

For all sin's corrupting power,

it is not, sin is not omnipotent.

It's not omnipotent.

And can only deface,

never efface,

the image-bearing good.

Never completely.

Neither can her cultural evaluation

ever be an unqualified affirmation,

for sin's virus is always present

in human artifice.

There clings iniquity,

even to the holiest of our offerings.

So we should be really, really good cultural critics.

Always something to affirm.

Always something to challenge and interrogate.

Well, we began our reflections

with the observation

that the biblical story begins in a garden

and ends in a city.

So let's conclude our investigation

with a glance to the end.

Revelation 21 and 22

depicts the new heavens and the new earth

as Eden-like,

this wonderful triple hyphenation,

a garden city temple,

actually extending over the whole earth

with the glory of the Lord

covering the whole earth

even as the waters cover the sea.

Wow.

Seems so final and consummate.

So, does that mean

the mandate to be fruitful and multiply

and fill the earth

will have been fulfilled?

Completed?

Does our image-bearing commission

stop there

with the advent of the new heavens

and the new earth?

Will our cultural efforts

and offerings

have no place

in the everlasting, glorious future?

Well,

there are tantalizing suggestions

that it will not be so.

Consider Christ's parable of the talents

in Matthew 25.

The stewards are to take the resources

given them by the master

and multiply them.

Make them fruitful.

Two of the three stewards

invest the resources well

and do faithfully multiply them.

But with what

is their faithful stewardship

rewarded

when the master returns?

An eternal cruise?

A recliner?

No.

More

to be fruitful

and multiply with.

An augmented

sphere of stewardship

in the resurrection life.

You have been faithful

in little.

I will put you

over much.

And the somewhat parallel parable

in Luke 19

expresses it

rule over ten cities

to the faithful.

Rule over ten cities.

It would seem

we continue

to fulfill

our creation commission

to exercise dominion.

And I love that phrase

enter into the joy

of your master.

What

is the joy

of the master?

It's doubtless

deep

and diverse.

But in this context

it would seem

to be

his joy

in what he

expressed

as

well done.

That is

the fruitful

multiplying

of his resources.

That's the master's joy.

It brings

divine delight.

And we

enter into

that joy

as we

continue

fruitfully

to multiply

the much

we are given

to work with

in the eschatological

kingdom

as we

creatively

cultivate

our ten

or five

or however

many cities

over which

we are to

exercise

dominion.

So

it would

appear

the cultural

commission

given in the

garden

still

defines

our calling

even in

the glorious

future.

It would

seem

the opening

up

of everlasting

horizons

will not be

the cessation

of our cultural

task

rather it's

continuation

and indeed

amplification.

And does

this not make

sense?

For the task

is

and ever

shall be

manifestly

incomplete

for the potential

of what God

has fashioned

seems

endless.

us.

1,120

musical works

is a lot

of realized

creative

potential

but did

not Bach

have yet

more music

to make?

Could not

notes be

arranged

in still

more

extraordinary

ways?

And did

not Rembrandt

have more

art in

him?

Milton

more poetry?

Pelé

more goals?

I'm sure

you're convinced

that that's

true.

So

perhaps

it should

come as

less of a

surprise

that in

John's

description

of the

eschatological

New Jerusalem

works

of culture

are streaming

into its

ever-open

gates.

You remember

the phrase?

The kings

of the earth

will bring

their glory

into it.

The glory

and honor

of the

nations.

Revelation

21.

What are

these

national

glories

or treasures

the kings

of the

earth

will bring

to the

holy city,

the end

time temple?

The seer's

description is

drawn from

Isaiah's

vision of

God's

promised

future

found in

Isaiah 60.

It's a

wonderful

vision.

We can

linger only a

moment to

make a few

observations

particularly

germane to

our theme.

The opening

language of

Isaiah 60

parallels the

genesis

creation.

Out of

thick

darkness

light

arises.

This evokes

new creation.

In verse

3, the

nations are

represented by

kings as

bringing their

wealth.

The wealth

of nations

has a

familiar ring

if you read

economics.

That is,

their choicest

treasures.

Camels of

Midian,

golden

frankincense

from Sheba,

flocks from

Kadar.

If this,

this would

be a

period

parallel to

our, say,

chocolates and

watches from

Switzerland,

BMWs and

Mercedes from

Germany,

pasta and

gelato from

Italy, etc.,

etc.

Use your

imagination.

I don't know.

all these

cultural

treasures

shall,

quote,

beautify

my

beautiful

house.

That is,

adorn the

new Jerusalem.

And

notice,

laden with

these ethnic

offerings are,

if we had

the text,

the ships

of Tarshish.

Ah,

bringing these

treasures to

the city of

the Lord are

the ships of

Tarshish.

Now, this is

an intriguing

reference,

as the

ships of

Tarshish,

were renowned

as large

vessels,

capable of

transporting

massive loads

great distances.

They were

the pride

and glory

of their

pagan

possessors.

Isaiah

describes them

in chapter

2 as

beautiful

craft,

but proud

and lofty

and lifted

up.

Thus,

the Lord of

hosts is,

quote,

against all

the ships

of Tarshish.

Psalm 48

repeats this

condemnation.

The Lord

will shatter

the ships

of Tarshish.

Again in

Isaiah 23,

judgment

awaits you,

so wail,

O ships

of Tarshish.

So,

how do we

reconcile this

seemingly

conflicting

assessment of

the ships

of Tarshish?

If they

are to be

destroyed

for their

pridefulness,

how is it

that they

show up

in the

New Jerusalem

as instruments

of service?

Could it

be

that the

judgment

that they

must pass

through

is not

an

annihilating

judgment,

but a

purifying

one?

As Richard

Maul asks,

could the

breaking

of the

ships

of Tarshish

be more

like the

breaking

of a

horse

rather than

the breaking

of a

vase?

It is

not that

the ships

as such

will be

destroyed,

simply

their

former

function.

In the

New Jerusalem,

they're no

more the

means of

pride and

rebellion,

as they

served

Jonah,

for example,

and fleeing

the Lord.

No,

no.

Vessels

of mutiny

become

vessels

of ministry.

Clearly,

many cultural

artifacts function

idolatrously

and give

expression to

our rebellion.

Like the

Tower of

Babel,

they are

proud and

lofty,

things in

their present

context,

but they

may be,

nonetheless,

good and

beautiful things

worthy of

preservation.

the vaulting

arch.

Surely,

it will

be preserved.

It's an

architectural

masterpiece,

but it

must first

be stripped

of its

vaunting

pride,

or its

use in

pagan

temple or

brothel or

sweatshop.

These

cultural

goods

must be

brought

low,

but this

need not

mean their

utter destruction.

salvation.

Their horizon

may be

transformation.

In our

present fallen

context,

our cultural

artifacts are

intertwined with

sin.

They are

sin-alloyed

glory,

contaminated

goodness.

But it would

appear from

Isaiah's vision

that God

has a purpose

to reclaim

them.

He will

reclaim

what humans

have used

to rebel.

What we

have found

in this

earth and

fashion and

fabricated

idolatrously

and rebelliously,

God will

not give

up for,

as Psalm

24 states,

the earth

is the

Lord's

and the

fullness

thereof.

What we

were to

fill the

earth with,

creational

commission,

that very

fullness is

his,

it's God's.

He will

transform it

and so

reclaim it

like the

ships of

Tarshish.

Is this

the universal

pattern?

Will it be

so with all

of our

sin-stained

productions

that they

will be

reclaimed?

Well, it

seems there

is another

pattern which

might be

inferred from

another of

Isaiah's

descriptions,

drawn from

one of his

more famous

visions of

God's glorious

future

consummated

kingdom.

Isaiah 2,

you recall,

it says,

the Lord

will beat

swords into

plowshares

and spears

into pruning

forks,

pruning

hooks.

It seems

some cultural

artifacts will

have their

very

identities

changed,

not simply

their

instrumentalities.

So their

identities

will need

to change.

Ships

may remain

ships,

only put

to God's

glorifying

use.

They are

recommissioned,

we might

say.

But swords

and spears

must become

something else

to serve

God's glory.

But even

here,

they do

not become

refuse,

but are

repurposed.

God

seems

not even

to give

up the

raw material

of his

created hand.

God

recycles.

God

recycles.

It would

seem

our creator

is also

redeemer

in a

very

expansive

sense.

and that

he is

committed

to a

grand

restoration

project.

Redemption

does not

simply involve

the souls

of his

people,

but their

resurrection,

a bodily

existence.

1 Corinthians 15

is clear on

this.

But redemption

must also

involve this

material,

earth.

After all,

where would

these bodily

resurrected

beings thrive

except upon

a physical

earth?

the meek

shall inherit

the earth,

Jesus tells

us in the

Sermon on

the Mount.

Romans 8

gives us a

moving description

of all

creation groaning

for the day

of redemption

when it will

come to be

set free

from its

bondage to

corruption,

to attain a

share in the

freedom and

glory of the

redeemed

humanity.

So once we

rid ourselves

of any

residual

contaminant of

Gnosticism,

which has often

and recently

affected the

church, that

is the

exaltation of

spirit over

a denigrated

physical, why

it scarcely

seems right that

it could be

otherwise, once

we understand

that.

How odd

for our

sovereign God

to utterly

abandon the

earth, the

work of his

hands, handing

it all over to

his enemy

Satan, splitting

the spoils.

He'll all

take the

souls, you

have the

rest.

No!

No, there's a

wider truth, a

wonderfully wider

truth to what we

sing at Christmas.

He comes to

make his

blessings flow

far as the

curse is

found.

So, summing

up, we might

formulate our

findings thus.

As with

creation, so

with culture.

God does not

abandon the

work of his

hands, creation,

neither does

he abandon the

works of our

hands, his

image bearers'

hands, culture.

New creation, the

new heavens and

earth will be a

place of culture.

nature, it

will bear the

ornaments of the

labors of his

image bearers.

Our cultural

mandate, our

image bearing

mission shall

carry over into

eternity to our

great relish and

his too, the joy of

the master.

nature.

So, what is our

response?

Our creator king on

his return will

transform and

purify culture from

the alloyed

amalgam that it

now is.

Do we simply

await his

coming and pray

Maranatha, even

so come Lord

Jesus?

No.

We do not

simply wait,

but neither do

we ourselves

accomplish this

transformation.

We cannot

simply move from

Christ

will transform

culture to

Christians

transform culture.

We cannot

build the

heavenly city.

Hebrews tells

us its

builder and

maker is God.

It comes down

from heaven.

But, if we

neither merely

await this

transformation,

nor can

accomplish it,

we can

anticipate it.

Live now as

citizens of that

city to come,

reflecting its

values and

purposes and

creative,

cultivating joy,

having the

assurance that

as we so

live and

labor, it

will not be

in vain.

Not be for

nothing.

The fruit of

such labors will

have their

place in the

glorious future.

Therefore,

writes the

apostle, be

steadfast,

immovable,

always abounding

in the work of

the Lord,

knowing that in

the Lord your

labor is not

in vain.

without this

hope, a

pall is cast

over our

labors.

As Bertrand

Russell,

the atheist,

writes,

all the

labors of

the ages,

all the

devotion,

all the

inspiration,

all the

noonday

brightness of

human genius

are destined

to extinction.

And the

whole temple

of man's

achievement must

inevitably be

buried beneath

the debris of

a universe

in ruins.

Now,

there's a

sanguine

vision.

No,

your labor

is not

in vain

in the

Lord.

We may

not be

able to

build the

heavenly

city,

but we

may build

for it,

and we

shall build

in it,

with the

purified,

creative,

cultivating

image of

God,

of which we

are now

the stewards.

And if

our efforts

seem so

frail and

fragile,

distorted and

disappointing,

pathetic and

paltry,

let us seek

that purifying

spirit who

is himself a

part of that

future kingdom

and can

empower us to

anticipate it

in our lives

and labors.

Oh,

Lord,

lend permanence

to the work

of our hands.

Let me stop

there and

open it up

for any

questions or

comments.

By the

way,

I have an

appendix that

I will email

to people,

or we'll figure

out a way

to get,

where I

take a

couple of

the most

challenging

passages of

scripture that

seem to

suggest,

no,

the whole

thing is

going to

burn,

and give

a careful

exegesis of

those,

but that's an

appendix to

this.

Much to your

relief,

I'm not going

into that

now.

Yes?

Yes?

Yes?

Yes?

Well,

I'm not,

I don't know how metaphoric you intend me to understand that.

Presumably somewhat metaphoric because there's not going to be another flood to do that.

But if indeed the ark stands as type for the means of rescue when God's judgment comes,

yes, in one sense, God has built that apparatus in terms of the sacrifice of his son,

who is the ark, there is only shelter from judgment in him, Christ the ark,

and we are to be, the scripture says, his witnesses.

So what we do is like Noah's preaching,

we direct people to the only salvation that is in Christ, the ark,

that alone will float above the waters of judgment.

So in that sense, that would be the case,

and that very much displays much of our calling to be his witness bearers and ambassadors.

He makes his appeal through us, it says in 2 Corinthians 5, 20, 21-ish.

Yeah, yeah, Jeff.

Could you, first of all, thank you.

Oh, you're welcome.

Thank you for the fire hose.

That was amazing.

Could you give us a, John, one-minute riff on the culture of wars

and what you just presented and how we might have a posture for it?

Excellent.

Yes, yes, yes.

So one of the things about the culture of wars,

it seems like for the Christians,

much of our reaction to looking out of our compound and saying,

oh my goodness, looks like the world's going to hell in a handbasket.

You know, cats are dating dogs,

all kinds of crazy things are happening out there.

So we respond in fear.

Oh no, I've got three daughters.

They're growing up in this world.

And we respond in anger.

Hey, this is not what we once had in terms of our influence over society.

We didn't lose it.

Someone probably took it from us,

and it's probably those nasty people out there.

So the whole thing sets us up to cast our neighbors as not only our opponents,

but enemies.

Hence the word culture war.

And to ratchet up the stakes so highly,

because if we sadly think we have so much of our lot in this world,

the stakes will be so high,

we will engage in some sort of gladiatorial contest where winner takes all.

When we have frustrated by our failure to persuade,

we just go and we use political means to try to wrench things around in our direction.

In contrast, I think that the way that we can make our testimony more vivid

is everybody's trying to figure out what is a meaningful life.

What's the life worth living?

And if we can create in the Christian community

something that has a fragrance of Christ and allure of life,

something that is vibrant and creative and wonderful,

I think people are looking to think,

oh, that looks like a life worth living.

So I think that the creative arts,

in a way to comprehensively display,

this is a life that's oriented toward kingdom values,

and this is the one that is most affirming of humanity as rightly discerned,

that's a critical part of our witness bearing.

And I think that beauty is often the easiest portal for an unbeliever to encounter.

And even the art, I mean, one of the marvelous things that art does is it's so captivating

that it arrests us in our manic lives,

and we pause and we ask and we look and we try to attend,

and maybe we feel a little bit of transcendence,

and that opens up a new set of questions.

Because in every piece of beauty,

that's just a little shard off the block that is God, the origin.

You know, that's the little drop of water where Christ is the ocean.

So if we can get people to attend to beauty and to feel a stirring of beauty,

to catch something of the melody of a song they haven't yet heard,

to use Lewis's line,

or to catch the fragrance of a flower they haven't yet found,

I think art is absolutely phenomenally enhancing and critical.

in our witness bearing.

And it again, it looks at our neighbors not as enemies,

but those who are lost, who are seeking to win in love.

It's not love.

Everything is love each other.

That's so much.

Pretty fundamental.

Yeah, I think so too.

I think so too.

You know how about music, art, music, classical, you know music.

Yeah.

Everything from that.

Yes.

You know, so laugh loudly for the laugh and laugh.

It's very hard.

I am.

In general, everyone.

That's right.

That's right.

All right, team.

I think, unless there's one more question,

we probably should vacate.

We want to,

if a couple of you could help with the reordering of the room,

that would be great.

thank you

if anybody is interested in the

appendix on those

texts of scripture

that often are invoked to challenge this

vision just fire me a text

and I'll send it to you with the

text of this if you want

thank you team

oh you're welcome

yeah

thank you

oh