Creation, ‘The World Was Made So That Christ Might Be Born’
January 4, 2014 by Bobby Grow
In some of my posts, especially of late, we have been
thinking about the Christian doctrine of Creation; as corollary, we have
also been considering our relation to creation in and through Christ. The first
step we ought to engage, in our consideration of such things, is to wonder
about the God-world relation and what purpose he has always already intended
for creation as the counterpoint to his gracious life of love, from which he
created. It becomes quickly obvious, as we read the New Testament, and work out
the theo-logical implications of Trintarian and Christo-logical assumptions,
therein; that creation was created with Christ in mind, and us in Christ. So
that God’s original intent, was in and through Christ, to bring all of creation
(and humanity as the pinnacle of his creation) into his life of perichoretic
(interpenetrating) love (self-giving, subject-in-distinction=Trinity). Scottish
theologian, David Fergusson, helps us understand how all of this has played out
in the history of interpretation:
The notion of ‘wisdom’ provides further evidence of the
integration of creation and salvation in the Old Testament. As the creative
agency of God, wisdom is celebrated in the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and some of
the deutero-canonical works. In some places, such as Proverbs 8, wisdom is
personified as a divine agent. The divine wisdom by which the world is created
is also apparent in the regularity of nature, the divine law, and human
affairs. This notion of ‘wisdom’ is later fused with the Greek concept of
‘Logos’ and becomes vital for expressing the linking of creation and
Christology in the New Testament. In the prologue to John’s Gospel the Word
(Logos) of God is the one by whom and through whom the world is created. This
Word which is made present to Israel becomes incarnate in Jesus Christ. In this
cosmic Christology, the significance of Jesus is understood with respect to the
origin and purpose of the created order. Already in Paul’s writing and
elsewhere in the New Testament epistles, we find similar cosmic themes (e.g. 1
Cor. 8:6, Col. 1:15-20, Heb. 1:1-4). By describing creation as Christ-centred,
these passages offer two related trajectories of thought. First, the origin and
final purpose of the cosmos is disclosed with the coming of Christ into the
world and his resurrection from the dead. Second, the significance of Christ is
maximally understood reference to his creative and redeeming power throughout
the created universe. Writers at different periods in the history of the church
would later use this cosmic Christology to describe the appearance of the
incarnate Christ as the crowning moment of history. No longer understood merely
as an emergency measure to counteract the effects of sin and evil, the
incarnation was the fulfillment of an eternal purpose. The world was made
so that Christ might be born. This is captured in Karl Barth’s
dictum that creation is ‘the external basis of the covenant’ (Barth 1958: 94).
[David Fergusson, Chapter 4: Creation, 76-7 in The Oxford Handbook of
Systematic Theology, edited by John Webster, Kathryn Tanner, and Iain
Torrance]
In the history what David Fergusson is describing is
known as the Scotist Thesis; viz. that the plan was always for Jesus to
incarnate to bring humanity and creation into the divine dialogue and life of
communion through union with the Son. The ‘Fall’ intensified the Incarnation in
a way that is tragic, but rife with the redemptive hope of the resurrection and
advent life! I follow the Scotist thesis on this front. My friend, brother in
Christ, Evangelical Calvinist co-conspirator, Myk Habets has written this to
open up his essay entitled On Getting First Things First: Assessing Claims
for the Primacy of Christ (©The author 2008. Journal compilation ©The
Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford
OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA DOI:10.1111/j.1741-2005.2008.00240.x):
According to Christian tradition Jesus Christ is
pre-eminent over all creation as the Alpha and the Omega, the ‘beginning and
the end’ (Rev 1.8, 21.6; 22.13). This belief, when theologically considered, is
known as the primacy of Christ.1 The specific issue this doctrine addresses is
the question: Was sin the efficient or the primary cause of the incarnation?
This essay seeks to model the practice of modal logic in relation to the
primacy of Christ, not to satisfy the cravings of speculative theologians but
to reverently penetrate the evangelical mystery of the incarnation,
specifically, the two alternatives: either ‘God became man independently of
sin,’ or its contradiction, ‘God became man because of sin’. . . .
Wouldn’t you agree that ‘the world was made so that
Christ might be born’?
15 He is the image of
the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by
Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All
things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is
before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is
the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the
dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it
pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and
by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or
things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by
wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His
flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in
His sight— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and
steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard,
which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a
minister. ~Colossians 1:15-23
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