Seven FAQ's about Christian Faith (and Seven More for Good Luck) 02
Ch.2:
What is God’s will for Our World? For Me?
Knowing
God’s Will
One
of the great mysteries of Christian faith eddies around knowing God’s will. We
pursue it like the holy grail, grasp onto any new spiritual technologies that
promise us insight into it, or gurus who claim special competence in discerning
it. We worry that if we miss God’s will for us our lives will drip away into a
puddle of inconsequence. And no one wants that, do they?
Nevertheless,
many of us give up on ever really knowing God’s will for the world and
especially for themselves. The technologies don’t work and the gurus fail to
deliver really satisfying results. So we muddle along or charge ahead doing the
best we know how. Yet still we wonder about the big picture of God’s intent and
purpose for the world. And what God really wants us to be about here.
Well,
I’m neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I do know what God’s will
for this world is and what role(s) he expects you to play in it. Not because I
have any special insight, or a new method, or have received some special
revelation. I don’t and I haven’t. But I have read the scriptures carefully.
And I offer my reading for your consideration.
Revelation 21-22 and Genesis 1-2: God’s
Will for the World
If God has a purpose for
creation and roles for us to play in it, where do you imagine we might find it?
“What we call the
beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.”[1]
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.”[1]
I
agree with Eliot. Let’s make our start at the end, the last scene in the vision
of the book of Revelation, chs.21-22. Here we find the purpose of God fulfilled
in vivid picture language. The fluid imagery of the Seer allows the pictures to
coalesce into one grand image. First, we have a new earth and a new heaven. Then
the holy city, the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb, descends to the new
creation. And becomes coextensive with it. So new creation = New Jerusalem. The
shape of the New Jerusalem is cubic. Only one other structure in the Bible has
this shape – the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple. This was where God dwelt in
the temple. Only the High Priest, and him only once a year, on the Day of
Atonement, could enter this part of the temple. John seems to suggest that the fulfillment
or full fruition of God’s purpose renders the entire new creation a Holy of
Holies in which God and all his people can live together in harmony and
fellowship through the ages! If this is true we ought to be able to find
evidence of it in the creation stories of Gen.1-2.
And
we do, if we read them in light of their cultural context. It seems clear in
light of the work of Greg Beale,[2]
John Walton,[3]
and others that Israel’s creation stories narrative God’s building a temple for
him to inhabit to be with his people. Where, after all, do gods live but in a
temple? It’s all embryonic and at its earliest moments in Genesis, of course.
But the world is structured on the pattern of Solomon’s temple – the Garden of
Eden = the Holy of Holies, Eden = the Holy Place, and the uninhabited lands
outside Eden = the outer Courts where foreigners may go. Further, the river flowing
out Eden to water the uninhabited lands suggests they’re meant for habitation.
And we know from Genesis 1 that humanity is mandated by God to exercise
dominion over the whole creation. Thus it seems God intends his creation in toto to become a temple where he and
his human creatures will live together in fellowship and love.
And
that’s just what we’ve seen in Revelation 21-22. God’s eternal purpose, then,
his will for this creation is for every nook and cranny to be a creational
temple. That’s what he’s up to throughout history. This is where the whole
thing is going. Creation’s destiny.
Genesis 1-2: God’s Will for You and Me
Within
the creational temple God is building you and I have been given roles to play.
The best roles, in fact. High privilege and high responsibility. First, we are
made in God’s image. We are meant for relationship with him, his adopted
children as it were. As children of the Great King we are also royals. And as
such appointed God’s representatives, his ambassadors, charged to reflect his
character and will and exercise dominion throughout the creation.
The
form of this dominion is given in Genesis 2 where the Lord places Adam
(humanity) in the garden to “keep and till” it (2:15). In addition to its
horticultural meaning this pair of words, used together, often refers elsewhere
in the Old Testament to the work of priests in the temple. We are to be royal
priests. That’s our identity; that’s our vocation. God’s will for us. Wherever
we are and whatever we do.
If
in our royalty we represent and reflect the character and will of God, as
priests we stand before God and between God and the world and the world and
God. The core of our vocation, then, or our efforts to do God’s will, consists
in mediating the presence of God to the world and holding the world in all its
pain and brokenness before God. One of a priest’s primary tasks was to help the
people “discern distinguish between the holy and the common,
and between the unclean and the clean” (Leviticus 10:10). This ancient
language from a scheme of dividing the world we no longer use or understand
very well basically means living according to God’s design and order in his
world. Or, in the language I have been using, reflecting God’s character and
will throughout the world. Dietrich Bonhoeffer emphasizes this as he reflects
on the church’s role in a world-come-of-age:
“(The church) must
tell people in every calling . . . what a life with Christ is, what it means
“to be there for others.” In particular, our church will have to confront the
vices of hubris, the worship of power, envy, and illusionism as the roots of
all evil. It will have to speak of moderation, authenticity, trust,
faithfulness, steadfastness, patience, discipline, humility, modesty,
contentment. It will have to see that it does not underestimate the
significance of the human “example” (which has its origin in the humanity of
Jesus and is so important in Paul’s writings!); the church’s word gains weight
and power not through concepts but by example.”[4]
We
are to help those “in every calling” learn to how express and embody their “life
in Christ,” their life “for others.” As we do this, we will draw near to them,
embrace them in God’s gracious welcome and hospitality in spite of (or perhaps
because of) their sin, bear their burdens in joint responsibility for the pain
and injustice of the world, and hold them before God in hope that Christ will also
welcome them into in his kingdom as he will us, through his gracious love and
mercy.
That’s
God’s will for you and for me, friends. Paul puts it this way: “Rejoice always,
pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). It’s not the job we do, the
decision we make, or path we take that is specifically God’s will for that we
might miss if we decide wrongly and place ourselves outside the will of God. If
it is important to God’s purposes that we be somewhere or play some particular
role, God can be trusted to make that clear to us (think Moses or Paul).
Lacking such specific direction, or even with it, our vocation remains as
Bonhoeffer so ably described it above.
For
most of us I suspect, there are any number of job we might hold, tasks we might
undertake. We must use our best judgment in deciding between such opportunities
when we face them in the resolve that whatever decision we make God’s will for
us in those places or doing those tasks we will seek to express the life “for
others” that embraces and holds them in God’s gracious presence. Only by
defaulting on this resolve do we place ourselves outside the will of God for
us. Only if we fail to live as God’s royal priests helping to extend the
boundaries of his creational temple to embrace the ends of the earth do we fail
to do God’s will.
Conclusion
I
submit that God’s will is not a mystery shrouded in confusion or darkness. It
is not a guessing game we must play with God throughout our lives. We do need
to be fearful of living outside God’s will but not because we don’t know it but
because we choose not to do it.
In
sum, the will of God for our world is for it to become a worldwide temple where
God will live with us forever in his shalom
(peace or universal well-being). God’s will for each of us is to serve in that
temple as royal priests declaring and demonstrating the way of life God intends
for his creatures. We do this in whatever jobs, occupations, roles, or tasks we
assume. We can do this knowing that God has blessed us, that is equipped and
fortified us, for just such service. Thanks be to God!
[1] http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/winter/w3206/edit/tseliotlittlegidding.html.
[3] Walton, 2009.
Comments
Post a Comment