Wednesday, April 10, 2024

CREATION, FALL, REDEMPTION

 The following is an except from a forthcoming book called The Kingdom coauthored with Rudi Schwartz. Give us a few more months to complete...

Creation, Fall, Redemption

Creation, Fall, and Redemption is, if you will, the macrocosm of that which happens to when a person first repents and believes in the gospel, viz., Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification. We have already spoken of the “already but not yet” aspect of Christ’s Kingdom, which is to say (in that other set of trinities) that Christ’s Kingdom has come, is coming and shall come. Glorification is what takes place fully when Christ’s Kingdom has fully come, or, as we say, is fully consummated.



Image from Web

To help us understand Creation, Fall, and Redemption please picture an underground water pipe, or, even, dare I say, a sewer pipe. Creation is when the pipe is first laid. It has the purpose of conveying its contents from one end to the other. Sometimes a leak or a blockage occurs, such as damage caused by tree roots or shifting ground. Picture this as the Fall. Then comes the plumber to fix the problem. When all is finished, this is Redemption.

When God had finished creating Creation, He looked at it and declared that “it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31). When God creates a new creation, you or me, e.g., “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17), His “very good” declaration is applied to the believer. That is what Justification means. To be Justified is to be in Christ; God the Judge declares you to be “very good” in Christ, just like He did at the end of the sixth day of Creation. The new creature is declared by God to be righteous, i.e., to be right with God, justified by the second Adam, Christ. This is simply a legal transaction. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30)

Following this legal declaration (or simultaneously from God’s perspective) the person who has been Justified has also been definitively Sanctified, which same sanctification progresses until full consummation.

Notice that sanctification is not something that we do, but the Spirit. Yes, Christians notice what He is doing in us, and by extension, in the world: “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us…” (Heb. 10:12-15).

 Think of the earth as being progressively sanctified too. (Ps. 24:1). This is what we mean when we say that the Kingdom has come (past tense), is coming (present tense), and will come (future tense). Thus, both the “earthling” and the earth have been set apart by God for a noble use, i.e., for glory (read, gift from the Father to the Son as per Ps. 2:8; see also Rom. 9:23). Thus, Glorification has to do with glory, the King’s glory.

To be fully consummated is to be Glorified. Sanctification is to become what God has declared you to be. He looks at the new “very good” creation over whom the Holy Spirit has hovered as it were, and the Spirit with the Word speaks into the believer’s heart where He has lodged. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (Rom. 8:29–30).

We need to be Justified, Sanctified, and Glorified, because, like all of Creation, we too are fallen. When Creation had fallen, God judged and redeemed it along those on the ark. He opened the windows of heaven and baptised the household of Noah on the ark in covenant blessing, and by breaking open the fountains of the deep, He fully immersed His old creation outside of the ark in covenant curses for the wilful disobedience of humanity. As He did with Adam and Eve in the old creation, so God blessed Noah and his household as He reissued the Cultural Mandate. Hence, we see that the earth has been sanctified by the Flood, the global Deluge. To be Sanctified is to be cleansed, as pictured in covenant baptism.

In the following note the connections between covenant baptism, progressive sanctification (i.e., “the mortifying of sin”), and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 167. How is our Baptism to be improved by us?
A. The needful but much neglected duty of improving our Baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others, by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of the Baptism and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that Sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body.  

God signified His covenant with His new creation with a rainbow in the cloud (Gen. 9:12 & 16). Noah signified his and his household’s redemption by sacrificing that which was a picture of Christ’s promised redemption (Gen. 8:20).

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done (Gen. 8:20-21).

God’s Covenant of Grace was now being administered on His new creation by Noah and his faithful descendants all the way down till today. Those who are born of the Spirit are new creations. Again, the micro (us, as new creations) pictures the macro (Creation) and vice versa. Christ redeems both. The ark was a type of Christ. As everything in the ark was saved from God’s judgment, so is everyone and everything in Christ saved from God’s coming final judgment.

The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. For He has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the waters.” (Ps. 24:1-2), “For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are Mine.” (Ps. 50:10-11), Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession.” (Ps. 2:8). The baptised earth is progressively being sanctified and will be glorified along with all believers after the final judgment.

Without the Fall there would be no need of Redemption. Without the Fall we would not need to be Sanctified, set apart and cleansed. But Creation was washed with water in Noah’s day, and we are washed with water in our baptism. Glorification follows Sanctification. However, because Jesus’s humanity is made of the same material as Creation, that means that Creation is already being Glorified in Him. Therefore, as we await the redemption of our material bodies, we have been, are being, and will be Justified, Sanctified, and Glorified. Our acquittal on Judgment Day will prove that we have been declared righteous, set apart and cleansed, and blessed and glorified by God to His glory.

So, just as millions of dead things became fossilised in sediment after the Flood, as horrible as it sounds, so will that which does not belong to Christ and the new Earth. It will be immersed in the lake of fire forever beginning on Judgment Day.

See red chimney top right sector (Image from Web)
As youngsters growing up in Scotland, we lived next to a hospital. We could see a large chimney that would on occasion belch forth smoke like when the Roman Catholics elect their new pope! The older kids told us that the smoke from the hospital incinerator’s chimney meant that they were burning a dead body. Creepy! We thought we were living next to a crematorium. It seems that they did at least incinerate surgically removed body parts and other materials, medical waste, but not whole bodies.

Christ has removed all our sins. His Father incinerated them when He poured out His wrath upon Jesus on the cross, baptising Him with fire. His law-keeping righteousness is imputed to us, and our law-breaking unrighteousness is imputed to Him. It is as if we had never sinned, like we went from glory to glory, from Creation before the Fall to Creation after Christ’s return. Says John Witherspoon,

The Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, among whom he had never been in person, at great length establishes the fundamental doctrine of the gospel that sinners are justified by the free grace of God through the imputed righteousness of a Redeemer. To this doctrine men do make by nature the strongest opposition, and are, with the utmost difficulty, brought to receive and apply it. We may well say of it in particular what the same apostle says of the truths of God in general, that “the natural man doth not receive them” (1 Cor. 2:14).[1]

An interesting but pertinent aside is, not that the American actress Reece Witherspoon is one of John Witherspoon’s descendants, or that, “John’s mother, Anna Walker, could trace her lineage through several pastors back to John Knox himself”, or that “In 1746, he led a group of militia volunteers from Beith intent on fighting for King George II against the pro-Catholic Jacobite uprising. Although Witherspoon was not engaged in any military conflict, he was captured and imprisoned for a short time in Doune castle.[2] The interesting fact is that Witherspoon, the Scottish Presbyterian who was invited to come over to America to be a professor at what became Princeton, he was the only clergyman to sign the American Declaration of Independence – in defiance of King George III. He had a major influence on many of the Founders, no less than one James Madison. The famous converted ex-slave trader, John Newton of Amazing Grace hymn fame, wrote,

This work has always been regarded as one of the ablest Calvinistic expositions of that doctrine in any language. I hope you approve Mr. Witherspoon’s books. I think his Treatise on Regeneration is the best I have seen upon this important subject.” John Newton (1725-1807) in a letter to Mr. Cunningham.[3]

Even that great Abolitionist, William Wilberforce, heaped praise on Witherspoon’s theological understanding, “Referring to the Treatise on Regeneration, Wilberforce gushed, “I am conscious, indeed, that the excellence of the Work is far too well established to render any eulogium of mine.”[4] Thus, the converting power of the Holy Spirit working with His Word in the hearts of men has a far greater impact than the mere individual. It goes far and and wide. It crosses oceans. It engulfs whole nations for good as the gospel, the heart of which has to do with Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification, works like leaven in the expansion of Christ’s Kingdom throughout the whole earth.

Back to the plumber fixing the damaged underground water pipe. The water of life has been turned back on by Christ and flows through our veins. Or, what about the time my old friend, (who is now with Christ in Paradise), had to have a damaged and decayed portion of his bowel removed. They simply cut out the offending piece of intestine, (and sent it to be incinerated?), and rejoined both ends. He lived a healthy life for many, many years after that. Being already glorified, my friend is awaiting the redemption of his body and then he will be fully glorified. God speed!

All of us became disconnect from God by the Fall. The Christian’s sins were removed with surgical precision by Christ. We are now reconnected to God. He remembers our sins no more. It’s as if the damaged part to our lives was never there, so good was the operation. All our transgressions have been incinerated. Gone. Amazing grace!



[1] John Witherspoon, Justification & Regeneration: Practical Writings on Saving Faith, (Edited by Kevin DeYoung, Westminster Seminary Press, 2022), 5

[2] Kevin DeYoung, ibid., ix-x.

[3] John Newton, ibid., on dust jacket.

[4] Ibid., xviii.

No comments:

Post a Comment