Creation, Incarnation, Redemption, and Exaltation

 Creation, Incarnation, Redemption, and Exaltation The Unfaithful Bride and the Faithful Groom: The Biblical Story of Covenant Making, Breaking and Renewal: McKinlay, Neil Cullan, Schwartz, D. Rudi: 9798375129211: Amazon.com: Books

CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were two founding members of a reading group called The Inklings that began in the 30s and wound up in 1949. They met in various places, the most famous being a pub called The Eagle and Child or affectionately known as The Bird and Babe or just The Bird. They would read and discuss pieces of literature, including bad prose to see who could last longest without laughing! These two are famous today for some of their books, now also movies.  

Lewis’s Tales or Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings are well-known allegories in which Christ and Biblical principles of good and evil are depicted. These are more overt in Lewis’s work, while in Tolkien the focus is more on good versus evil. 

Novelists get to create characters, give them certain personality traits and looks, and can move them around in all sorts of different situations, good or bad. Novelists sometimes enter into their own creations, having the characters they create reflect themselves, how they would behave in peaceful times or react when faced with evil. Of course, the writer knows the end from the beginning, or at least, where they are trying to get their story to. Yes, perhaps some authors make it all up as they go along, but it is hard to imagine CS Lewis or JRR Tolkien being of that sort. 

So, Lewis and Tolkien invented different worlds, various characters, stories containing romance, war and peace, (Tolkien, a linguist, even invented other languages, such as Elfish for his novels!). 

What if we were all part of someone else’s story? What if we were unconsciously performers in some cosmic drama? It has been said the history is His-story. A human being becomes conscious that he or she is part of God’s grand plan only after being converted by God’s grace. It is then the following Shakespeare quote takes on a deeper and fuller meaning,  

“All the world’s a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players; 

They have their exits and their entrances; 

And one man in his time plays many parts, 

His acts being seven ages.” 

Satan, of course, would like to remove God from the equation or at the very least make Him less or insignificant. Thus, false religion, atheism, etc. However, Christians struggle here too, especially understanding theology and putting that theology into practice. Some have a man-centred theology, one in which God, though He is present, merely sits like a spectator watching the movie, rather than sovereignly acting in and directing every aspect of it. 

Let us remind ourselves of three important things before we proceed:  

• God created creation (Gen. 1:1)  

• God entered His creation (John 1:14) and  

• God redeemed His creation (Dan. 7: 13-14)  

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So, we see that it is true that history is His-story. It is all about Him. We are just bit-players in His cosmic drama. E.g., Judas Iscariot had the very important role of betrayer, a walk-on role of betraying Jesus to death. “As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him, ‘What you are about to do, do quickly’” (John 13:27; see also 17:12).  

The triune God, Father, Word, Spirit, created creation. The Word came from Heaven, and entered His fallen creation to redeem it from the effects of sin by becoming a human being. Then He went back to Heaven. Thus, creation, incarnation, redemption, and exaltation, in that order. 

So, there he is, always skulking around in the shadows, “the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9), with his willing partner who had just sold his own soul for the love of money, even 30 pieces of silver. Is Judas the only actor who got paid for his part in God’s great drama? Did Satan make Judas do it? Or worse, did God create us as automatons, as robots to do his will? God forbid! God holds Judas, and the rest of us, fully responsible for our own actions. Therefore, Judas, of his own free will and accord, did what he did. However, how free was his will? Well, like the rest of us, his will was in bondage to sin, self, and Satan. In other words, he remained unregenerate, unconverted. God had not set him free. Being set free is what we mean by conversion. 

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). With this verse, Jesus tells us that, like Nicodemus, we are all blind to the things of the Kingdom of God. We need a new life through the Holy Spirit. It comes “from above”. Nicodemus desired to talk to Christ as teacher to teacher. He too was a teacher of the Scriptures. But Christ made it clear – to understand anything about the Kingdom of God, something “out of the world” had to happen – he had to be born from above (or born again). Without this work of the Holy Spirit, he would remain blind to understanding the teachings of Christ. 

Among other things, post-conversion, the Christian has the ability to see spiritual things, including the things that are behind good and evil in the world, such as God and Satan, the forces for good and the forces of evil. It is about knowing your own heart and what God would have you do and have you not do. Conversion includes the ability to believe and understand God’s written Word, and to apply it to your every situation. Of course, due to a residue of sin that remains in every Christian’s heart, none of us will act perfectly in accordance with the Word of God in this life. However, we will be able to study the Scriptures and learn to “reject the wrong and choose the right” (Isa. 7:16; see also 1 John 5:3-5). The simplest way to accomplish this is to properly understand God’s covenant, the stipulations to keep it, and how to give it expression in everyday life as God’s holy nation (Exod. 19:5-6).