August 13, 2014

From Jim McGuiggan... The Cross serving Creation


The Cross serving Creation

1.     Because God did not want to be God without us, out of his holy grace God chose to create humankind to share life with him as beloved children and as brothers and sisters one to another. (See Philippians 2:6 in the NRSV for God's astonishing view of his Godhood.)
2.     Because he willed to create embodied beings he created a home suited to our nature in which we would live in peace and joy with him, ever growing into his holy likeness in righteousness.
3.     The home was/is not an end in itself but is the place in which the human family lives unto God and with one another in growing holy intimacy.
4.     That "Grand Enterprise" would come to its fullness in the person of the immortal and glorified Jesus and all who are embraced in him and in his work.
5.     The Grand Enterprise took into account that the human family would rebel and would be in need of "saving" and God purposed to save, as part of what was essential to fulfilling the (conceptually) prior creation purpose which remained intact despite the rebellion.
6.     The "saving" work of God serves his creation purpose and does not conceptually precede it. That is, God's first thought was not, "I would like to save someone" and so he created someone to save. No, God purposed to share his life of joy-filled holiness with companions he would create and, since he took into account that they would sin, he said, "I will 'save' them in order to remain faithful to my creative purpose."
7.     The creation purpose expressed itself in embodied beings (humans) who would live with God in this creation home. With the Fall the humans dragged the creation home down with them and God, in keeping with his creation purpose, planned the "salvation" of the creation as he brings his Grand Enterprise to its completion. (See Romans 8:20-22.)
8.     But the completion of his creation purpose is not the mere restoration of things as they were in Genesis 1—2 because the aim was never simply to create beings who could be happy in an earthly paradise. The aim was to share his joy and life in righteousness so that while the place (home) in which that would take place was an essential element, the nature and quality of life lived in that place (home) was the paramount issue.
9.     God's eternal aim was life lived in a ceaseless growing toward his likeness as it would be expressed fully in the man Jesus. So that when God called and calls people to holiness he is not simply laying down a command, he is expressing a condition without which the life he has purposed to bless us with isn't possible. "Be like me!" is not just a command—it is a call to life to the full.
10.   The cross experience of Jesus is the self-revelation of the God who created and purposed us for life and who would pay the ultimate price to bring about the ultimate relationship. God's eternal aim was not a status but a relationship, ever growing in holy intimacy and righteousness and therefore joy and peace
[All talk about God ordaining and predestinating human sin is the outgrowth of a theology that, thank God, is fatally flawed.]

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