COncordia
Journal
Summer 2010
volume 36 | number 3
Caring for God’s Groaning Earth
Yahweh Versus Marduk:
Creation Theology in Isaiah 40–55
Good Stuff!
The Material Creation and the Christian Faith
Getting Our Bearings:
Wendell Berry and Christian Understanding
COncordia
Journal
(ISSN 0145-7233)
publisher
Faculty
David Adams
Charles Arand
Andrew Bartelt
Executive EDITOR
David Berger
William W. Schumacher Joel Biermann
Dean of Theological Gerhard Bode
Research and Publication
Kent Burreson
William Carr, Jr.
EDITOR
Anthony Cook
Travis J. Scholl
Managing Editor of Timothy Dost
Thomas Egger
Theological Publications
Jeffrey Gibbs
Dale A. Meyer
President
EDITORial assistant
Melanie Appelbaum
assistants
Carol Geisler
Joshua LaFeve
Matthew Kobs
Bruce Hartung
Erik Herrmann
Jeffrey Kloha
R. Reed Lessing
David Lewis
Richard Marrs
David Maxwell
Dale Meyer
Glenn Nielsen
Joel Okamoto
Jeffrey Oschwald
David Peter
Paul Raabe
Victor Raj
Paul Robinson
Robert Rosin
Timothy Saleska
Leopoldo Sánchez M.
David Schmitt
Bruce Schuchard
William Schumacher
William Utech
James Voelz
Robert Weise
All correspondence should be sent to:
Rev. Travis Scholl
CONCORDIA JOURNAL
801 Seminary Place
St. Louis, Missouri 63105
concorjournal@csl.edu
Issued by the faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, the Concordia Journal is the successor of
Lehre und Wehre (1855-1929), begun by C. F. W. Walther, a founder of The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod. Lehre und Wehre was absorbed by the Concordia Theological Monthly (1930-1972) which was also published by the faculty of Concordia Seminary as the official theological periodical of the Synod.
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© Copyright by Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri 2010
www.csl.edu
COncordia
J ournal
CONTENTS
EDITORIALs
208
Editor’s Note
210
The Cathedral of Creation
Dale A. Meyer
216
Together With All Creatures:
An Introduction
Charles P. Arand
220
Caring for God’s Groaning Earth
Charles P. Arand
234
Yahweh Versus Marduk:
Creation Theology in Isaiah 40–55
R. Reed Lessing
245
Good Stuff!
The Material Creation and the Christian faith
Mark P. Surburg
263
Getting Our Bearings:
Wendell Berry and Christian Understanding
Joel Kurz
276
HOMILETICAL HELPS
302
BOOK REVIEWS
Getting Up to Speed: What Might I Read?
Charles P. Arand and Beth Hoeltke
ARTICLES
Summer 2010
volume 36 | number 3
editoRIALS
COncordia
Journal
Editor’s Note
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
—Wendell Berry, “How to Be a Poet (to remind myself )”
My last semester of college I decided to take an environmental philosophy class,
more to have one last chance to take one of my favorite professors than because I really cared about the issue. Matter of fact, the last thing I wanted to become was a treehugger. But it was in that class that I was first introduced to Wendell Berry through his
book, The Unsettling of America. That book profoundly changed the way I viewed, literally
looked at, the world around me: the land on which I walked, the groceries I bought, the
food I raised to my mouth. In so many ways it brought me back to my grandparents’
farm and the hills that I would run as a child.
Great books do that to us. They challenge us. They change the way we view
the world. They bring us back to reality. And they can cause us to view even our own
memories of life and loved ones with greater depth and clarity.
It was a couple years later that I came around to Wendell Berry’s poetry, which
can be just as powerful, although he considers himself an amateur poet. One of his
enduring routines, to this day, is to take Sabbath walks of his Kentucky farm, and then
to write Sabbath poems, the fruit of his non-labor. Many of those poems have been
collected into books, and they read like psalms.
This issue of Concordia Journal is devoted to the fruits of the labor—and perhaps
a little of the Sabbath non-labor—of Professor Charles Arand. He is its guest editor. Its
theme is the theology of creation and the environment, issues he has been working on
for quite awhile. It is literally, and figuratively, our “green issue.”
I will let Professor Arand’s editorial introduce the issue. But I will point out that
the cover art is adapted from his “Together With All Creatures” blog. You can go to
the “Commons” page of ConcordiaTheology.org to see his blog posts, or go directly to
www.togetherwithallcreatures.com.
In many ways Professor Arand’s work, which also has gone into the Synod’s
CTCR document “Together With All Creatures: Caring for God’s Living Earth,” is
a challenge to all of us. His work reminds us that if we truly believe God created the
heavens and the earth, then “there are no unsacred places … only sacred places and
desecrated places.”
But whether this issue of Concordia Journal becomes a book to challenge our sensibilities or deepen our view of God’s world has more to do with whether we are willing to “stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in.”
Travis J. Scholl
Managing Editor of Theological Publications
Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
208
Quentin F. Wesselschmidt
February 3, 1937 – May 12, 2010
A Special Note: It is with profound sadness, and yet deep gratitude, hope, and the joy that only comes
with our faith in Christ’s resurrection that we note in these pages the passing of Concordia Journal’s
longest standing editor, Quentin F. Wesselschmidt, who was also professor of historical theology at
Concordia Seminary from 1977 to 2009, and chaired that department for 14 years. In addition to
his teaching expertise in early church history, Dr. Wesselschmidt guided Concordia Journal as
chairman of the editorial committee for 25 years. To honor his great leadership, diligence, and
collegiality, we have republished the encomium that was given on the occasion of his retirement
at ConcordiaTheology.org.
209
The Cathedral of Creation
In the last issue of Concordia Journal I raised the question, “Why go to church?”
There are enduring and eternal answers to the question but our post-church culture
isn’t as ready to accept those answers as previous generations were. We are challenged
to lead both parishioners and prospects to put a premium on attending the divine
service, and to do so we will need to apply the evangelical doctrine with emphases
upon articles of that doctrine that we may have used less in the churched culture. For
example, the people who used to join our churches came from a biblically literate
American culture that accepted authority. When a prospect confessed the truth as we
do, he joined the congregation and entered into fellowship with us. In today’s culture
that doesn’t know the Bible and doesn’t readily accept absolute truth, people are often
drawn to a church because of relationships they have formed and only then, secondarily, do they learn the doctrine. What is there in our confessional understanding of
the church that will permit us to know that we are still being faithful in our pastoral
practice? “Why go to church?” is a narrow question that needs to be set in the context
of culturally imposed ways of thinking and living. In these few lines I will try to contextualize the question with reference to time and space.
“Why go to church?” can be misleading because of our Western understanding of time. We view time as a commodity, a thing to be used. We measure time. We
manage it. We use it efficiently or—shame on us, our peers think—we waste it. In
this culture we cannot escape thinking and acting on the assumption (a questionable
assumption I might add) that time is a commodity. “Do you have time?” “I’m running
out of time!” “I can meet you at 10:30 but only for 20 minutes.” We assume we need
better “time management.” We have sliced and diced a holistic understanding of time
into countless, competing parts. That fragmented understanding conditions us to think
that an hour in church is an hour we have given to God; pretty much leaving us on our
own to manage competing claims for our time during the other 167 hours of the week.
Of course, the pastor hopes the parishioners will remember the word they have heard
and act on it.
But postmoderns don’t necessarily look for such consistency in life the way people did in churched culture; the examined life is largely no more. So people today may
do the God-hour but not think about its application to their work and family relationships, to business ethics, and to their social and sexual lives. With little carry-over value
from the God-hour to “our hours” during the week, it’s no surprise that we often hear
talk about the need to preach and teach more sanctification. Such is living in today’s
fast-paced society, and so our preaching and our teaching that God’s people are not of
the world must be clearer and more persuasive. That can be done in no small measure
by undercutting popular assumptions. By baptism we live in two time zones, the hereand-now temporal and the eternal. If we would discipline ourselves to a non-commodified understanding of time to be more caught up with the times of Jesus Christ (he
came, he comes, and he will come again) then we would find ourselves less stressed, we
would project a calm peace that would be more winsome to those outside the church,
Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
210
and—most
importantly—gain an incarnate experience; an experience in Jesus Christ
through which God calls us to be truly “peculiar people” (1 Pt 2:9, KJV).
We can think similarly about space. We occupy it. We rent or own it. We build
it or tear it down. Space is a commodity that hosts our possessions. The use or misuse of space is treated in the seventh commandment, “You are not to steal,” and the
ninth, “You are not to covet your neighbor’s house.” The growing ecological awareness of many Christians is a good thing, but there’s more to it than simply being aware
that space and the things in space are gifts from God that need faithful stewardship. If
space is only a commodity, then we are easily led to a wrong spatial understanding of
“God’s hour” and the rest of the week. God ends up in the Sunday box while the rest
of the spaces of the week are ours. Lutherans are blessed to understand rightly that in
the sanctuary God comes to us of his own initiative and creates and nurtures saving
faith. By contrast, Christians who don’t believe that the infinite can come into the finite
see church time as an occasion to get together to praise God and they see the church
building as a special place in which to do it. That misreading of the means of grace certainly weakens the imperative of going to church. But under either understanding, our
culture has conditioned us to assign functions to the various spaces of our lives, and
so we imagine God is most at home in the Sunday sanctuary. Yes, the infinite truly can
and does come into the finite, but wrap your mind around this: as our culture conditions us to house the infinite in the finite, God is domesticated.
Time and space in the biblical life are not simply the commodities we uncritically
assume them to be, nor are they as separate and distinct as we imagine. The third commandment brings time and space together in a way that not only offers us a calm peace
in our hectic lives—an anthropocentric function—but more profoundly reorients us to
a theocentric understanding of time and space. Because we use the commandments as
“file folders” in which to collate the biblical teachings that apply to the specific aspects
of Christian living, I approach the third commandment not as a command of the law
to reinstitute a 24-hour period of enforced rest (be that on Saturday or Sunday) but
as a blessing that awaits all who set aside significant time in their schedules for physical and spiritual re-creation. The enforced regulations of the Sabbath have found their
fulfillment in him who invites, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and
I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28; Col 2:16–17). Why go to church? We can’t prove the
necessity of the divine service to many people today, as true as the reasons may be, any
more than we can rationally prove the truth of the biblical revelation; we can only try
to persuade. The Spirit will find more room to work his conviction when people see
something appealing, albeit “peculiar,” in the way we Christians live. “Live such good
lives among the pagans that … they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the
day he visits us” (1 Pt 2:12). Projecting calm confidence in our hectic world is certainly
a “good deed” to benefit our contemporaries. Our care for souls should model and
teach both churched and unchurched alike the blessings that can come from a disciplined schedule that alternates work and rest (admittedly, not an easy thing to do in our
time.) “In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to
everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Pt 3:15).
211
The location of the commandment is worth noting. If time were a thing it would
be considered under the seventh commandment, but it’s not. It’s given its own commandment and placed high in the list of the ten words. The greatest commandment
is the first, “You are to have no other gods.” Heart and soul totally wrapped up in
God leads to words that “pray to, praise and give thanks to God,” as Martin Luther
explains the second commandment.1 Next comes time, specifically where and how we
spend time in the spaces of our lives. “You are to hallow the day of rest.” When the
commandments move into our duties to other people (earthly authorities, physical life
and well-being, marriage and sexuality, possessions, and reputation), the description of
the sanctified life is predicated not only upon a belief in the true God, but also upon a
belief that is nurtured by a theocentric understanding of all time and all space. That is,
the third commandment offers us holistic life in our sliced and diced, compartmentalized culture.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor
and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your
God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or
daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens
and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
(Ex 20:8–11, NIV)
The whole commandment gives us comprehensive instruction on living for God
in time and space. First, it teaches us to divide our days, with the Sabbath day clearly
marked off from work days. Our culture recognizes the need to make distinctions in
time, so we talk about “down time,” “quiet time,” “crunch time,” “rush hour” and the
like. That’s good. It shows that the creator has instilled in us an appreciation for the
limits of our labors. Helpfully, our culture still privileges the weekend as “our” time to
rest, giving us the opportunity to infuse the secular practice with biblical understanding.
The fulfillment of Sabbath regulations in Christ does not intend a bland, homogenized
view of times and days. St. Paul says, “Some consider one day more sacred than another; others consider every day alike. Everyone should be fully convinced in their own
mind. Those who regard one day as special do so to the Lord.” (Rom 14:5–6, NIV).
Coming out of a culture of legalism, the apostle is translating the freedom of the gospel
to our valuation of times and spaces. When we gather for worship on days other than
Sunday, we do so in freedom, often to accommodate people’s schedules. Much can be
said about popular Saturday evening services, but here I note only that in Hebraic reckoning the day began at sundown. Hence Saturday evening services actually welcome the
coming of Sunday. About Sunday itself, the special consideration past generations gave
to “the Lord’s day” is not wrong and merits resurrection (Rv 1:10). “Teach us to number our days aright” (Ps 90:12).
Second, the commandment invites us to regularly stop working, even if there are
things to be done, as there always are, even in church work. In the 1990s sociologists
Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
212
John P. Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey found that Americans are actually working less
than we did in the 1960s. What makes us feel that we are working more is “time has
become more fragmented. More Americans work during the off-hours than they did
half a century ago.”2 It used to be that an hourly worker punched in and punched out,
and the distinction between work and rest was sharply drawn. A salaried worker went
to the office and might have taken home some work in a briefcase, but that work at
home was not disturbed by the office because the office was closed—really closed—
until the next day, or until Monday. Some professions were “on call,” but that literally meant finding a landline telephone and using it. No longer. We can reach almost
anyone at almost any time. Not only that, it’s a societal sin to cease from labor. “Why
didn’t you have your cell phone on?” “Didn’t you listen to your voice mail?” “Haven’t
you read the e-mail I just sent you?” Wonderful new technologies have leaped over the
boundaries of time and space, but the human cost is that we limited, finite people find
our psyches stressed and strained. When we take seriously the third commandment’s
call to cease work, whether the work is done or not, we will begin to prioritize those
tasks that most need to be done, those that can be done later, and those that can be
let go. That’s counter-cultural because our instantaneous communication makes almost
everything a matter of the present moment, ASAP. How many of us go to work knowing what we want to accomplish but open our e-mail and spend the bulk of the day
on matters less important? Luther talks about the courage to leave things undone. “In
repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength” (Is 30:15).
Courage, that’s the right word!
Third, the weekly routine of work and rest is “to the Lord,” theocentric, not
anthropocentric. If we strive for holistic time “management,” the unifying principle easily becomes us. It’s all about me. “I need some time off.” “I’ll lose my sanity if I don’t
get out of here.” “It’s my day off.” The biblical understanding of time is diametrically
opposed; it’s God-centered, “to the Lord.” This does not deny that we need rest and
renewal, but rather recognizes who can bless us best. It is a first commandment confidence that God can best rest and renew us because he made and redeemed us. Because
the religious leaders of the first century used Sabbath regulations to burden and control people—anthropocentric—Jesus threw off their heavy yoke by teaching that the
Sabbath was instituted for God’s salvation of mankind (Mt 11:28–30; 12:8–13). From
the Lord’s Day occupation with the divine word to the peaceful release from worries
and stress that rest gives (the Jews didn’t spend the whole day in the synagogue, but
it was more than the hour we spend in church), the Old Testament day and our own
times of rest “to the Lord” return blessings many times over. “To the Lord” makes
these times away from work refreshing times of grace amidst the endless and ultimately
unsatisfying duty of works, even our good religious works.
Fourth, the commandment offers a way to strengthen relationships. Sabbath
was not only time spent with the Torah, but was also time spent with created gifts of
God: nature, family, and friends. Think of Jesus walking through the grain fields (Mt
12:1; Mk 2:23; Lk 6:1), walking by the pool of Bethesda (Jn 5:1, 9), and socializing and
dining with Pharisees (Lk 14:1–24), all on the Sabbath. If, for example, we would try
to reclaim the Sunday of memory, the Sunday when blue-laws kept many businesses
213
closed, when worship was followed by a day of leisure, when no mail was delivered
and email unknown, and when landline phones only rung now and then, then we
would have more quantity time with family and a better opportunity to develop quality relationships. But today how many people pass by others with no smile or “Hello”
because they are on the phone? How many people sit in the family circle but squander
the opportunity for family closeness by texting friends? Further, it was not only family
members and friends who rested. Workers, animals, and even land rested in the sabbatical system. That leveled, or should have leveled, the inequalities that came from the
hierarchies that were necessary for family, church, business, government, and society to
work. As a parent I can discipline my children and as a president I can give an administrative order to faculty or staff, but in hearing the gospel preached, in receiving the
sacraments, and in prayers and meditations (both individual and in group), the equality
of all before God is reinforced (2 Cor 5:10). What a great loss to loving relationships if
we imagine that the Sabbath command, now fulfilled in Christ, has little to teach us!
Thus, the third commandment shows us that a lively relationship with God is
not just about the “God-hour,” but also about words and time spent in the spaces of
work and home. It’s not only time in the Sunday sanctuary that is sanctified by the
word of God, but all the times of our lives when we live them faithfully “to the Lord.”
A theocentric understanding of all our times also breaks God out of the Sunday box.
Note the basis of the commandment: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and
the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore
the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Human rest and renewal in
Exodus 20 is grounded in the creator who himself rested the on seventh day (Gn 2:4).
Creation, therefore, becomes a cathedral wherein God’s people rest and are renewed.
It is the place where the majesty of God is known (Ps 19), where the power of the
almighty is experienced and feared (Job 38), and where the hiddenness of God silences
us with reverent wonder (Ex 33:20; Is 59:2; Jn 1:18). But there are impenetrable corners
and dark shadows in the “cathedral of creation.” The majesty and power of the creator
are known, but there is no promise that his majesty and power are dependably for our
good. The gentle breeze can become a tornado, the lapping waves a tsunami, the stable
ground can shift and shake, and the stars can hurtle an asteroid at us. Creation awaits
redemption, just as we do (Rom 8:19–22).
All of us have heard the trite excuse for not coming to the divine service.
“Pastor, I believe that I can be as close to God in nature as in church.” Relaxing in our
yards, looking up at the canopy of trees, marveling at the stars, gardening, bird watching, driving through the countryside, enjoying golf courses, hiking and biking trails,
visiting majestic national parks, that is, being in the cathedral of creation does not lead
the thoughtful person away from—but toward—the necessity of Sunday worship. In
the Sunday sanctuary God comes to us through his means of grace to help us with his
providence, power, and grace, to surround us with love in the fellowship of believers,
and to give us sure and certain hope of forgiveness, life and salvation in his Son. It’s
not in nature but rather in the divine service that we hear that all of God’s promises are
“Yes” in Christ (2 Cor 1:20). That reflects the basis of the third commandment in the
other version of the Ten Commandments found in Deuteronomy 5. “Remember that
Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
214
you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a
mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded
you to observe the Sabbath day” (Dt 5:15). This foreshadowed the exodus we celebrate
by our rest in God’s word, the substance of the second article and the third article of
the Creed. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold
that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your
ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He
was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for
your sake” (1 Pt 1:18–20).
Why go to church? For those who do, through more preaching and teaching
about the majesty of God’s revelation in creation and about the limits of that revelation, the Holy Spirit can make all their outdoor times reinforce the necessity of the
ministry of the means of grace. While postmodern people don’t trust the institutional
church and may be loathe to accept an invitation to come, they will easily join us in the
cathedral of creation where God’s biblically-schooled peculiar people can form relationships to “give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that
you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Pt 3:15). Members of our congregations should be encouraged to spend time in nature, to be ecologically aware and
active, and to participate in “first article” activities with people outside the church.
In the early 1980s, Professor Francis Rossow preached a chapel sermon at
Concordia Seminary. He memorably said, “We know precious little about God but the
little that we know is precious.” The cathedral of creation invites all people to come
together in its majestic splendors and confess how little we know about God. The
Sunday sanctuary brings us the precious little that we need to know and trust about
God: that God extends his forgiving grace and enabling mercies to us through gospel
and sacraments. Through each place of worship the Spirit wants to lift us to faith and
cause us to praise the Most Holy One for the precious little he has revealed to us.
“Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? Those
who have clean hands and a pure heart.” (Ps 24:2–4)
“Rabbi Levy saw a man running in the street and asked him, ‘Why do you run?’
He replied, ‘I am running after my good fortune!’ Rabbi Levy tells him, ‘Silly man, your
good fortune has been trying to chase you, but you are running too fast.’ ”3
Dale A. Meyer
President
Endnotes
1 The Book of Concord, ed. by Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 352.
215
2
3
Judith Shulevitz, The Sabbath World (New York: Random House, 2010), 18.
Wayne Muller, Sabbath (New York: Bantam, 1999), 48.
Together
With All Creatures: An Introduction
Day 80. As I write this, it is approaching three months since the well beneath
the oil rig Deepwater Horizon began pouring tens of thousands of barrels of oil into
the Gulf of Mexico each and every day. Outrage over the spill and the failure to stop
it has not been limited to environmental activists. Nearly everyone along the political
spectrum, from conservatives to liberals, has expressed anger and outrage. Livelihoods
that depend upon summer fishing along the Gulf Coast now teeter on the brink of
disappearing. Countless birds and marine life have been harmed and killed. The oil has
further contaminated marshlands and wetlands that many other animals depend upon
for nesting and feeding habitats. The environmental and economic impact of the oil
spill has been nothing less than catastrophic.
Throughout it all, blame has been cast first in one direction and then another.
BP has been unable to stop the leak and carry out effective containment operations.
The federal government was slow to react and at times seems to have been mired in
paralysis due to the bureaucracy of over a dozen agencies working at cross purposes.
The entire disaster has made one thing quite clear. There are limits to what human
beings know and can do. Everyone is fixated on “technical” solutions to stop the
oil leak. And that’s understandable. It has to be stopped. Others are looking ahead
to increased regulations for the oil industry or to the political proposals for alternate
energy sources.
Yet, in the end, disasters like the Gulf oil spill raise questions about how we live
within creation and how we impact creation. This issue of the Concordia Journal begins
a conversation regarding some of the most basic questions of environmental ethics,
questions that are ultimately answered theologically. The questions are simple, yet the
answers carry far-reaching ramifications. How do we see the creation in which we live?
How do we see ourselves and our place within creation? How do we balance human
needs with the needs of our fellow nonhuman creatures? For that, we need to also
explore how we, “together with all creatures,” fit within the story of God’s love for creation and his determination to renew it along with us.
In the first article, I reflect on possible reasons why conservative Christians
may be reluctant to speak out on environmental issues and then suggest an approach
that places these issues within the context of the Christian story, reflecting on some
further theological issues worth addressing. The next two articles deal with the biblical views of creation. Reed Lessing highlights the strong creation theology found in
Isaiah which carries with it ramifications for how we live within creation. Mark Surburg
then reminds us of how consistently the Bible affirms the goodness of creation within
the narrative, from the first creation to the new creation. These are followed with an
article by Joel Kurz introducing us to the thoughtful world of Wendell Berry, who provides helpful critiques of our current culture and the values it promotes. Finally, Beth
Hoeltke and I suggest a number of books that can provide a variety of entry points into
the study of creation and our care of it.
Charles P. Arand
Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
216
ARTICLEs
COncordia
Journal
Caring for God’s Groaning Earth
Charles P. Arand
In September 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin proposed that a
nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment be held the following spring. It came on the heels of a decade in which many people had expressed growing concern over the state of the country’s land, rivers, lakes, and air. He later observed,
“Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We
had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable
thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”1
In the wake of the first Earth Day, Congress passed a number of landmark
pieces of environmental legislation that President Richard Nixon signed into law. These
included the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Water
Act, and the Clean Air Act. Today, few of us remember the famous pictures of the
Cuyahoga River in Cleveland catching fire or the pollution-choked cities of the 1960s.
We take for granted the cleaner air and water that we enjoy. Arguably, the most far
reaching piece of legislation passed in the early 1970s was the Endangered Species Act.
Environmental issues are usually framed as being about saving the earth, its
diverse habitats and the biodiversity that they support. And in a sense they are. Yet, at
the risk of sounding anthropocentric, the questions raised by our environmental issues
are really about us and about how we live. How do we see ourselves? How do we view
the earth? Why should we care? What constitutes the well-lived life? What does it mean
to live as a human creature within creation? How do we live with the earth and all of its creatures? Ultimately, those questions are tied to our relation with God and with
each other.
Christian Skepticism?
So why have conservative Christians been skeptical about embracing
environmental issues, and become much less active in supporting measures designed
to lessen our negative impact upon the earth? Forty years after the first Earth Day,
environmental issues do not seem to register too highly on a scale of importance for
many conservative Christians.2 There might be two reasons why many hesitate to
embrace environmental causes.
Charles P. Arand is the Waldemar A. and June Schuette Chair in
Systematic Theology and Chairman of the Department of Systematic Theology
at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.
Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
220
The first is political. Environmental issues are often framed as a debate between
liberals and conservatives; and with that a debate between Democrats and Republicans.
In the process, they become debates about the benefits or dangers of big government
versus big corporations. It wasn’t always this way.3 Perhaps one of the events that
solidified the divide was the watershed Supreme Court decision regarding Roe v. Wade
that legalized abortion. This issue soon overshadowed nearly all other social issues for
conservative Christians. Voting for pro-life candidates took precedence over voting for
pro-environment candidates (who were often also pro-choice).
For many conservative Christians the pro-choice position represented a devaluation of human life. Human life seemed further devalued when some animal rights advocates argued that we should give nonhuman creatures the same ethical consideration
that we do humans. Radical thinkers such as the Australian-born ethicist Peter Singer
have grabbed the headlines by arguing that one cannot value humans more highly than
animals.4 In the end, many Christians came to see environmental groups as caring more
about animals than about people. Controversies over the Spotted Owl and Snail Darter
only reinforced that impression.5
But to oppose one issue (pro-choice position) does not require one to oppose
environmental issues, even if one cannot always vote for pro-life candidates. The
Formula of Concord has taught us that the opposite of one error can be an error
itself.6 Pro-life is pro-life—all life. First for humans, but also for other creatures as well.
Our challenge is to speak of the Christian and human responsibility of living on earth
regardless of the political debates that take place in our daily discourse.
The second reason might be the fear that environmentalism borders on being
a kind of religion itself. In April 22, 2010 Wall Street Journal editorial by Paul Rubin
(“Environmentalism as Religion”) argued precisely that point, especially with regard
to the way it is promoted on college campuses (in his case, Rutgers University). Rubin
noted that environmentalism provides people with an identity (defining themselves as
being Green rather than Christian or Jewish), has its own holy days (Earth Day), and
its own food regulations (organic). It has no temples or churches but does have sacred
structures (universities), and shrines (recycling bins), and its own rituals. It also proselytizes and will treat others as sinners if they don’t recycle, etc.7 There is some truth to
this. Environmentalism can lead to a kind of secular piety that can become pietistic and
legalistic (consider the Audi “Green Police” Superbowl commercial this past January).8
But we should note that environmentalism is not alone in becoming a form of
religion that is adopted and practiced by people. Consumerism can also (and probably
more frequently) become a religion itself. It provides people with identity (I shop therefore I am. I am what I buy). It has its own cathedrals (shopping malls), its own rituals
(getting up early on sales days), its own holy days (“black Friday”), and its promises of
utopia (leisure and pleasure). It has its priests telling you what to wear (fashion designers and magazines) and its evangelists (sales people in commercials). It has its form of
piety in terms of the way one looks and dresses. It also has its own form of fellowship
by virtue of where one shops and the brands that one purchases. Indeed, others may
well exclude someone from their company if that person doesn’t have the right clothing
with the right designer label.9
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So it is not as if environmentalism is the only activity that can become religion
for people. The problem is not environmentalism or for that matter, consumerism. The
problem is idolatry. The genius of Luther’s insight into the first commandment lies
in his insight into the nature of our creaturely existence. As human creatures we need
something on which to center our lives. If it is not the creator then it will be the creature. Of course, the doctrine of creation provides the basis for affirming the distinction
between the creator and creature. Without the creator, one is only left with the creation.
The answer is not to ignore or reject environmental concerns because they can lead to
pantheism, but to locate them within the Christian story and the Christian vision of life
as God created it.
Christian Opportunities?
Today there are opportunities for Christians to bring a fresh voice and a balanced approach to the table; one that respects both the human and nonhuman creation.
There are several reasons for us to attend to this issue.
First, this is an issue about which many young church members care about.
Some people will remain skeptical and need convincing. Many young people are already
convinced and want to know what they can do to help. Now, one can be cynical and
say that this is because they have been indoctrinated for most of their lives in the
schools. Perhaps, perhaps not. In any event, this is a gateway issue for many of them.10
To express it bluntly, we might ask, “Why should the youth care about what the church
cares about if the church doesn’t care about what the youth care about?” Many rightly
believe that this is an issue that Christians should address in a positive way and in
which their church should take the lead.
Addressing the care of creation can open new conversations with people who are
at times on the other end of the political spectrum. As a church body, we have taken
public positions on the important moral issues of our day as they pertain to human life.
But at times, people equate being theologically conservative with being politically conservative. To be sure, these two concerns may converge on various life and bioethical
issues. But it should not be an automatic across the board convergence on every issue.
We ought not let the church be pigeon-holed in the public eye as a Republican church
body. Many are genuinely surprised to hear that Christians care about creation. Why
can’t we be pro-life and pro-environment?
Second, we who live in the West occupy a unique place in history. We have
acquired a standard of living as a result of the scientific and industrial revolutions where
we no longer need to eke out a subsistence living from the land. The achievement of
that standard of living has at times come with a heavy cost. Our impact upon the creation is no longer limited to the immediate area in which we live. In a global economy,
pollution from one country can pollute the air of another country half a world away.
The products we purchase come at the cost of habitat destruction, deforestation, and
pollution in countries on the other side of the earth. Stewardship can no longer be
thought of only in terms of the place of the point of purchase (i.e., it’s cheap). It needs
to be considered within the wider context of creation.
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222
The luxury of not having to worry about eking out a living also gives us the
responsibility of taking seriously our commission to care for God’s earth in the twentyfirst century, what some have called the ecological century. The central insight of ecology affirms that everything is interconnected and interdependent. This includes the
human and nonhuman, the organic and non-organic creation. Christian theology can
take these ecological insights a step further by showing how everything is connected
to God’s work. How we live with God, with people, and with the earth are all bound
together. What affects one relationship affects them all.
Creation within the Christian Story
The promise of the gospel occurs within a story that stretches from the beginning of creation to the end of creation. In some ways, it is fortuitous that Earth Day
usually occurs within the season of Easter. On Easter, we Christians celebrate the
bursting forth of the new creation in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The restoration
of creation has begun with him and continues with us. Consider the story line. God
first created the earth and its creatures. Then he created us, but we ruined his creation.
So God begins the restoration of creation at the point where it all came unraveled. He
first restores us in Christ. Then he restores his creation. Both the first creation and the
new creation encompass the entire creation.
The Christian story enables us to approach issues related to the earth and our
place within it soberly (because it does not ignore the magnitude of sin), yet hopefully
(because of God’s work in Christ). In light of the Christian story, we can consider our
various environmental crises within the theological context of a groaning creation as
Paul describes it in Romans 8. This text snaps the entire Christian story into focus by
calling us to consider two features of God’s creation today—its groaning and its longing. The groaning of the creation in bondage to corruption, calls us to repentance.
For it is on account of us that the earth suffers beneath the curse and ongoing human
destructiveness. The expectant longing of creation for its renewal calls us to embrace
the goodness of creation and our responsibility to care for it.
A Groaning Creation and the Call to Repentance
Environmental activists at times paint apocalyptic scenarios that, when repeated
over and over, render many desensitized or apathetic (the “sky is falling” syndrome).
Whether or not one agrees with the likelihood of such scenarios occurring is a different story. But as Christians, how do we account for air pollution, oil spills, and the
extinction of species? How do we account for the violence and suffering in the wider
creation? According to Paul, creation suffers in bondage to corruption, and it is because
of us that creation suffers.
First, the creation groans in bondage due to the curse that God imposed on
account of human sin. Neither animals, plants, nor anything else in the nonhuman creation merited the curse or deserved that judgment. Indeed, the Scriptures presuppose
a good creation. The early church and the Apostles Creed affirmed the goodness of
creation brought into existence out of God’s goodness. Their confession was rooted
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in a worldview
shaped more by the Old Testament than by Greek philosophy. Plato
regarded the world as inferior to the spiritual world because it was full of change and
thus chaotic. The Gnostics went a step further and insisted that the world itself was
evil, the miscarriage of a fallen deity. No, the nonhuman creation did not merit God’s
curse. It is cursed only on account of us as it is bound together with us in a common
creatureliness.
God not only created the world out of “fatherly divine goodness and mercy” but
he also created us from the earth “without any merit or worthiness in us.” We were created from the earth for life on the earth. As bodily creatures formed from the earth we
live from the earth. Through the earth God blesses us and provides all that we need for
our physical, emotional, and spiritual life. To that Lutheran axiom repeated throughout
The Book of Concord that we can affirm nothing about the will of God without the Word
of God, we might add another. God does not deal with us apart from his creation.
Conversely, we do not deal with God apart from his creation.
Given that God deals with us through the earth and the stuff of the earth
(including our bodies), what did God do when those creatures that he made in his own
image sinned? In order to punish his prized human creatures, God cursed the earth.
With human sin, the earth became an instrument for judgment. Therein lies the tragedy. The earth through which he gave his human creatures life became the instrument
by which God took away that life. Throughout the Old Testament, when God exercises
his judgment against his human creatures, the creation on which their lives depend
comes unraveled. God uses the earth for a purpose other (alien work) than that for
which he had created it. He sends droughts, plagues, locusts, floods, and diseases. The
earth and its creatures are not only the masks of God’s goodness (larvae dei); they have
now become “weeping masks.”11 We see that most tragically on the cross when the sky
darkened and the earth quaked at the death of God’s Son.
To this day, the curse now wears each of us down until it grinds us back into
dust. The earth resists our efforts to receive God’s goodness through it. God created
all to live interdependently, and in harmony. Now with sin and the curse, creation has
become antagonistic toward human beings. It fights against us as much as it cooperates
with us.
Second, the earth and its creatures suffer not only on account of actions carried
out by the very first pair of human creatures and God’s subsequent judgment, they suffer from the direct, ongoing actions of nearly every human being since then. The suffering of creation is all the more tragic when one stops to realize that Genesis suggests
God made us for the purpose of caring for his creation, as creatures among fellow creatures. Human dominion was to be carried out benevolently and in harmony with God’s
design for the flourishing of his entire creation.
The attention that Earth Day brings to how we live with the earth gives
Christians an opportunity to reflect on our dominion today. As we acquire more and
more “control” over creation for our purposes, the less we see our dependence upon
God and our connection to all of creation. How often do we walk through creation
oblivious to its magnificence? The fall into sin has compromised and distorted our
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224
exercise of dominion. Martin Luther readily acknowledged the broken dominion that
we carry out. It now exists as a vestige of what it once was. Dominion has become little
more than a bare title.
In addition, Luther suggests that we have lost much of our knowledge of creation. Indeed, we are a shadow of our former selves, corpses of that first human being
(LW 1:73). He states that “our faculties are ‘leprous’ ” with the result that we can no
longer have true insight into the disposition of animals. Luther continues, “The knowledge of nature—that we should know all the qualities of trees and herbs, and the disposition of all the beasts—is utterly beyond repair in this life.”12 As a result, we can at
most seek to control creation by brute force. The use of “industry and skill”13 gives the
appearance of dominion in a fallen world.
As a result, our dominion has more often than not become a destructive domination. We pollute the air, water, and land on which our human neighbors and all of
our fellow creatures depend. Nearly one billion people in the world today lack access to
clean drinking water. More and more species are being pushed to the brink of extinction because we won’t make any room for them in our world or in our lives.14
The Expectant Creation Calls Us to Care
At the same time that the creation groans in bondage to its corruption, it also
longs in anticipation of its renewal, that is, of being set free. As N.T. Wright expresses
it, creation stands on tiptoes in expectation of the revelation of the children of God
in glory.15 Why? Because the point at which creation was brought to ruin becomes the
point at which God begins its renewal. The sequence proceeds as follows: It begins
with Christ, continues with us, and finds completion in the final renewal of the entire
creation. Creation eagerly awaits that day when the children of God will be glorified.
The Spirit’s work of renewing us, since we are created “together with all creatures”
(samt aller Kreatur), cannot be complete without the creation being dragged along. We
can again consider this in two ways.
First, God has included his entire creation in the promise that he would renew all
things. This is a theme that pervades the Old Testament, most prominently in the story
of Noah. There God makes a covenant with all living creatures (Genesis 9), a covenant
that he repeats throughout the prophets. God not only created the earth out of sheer
graciousness, he cares for it and preserves it as well, in spite of human sin. We see this
in the life and miracles of Jesus, but above all, in his resurrection. What greater affirmation of creation and the goodness of creation could we have? Salvation is thus not only
an issue that involves God and us, or me and neighbor. It includes the entire creation.
As the gospel has made us new creatures, it also opens our senses to perceive the
beauty and goodness of God’s handiwork.16 Faith also enables us to grasp God’s ongoing creative work in creation. God preaches to us not only in the word but also in his
creation. As Luther put it, faith sees that the creation is “our Bible in the fullest sense,
this our house, home, field, garden and all things, where God does not only preach by
using his wonderful works, but also taps our eyes, stirs up our senses, and enlightens
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at the same time.”17 Most importantly, through faith, we can see hints of
our heart
what creation once looked like and we can imagine what the renewal of creation will be like.18
Second, the longing of creation for its renewal calls us not only to embrace the
goodness of creation but to embrace our place within it and thus calling to care for it.
It calls us to see that we ourselves are a part of this creation, inextricably bound to and
interconnected with everything on earth. The renewal of creation began with Christ,
continues with us, and finds completion when the entire creation is renewed. As new
creatures raised with Christ, we have been set free from the need to possess the earth
for our self-aggrandizement, and free to recover our place within creation as those
whom God created to live in a unique relationship with him and with our fellow creatures.
The work of caring for the earth as we await its renewal begins with us and it
begins in the present. To be sure, we are not fully renewed and so we cannot exercise
dominion perfectly in this life. But here again, we can learn from Luther. He notes that
we now exercise a distorted dominion both by forceful and by gentle means. But even
though what we achieve in life is accomplished primarily “through industry and skill,”19
it still preserves traces of our original dominion.20 Luther looks not only to the past but
to the future. For the Christian, these traces of dominion, however “poorly and inadequately administered in the interim,” might not only arouse a longing for what once
was but can also become a “sign of hope for the day when perfect harmony will be
restored” by Christ.21
This is not to say that we can renew or restore creation in this life. Imagine that
you have inherited a beautiful, hand-crafted, oak desk from your grandfather. But it is
a desk that needs to be repaired and refinished. It has numerous stains, scratches, and
chips on it. You hope to have it restored someday by an expert craftsman as you do
not possess those skills. In the meantime, how will you treat it? Will you abuse it by
putting more scratches and nicks into it knowing that it will be restored anyway? Or
will you use it carefully so as not to damage it more? Would you not take care of it by
using cleaners that moisturize the wood and polishes that bring out the beauty of its
grain? And as we do this, we can imagine what it will look like someday when it is fully
restored. Herein lies our role.
This suggests that working for clean water, the restoration of habitats and ecosystems, the protection of endangered species, can all serve to heighten our anticipation
of that restored harmony when viewed through the eyes of faith. All this is to suggest,
as Joel Kurz noted “Our faith should be at home with this earth, which after all is the
realm of the new creation through Christ’s work of redemption.”22
Living in an Ambiguous Age
So what does this mean for the way we live in the midst of a creation that both
groans under bondage to its corruption and at the same time longs in anticipation for
the children of God to be revealed in glory? It means that we do not deal with a Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
226
as it existed in its pristine goodness before the human fall into sin, nor do we
creation
deal with a creation as it will exist after Christ returns. Instead, we live within a creation
that exists after the fall and before the resurrection of the body. The Christian faith
provides us with a realistic, down to earth approach to the care of creation that neither
despairs of an immediate apocalypse nor becomes filled with an unfounded optimism
that utopia is just around the corner.
We must thus acknowledge ambiguity in the present creation. One the one hand,
we find that God has placed us into a magnificently diverse and beautiful creation.
Having made us from the earth for life on the earth, we find ourselves drawn to creation. We find tranquility, peace, refreshment, inspiration, and rejuvenation in it. We
find ourselves drawn to other creatures and delighting in them. On the other hand, we
can’t romanticize nature. We find that this creation holds many dangers and threats
to human life. Violence, death and decay fill creation as one creature devours another
creature. Hurricanes and tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes, tornadoes and floods
threaten human life and property. Other creatures pose threats to human health and life
as carriers of diseases that can cross over to human beings. We find ourselves at times
fleeing creation, seeking protection and shelter from it.
We also have to acknowledge an ambiguity in our own activities toward creation. We are creatures (even redeemed creatures) yet still corrupted by sin. On the
one hand, we have been set free from trying to transcend our creatureliness and from
trying to become more than human—from trying to become like God. We can begin
to rediscover our creatureliness and learn to live as human creatures.23 God has given
us a body and five senses in order to discover and delight in all that he has made.
We can strive to work in harmony with his created design. On the other hand, our
vision remains cloudy so that we cannot always see the long term consequences of
our actions. The impediment of sin suggests that we proceed with something less than
absolute self-assurance that we know what we are doing and that we can manage creation. As sinners, we cannot act without causing some harm. But we can seek to limit
that damage and tend the wounds that we cause. As Wendell Berry eloquently put it,
“we tend a geography of scars.”24
Looking Ahead
Mindful of these ambiguities, this topic deserves more theological work. It has
the potential to enrich our theology and provide opportunities for new conversations.
The following is an initial suggestion of topics worth pursuing.
Theological Issues
At times, Lutherans may give the appearance of being exclusively second article
people. This is somewhat understandable. The confession of the gospel is our heritage
and treasure. It has defined Lutheran identity for nearly 500 years. But in our zeal to
confess and preserve that treasure, we may at times succumb to the fear that should we
focus on anything other than the second article, we will take our eyes off it and it will
lose its centrality. As a result, first article theology can be neglected, as a few Lutheran
voices have noted over the years.25 But it is wrong to think that the second article is
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creation. A “full-bodied second article theology”26 will embrace the role of
not about
the first article as it shapes the contours of the entire Gospel story. Thinkers such as
Irenaeus, Basil, Luther, and others can show us the way.
We need to address a theology of creatureliness. What does it mean to be a creature? More specifically, what does it mean to be a human creature? Luther states that
God made us “together with all creatures.” Here we might explore the implications of
the fact that God created us with a body (“eyes ears and all my members”) and soul
(“reason and all my senses”). What does this mean for human identity? How is our
identity related to our body?27 We are not simply souls encased in bodies that function
either as prisons or as containers. What do we mean when we use the word, soul? God
also made us as full-sensoried people. This includes our imagination, creativity, emotions, an awareness of beauty, goodness, and truth. God created us to interact with the
full spectrum of his creation. In other words, who I am is defined by the totality of my
being, body and soul, reason and all my senses, eyes, ears, and all my members. God
has made us as a psycho-somatic unity.
For what purpose did God create us as full-bodied creatures? What might be the
implications of our creatureliness for our life within creation that we know as earth? As
embodied creatures (unlike angels) we are embedded into the web of creation in such
a way that we are interdependent with all of creation as we know it on earth. Our lives
and well-being are enmeshed with the entire creation. What does it mean for who we
are as creatures that God has placed us into the midst of a creation that is filled with
countless numbers of different creatures? As Psalm 104:24 expresses it, “the earth is
full of your creatures!” God has placed his earth and all fellow creatures of the earth
into our care. We can best care for it by exercising self-restraint and living generously.
Yet we have gradually become less aware of our connection to the earth through
the food we eat and the communities in which we live. Recent documentaries such as
“Food Inc.” and “King Corn” give one pause about the consequences of that lack of
awareness. Whether or not one agrees with all the points that they make, they do draw
attention to the way in which we have lost connection with the things that we need
for daily life. Here the church has much to recover and offer. The world of the Bible
is largely an agricultural world. The land, the raising and preparation of food, the eating and enjoyment of feasts, and the building of community (both with God and each
other), are all interlinked. They belong together. They connect and bind us to the earth,
to each other, and to God. These are prominent themes throughout the Bible. For that
matter, life in the new creation is often described in terms of a feast; and the new creation as a garden city (the new Jerusalem). How do we make these connections in an
urban society?
Thinking about stewardship within the wider context of creation and our care of
creation can enrich and challenge us. Is it possible that at times we have reduced our
responsibility to the concept of efficiency? Is stewardship little more than purchasing
something for the cheapest price possible? Such a view seems potentially captive to the
values of a market and industrialized economy. It also ignores the larger context of creation and our stewardship of creation. For while we may purchase something for
a low price (thus exercising good stewardship), what was the cost to creation and our
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228
fellow creatures for getting it as such a price (i.e., its environmental impact around the
world)? It may be that the care of creation can help us think of stewardship in much
richer terms. It implies responsibility for all those things entrusted to us so that all creatures may flourish beneath our dominion.
The incarnation holds some rich possibilities for thinking about what it means
to be a human creature. The Son of God became a creature and was embedded within
creation and interdependent with all creation. Jesus came to do something. He did not
perform miracles simply to demonstrate that he was divine or that he was the Son of
God. To the contrary, his work, his miracles, are all aimed at reclaiming every piece of
creation. He calms the storm. He speaks about God’s care for sparrows and ravens.
And what about the resurrection of Jesus and its implications for the new creation?
What is the role of the Spirit both in creation and the new creation? The church
has a tradition of speaking about the Spirit as Spiritus Creator. The Spirit hovered over
the waters in Genesis 1. The Spirit uses that same water that he created to bring about
the new birth and new creation of his human creatures. The Spirit continues to renew
all things and bring creation to completion and its culmination in Jesus Christ on the
last day. The Spirit’s work of creating and new creating has implications for the church.
He gathers and renews a new people, a new creation. So how shall the church, as the
new creation, inhabit and live within this present creation as we look forward to the
resurrection and the birth of the new creation? The Lutheran pietist, N. D. Grundtvig,
did some interesting and helpful work in this area in the nineteenth century. He might
provide a starting point for exploring this.28
Where does creation find expression within the worship life of the church and
its liturgy? Consider the church year. Where does creation receive attention? Currently,
the first half of our church year rightly focuses on the life of Jesus. The second half of
the church year focuses on the life of the church. These correlate with the second and
third articles of the creed. But where does the first article of the creed (God’s ongoing
activity in creation) find a place within the church year? After all, without it we cannot
properly grasp Scripture’s account of redemption in Christ. We wouldn’t have to call
it “Earth Sunday.” We could call it “Creation Sunday” or have a “Season of Creation.”
For that matter, how do our worship practices and rituals express our connection to
creation as well as our care of creation? After all, practices often embody our values
and our visions about what it means to live a fully human life.
More work needs to be carried out in the area of eschatology and the Christian
hope. In recent years, increasing numbers of biblical scholars have lifted up the need
for Christians to recover and embrace what Christians have always confessed, namely,
the resurrection of the body. In the process, they have drawn renewed attention to the
emphasis in the New Testament on the new creation and the way it has been overshadowed at times by a near exclusive emphasis on going to heaven. More work needs to
be carried out in terms of the continuity and discontinuity of the present age and the
age to come. How do we bring all the various passages together? What are the minor
themes and the major themes? What are the clear passages and the unclear passages?
The Scriptures speak about both being with Jesus when we die and of Jesus bringing
the new Jerusalem down to the earth in the new creation. The scriptures speak both
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passing away of the heavens and earth as well as the current creation longing
about the
to be freed from the shackles of the corruption to which it was subjected.
Interdisciplinary Opportunities
The doctrine of creation allows us to think about the integration of theology
with all other disciplines. After all, theology encompasses all of life. More specifically,
we must ask about the insights they give us into ourselves and the world. We also need
to critically examine how we have been shaped for good or ill by these disciplines.
Literature
There is much to explore here with regard to the relationship of humans to creation and their life within it. Consider Moby Dick and the conflict between humans
and nature. Annie Dillard, in particular, has provided some very thoughtful reflections
about our place within creation in a way that does not romanticize it. One might also
explore how have fairy tales (Aesop’s fables) have shaped the way we view forests and
the wilderness in the Middle Ages, all the way down to the way in which Disney portrayed animal creatures in his films. Authors like C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien can
easily be read as a critique of modern industrial England. In addition, authors such as
John Muir and Henry Beston can give us fresh ways of seeing the world around us. In
some respects, America has given the world the genre of nature writing.
Economics
Why hasn’t theology tackled a theology of economics? Martin Luther was not
afraid to address such issues from a theological perspective. Theological issues will
always intertwine economic issues; for our love of mammon will always lurk in the
shadows. In particular, we need to examine how the economies shape our values
regarding the good life and our attitudes toward creation over and against the attitudes
and values that the Scriptures would instill in us. Do we define ourselves primarily
as consumers? Do we define the good life primarily in terms of quantities of things?
Might it be better stewardship to purchase fewer things, and purchase things that last,
can be repaired, and honor God by their craftsmanship? Whether you agree with him
or not, Bill McKibben has tackled this topic and has suggested that we think of economic issues other than in terms of unlimited growth (he proposes the language of a
durable economy) with his books, Deep Economy and Eaarth. Several Christian theologians have begun to address such issues; the works of theologians William Cavanaugh,
Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire or Kathryn Tanner, Economy of Grace, might
be places to begin.
Science and Technology
How do we, as Christians, approach and interact with the various fields of science? We affirm that creation is real. It is not an illusion. In addition, God has given
us reason and the ability to explore his creation. We need to affirm that science gives
us real knowledge. But because we live in a fallen world, it will always be provisional
knowledge. Science deals with a world bound in corruption. It is carried out by people
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230
who themselves
are part of the fallen creation. That being said, science gives us important descriptions of our world and opens our eyes to its mystery that evokes awe within
us. Fields such as conservation biology and ecology help us to see the interconnection
of all things. They can also provide us with tools and insights to guide our care of creation. But we must always be aware of the temptation to think we fully understand or
can control creation. The more we think that we control it, the less we acknowledge
our dependence upon God.
The same thing applies to technology. In the wake of the scientific and industrial revolution, numerous technological innovations have improved human life and
increased our standard of living. Few would want to go without indoor plumbing or
refrigeration today. In some ways, technology has helped us to bear the effects of the
curse along with its effects of illness and disease. Technology has also given us unprecedented glimpses of the beauty of God’s creation (looking at birds through binoculars
instead of looking at them lying in our hand after killing them). In other ways, our
use of technology harms the earth, crowds out other creatures, and separates us from
creation and each other. So is technology neutral? Is it simply a matter of how we use
it? Technology will continue to shape our lives in unimagined ways. It will continue to
raise questions about what it means to be human and affect our connection to creation.
Above all, we need to continually question our faith in technology to solve all of our
problems.
As human beings, God has given us the sense of beauty and aesthetics. At times
theology perhaps focuses too exclusively on the cognitive to the exclusion of the aesthetic. But an exploration of our human creatureliness requires that we also address
aesthetics. What do we consider to be beautiful landscapes? That has changed over the
centuries from Cicero (agrarian landscapes) to the Transcendentalists and Romanticists
(rugged mountains). Much of our sense is tied to lanscapes of drama and grandeur such
as canyons and mountains. We seek to preserve that beauty. But what about wetlands
and grasslands? Are the former simply to be drained and the latter plowed or flown
over? Can they be considered beautiful? Yet until recently we have not considered
them for national park status. We see with our eyes and perceive beauty in landscapes
and scenery. Aldo Leopold suggested that we need to develop a mental eye in order to
see beauty in the interconnections that exist in ecosystems behind/within the scenery.
When we do so, we can perceive beauty also in marshlands and grasslands.
How do we account for our emotional and even spiritual responses to the beauty
of creation? We are drawn to it for psychological and spiritual refreshment. John Paul
II recognized that many find a restorative power in nature. We experience what some
might call an aesthetic spirituality. Clebesch defines it as the consciousness of the
beauty of living in harmony with all living things or “the capacity to see beyond instrumental values, to find beauty in the unaltered Creation, and identify that beauty with
goodness and truth.”29 Divine beauty could be experienced in a number of landscapes:
the edge of the sea, a sandstone canyon, and forested slopes. “And what people came
to invest with divinity, with intrinsic value and meaning, they found difficult to exploit
thoughtlessly and necessary to protect.”30
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We must reject any hint of pantheistic approaches to nature. But we do need to
develop “spiritual eyes” that not only perceive the interconnections of creation, but the
way in which those interconnections are held together and sustained by the creator’s
hand. In other words, we might discover and develop a theology of delight in creation
as the culmination of God’s work on the seventh day. In other words, the gospel awakens our senses to perceive the work of God “in, with, and under” his creation. Our
challenge is to hold together a creation spirituality with a penitential piety in light of the
groaning and longing of creation.
Summary
The Commission on Theology and Church Relations has taken a lead in addressing these issues with the publication of several works under the title, “Together With
All Creatures: Caring for God’s Living Earth.” These provide a helpful framework to
begin thinking about how we live in this wonderful creation even as we anticipate the
new creation. But it is only a beginning. Much more remains to be done.
Endnotes
1
http://www.nelsonearthday.net/earth-day/index.htm
Not to say we haven’t addressed these issues at all. Occasional resolutions have been adopted by
the synod in convention regarding various issues. For example, in 1969, it adopted Res. 10–08 “To Continue
Development of Natural and Human Resources”). In 1977, Synod urged its members to conserve energy resources
and “to show special concern for increased energy costs to the disadvantaged” (Res 8–06 “To Encourage
Conservation of Energy”). In 1986 the synod encouraged the stewardship of soil and water (Res 7–18 “To Practice
Stewardship of Soil and Water”).
3 http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/republican-environmental-47061502
4 See Robert Benne regarding the move to a sensate culture. “Thinking Like Sorokin in a Decadent
Culture,” The Cresset, Trinity (2009): 37–39.
5 Interestingly, some environmentalists today readily acknowledge the mistakes in framing issues in this
way.
6 Article IV provides a good example. One part opposed the slogan that “good works are necessary for
salvation” by saying, “good works are detrimental to salvation!”
7 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304510004575186343555831322.html
8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM
9 See the “Introduction” of James. K. A. Smith’s book, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural
Formation, Cultural Liturgies, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009).
10 Insight of Jessica Bordeleau, Director of Young Adult Ministries, LCMS.
11 Vitor Westhelle, “The Weeping Mask: Ecological Crisis and the View of Nature,” Word and World XI
(Spring 1991): 14.
12 Scott Ickert, “Luther and Animals: Subject to Adam’s Fall?” Animals on the Agenda, ed. Andrew Linzey
and Dorothy Yamamoto (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1998); see also Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 1,
Lectures on Genesis (St. Louis: CPH, 1958), 66 (henceforth cited as LW 1:66 and Ickert 92).
13 Ickert, 92.
14 Wirzba develops this nicely under the category of hospitality. See Norman Wirzba, The Paradise of God:
Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
15 N. T. Wright, “Jesus is Coming—Plant a Tree!” in The Green Bible (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008),
I–81. See also Michael Zeigler, http://db.tt/dvxcuu.
16 Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther’s Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation, trans. Thomas H. Trapp (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 95–119.
17 Quoted in Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther’s Theology, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 111.
18 N. T. Wright’s example of a violin is helpful here. See Surprised by Hope (New York: HarperOne, 1989).
19 LW 1:67
2
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232
20 Ickert, 93.
21
Ickert, 93 and LW 1:67.
Joel Kurz, “Some Words on Behalf of Creation.” The Cresset, Easter (2007), 60.
23 Ellen Davis, “Knowing Our Place on Earth: Learning Environmental Responsibility from the Old
Testament,” in The Green Bible (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008), 1–59.
24 Wendell Berry, “Damage,” What are People For? (New York: North Point Press, 1990), 7.
25 For starters, see Arnold D. Studtmann, “The First Article—The Neglected Article,” Concordia Journal
12 (July 1986): 130–34; Gustaf Wingren, “The Doctrine of Creation: Not an Appendix but the First Article,” Word
& World, 4:4 Fall (1984 ): 353–71; Mary C. Vance-Welsh, “Gustaf Wingren: Creation Faith and Its Call for Full
Incarnation,” 259–66; Jaroslav Pelikan, “The Doctrine of Creation in Lutheran Confessional Theology,” Concordia
Theological Monthly 26:8 Aug (1955): 569–79.
26 Thanks to Andy Bartelt for this expression.
27 John Paul II wrote The Theology of The Body (Boston: Pauline Books, 1997).
28 A.M. Allchin, N. F. S. Grundtvig: An Introduction to his Life and Work (Oakville, Conn.: Aarhus University
Press, 1997).
29 Donald Worster, The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and The Ecological Imagination (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1993), 199.
30 Worster, The Wealth of Nature, 200.
22
233
Yahweh Versus Marduk
Creation Theology in Isaiah 40–551
R. Reed Lessing
Introduction
Gen 1:26a undergirds this study of competing ideas of creation in Isaiah
40–55. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image (Wnmel.c;B.), after our likeness
(WnteWmd>Ki).’ ” 2 Image (~l,c,) denotes the representation of something else, while likeness
(tWmD>) qualifies image, lest in this case people conclude that they are exact images of
God. We are similar to God, while at the same time also distinct from him.
Being created in Yahweh’s image and likeness denotes, among other things, that
we are made to reflect him.3 Pivotal, though, is this fact. When we refuse to emulate
the image and likeness of God our ability to reflect is not lost. It is just that instead of
becoming like our creator we become like something or someone else in creation. The
Bible calls this idolatry. Psalms 115:8 and 135:18 put it this way: “Those who make
[idols] will be like them.” Our object of worship has a direct impact on who we are. To
quote Greg Beale, “We resemble what we revere, either for ruin or restoration.” 4
Two examples drive this point home. At the golden calf apostasy Israel is
described as people who “quickly turned aside on the way” (Ex 32:8) and are “stiff
necked” (Ex 32:9). Why are Israelites depicted in these terms? Cattle run wild and are
difficult to reign in. This means the people have become what they worshiped (cf.
Hos 4:16).5 The second illustration comes from Jeremiah 2:5 and 2 Kings 17:15. Both
verses state, in part, WlB’h.Y<w: lb,h,h; yrex]a; Wkl.YEw: (“and they walked after the Nothing
and became nothing”).6 The Canaanite fertility deity Baal is sarcastically described as
lb,h,h;, “the Nothing.” Israelites became like the god they worshiped, absolutely nothing.
People take on the character of the god they follow.
Granted, the debate pitting Israel’s God against Babylon’s god is a subtext of
Isaiah 40–55.7 The prophet’s chief concerns in these chapters include Cyrus and the
suffering servant. However, based upon the truth that we become like the god we serve,
this essay considers Isaiah’s monumental creational theology in chapters 40–55 in light
of the differences between Yahweh and Marduk. The thrust of the article, then, is this:
Only as we worship Yahweh, the sovereign Lord of the universe, will we reflect his love and care for the
environment.
R. Reed Lessing is an associate professor of Exegetical Theology and
Director of the Graduate School at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.
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The Setting
of Isaiah 40–55
After the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem in 587 BC, the victorious Babylonians brashly asserted that their god Marduk was king. This propaganda was intended
both to control the Babylonian populace, as well as to seduce captive Israelites away
from Yahweh and toward a life-long commitment to Marduk. Judeans were programmatically coerced into believing the empire’s ideology. Walter Brueggemann writes, “It
is unmistakable that Babylon was not only a political-military superpower; it was also
an advanced, sophisticated, winsome culture with its own theological rationale and its
own moral justifications.”8 The empire offered so much more than life in little backwater Judah and dilapidated Jerusalem. Although some refused to be conformed to these
“new realities” (e.g., Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, see Daniel 3), many Judeans
accepted indoctrination and embraced the idea that the world was created and governed
by Marduk.9 Isaiah, able to foresee this dilemma, counters with a creational theology
of breathtaking splendor that climaxes with the command, “Say to Zion, ‘Your God is
King’ ” (Is 52:7). Isaiah argues that Yahweh’s creational wisdom and strength are vastly
superior to that of Marduk’s.
And the prophet is uniquely positioned to make such an assertion. Within the
corpus of chapters 40–55, Isaiah calls our attention to the grass and flowers (e.g., Is
40:6–7), oceans and mountains (Is 40:12), stars (Is 40:26), worms (Is 41:14), trees (e.g.,
Is 41:19), and even moths (Is 51:8). He knows the hot blast of the khamsin (Is 49:10), as
well as the gentle fall of rain and snow (Is 55:10). Isaiah writes about mountains and hills
(e.g., Is 40:4; 41:15) and must have marveled at an eagle in flight (Is 40:31). The prophet
could never forget the tenderness and innocence of a lamb (Is 53:7). Isaiah had a deep
love for the created order.10 In fact, Isaiah 40–55 has more to say about creation than
any other place in Holy Scripture.11
The prophet’s soaring creational theology, however, does not take place in a vacuum. He employs it to convince Babylonian exiles that Yahweh is the king and creator.
One important repercussion of Isaiah’s argument is the proper concern and conservation of the environment.
Marduk and Creation
In contrast to Israel’s creation narrative, where Yahweh peacefully orders everything by his word (Gn 1), the Babylonian creation saga is full of violence. The Enuma
Eliš (Akkadian for “when on high”, the saga’s first two words) is dated to the end of the
second millennium BC and was composed by Babylonian clergy as a magisterial apology
for Marduk’s supremacy.12 Whereas the focus of Atrahasis (an early second-millennium
Akkadian creation and flood account) is on how earthly resources and the human population balance each other, the Enuma Eliš promotes Marduk as the legitimate successor
to the older Babylonian deities, Ea and Enlil. While the epic is more concerned about
Marduk’s rise to power in the Babylonian pantheon, by incorporating elements from
Atrahasis, it discusses the creation of the world and the origins of humanity.
The first tablet of the Enuma Eliš begins by introducing Tiamat—the primeval
sea, personified as a dragon—who is in conflict with the gods. The tension mounts
in tablet 2 as Tiamat and her followers threaten the gods. Marduk is selected to fight
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Tiamat, with the agreement that if he defeats her, he will be promoted to be the head
of the pantheon. In tablet 4 Marduk overthrows Tiamat and lays out the cosmos using
her corpse: “He [Marduk] split her [Tiamat] in two, like a fish for drying; half of her he
set up and made as a cover, heaven. Spreading half of her as a cover, he established the
earth.” Tablet 6 depicts Marduk’s establishment of the world and the creation of people
from the blood of Tiamat’s partner, Qingu. Tablet 7 concludes the saga by stating fifty
names for Marduk that describe his characteristics, delineate his jurisdiction, and identify
his prerogatives. He is identified by universal epithets like “Great Lord”, “Lord of the
Lands”, “King of Heaven and Earth”, “The Foremost of the Universe”, “Hero of the
Gods”, and “Lord of the Lords.”13 The propaganda pumped into the populus was Marduka ma surru—which, when translated from the Akkadian, means “Marduk is King!”14
The Enuma Eliš was recited during the annual Akitu festival. This celebration is
very old, as attested by some scraps from the Ur III period (ca 2055 BC–1940 BC). The
Babylonian version represents the final chapter in the festival’s development. By adding
a reading of the Enuma Eliš to the Akitu festival, it became the empire’s “propagandist
tool wielded to promote state ideology.”15 The celebration was a twelve-day event held
at the beginning of each year.
The role of the Enuma Eliš in the Akitu festival is best described as historiola, that
is, a mythological story intended to foreshadow a magical result. “In this case, Marduk’s
mythical victory over evil demons on day four of the Akitu prefigured the removal of
demonic impurity in the kuppuru ritual of the following day.”16 As with all mythological
rites, the Akitu sought to actualize order, fertility, and life in a world continually threatened with chaos, sterility, and death.17 Adherents believed that as the narrative was retold and reenacted, the divine world interfaced with the world of space and time. In the
retelling of Marduk’s victory of Tiamat, it was affirmed that the timeless story impacted
the lives of his followers. The victory of order over disorder that is perpetually happening in the realm of the deities was actualized for the present moment.
The brutal and bloodthirsty account of creation was not confined to the Ésagila,
the Sumerian name for the temple dedicated to Marduk that housed his cult image and
where the Akitu festival took place. This violent creation narrative influenced Babylon
to respond in kind to the world around them. They became what they worshiped: a
people emulating Marduk. Like their god, Babylonians treated the environment with callousness and cruelty. One of the empire’s frequent tactics in siege warfare was to destroy
trees, vineyards, and crops.18
To get some context of how thoroughly Babylonians wreaked havoc upon ecosystems, we need to compare them with Assyria. Beginning in the twelfth century BC,
and extensively from the ninth century forward, Assyrian sources depict the massive
destruction of nature, often called “ecocide.”19 Targeting a conquered people’s agriculture served as punitive action. It was intended to inflict long-term economic, and
psychological pain. Babylon likewise destroyed the environment as a means of warfare,
yet they differed from Assyria in one major way. After time Assyria restored cities and
lands devastated by war (see 2 Kgs 17:24), but the Babylonians adopted a scorched-earth
policy. When they marched into Judah in the sixth century, they left vast swaths of land
dilapidated so as to create a buffer of wastelands between themselves and Egypt.20
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236
Oded Lipschits details the horror of Babylon’s tactics that culminated in the
demise of Jerusalem in 587 BC. He writes, “This region was not settled again until the
Persian period, and even then recovered only partially and in limited fashion, another indication of the extent of the damage.”21 Lipschits’ study indicates that during the Persian
era, Jerusalem’s population was about 3000, or “12% of the population of the city and
its environs on the eve of the destruction.” 22
The evidence is overwhelming. Those who worship Marduk have little or no
regard for creation. Once the relationship between Yahweh, the true Creator, and creature is ruptured, we are unable to have loving and caring relationships with any other
part of creation. Without fellowship with the one true God, human beings are at odds
with everything and everyone in creation. Like their god Marduk, Babylonians treated
the world as little more than a bunch of raw materials and commodities that are to be
exploited, used, and then thrown away. The empire’s history testifies to numerous ecological disasters that were propelled by gluttony and greed.
Yahweh and Creation
Within this context of the Babylonian slash and burn policy, Isaiah rolls out his
restoration project in chapters 40–55. The prophet offers a countertext to the Enuma
Eliš and its claim that Marduk is king. His first order of business is to introduce another
King named Yahweh. With the term bqO[]y:�%l,m, (“King of Jacob”, Is 41:12), the prophet
makes his first declaration in Isaiah 40–55 of Yahweh’s kingship. Earlier in the book,
Sennacherib takes the title of king (e.g., Is 36:1, 2, 4; 37:4, 8), as does Merodach Baladan
(Is 39:1, 7). After the kingly description of Yahweh in Isaiah 40:10–11, though, the
prophet describes earthly kings only in the plural, ~ykil'’m. (“kings”). Only one person
merits the title King, and that is Yahweh. Isaiah intends for us to confess with Hezekiah,
“Yahweh the God of the Armies, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim,
you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth” (Is 37:16). The prophet refers
to Yahweh as “King” (%l,m, again in Isaiah 43:15; 44:6 (while in Is 52:7 %l;m' [“to reign”]
comes as a verb).
Yahweh is not only the King of Israel, he is ~l’A[ yhel{a/ “the eternal God” (Is
40:28).23 He is permanent and lasting. Before creation Yahweh was there, and he will be
after this world ceases to exist. To assert that King Yahweh is the world’s only creator,
in chapters 40–55 Isaiah employs wide variety of creational verbs. His list is impressive.24 They include arb (“to create”—16 times), hf[ (“to make”—24 times), rcy (“to
form”—15 times), l[p (“to work”—three times), hjn (“to stretch out”—five times),
dsy (“to found”—five times), [qr (“to spread out”—two times),�xmc (“to sprout”—
five times), !Wk (“to establish”—two times), xpj (“to extend”— one time), and [jn (“to
plant”—two times).
The verb arb deserves additional comment. It only takes Yahweh as its subject
and never takes an accusative of material; hence, the verb denotes creatio ex nihilo. It
appears in the Old Testament forty-eight times (thirty-eight times in the Qal stem, ten
in the Niphal), and is concentrated mostly in Genesis (eleven times), Psalms (six times),
and Isaiah (twenty-one times). It is used fifteen times in Isaiah 40–55 (40:28; 41:20; 42:5;
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43:1, 7, 15; 45:7 [two times], 8, 12, 18 [two times]; 48:7; and 54:16 [two times]). arb
could never apply to a Babylonian god such as Marduk who negotiates, bargains, and
fights with other gods in order to create.
It is remarkable, therefore, that explicit scholarly discussion on creation in Isaiah
40–55 only began in the 1930s.25 Rolf Rendtorff summarizes the consensus: “Faith in
God the creator was perceived and experienced as the all-embracing framework, as the
fundamental, all-underlying premise for any talk about God, the world, Israel, and the
individual.”26 Creation is not a subordinate doctrine to salvation. Rather, in Isaiah 40–55
Yahweh’s salvific goal is to restore all creation.
Creation theology in chapters 40–55 falls into two broad categories: texts that
announce Yahweh’s creational power (e.g., 40:12, 26) and texts whose focus is on the
exodus and land conquest as a new creation (e.g., 41:17–20; 43:13–17; 43:1–7; 43:16–21;
49:8–12; 51:9–11). As creator, Yahweh is (1) sovereign over the stars (40:26), (2) the
source of strength for Israel (40:28), (3) transforming the world now (41:20), (4) caring
about all people (42:5), (5) the one who brought Israel into existence and protects them
(43:1), (6) intervening in Israel’s history (43:15), (7) causing disasters that indirectly bring
restoration to Israel (45:7), (8) bidding creation to fulfill its purposes (45:8), (9) not hiding in a formless place where no one can find him (45:12), and (10) making new things
happen now (48:7).27
Isaiah 40:12–26 is the pinnacle of the prophet’s teaching on creation. The most
comprehensive statement is in 40:12: “Who has measured waters in the hollow of his
hand, and marked off heaven with a span, and all the dust of the earth within a measure, and weighed mountains with a scale, and hills with balances?” In his cupped hand,
Yahweh is able to hold all the water of the oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, brooks, and
puddles. Three-fourths of the earth’s surface is comprised of water, yet all of it fits into
the hollow of Yahweh’s hand!
From the waters to the heavens, we barely have time to catch our breath, as
Isaiah states that Yahweh measures the skies by means of a span between his outstretched thumb and little finger. The vastness of the universe cannot be measured, yet
it is reducible to the length of Yahweh’s outstretched hand!
Then, like a ride on a roller coaster, we are brought down from heaven to earth.
Looking around, we ask, “What about the dust, mountains, and hills? Can Yahweh
measure them, too?” No problem! All the dirt of the earth is insurmountable, yet
Yahweh is able to reduce it to one-third of a bushel. And he is able to balance all the
mountains and hills—with one mountain, Mt. Everest, almost six miles high—on his
scale. Who is this God capable of holding, surveying, and weighing such a massive universe? His name is Yahweh, and he is the true King, like no other! He made everything
and promises one day to restore the world so that its glory outshines its original pristine
perfection (Is 51:3).
The foundation of Isaiah’s creational theology in chapters 40–55 is Genesis 1. So
much so that Michael Fishbane calls it an “aggadic exegesis” of the first chapter in the
Bible.28 But mention of Genesis 1 opens up host of problems. The chief one pertaining
to this study is the idea of Chaoskampf.
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238
and Chaoskampf
Yahweh
Although Genesis 1 is completely free of any pre-creation combat motifs, critical
scholars believe that, just like Marduk, Yahweh could not create an ordered universe
until first he defeated the forces of chaos.29 They assume that Israel’s religion evolved
gradually from that of the ancient Near East and retained the same kind of mythic creational context. But if this is true, Yahweh is no different from Marduk, for both needed
to defeat disorder to create the world.
This understanding goes back to Hermann Gunkel, who believed that prophets
like Isaiah employed sea-battle imagery to elicit both protological and eschatological
events. His 1895 book, Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit, argues that the creation
account in Genesis 1 derived from the Enuma Eliš. He coined the term “Chaoskampf” to
describe the motif of a primordial battle between Yahweh and chaos in Genesis 1:2 that
derived from Marduk’s conquest of Tiamat.
While Gunkel’s sights were set predominantly on Genesis 1, he first sought to
establish the presence of Chaoskampf in the Old Testament more broadly, beginning with
Isaiah 51:9–10a: “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Yahweh. Awake as in days
of old, generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces? [Who] pierced
the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep?” Gunkel
claimed that the references to Rahab and the dragon “coincides remarkably well … with
the Babylonian myth of the struggle of Marduk against Tiamat.”30 Although he affirms
this Isaianic text references the exodus, Gunkel’s main line of inquiry pursues “how the
destruction of Pharaoh could be depicted as the annihilation of a great monster.”31 His
answer is Chaoskampf, that is, the coloration of Israelite traditions in “the pigments of
that [Babylonian] myth.”32
Frank Moore Cross shifted the focus of the discussion from Babylonian to
Canaanite origins.33 Following Thorkild Jacobsen,34 Cross suggested that “the battle
with the dragon Ocean is West Semitic in origin” rather than originally Babylonian, but
nevertheless, he draws parallels between biblical texts and both Canaanite and Babylonian myths. Whereas Gunkel spoke of Chaoskampf, Cross refers more generally to “the
cosmogonic or creation battle with monstrous Sea.”35 Both of these influential scholars
see the creational/cosmogonic conquest of Yahweh over the sea wherever Yahweh exerts
his power over water. In his influential Anchor Bible Genesis commentary in 1964,
Ephraim Speiser likewise argues that the Genesis account of creation is the same as the
Babylonian creation myth.36
This line of thinking equates Yahweh with Marduk and sets the Israelite creation
account into the context of warfare. It is better, however, to interpret Isaiah’s sea-battle
imagery in Isaiah 51:9–10a as describing Yahweh’s power at the exodus (see Is 43:16–
21).37 It consequently serves as a demonstration of his might he is about to exercise
through Cyrus (e.g., Is 44:28; 45:1) and the Suffering Servant (e.g., Is 52:13–53:12). Its
function in Isaiah’s argument is historical and eschatological, but not protological.38 If
the prophet uses imagery that at first glance might appear similar ancient Near Eastern
cosmogonic myths, no evidence exists to suggest that he thereby intends to refer to the
event of Yahweh’s creation of the world. Isaiah’s decision to speak of Yahweh’s power
239
with water
imagery is best accounted for as a reference to the exodus in which water is
Yahweh’s instrument in victory, not his enemy. In Isaiah 51:9–10a the prophet portrays
Yahweh’s battle with a historical enemy, Egypt, and not a prehistorical, primeval one.
If we read Isaiah 40–55 from the perspective that it polemicizes against the
Enuma Eliš, Isaiah 51:9–10a would make little sense if the prophet intended to refer to a
Yahweh Chaoskampf creation myth corresponding to that of Babylon’s. Rather, the polemic is more logical if Babylon’s conviction about Marduk’s kingship expressed in the
ritual of the Akitu festival is tacitly evoked by use of Rahab/dragon imagery that Isaiah
has appropriated to Yahweh’s exodus victory over his enemies. Like Rahab/Egypt, Marduk/Babylon is a monstrous enemy only Yahweh can defeat. The logic of the polemic
in Isaiah 40–55 then runs like this: “The Babylonians think Marduk defeated Tiamat and
is the true god who maintains the cosmos as its king. But look, Yahweh’s arm shattered
his enemies then (Egypt) and will do so again now (Babylon). Then who do you suppose
will be shown to be the real king, the creator of the heavens and the earth?”
Such a polemical move does not require the notion that Isaiah appropriated
mythic images of creation at any point in his argument. Rather, they refer exclusively to
Yahweh’s victory over Egypt in the exodus. In fact, not only is such a mythic creational
reference not necessary, it would weaken the prophet’s argument. In undermining the
Babylonian worldview, Isaiah is not embracing a mythic worldview, just one of its motifs.39 The prophet does not reduce Yahweh to one who must battle chaos to create the
cosmos. Yahweh needs no murderous assault over chaos to create the world. His battles
are not against primordial chaos (because no such entity existed before the world’s creation), but against spiritual chaos manifested by oppressive nations like Babylon.
Creation’s Song
Oppressive empires, like Babylon, abuse people and the environment. Caring for
creation is of little concern for them. But Babylon (Is 47) and her pantheon (Is 46:1) will
soon be dust in the wind. Isaiah maintains, then, that it is time for creation to celebrate!
His creational hymns (Is 42:10–12; 44:23; 49:13; and 55:12–13) invite rivers, deserts, forests, and the like to praise Yahweh: “The mountains, hills, and trees have a deep stake
in the defeat of such military powers as represented by Babylon, because empires such
as Babylon are notorious for the irreversible damage done to nonhuman creation.”40
However, when Yahweh delivers Israel from Babylon, trees will be replanted, crops will
grow, deserts will come alive, and everything will be made new.41
Isaiah’s creational hymns include these words, “Sing to Yahweh a new song …
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice” (Is 42:10–11): “Sing, heavens … shout,
depths of the earth; break forth into singing, mountains, forest, and every tree in it!” (Is
44:23): “Sing for joy, heavens, and exult, earth; break forth, mountains, into singing!”
(Is 49:13): “The mountains and the hills will be cheerful before you in joy. And all the
trees of the field will clap their hands” (Is 55:12).42 These texts are more than figures
of speech and poetic extravagance. As one who worshiped Yahweh (see Is 6), the
prophet had a deep love and respect for creation. Isaiah’s life is a reflection of the God
he adored. This is why his hope is not redemption from the world but the redemption of
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240
Empire’s like Babylon will never have the last word. Yahweh will restore and
the world.
renew all things (see Is 65:17). The Jewish teaching of tiqqum ha’olam, the repair of the
world, comports with this idea.43
Conclusions
We become what we worship, and this either renews or destroys the environment. Through the Enuma Eliš and Isaiah 40–55 we see how adherents of Marduk rape
and pillage creation, while those who worship Yahweh value and respect the world.
Since violence permeates the creation epic of the Enuma Eliš, those who worship Marduk treat creation violently. In chapters 40–55, though, Isaiah offers a different version
of creation, based upon Yahweh’s concern, control, and care for the entire world. Those
who worship Yahweh are empowered to treasure and value people, soil, lakes, animals,
rivers, and indeed, everything on this magnificent planet.
Today, apart from a saving relationship with Yahweh through his definitive revelation in Jesus Christ, people continue to slash and burn God’s beautiful creation. Look
around. Our relationship with the earth is dominated by the attitudes of consumerism,
commodity, and exploitation. The list includes massive deforestation, air, water, and
noise pollution, acid rain, nuclear waste, mercury-laden fish, holes in the ozone layer,
styrofoam and plastics in our landfills, and beer cans on the bottom of our oceans.
More specifically and closer to home (at least in the Midwest) is our ongoing dependence upon irrigation. Dependent upon aquifers deep within the earth, these sources of
water receive little to no recharge and are dropping more than one meter per year.44 This
water is pumped up to water the fields but then is not used efficiently. “The FAO [Food
and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations] estimates that crops use only
45% of irrigation water.”45 The practice adds to the loss of topsoil and the increase of
erosion. This aids, then, in the pollution of our fresh waterways. Adding to the problem
is the high amount of chemicals farmers use to grow food. Most fertilizers are made
water-soluble so that they can be made more easily available to the plants. This seems
like a good idea; however, it makes the chemicals highly susceptible to being washed
away with rain and irrigation water. The overflow of chemicals, especially nitrogen-rich
fertilizers, is seeping down through our streams, rivers, and ground water. Many of these
feed into the Mississippi River and flow into the Gulf of Mexico. There is now a dead
zone bigger than Rhode Island that has formed due to this overdose of nitrogen in the
water.
This is only one problem. Thousands more abound.
Biblical scholars, for their part, have not been very helpful. Historically they have
marginalized the doctrine of creation by placing an inordinate amount of attention upon
history as God’s only sphere of activity and revelation.46 This is understandable, given
the Bible’s own emphasis on history. Yet dismissing creation as an inferior doctrine is
unacceptable. Things, however, are changing. Noteworthy is Terence Fretheim whose
work enables Christians to embrace environmental concerns from a biblical perspective.47
Through Fretheim and others, Christians are reawakening to the central role
of creation in biblical faith. They are rereading sections like Isaiah 40–55 and being
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amazed at how relevant Israel’s scriptures are for our current environment crisis.
Isaiah’s confession is ours as well. “Yahweh is the Sovereign Lord of the universe!” We worship him through Jesus, his incarnate Son.
Our Savior loves creation. He not only points out its beauty and wonder (e.g., Mt
6:26–29), but also dies to restore us to the Father and renew the entire created order.48
Regular and faithful worship of Jesus empowers us to become more like him and thus
realize that the vast world is not ours to do with as we please. It belongs to our loving
Father who invites us to confess the times we have devalued his creation, receive his
priceless gift of forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ, and then by his Spirit’s power,
protect his planet!
Endnotes
1 This article is adapted from the forthcoming Concordia Commentary series title, Isaiah 40–55 by R. Reed
Lessing © Concordia Publishing House. I am thankful for the following students at Concordia Seminary who have
studied Isaiah 40–55 with me with and assisted with this essay: Krista Whittenburg, Adam Hensley, and Brian
Gauthier.
2 All translations from the Old Testament are mine.
3 N. T. Wright states, “Bearing God’s image is not just a fact, it is a vocation. It means being called to
reflect into the world the creative and redemptive love of God. It means being made for relationship, for stewardship, for worship” (The Challenge of Easter [Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2009], 43).
4 Greg Beale, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2008), 49.
5 In the rest of the Bible, the phrase “stiff necked” is employed, with one deviation (Prv 29:1), to depict
idol worshipers.
6 In Romans 1:18–32 Paul addresses this feature of idolatry when he teaches that God gives people over
to what they worship (cf. Rom 1:24, 26, 28). The apostle asserts that those who chose not to worship the one
true God “become vain” (evmataiw,qhsan, Rom 1:21). These echo LXX Jer 2:5 and 2 Kgs 17:15, evporeu,qhsan
ovpi,sw tw/n matai,wn kai. evmataiw,qhsan (“they went after vanity and became vain”). In all three texts, the
verb evmataiw,qhsan is an aorist passive. People do not choose a life of nothing. But because of their idolatry, it is
God’s judgment upon them.
7 Even so, Joseph Blenkinsopp argues that Isaiah 40–55 is a “mirror image” that polemicizes Babylonian
ideology (Isaiah 40–55: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [New York: Doubleday, 2005], 107).
8 Walter Brueggemann, The Word Militant: Preaching a Decentering Word (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 126.
9 Richard Clifford writes, “A very large number chose not to move from their relatively prosperous situation. By the 540s, the exilic community was largely second-generation. They evidently preferred owning property
and slaves in Babylon to returning to ruins and fields of uncertain ownership” (Fair Spoken and Persuading: An
Interpretation of Second Isaiah [New York: Paulist Press, 1984], 13).
10 Ellen Davis calls Isaiah “the first urban agrarian” (Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of
the Bible [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009], 121).
11 John Reumann writes that “Deutero-Isaiah presents us with the most massive and amazing creation
language in the Bible” (Creation and New Creation: The Past, Present, and Future of God’s Creative Activity [Minneapolis:
Augsburg, 1973], 78). Creational theology in Isaiah 40–55 is discussed in Philip Hartner, “Creation Faith in
Deutero-Isaiah,” VT 17 (1967): 298–306; Thomas Ludwig, “Traditions of the Establishing of the Earth in
Deutero-Isaiah,” JBL 92 (1973): 345–57; Carroll Stuhlmueller, Creative Redemption in Deutero-Isaiah (AnBib 43; Rome:
Biblical Institute Press, 1970); Stephen Lee, Creation and Redemption in Isaiah 40–55 (Hong Kong: Alliance Bible
Seminary, 1995); Ben Ollenburger, “Isaiah’s Creation Theology,” ExAud 3 (1987):54–71.
12 The Enuma Eliš is in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ed. J. B. Pritchard, 3d ed.;
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 60–72.
13 Daniel Block, “Chasing a Phantom: The Search for the Historical Marduk.” ABW 2 (1992): 20–43, 28.
14 Marduk never completely replaced Ea and Enlil. Babylonian religion preferred accumulation (even if it
was illogical) to substitution. It was a laissez-faire religious culture.
15 Julye Bidmead, The AKITU Festival (Piscataway, N. J.: Gorgias, 2002), 1.
16 Kenton Sparks, “Enuma Elish and Priestly Mimesis.” Journal of Biblical Literature 126 (2007): 625–48, 633.
17 Brevard Childs writes, “Myth is a form by which the existing structure of reality is understood and
maintained. It concerns itself with showing how an action of a deity, conceived of as occurring in the primeval age,
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242
determines
a phase of contemporary world order. Existing world order is maintained through the actualization of
the myth in the cult” (Myth and Reality in the Old Testament [London: SCM Press, 1962], 27–28).
18 Michael Hasel, Military Practice and Polemic: Israel’s Laws of Warfare in Near Eastern Perspective (Berrien
Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 2005), 95–123. On the other hand, those who worshiped Yahweh, when
attacking a city, were instructed to treat the environment with care. “When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat
from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by
you?” (Dt 20:19).
19 Hasel, Military Practice, 61.
20 John Betlyon, “Neo-Babylonian Military Operations other than War in Judah and Jerusalem,” in
Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp (Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 2003), 263–83.
21 Oded Lipschits, “Demographic Changes in Judah between the Seventh and Fifth Centuries B.C.E.” in
Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp (Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 2003), 333.
22 Lipschits, “Demographic Changes in Judah,” 365.
23 Goldingay comments, “Yhwh is God of the age in the sense of being sovereign over and throughout
its whole course as long as it lasts, to its very end” (The Message of Isaiah 40–55: A Literary-Theological Commentary
[London: T&T Clark, 2005], 69).
24 Karl Eberlein, Gott der Schöpfer—Israels Gott (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1986), 73–82.
25 A review of the scholarship is in Clifford, Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible
(CBQMS 26; Washington, D. C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1994), 163–76.
26 Rolf Rendtorff, Canon and Theology: Overtures to an Old Testament Theology, trans. Margaret Kohl
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 107–8.
27 Goldingay, Israel’s Gospel, vol. 1 of Old Testament Theology (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2003), 78.
28 Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 322–26.
29 Typical is this statement by Michael Deroche, “Although the Hebrew Bible contains a variety of cosmogonic traditions, most agree that God creates the universe by imposing order upon a primeval, pre-created
chaos” (“Isaiah XLV 7 and the Creation of Chaos?” VT 42 [1992]: 11–21, 11). See also John Goldingay, who
believes Isaiah 51:9 alludes to both the Babylonian creation myth and its Canaanite version. He then argues that
Isaiah appropriated these allusions, intentionally referring to Yahweh’s victory over chaos in the creation of the
world (The Message of Isaiah 40–55, 432–33).
30 Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit Creation and Chaos in the Primeval era and the Eschaton, trans. K.
William Whitney Jr. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 22.
31 Gunkel, Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton, 22.
32 Gunkel, Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton, 22.
33 Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973).
34 Jacobsen, “The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 88 (1968):
104–108.
35 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, viii.
36 Speiser, Genesis (AB; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964), 10. John Oswalt discusses Speiser’s finding
and concludes that there are few, if any, direct connections between the Babylonian and Israelite creation accounts
(The Bible Among the Myths [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009], 100–103).
37 It is commonly recognized that Isaiah 40–55 draws most heavily on the exodus as the archetypal
act of Yahweh’s deliverance. Stuhlmueller calls the theme of the exodus in Isaiah 40–55 “not merely one of the
themes … It is the prophet’s dominant theme … basically … [his] ONE theme, and all else is subservient to it”
(Stuhlmueller, Creative Redemption, 59). While the prophet employs numerous exodus echoes, the motif is the chief
subject in 40:3–5; 41:17–20; 42:14–16; 43:1–3, 14–21; 48:20–21; 49:8–12; 51:9–10; 52:11–12; 55:12–13.
38 This is true throughout the Old Testament. When biblical authors refer to Yahweh’s victory over dragons, Rahab, Leviathan etc., or describe Yahweh’s strength in terms of his power over water, they intend to divest
such images of their ancient Near Eastern protological moorings in favor of a historical or eschatological context
and reference.
39 Oswalt offers this analogy: “That you might call someone a Hercules does not prove that your view of
the world is the same as that of the ancient Greeks from whose myths that personage comes” (The Bible Among the
Myths, 93).
40 Brueggemann, Isaiah 40–66 (Louisville: Westminster, 1998), 162.
243
41 For a study that discusses the rejuvenation of the earth throughout the Bible see Richard Austin, Hope
for the land: Nature in the Bible (Atlanta: John Knox, 1988).
42 Similar ideas come in Psalm 148:7–10, “Praise Yahweh from the earth, you great sea creatures and
all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all
cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds!”
43 Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics 2d ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1994), 15.
44 Leo Horrigan, Robert Lawrence, and Polly Walker, “How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address
Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture,” Environmental Health Perspectives 110 (May
2002): 445–56, 447.
45 Horrigan, Lawrence, and Walker, “How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address Environmental and
Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture,” 448.
46 For a discussion, see Lessing, Jonah (St. Louis: CPH, 2007), 143–50.
47 Terence Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville:
Abingdon, 2005).
48 John writes, “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb
in which no one had yet been laid” (Jn 19:41). N. T. Wright adds, “The Spirit who brooded over the waters of creation at the beginning broods now over God’s world, ready to bring it bursting to springtime life. Mary goes to the
tomb while it is still dark and in the morning light meets Jesus in the garden. She thinks he is the gardener, as in
one important sense he indeed is. This is the new creation. This is the new Genesis” (The Challenge of Easter, 34).
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Good Stuff!
The Material Creation and the Christian Faith
Mark P. Surburg
The Christian faith that we believe, teach and confess involves God’s material
creation again and again. The faith presupposes the importance of the material creation
from beginning to end.1 It is therefore very helpful to pause and ponder the role that
God’s material creation plays in the Christian faith. In doing so, we will gain greater
insight into who we are, what God has done for us, what God is doing now, and the
goal towards which all of God’s saving work is moving.
As we consider the relation between the material creation and the Christian faith,
I propose that we can summarize the content of the Christian faith under four headings that are intentionally listed in this order: Creational, Incarnational, Sacramental and
Eschatological. I will demonstrate that, in these headings and in the progressive relationship
between them, we gain greater insight into the manner in which God works. This can
be depicted in the following diagram:
Creational ➞ Incarnational ➞ Sacramental ➞ Eschatological
Eschatological action ➞ ➞ ➞ ➞ Eschatological goal
(“Now”)
(End of “Not yet”)
Let me introduce what I mean by these terms before we enter into a consideration of each one. First, the Christian faith is—if I may be excused for a neologism—
creational. This means that the Christian faith operates on the presupposition that the
material creation is very good. The Bible’s starting point is the goodness of the material
creation and we find that God operates on this basis from the beginning to end; from
Genesis to Revelation; from creation to restored creation.
Second, the Christian faith is incarnational. When sin arrives on the scene in the
Fall, both humanity and creation itself are warped and twisted. However, the God who
considered his material creation to be very good does not abandon creation. Instead, he
himself enters into that creation in the incarnation as the Word becomes flesh (Jn 1:14).
In Jesus Christ—the one who is true God and true man—we find the ultimate affirmaMark P. Surburg is pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Marion,
Illinois. He received his S.T.M. from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and was a
consultant for The Lutheran Study Bible.
245
tion of humanity and the material creation itself as God works to deal with the sin that
has caused things to cease to be very good.
Third, the Christian faith is sacramental. In the incarnation God used his material creation—he used the body and flesh of Jesus Christ—as the means by which he
located himself in the midst of his people in order to work their salvation. It is not
surprising then, that when God wishes to deliver the benefits of the incarnation, he
does so using the located means of his material creation—he uses water, and bread and
wine. This continuing action by God is simply consistent with his starting point (the
goodness of the material creation) and with the located means by which he has acted to
restore humanity and creation (the incarnation).
Finally, the Christian faith is eschatological. All of the action by God moves
towards a goal: the restoration of humanity and creation on the last day when Jesus
Christ returns in glory, raises the dead, pronounces the final judgment, and restores creation. It moves towards the goal of a restored humanity and creation that is once again
very good. In accomplishing this goal, God acts in a way that is consistent with his creational starting point, and with the incarnational and sacramental means he has used in
order to restore humanity and creation.
While the eschatological goal is appropriately listed last, it is necessary to realize that each stage moving towards this goal is in fact eschatological. As the diagram
indicates, the incarnation and the sacraments are eschatological actions by God that are
working out this final goal—they are the now that are pointing towards the end of the
not yet.
Creational
Biblically speaking, if we want to finish in the correct place then we must start
correctly in the beginning. The first two chapters of Genesis provide the foundation
for all that follows in Scripture. If we are to understand the incarnation, the sacraments,
and goal of the Christian faith properly, then we must have a proper understanding of
God’s starting point in creation.
The fundamental goodness of God’s material creation
In this article I wish to focus on two presuppositions of the biblical worldview
that we meet in Genesis 1–2.2 The first is the fundamental goodness of God’s material
creation. As God makes the material creation in Genesis 1, six times we hear the refrain
that it was “good” (1:4, 10, 12,18, 21, 25). This reaches its crescendo on the sixth day
when we hear in 1:31, “God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good
(daom. bAj-hNEhiw>).” 3
The text leaves us in no doubt that God made a material creation. It is a place of
water and land; a place of plants and animals. And at the same time, the text leaves us
in no doubt about God’s assessment of this material creation. It is not just good. It is
very good.4
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246
It is essential that we grasp this starting point—this presupposition of biblical
thought—if we are to understand correctly all that follows in Scripture. God’s attitude
toward his material creation is that it is very good. Only from this perspective will we
be able to grasp the continuity of God’s action reflected in the incarnation, the sacraments and eschatology.
Human beings are a body and a soul joined together in a unity
The second presupposition of the biblical worldview that we meet in Genesis
1–2 is related to the first one we have just discussed. God’s creation of Adam in
Genesis 2:7 prepares us to understand that in the biblical worldview, a human being
is comprised of a body and a soul joined together in a unity. We hear in this verse, “Then
the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”5 This verse has served as the
starting point for reflection in the Lutheran dogmatic tradition, and when combined
with other texts of Scripture such as Matthew 10:286 has yielded the correct view that
human beings are a dichotomy of body and soul.7
The anthropological terminology in Scripture is not always as clearly defined as
we might like (cf. the trichotomous statement in 1 Thess 5:23), but the general picture
is clear.8 A human being consists of a material component (a body) and an immaterial component (a soul). Apart from the soul the body no longer lives and is a corpse
(James 2:26). The soul is the entity that allows a personal existence in God’s presence
even after death (Phil 1:23; cf. Rev 6:9).
For our purpose, the important thing to note is not simply that we are a dichotomy of a body and soul. It is instead the fact that a living human being as created and
intended by God is the unity of a body and a soul. Human existence apart from a material body does not match God’s original creation and divine intention.
The importance of a material body in God’s creation of Adam reflects the location where God intended Adam and Eve to live. Simply stated, God intended Adam
and Eve to live on earth—to live in the very good creation that he had made.9 God
creates a garden on the earth and places Adam there. This garden on the earth (2:8) is
the setting where Adam is to carry out his vocation as he cultivates and keeps the garden (2:15).
The biblical worldview and the fall
Once we have grasped the biblical worldview and its twin presuppositions about the goodness of the material creation and God’s intended unity of body and soul, we are also better equipped to understand the implications of the fall. We learn in Genesis 3 that the fall of Adam brought terrible consequences upon the material creation as a whole. The ground is cursed because of Adam and Eve’s sin
(3:17; ^r,Wb[]B; hm'’d’"ah'’ hr"’Wra]; cf. 5:29); and God says that it will no longer respond in
the way it once did. Now it will grow thorns and thistles (3:18) and only produce crops
in the face of great effort by Adam (3:19).
As a result of the fall, death arrives for the living creatures. In Gen 1:30 we learn
that God had provided green plants to the living creatures for food. However, the
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fallen world
as we now know it is one that is red in tooth and claw—a world of predators and prey.10 It is a world that no longer reflects the harmonious ordering that God
intended.11
We find that as a result of Adam’s sin and the fall, creation itself no longer
reflects God’s original ordering. God still values the material world, but it no longer
reflects his divine intention. Creation has been warped and twisted in ways that are not
very good. In Romans 8, Paul describes this fact in a text that is one of most important
in the Bible for understanding both the fall and the future God has in store for his
creation. Paul describes how “the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the
revealing of the sons of God” (8:19). He then goes on to explain why this is so in 8:20–
21: “For the creation was subjected to futility (th/| ga.r mataio,thti h` kti,sij u`peta,gh),
not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also
will be set free from its slavery of corruption (avpo. th/j doulei,aj th/j fqora/j) into the
freedom of the glory of the children of God.”12
According to Paul, creation itself has suffered in the fall.13 In the face of this
condition Paul tells us: “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the
pains of childbirth together until now” (8:22). God’s creation no longer reflects his
intention, but instead has been “subjected to futility” and it languishes in the “slavery
of corruption.” Paul tells us that creation needs to be freed from this situation, and we
will see in the final section of this article that God will do just this when Christ returns.
The biblical presupposition that human beings are a unity of body and soul also
helps us to understand better a key result of the fall: death.14 Paul writes in Romans
5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death
through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”15 Through the sin
of Adam, death has become the lot of all people. The biblical worldview helps us to
understand more fully what this means.
God created Adam as a unity of body and soul. Now, however, we hear in
Gen 3:19, “By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground,
because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Death
occurs and the body is now perishable (1 Cor 15:42, 50, 52–54). In this process, the
soul is separated from the body. The body is then placed in the ground and left there.
This condition stands directly contrary to God’s intention for human life—life that is a
unity of body and soul. We learn that while we may now experience death as a natural
part of life, there is in fact nothing natural about it. From the biblical perspective, there
is in fact nothing more unnatural than the condition in which the soul is separated
from the body.16 Once again, we will see in the final section of this article that God will
reverse this situation when Christ returns.
Incarnational
God enters his material creation
The entrance of sin into the world in the fall cut off humanity from the holy
God. It warped and twisted God’s good creation and subjected it to the slavery of corruption. It brought death into the world as soul was separated from body. In all these
Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
248
ways, humanity
and the creation that God had made to be very good ceased to reflect
God’s divine intention. However, God was not willing to leave things there. Instead, in
order to restore humanity and creation, God himself entered into creation through the
incarnation of the Son of God (Jn 1:14; Gal 4:4).
The incarnation itself is the ultimate affirmation of the material creation and
human bodily existence. We learn that the Son of God himself entered into creation
and became part of it through his incarnation. He lived in this material world, and specifically, on this earth as he himself became flesh and located himself in our midst. He
lived the bodily existence of human beings; for, as Paul tells us in Colossians 2:9, “In
him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily (swmatikw/j).”
God continues to locate himself in the midst of his people
The incarnation was a radically new action by God. Yet at the same time, we
need to realize that it was also consistent with the way God had always worked. It was
God providing the means by which he located himself in the midst of his people as
he had always done. John’s classic statement of the incarnation in 1:14 says that the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us. As is widely known, the verb that John uses
for “dwell” (skhno,w) is based on the same root as the word (skhnh,) that is used in
the Septuagint to translate “tabernacle” (!K'’v.Mi).17 Likewise, the John 1:14 reference to
“glory” (do,xa) recalls how God’s glory (dAbk')’ filled the tabernacle (Ex 40:34–38). This
point becomes explicit in the next chapter when Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and
in three days I will raise it up” (2:19). The Jews are puzzled and John informs the reader, “But he was speaking of the temple of his body” (2:21). John tells us that everything
that was true of the tabernacle and the temple is now true of Jesus Christ.
The tabernacle, and then ultimately the temple in Jerusalem, was the means by
which Yahweh’s saving presence dwelt in the midst of his people. Because the temple
was located on Mt. Zion, all of the biblical truths about God’s saving presence located
in the midst of his people are often summarized in the Old Testament by the one
word, Zion.18 As we encounter Jesus Christ, we meet the one who is the fulfillment
of all that is meant by Zion in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament God located
himself in the midst of his people through the means of a building on a mountain in
Palestine. Israel knew that God met them there. In the incarnation, God located himself in the midst of his people through the means of a human being in Palestine. God’s
people learned that God now meets them in the located means of the body and flesh
of Jesus Christ.19
The body, flesh and blood of Jesus Christ
as the means of God’s salvation
The Son of God did not simply enter into the material creation as he became
flesh and lived a bodily existence. This body, blood and flesh became the means by
which God worked salvation. Paul told the Corinthians that the word of the cross is
the power of God for those who are being saved (1 Cor 1:18). The cross stands at the
center of the gospel. It was the body and flesh of Jesus Christ that made the crucifixion
possible as God carried out his plan of salvation. The body and flesh of Christ were
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the cross when he gave his life as a ransom for many (Mt 20:28). The body
nailed to
and flesh of Christ are described as the means by which God has given us salvation. 1
Peter 2:24 states that “he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross” and 1 Peter
3:18 says that Christ suffered for sins once for all “having been put to death in the
flesh.”20
In a similar manner, Scripture describes Jesus’s blood as the means by which we
have been saved. For instance in Romans 5:9, Paul says that we have been “justified by
his blood.” Passages referring to Christ’s blood are numerous and often a synecdoche
for Christ’s sacrificial death.21 Nevertheless, it is important to note that the saving death
of Christ is intimately connected with the shedding of his blood.22 It is not by chance
that in the Lord’s Supper Jesus gives us his true body and blood; for, they are the very
means by which he has won our salvation.
Incarnation as eschatological event:
Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God
God sought to reverse the fall and its impact through the incarnation of the Son
of God. He began to work towards the goal of restoring humanity and creation itself
through the incarnation. When the incarnation took place in the first century A.D.
it began the last stage in God’s plan of salvation. It was the beginning of the end as
God’s eschatological action began. Paul summarized this fact and wrote words to the
Corinthians that have applied to all Christians since the incarnation of Christ: “Now
these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor 10:11). The final restoration
of humanity and creation still awaits Christ’s return on the last day, and we will speak
about this ultimate goal in the final section of this article. However, it is essential to
realize that the stages moving toward the final eschatological goal are in fact the beginning
of this goal itself. I will illustrate this briefly using two different topics: 1) Jesus Christ and
the kingdom of God; 2) The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The central feature of Jesus’ ministry was that he proclaimed the kingdom
of God. Specifically, he announced: “the kingdom of God has arrived” (h;ggiken h`
basilei,a tou/ qeou/; Mk 1:15).23 The phrase “kingdom of God” does not refer to a
place but rather to God’s activity— the reign of God. John Meier summarizes the consensus of scholarship when he writes: “‘kingdom of God’ is meant to conjure up the
dynamic notion of God powerfully ruling over his creation, over his people, and over
the history of both. The point has been put succinctly by a number of writers: the kingdom of God means God ruling as king. Hence his action upon and his dynamic relation to those ruled, rather than any delimited territory, is what is primary.”24
Jesus announced the future consummation of God’s reign that will occur when
he returns in glory (Mt 25:1–13, 31). However, during his earthly ministry Jesus also
announced that God’s reign had arrived in him.25 God’s reign was present in the person of Jesus Christ as God began to turn back the forces of Satan and sin, and restore
humanity and creation. Jesus’ miracles show us that he is true God—but they also do
more than this. They show us that in the person of Jesus, God’s reign was beginning
to reverse the impact of sin. The miracles of healing demonstrate this as Jesus reverses
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250
sin’s physical
impact in the lives of the people who come to him.26 The nature miracles
on the Sea of Galilee (Mk 4:35–41; 6:45–51) show that Jesus is beginning to restore
order to his creation. The exorcisms reveal that Jesus is turning back the forces of
Satan—and much to their surprise, this is beginning before the last day.27
Incarnation as eschatological event: The resurrection of Jesus Christ
Commenting on Paul and the resurrection, J. Christiaan Beker has observed:
“Resurrection language is end–time language and unintelligible apart from the apocalyptic thought world to which resurrection language belongs. Resurrection language
properly belongs to the domain of the new age to come and is an inherent part of the
transformation and recreation of all reality in the apocalyptic age.”28 Beker alerts us to
the fact that as soon as we begin talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are
talking about eschatology.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that the resurrection of the last day has already
begun in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ is the “first fruits of those who are
asleep” (avparch. tw/n kekoimhme,nwn; 1 Cor 15:20).29 He is the first portion of the resurrection that guarantees the rest will also be raised. The message of Easter is that the
eschatological resurrection we will share in has already begun. It is now simply a matter
of timing. As Paul goes on to say in 15:23, “But each in his own order: Christ the first
fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at his coming.”30
Sacramental
God had entered his material creation in the incarnation of the Son in order
to deal with sin and reverse its impact on humanity and creation itself. God located
himself in the midst of his people through the means of Christ’s body and flesh. Now,
as God delivers the benefits won through the incarnation, he continues to use located
means that employ his material creation. He acts in a sacramental manner that is consistent with the biblical presuppositions seen in creation.31 This continuing action by
Christ through located means reflects the very nature of the incarnation that won the
forgiveness being delivered.
God’s sacramental action—located means
In his sacramental action God uses his material creation as the located means
through which he delivers the forgiveness won by Christ in the incarnation. We see this
in Baptism with the use of water, and in the Lord’s Supper with the use of bread and
wine. In Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, we see the continuing goodness of the material creation as God uses the material creation itself—water, and bread and wine—in
the sacramental action.32 The Son of God entered creation in the incarnation and now
God uses the creation itself to deliver the benefits of the incarnation. Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper also emphasize the importance of the body in biblical thought; for, God
delivers forgiveness through water poured on our head, and bread and wine placed in
our mouth. God acts directly on our bodies in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.33
In the Lord’s Supper we also see Christ’s continuing presence in our midst through
located means. In the Lord’s Supper he uses bread and wine to be bodily present in our
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midst. The Lord, who used the located means of his body and flesh to be present with
his people in the incarnation, continues to use the located means of bread and wine to
be bodily present with us and to deliver forgiveness. Where the Church has confessed
the true body and blood of Christ in the sacrament and understood this intimate connection between the incarnate Lord and the Lord’s Supper, it has always celebrated the
Lord’s Supper every Lord’s day—every Sunday.34 As Apology XXIV.1 states, “Among
us the Mass is celebrated every Lord’s day and on other festivals, when the sacrament
is made available to those who wish to partake of it, after they have been examined and
absolved.”
God’s sacramental action—eschatological in nature
God’s sacramental action is grounded in the incarnation. It is Christ who instituted these located means that reflect the nature of the incarnation itself. For this reason, God’s sacramental action is eschatological in the same way that the incarnation
itself is eschatological. When we considered the incarnation as an eschatological event,
we focused on two areas: the kingdom of God and the resurrection. As God moves his
saving plan towards the final eschatological goal, his sacramental action continues to
involve both of these.
The reign of God arrived in the person of Jesus Christ as he turned back the
forces of Satan and sin. That reign continues now in our midst through God’s sacramental action. In Baptism and the Lord’s Supper God gives the forgiveness of sins,
salvation, and eternal life.35
At the same time, as we will see shortly, the reign of God that arrived in Jesus
Christ pointed forward to the final consummation of God’s reign when Christ returns
in glory.36 Paul says of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:26, “For as often as you
eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” It
is helpful to observe that every account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the
Synoptic Gospels contains a reference to the eschatological future.37 The Lord’s Supper
itself points forward to the last day and the consummation of God’s reign. It is the
foretaste of the messianic feast to come (cf. Is 25:6–9; Mt 8:11); and we see a continuity between Jesus’ miraculous feedings (the feeding of the 5000 and 4000; Mt 14:13–21;
15:32–38), the Lord’s Supper and the final eschatological banquet.38
God’s sacramental action in the present also points forward to the resurrection
of the body. Baptism provides the assurance that we will share in Christ’s resurrection
on the last day. After pointing out in Romans 6:3–4 how we were baptized into Christ’s
death (6:3) and buried with Christ through baptism into death (6:4), Paul goes on to say
in 6:5: “For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” According to Paul, our Baptism
guarantees a share in the resurrection on the last day.
Just as with Baptism, in the Lord’s Supper the material means are actually
applied to our body and provide assurance of a share in the resurrection. Because the
Lord’s Supper is the very body and blood of the risen Lord, we know that bodies that
eat the body and drink the blood of the Lord will be raised on the last day. In this
light, Ignatius of Antioch described the Lord’s Supper as the “medicine of immortalConcordia Journal/Summer 2010
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ity” (fa, rmakon avqanasi,aj) (Eph 20:2); and early church fathers such as Irenaeus, Cyril
and Hilary expounded on this connection between the Lord’s Supper and the resurrection. In turn, both Luther and Chemnitz included it in their discussions of the Lord’s
Supper.39
Eschatological
God had created a material creation that is very good. He created humanity as
a unity of body and soul. When the entrance of sin and the Fall thwarted these intentions, God himself entered into creation through the located means of the body and
flesh of Christ. In the present, God continues in his sacramental action to use located
means that partake of his material creation in order to deliver the benefits won in
the incarnation. God has acted in this incarnational and sacramental manner—and
Scripture is absolutely clear that this action is moving towards a goal.
The goal of the Christian faith:
Christ’s return and the day of judgment
Scripture is absolutely clear that God’s saving action is moving towards the goal
of Christ’s return and the day of judgment. It leaves no doubt that this is the goal of
the Christian faith. In order to get a sense of this, I have provided in the footnotes
below an extensive—though by no means absolutely comprehensive—listing of biblical
texts that deal with the return of Christ (often called the day of Christ) 40 and the day
of judgment.41
The initial thing to note is the sheer volume of material that speaks in this way.
Every book of the New Testament, except for Galatians, Philemon, 2 John and 3 John,
contain explicit eschatological statements like these—and often they contain multiple
examples.42
This emphasis on Christ’s return begins with our Lord himself. He tells his followers: “For this reason you also be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour
when you do not think he will” (Mt 24:44).43 It is what the angels said after the ascension: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been
taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched
him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). The authors of the New Testament took this to
heart. Again and again in their writings they point their readers towards the return of
Christ.44 The New Testament points forward to Christ’s return and it is clear about what
he will do when he arrives—he will judge. Preaching on the Areopagus, Paul called his
hearers to repentance because God “has fixed a day in which he will judge the world
in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to
all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31; cf. 10:42). In 2 Timothy 4 Paul
describes Christ as “the righteous judge” (o` di,kaioj krith,j; 2 Tm 4:8) who is to judge
the living and the dead (4:1) and he says in 2 Corinthians 5 that we must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ (e;mprosqen tou/ bh,matoj tou/ Cristou/; 2 Cor 5:10).
The Apostles’ Creed summarizes a central biblical thought when it states, “And he will
come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.”
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As Lutherans, there should be nothing more natural for us than to talk about
Christ’s return and the day of judgment. After all, as Stephen Westerholm has recently
demonstrated anew, the Pauline texts that support our doctrine of justification are all
grounded in the event of the final eschatological judgment.45 Those who have been
justified and have peace with God (Rom 5:1) already know that they will be declared
righteous on the day of judgment when Christ returns.46 Therefore, to speak about justification is to speak about Christ’s return and judgment on the last day.
The “intermediate state”
Scripture is clear that God’s action is moving towards the goal of Christ’s return
on the last day. However, this does not leave us in uncertainty about the condition of
those believers who die before Christ returns. God’s word says very little about this
particular situation, but what it does say is very comforting. As Paul contemplated the
possibility of his own death, he wrote in Philippians 1:23 that he had “the desire to
depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better.”47 Since in death we depart to
be with Christ and no longer face the challenges of living in this fallen world, Paul also
wrote: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).48
Scripture leaves us in no doubt, but it also speaks very rarely about this situation.49
This scarcity stands in dramatic contrast to the repeated and numerous references to
Christ’s return and the day of judgment. The focus of the New Testament and its primary eschatological concern is not the question about what happens to believers when
they die. Instead, its focus and primary eschatological concern is the return of Jesus
Christ on the last day.50
The goal of the Christian faith: The resurrection of the body
The return of Jesus Christ on the last day is the focus and primary eschatological
concern because, in addition to the day of judgment, Jesus’ return will also be the occasion for the resurrection of the body. Paul comforted the Thessalonians, not by telling
them that the souls of their dead loved ones were now with Christ, but rather by assuring them that when Jesus returns, “the dead in Christ will rise” (oi` nekroi. evn Cristw/|
avnasth,sontai) (1 Thes 4:16). In 1 Corinthians 15 he affirms that it will be a resurrection of the body and asserts that in the resurrection we will receive a “spiritual body”
(sw/ma pneumatiko,n) (15:44). This is not the denial of a physical or material body, but
rather, as scholarship has demonstrated, it is a body transformed for eschatological life
directed by the Holy Spirit.51 Paul indicates that this change will occur for all believers, both the living and the dead, when he says, “we will not all sleep, but we will all
be changed” (pa,ntej ouv koimhqhso,meqa( pa,ntej de. avllaghso,meqa) (1 Cor 15:51; cf.
15:52).
The physical and material nature of the resurrection is confirmed by Paul’s statement in Philippians 3:21. There Paul affirms that we are eagerly awaiting Jesus Christ,
“who will transform the body of our humble state (metaschmati,sei to. sw/ma th/j
tapeinw,sewj h`mw/n) into conformity with the body of his glory (su,mmorfon tw/| sw,mati
th/j do,xhj auvtou/) by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to
himself.” Paul tells us that the resurrection of Jesus Christ provides the model for our
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52 When we consider Jesus’ resurrection, we find that our Lord says
own resurrection.
in Luke 24:39, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me and see, for a
spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”53 Since this is the model
for our own resurrection we learn that while there will be transformation and change,54
it will be a physical and material existence.55
As we consider the resurrection of the material body, we must bear in mind the
central truth that it is the restoration of God’s original intention for human existence.
We see here the second presupposition of the biblical worldview, that a human being
is comprised of a body and a soul joined in a unity. Anything other than this does not
match God’s created intention and is not “very good.” Simply stated, a body buried in
the ground and a soul present with Christ is not the goal. Instead, the goal of God’s
action matches his original created intention, and that is a person who is the unity of
body and soul joined together.56
This point becomes particularly clear in Romans 8. As we have seen, Paul says
in 8:21 that creation will be freed from the slavery of corruption that now exists as a
result of the fall. He then states in verses 22–23, “For we know that the whole creation
groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but
also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” Paul
says that like creation itself, we too are groaning in expectation as we wait for God’s
restoration.57
The important thing to note is what Paul identifies as “the adoption of sons”
(ui`oqesi,an). In Galatians 4:4–6 Paul says that the Son of God entered into the world in
order to redeem us from the curse of the law (cf. 3:13) and so give us the adoption of
sons. It is a present reality that we already have—a fact demonstrated by the presence
of the Spirit within us crying “Abba, Father.” Yet here in Romans 8:23, Paul describes
the adoption of sons as something that we do not yet possess. According to Paul, we will
not possess it until one event occurs—the redemption of our body (th.n avpolu,trwsin
tou/ sw,matoj h`mw/n). In one sense we have already received the adoption of sons, yet
in another and final sense we don’t have it yet—and won’t until the resurrection of the
body.
The goal of the Christian faith: The restoration of creation
Scripture teaches us that when Christ returns on the last day he will give us
transformed and resurrected bodies. There is a very good reason for this. We have seen
that in the beginning, we were created as a unity of body and soul in order to live in the
good creation that God had made. We were created to live on earth. In the eschatological future we will still need bodies because we will be living in the restored creation.58
As N.T. Wright has commented on the faith of first century A.D. Judaism (that was
based on the Old Testament and served as the milieu in which the New Testament
was written), “Thus the Jews who believed in resurrection did so as one part of a larger
belief in the renewal of the whole created order.”59
We read in Isaiah 65:17, “For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth (hv’'d"’x] #r,a’'w”" ~yvid’"x] ~yIm;v’' areAb) and the former things shall not be remembered or
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mind” (cf. Is 66:22). When Isaiah goes on to describe this new heavens and
come to
new earth, he does so by describing Jerusalem.60 He concludes his description by saying, “‘The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox;
and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil or harm in all my holy mountain,’ says Yahweh” (65:25).61 This description of the animals obviously echoes what
11:6–9 had said about the messianic age.62
Joel ends in a similar fashion. After the eschatological judgment at the beginning
of chapter 3 (3:1–2, 12–14), Yahweh dwells in Zion on his holy mountain (3:17). Then
we hear in 3:18, “And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills
will flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah will flow with water. And a spring will
go out from the house of Yahweh to water the valley of Shittim.”63 The spring coming
out of the house of Yahweh in Joel 3:18 is a picture of the Garden of Eden restored.64
This is even more explicit in both Ezekiel 47:1–12 and Zechariah 14:8–11.65
Eschatological language of this type presents a challenge.66 On the one hand, we
have already seen that Old Testament language about the temple and Zion has been
fulfilled in Christ. We are therefore justified if we are cautious about reading this in
overly literal fashion.
On the other hand, if we believe that Genesis 1–2 narrates real events—as surely
the prophets also believed—then we should not be surprised to find that the prophets depict the future in terms of the current creation and, specifically, in terms of the
Garden of Eden. According to Genesis 1–2, God created the earth as the place where
people lived and therefore it seems natural that the prophets would describe a restored
earth—or even a restored Eden—as the future goal of Yahweh’s reign. We must certainly allow for discontinuity, metaphor, and poetic hyperbole. But at the same time, we
must not discount the profound continuity with God’s action in creation. When we read
the Old Testament, the only future it leads us to expect is some kind of restored creation.67 It should not be surprising then that this is precisely the outlook we find in the
Jewish apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple period.68 We have seen that Isaiah 65:17 speaks of “a new heavens and a new earth”(cf.
66:22). The New Testament helps us to understand that the adjective “new” means the
miraculous transformation and renewal of the current creation. Just as in the consideration of the Fall’s impact on creation, the key text demonstrating the restoration of
creation is Romans 8:18–23. There Paul says that although creation has been subjected
to futility and the slavery of corruption, it eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons of
God (8:19). Paul adds in 8:22 that “the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of
childbirth together until now” (h` kti,sij sustena,zei kai. sunwdi,nei a;cri tou/ nu/n).
Creation longs for this future event because, as Paul has already said in 8:21, “creation
itself (auvth. h` kti,sij) also will be set free from its slavery of corruption into the freedom of the children of God.” Paul is quite clear that it is not some other creation that
will enjoy this outcome, but rather “creation itself ” (auvth. h` kti,sij), the same creation that
now suffers as a result of the Fall. This is clear evidence that the current creation will
be restored and renewed.69
Further confirmation of this restoration is found in Revelation 21. In 21:1 John
writes, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth (ouvrano.n kaino.n kai. gh/n kainh,n);
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for the first heaven and the first earth passed away (o` ga.r prw/toj ouvrano.j kai. h`
prw,th gh/ avph/lqan), and there is no longer any sea.” Shortly after this John writes
in 21:5, “And he who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’ ”
(kaina. poiw/ pa,nta). Revelation 21:5s statement about God “making all things new”
indicates that “the passing away” of the first heavens and first earth in 21:1 is the cessation of its fallen state.70 Both Romans 8 and Revelation 21 teach us that creation will
be transformed and re–created.71 We learn that the creation which was very good in the
beginning will be very good once again.72
Conclusion
Scripture teaches us that when God had finished his material creation, he saw
that it was very good (Gn 1:31). This basic evaluation has been reflected in all of God’s
continuing action in which he has dealt with sin’s consequences for humanity and creation. God entered the creation in the incarnation and continues to use the material
creation in the sacraments in order to deliver the benefits of the incarnation. God’s
incarnational and sacramental actions are moving towards the goal in which once again
his creation will be very good—fully freed from sin and its impact. It will be a new
heavens and a new earth—a material creation that no longer bears the curse of the
Fall. When Christ returns on the last day he will carry out the resurrection of the body.
God’s restored creation will be the place where once again the people he created as a
unity of body and soul will live in that intended unity before him. We find that from a
biblical perspective, only by emphasizing the importance of the material creation in the
Christian faith can we fully understand who we are, what God has done for us, what
God is doing now, and the goal towards which all of God’s saving work is moving.
Endnotes
1 We find the material creation in all three articles of the Nicene Creed. In the First Article we confess
faith in one God, the Father almighty who is the “maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.” In the Second Article we confess that the Son of God became flesh when we say that he “was incarnate by
the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man.” In the Third Article we confess the water of Baptism when
we state that it is “for the remission of sins” and we then go on to confess the resurrection of the body as we say
that we “look for the resurrection of the dead.”
2 There are of course others. For example, these chapters demonstrate the distinction between creator and
creation that speaks against all forms of pantheism.
3 The formula used on the previous six occasions is modified in three ways to emphasize the perfection
and goodness of the final work. First, it is applied to the whole creation (“all that he had made”) instead of to individual items. Second, instead of the simple “that” (yKi), we have “behold” (hNEhi). And finally, instead of the simple
“good” we have “very good” (daom. bAj) (Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15 [Waco: Word Books, Publisher, 1987],
34). All biblical translations are from the New American Standard Bible (1995).
4 This assessment of very good was God’s attitude toward the material creation before the Fall, and he
continues to value and care for his material creation after the Fall. God’s continuing care for and interest in his
material creation shows up in a rather striking manner in Genesis 9. God does not only preserve humanity in
Noah’s ark during the flood in chapters 6–8. He also preserves the living creatures of his material creation and
brings about restoration after the Flood. It has been noted that re–creation in chapters 8–9 parallels the process
of creation in Genesis 1 (see the discussion of parallels in Wenham, Genesis 1–15, pg. 207). We often speak about
God’s covenant with Noah in chapter 9 as God gives the sign of the rainbow. However, this specificity is inaccurate since God’s covenant is also made with creation itself. In the course of various formulations, on four occasions
God says that he is making the covenant with Noah and his human descendants (9:9, 11, 12, 15). On four occasions God says that he is making the covenant with all the living creatures (9:10, 12, 15, 16). On one occasion God
says that he is making the covenant with the earth (9:13) and in the final instance God says he is making it with “all
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flesh” (9:17).
Even after the Fall, God continues to consider his material creation to be important and is concerned
about its well being.
5 The vocabulary of 2:7 does not by itself explicitly refer to the soul (C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, The
Pentateuch, vol. 1 of Commentary on the Old Testament [Repr.; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1985], 78–80).
However, the interpretation is confirmed as we read Gen 2:7 in the light of the rest of the biblical witness (cf. Mt
10:28).
6 “Do not fear those who kill the body [to. sw/ma], but are unable to kill the soul [th.n yuch.n]; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Davies and Allison comment on Matthew 10:28:
“yuch,n is here the disembodied ‘soul’ which can survive bodily death and later be reunited with a resurrected
body” (W.C. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew,
vol. 1 [London: T&T Clark International, 1991] , 206).
7 Cf. Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1950), 475–77.
Pieper observes that “nearly all the older Lutheran dogmaticians teach dichotomy” (pg. 477). See the sampling of
Lutheran dogmaticians in Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (3d ed., rev.; trans.
Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs; Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1899), 165–68. It should be noted
that the dichotomous view is held by the catholic tradition in general (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church [Rome:
Urbi et Orbi Communications, 1994], 92–94).
8 It is widely recognized that this statement by Paul is not intended as an anthropological definition (see:
Charles A. Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text [Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans, 1990], 206–207; Abraham J. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction
and Commentary [New York: Doubleday, 2000], 338–39).
9 God tells Adam to “fill the earth” (Gn 1:28). As Prenter comments, “The picture of the created world,
furthermore, is the picture of the world as man’s home where he encounters God and his neighbor” (Regin
Prenter, Creation and Redemption [trans. Theodor I. Jensen; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967], 245).
10 Gowan concludes on the basis of Genesis 1:29–30 and 2:9 that “in neither passage is any place made
for killing in God’s good creation” (Donald E. Gowan, Eschatology in the Old Testament [Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1986], 99). He goes on to observe regarding Genesis 9:3–4, “The right to kill and eat meat has thus been given to
them by God, but it is part of life in a fallen world, not of the world as God made it, and furthermore, it is not
given without restrictions” (ibid).
11 Anticipating the treatment of eschatology in the final section of this article, we note that it is not surprising, therefore, that when Isaiah describes the messianic future he does so in terms of a creation where animals
live at peace with one another (Is 11:6–9; cf. 65:25; Hos 2:18).
12 NASB modified.
13 “He realizes that through Adam came not only sin and death (5:12–14) but ‘bondage to decay’ and
the ‘slavery of corruption,’ which affect all material creation, even apart from humanity (8:19–23)” (Joseph A.
Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [New York: Doubleday, 1993], 505 [emphasis
his]).
14 Naturally, the loss of the image of God (Gn 1:26–27; 5:3) is the most fundamental result.
15 The phrase “and he died” (Gn 5:5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 27, 31) resounds throughout Genesis 5 as Moses
recounts Adam’s lineage.
16 Sasse observes, “According to the doctrine of the resurrection, death is not simply the passing of the
soul from one form of existence to another, as in India and among the Greeks (although it is that too), but death is
the abhorrent disintegration of a human being. This way of looking at things does not make dying easy, but hard.
The aim of the philosophical doctrine of immortality is to make dying easy, but the doctrine of the resurrection
takes death with complete seriousness” (Hermann Sasse, “Jesus Christ is Lord: The Church’s Original Confession”
in We Confess Jesus Christ [trans. Norman Nagel; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1984], 9–35, 19).
17 For example: Exodus 25:9; 40:35.
18 Joel 3:16–17, 21; Micah 4:2, 7; Zechariah 8:3.
19 “Body” and “flesh” refer to the same reality of the incarnation, but I will retain the use of both to
reflect the variety of biblical usage (Body: Mt 26:12; 27:58–59; Mk 14:8; 15:43; Lk 23:52, 55; 24:3, 23; Jn 2:21;
19:38, 40; 20:12; Rom 7:4; Eph 2:16; Col 2:9 Heb 10:10; Flesh: Lk 24:39; Jn 1:14; 1 Tm 3:16; Heb 2:14; 1 Pt 3:18; 1
Jn 4:2; 2 Jn 1:7).
20 Some manuscripts have “died” (avpe,qanen) instead of “suffered” (e;paqen). See the discussion in Bruce
M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed; New York: American Bible Society, 1994),
622–23.
21 Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25; 5:9; Ephesians 1:7; 2:13; Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 9:14; 10:19; 12:24; 13:12; 1
Peter 1:2, 19; 1 John 1:7; Revelation 1:5; 5:9; 7:14 ; 12:11.
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258
22 As the Small Catechism states in its explanation of the Second Article of the Creed: “who has redeemed
me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the
devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death” (Martin
Luther, Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation [St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1986]) (all quotations of
the Small Catechism will be taken from this translation).
23 For a defense of translating h;ggiken as “has arrived” see Jeffrey A. Gibbs, Jerusalem and Parousia: Jesus’
Eschatological Discourse in Matthew’s Gospel (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2000), 35–38.
24 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 2 Mentor, Message and Miracles (New
York: Doubleday, 1994), 240.
25 Cf. Matt 12:28: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come
upon you (e;fqasen evfV u`ma/j).”
26 Note that in Mark 2:1–12 Jesus first forgives the paralytic’s sins and then heals him, demonstrating the
link between sin and illness in general. Sasse comments, “Jesus was not only the Savior of souls, but also the good
physician. His miracles of healing are part and parcel of His activity as Savior of the world. They accompanied His
preaching, just as the preaching of the Church is accompanied by the sacraments. Like the sacraments, they have
an eschatological meaning in so far as they are an anticipation of the future redemption of the whole man, body
and soul (Mt 11:5; Lk 4:18; 1 Cor 15:42ff.; Rv 21:4)” (Hermann Sasse, This Is My Body: Luther’s Contention for the Real
Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar [Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1959], 186).
27 Matthew 8:29: “And they cried out, saying, ‘What business do we have with each other, Son of God?
Have you come here to torment us before the time (pro. kairou/)?’ ”
28 J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1980), 152.
29 Cf. Revelation 1:5 “first born of the dead” (o` prwto,tokoj tw/n nekrw/n).
30 In his resurrection, Jesus Christ is the beginning of the new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15) which is
already present and awaits its consummation when he returns on the last day.
31 Because this article is focusing on the material creation, I will only deal with Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper. Of course, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession leaves little doubt that Holy Absolution is also to be
considered a sacrament when it states, “Therefore, the sacraments are actually (vere) baptism, the Lord’s Supper,
and absolution (the sacrament of penance)” (XIII.4) (translation from Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds.,
The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000]; apart from
the Small Catechism, all quotations will be taken from this work). Absolution does involve the located means of
the pastor in the Office of the Ministry who when he offers “the Word of Christ or the sacraments” does so “in
the stead and place of Christ” (Christi vice et loco) (Ap. VII.28). Yet, it does not directly involve the material creation
as “some external, material or corporeal and visible element or sign (externum aliquod materiale seu corporale, et visible
elementum seu signum), which is handled, offered, and employed in a certain external rite” (Martin Chemnitz, The
Examination of the Council of Trent, vol. 2 [trans. Fred Kramer; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1978], 38)
in the same way that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper do (cf. the Large Catechism: “We must now say something
about the two sacraments [zweien Sakramenten], instituted by Christ”; IV.1).
32 See David P. Scaer’s helpful discussion in, “Sacraments as Affirmation of Creation” Concordia Theological
Quarterly 57 (1993): 241–64.
33 Sasse comments on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper: “They are also not only illustrations of the Gospel,
the visible Word of Christ and the guarantee of his promise, but they are special modes of God’s working in which
his Word uses earthly elements in order to present redemption to our whole person, body and soul” (Herman
Sasse, “The Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church” in Scripture and the Church: Selected Essays of Hermann Sasse [eds.
Jeffrey J. Kloha and Ronald R. Feuerhahn; Concordia Seminary Monograph Series 2; Chelsea, MI: BookCrafters,
1995], 3–14, 6, emphasis original). As Sasse writes elsewhere regarding this eschatological character of the sacraments: “Whatever human reason might think of such connection, Luther knew that according to Holy Scripture
not only the human soul, but also the human body, is the object of God’s redemption” (This Is My Body, 186).
34 “No Christian of the Reformation, apart from the followers of the Reformation at Zurich and Geneva,
could conceive of a Sunday divine service without the Lord’s Supper, just as already in the church of the New
Testament there was no Lord’s Day without the Lord’s Supper” (Herman Sasse, “The Lord’s Supper in the
Lutheran Church” in We Confess The Sacraments [trans. Norman Nagel; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,
1985], 98–112, 99).
35 The Small Catechism states in its explanation to the Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His Holy Word
and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.”
259
36 The Large Catechism correctly grasps this when it states, “The coming of God’s kingdom to us takes
place in two ways: first, it comes here in time, through Word and faith, and second, in eternity, it comes through
the final revelation” (III.53).
37 Matthew 26:29: “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day
when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”; cf. Mark 14:25; Luke 22:16.
38 For a full discussion of the Lord’s Supper’s eschatological character, see: Geoffrey Wainwright,
Eucharist and Eschatology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).
39 Luther states in the Large Catechism: “We must never regard the sacrament as a harmful thing from
which we should flee, but as a pure, wholesome, soothing medicine that aids you and gives life in both soul and
body. For where the soul is healed, the body is healed as well” (V.68). He writes in “That These Words of Christ,
‘This is My Body,’ Etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics”: “Again, Irenaeus says that our bodies even now are
no longer corruptible when they receive the sacrament, but have thereby the hope of resurrection. For we see that
the ancient doctors spoke of the sacrament in such a way that it even bestowed upon the body an immortal nature,
though hidden in faith until the last day” (Martin Luther, Word and Sacrament III, vol. 37 of Luther’s Works [ed. and
trans. Robert H. Fischer; Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1961], 118). Chemnitz cites various church fathers who
held this view (Martin Chemnitz, The Lord’s Supper [trans. J.A.O. Preus; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,
1979], 168–71). See Nagel’s discussion in: Norman E. Nagel, “Medicine of Immortality & Antidote against Death,”
Logia—A Journal of Lutheran Theology 4 (1995): 31–36).
40 Christ returns/The Day of Christ: Mt 19:28–29; 24:3; 24:36–25:31; 26:29; Mk 8:38; 13:32–37; 14:25; Lk
9:26;12:35–48; 19:11–27; 22:16, 18; Jn 14:3, 28; Acts 1:11; 3:20–21; Rom 13:11–12; 1 Cor 1:7–8; 4:5; 11:26; 15:23;
16:22; Eph 4:30; Phil 1:6; 2:16; 3:20; 4:5; Col 3:4; 1 Thes 1:10; 3:13; 4:13–18; 5:1–4; 5:23; 2 Thes 1:7; 1:10; 2:1–2;
1 Tm 6:14–15; 2 Tm 4:1; 4:8; Ti 2:13; Heb 9:28; 10:36–37; Jas 5:7–9; 1 Pt 1:5, 7, 13; 2:12; 4:7, 13; 5:4; 2 Pt 1:19;
3:3–4, 10, 12, 14; 1 Jn 2:28; 3:2; Jude 21; Rv 1:7; 3:11; 16:15; 22:7, 12, 17, 20.
41 The Day of Judgment: Mt 3:7, 10, 12; 7:21–22; 8:29; 10:15; 11:22–24; 12:36; 41–42; 13:24–30, 36–43,
47–50; 25:31–46; Lk 3:9, 17; 10:14; 11:31–32; Jn 5:27; Acts 10:42; 17:31; 24:25; Rom 2:3, 5–13, 16; 3:6; 14:10, 12; 1
Cor 3:12–15; 4:5; 11:32; 2 Cor 5:10; Col 3:6; 1 Thes 1:10; 2 Thes 1:6–10; 2 Tm 4:1, 8; Heb 9:27; 10:26–27; 13:4; Jas
5:9; 2 Pt 2:9; 3:7; 1 Jn 4:17; Rv 6:9–10; 11:18; 14:7, 14–20; 20:11–15.
42 In truth, Galatians does have future eschatological references in 5:5’s statement that we are awaiting
(avpekdeco,meqa) the “hope of righteousness” and in 5:21’s statement that those who carry out the works of the
flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 6:9 and that letter’s corresponding statements about Christ’s
return and the Day of Judgment). In the case of Philemon, 2 John and 3 John the absence is not surprising given
the brevity of the letters and the specificity of their content.
43 Cf. Matthew 24:42; 25:13. He describes himself as a master who returns (Mt 24:45–51), a bridegroom
who arrives (Mt 25:1–13), and a man on a journey who returns (Mt 25:14–30). For a perceptive discussion of these
texts and the Eschatological Discourse in Matthew as a whole, see Gibbs, Jerusalem and Parousia, 167–253.
44 Christ is the One who is going to “come” (e;rcomai) (1 Cor 4:5; 11:26; 2 Thes 1:10; Heb 10:37; Rv
1:7; 3:11; 16:15; 22:7, 12, 20). The texts point toward his “coming” (parousi,a) (Mt 24:3; 1Cor 15:23; 1 Thes 2:19;
3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thes 2:1; Jas 5:7–8; 2 Pt 3:4; 1 Jn 2:28), his “revelation” (avpoka,luyij) (1 Cor 1:7; 2 Thes 1:7; 1
Pt 1:7, 13; 4:13) and his “appearance” (evpifa,neia) (1 Tm 6:14; 2 Tm 4:1, 8; Ti 2:13). They speak of the time when
he will “appear” or “be revealed” (fanero,w) (Col 3:4; 1 Pt 5:4; 1 Jn 2:28; 3:2). The texts point towards the day of
Christ (1 Cor 1:8; Phil 1:6; 2:16), the day of the Lord (1 Thes 5:2; 2 Pet 3:10), the day of redemption (Eph 4:30),
the day of visitation (1 Pt 2:12) or simply “the day” (1 Cor 3:13; 2 Tm 4:8).
45 Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans, 2004), 261–96.
46 “Declare righteous” is Westerholm’s suggestion for the translation of dikaio,w (ibid., 286).
sson.
47
th.n evpiqumi,an e;cwn eivj to. avnalu/sai kai. su.n Cristw/| ei=nai( pollw/| Îga.rÐ ma/llon krei/
48
Paul also says in 2 Corinthians 5:8 that we prefer to be at home with the Lord (evndhmh/sai pro.j to.n
ku,rion).
49 Regularly cited verses that in some way speak about the intermediate state include: Ps 49:15; 73:24; Lk
16:22–26; 23:43; Acts 7:59; Phil 1:21, 23; 2 Cor 5:8–9; Heb 12:22–23; Rv 6:9–11.
50 This is by no means a new observation, nor should it be considered controversial. Pieper writes,
“Holy Writ reveals but little of the state of the souls between death and the resurrection. In speaking of the last
things, it directs our gaze primarily to Judgment Day and the events clustering around it” (Francis Pieper, Christian
Dogmatics, vol. 3 [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953], 511). For a thought provoking discussion of this
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260
fact and some of its implications, see: Jeffrey A. Gibbs, “Regaining Biblical Hope: Restoring the Prominence of the
Parousia,” Concordia Journal 27 [2001]: 310–22).
51 Wright comments: “They will have a soma pneumatikon, a body animated by, enlivened by, the Spirit of
the true God, exactly as Paul has said more extensively in several other passages. This helps to provide a satisfactory explanation for why he has honed in on this unique phrase at this point in the chapter. It is the most elegant
way he can find of saying both that the new body is the result of the Spirit’s work (answering ‘how does it come
to be?’) and that is the appropriate vessel for the Spirit’s life (answering ‘what sort of a thing is it?’) (N.T. Wright,
The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003),
354; emphasis original). Fee (Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987],
786) and Witherington (Ben Witherington III, Conflict & Community in Corinth: A Socio–Rhetorical Commentary on 1
and 2 Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994], 308) arrive at similar conclusions. See the perceptive discussion in Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 312–61 and in Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the
Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 1275–1280.
52 O’Brien states, “His resurrection is the guarantee of their resurrection, and his resurrected body is the
prototype and paradigm of theirs” (Peter T. O’Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 465).
53 In the same way, in John 20 he invites Thomas to touch him (Jn 20:26–27).
54 Cf. Jesus’ statements about marriage at the resurrection: Matthew 22:23–32; Mark 12:18–27; Luke
20:27–38
55 In order to capture this, Wright has coined the phrase “transphysical” (The Resurrection of the Son of God,
477–78). By this he seeks to put “a label on the demonstrable fact that the early Christians envisaged a body which
was still robustly physical but also significantly different from the present one” (ibid.). One consideration that we
must bear in mind is that at the present we only know what a material existence looks like in a fallen world.
56 This fact is often not adequately recognized in funeral sermons. See the comments in Jeffrey A. Gibbs,
“Five Things you Should Not Say at Funerals,” Concordia Journal 29 (2003): 363–66.
57 Paul says that even now we have “the first fruits of the Spirit” (th.n avparch.n tou/ pneu,matoj).
According to Paul, the presence of the Spirit in us guarantees our resurrection, for as he has just said in 8:11, “But
if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will
also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
58 “The nonhuman cosmos is not an indifferent appendage to the human existence. It is given to man
by the continual goodness of God as a place in which to live. Therefore, the resurrection hope is also a hope of a
regenerated world” (Prenter, Creation and Redemption, 578) (emphasis original).
59 N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, vol. 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 332.
60 It will be a place where people live full lives (65:20); a place where people will build houses and
plant vineyards (65:21–22). Gowan notes that Jerusalem and Zion are the center of Old Testament eschatology
(Eschatology in the Old Testament, 4–20).
61 NASB modified.
62 Cf. Hosea 2:18.
63 Cf. Amos 9:13.
64 Hummel notes that “v. 18 features the same picture of the waters of life in paradise restored which we
meet in Ezekiel 47; Zechariah 14; John 7; Revelation 22; etc” (The Word Becoming Flesh, 306).
65 As Hummel comments on the Ezekiel passage: “We obviously have here not only a visionary depiction
of a ‘new creation’ in general, but specifically of paradise restored with its four-streamed river (Gn 2:10), the river
of life” (ibid., 282).
66 For a discussion of some of the complexities, see, G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 243–71.
67 “Old Testament eschatology is a worldly home. The OT does not scorn, ignore, or abandon the kind
of life which human beings experience in this world in favor of speculation concerning some other, better place
or form of existence, to be hoped for after death or achieved before death through meditation and spiritual exercises. This sets the OT in sharp contrast to Gnosticism, to the otherworldly emphases that often have appeared
in Christianity, and to the concepts of salvation taught by Hinduism and Buddhism” (Gowan, Eschatology in the Old
Testament, 122).
68 The Similitudes of Enoch describe how God will “transform the earth and make it a blessing” (1 En.
45:5). Both 4 Ezra (7:75) and 2 Baruch (32:6) state that God will “renew creation.” In Jubilees we hear about “the
day of the new creation when the heaven and earth and all of their creatures shall be renewed” (1:29). These texts
261
are important
because they illustrate the expectation that was common in Jewish apocalyptic eschatology – the
same background shared by the New Testament (all translations taken from James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha [2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983, 1985]). As Russell comments, “The redemption
which God will bring about will involve not only man himself and not only the nation of Israel, but also the whole
created universe. The usurped creation will be restored; the corrupted universe will be cleansed; the created world
will be re-created. Thus, throughout these writings, there is a close relationship between God’s act of creation and
his act of redemption” (D.S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic [Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press, 1964], 280).
69 Wright correctly observes, “The marginalization of this part of Romans 8 in much exegesis down
through the years has robbed Christian imagination of this extraordinary picture of the future; only by restoring it
to its rightful place—which is, after all, in Paul’s build up to the climax of the central section of his most important
letter!—can we understand the larger picture within which his vision of resurrection makes sense” (The Resurrection
of the Son of God, 258).
70 Note that the same verb, avpe,rcomai, is used in 21:4 where those things associated with the fallen state
such as death, mourning, crying and pain have passed away. As Brighton has observed, 21:5’s statement, “I am
making all things new” “refers to all that God had originally created, ‘the heavens and the earth’ (Gn 1:1), which
are transformed into the ‘new heaven’ and ‘new earth’ that John sees here in Revelation 21” (Louis A. Brighton,
Revelation [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999], 600). Bauckham (Richard J. Bauckham, The Theology of
the Book of Revelation [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993], 49–50), Caird (G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St.
John the Divine [New York: Harper and Row, 1966], 265–66) and Ladd (George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the
Revelation of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972], 276, 278) take the same view.
71 Lenski is quite correct when he comments on Revelation 21, “Combine what is here said with Rom. 8,
and the answer is plain” (R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Revelation [Columbus: Wartburg Press, 1943],
615]. Jesus’s statement in Matthew 19:28 provides further confirmation. There we hear Jesus say to his disciples,
“Truly I say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration (evn th/| paliggenesi,a|) when the Son
of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Here palingenesi,a refers “to the eschatological renewal of the world at the end of the present age”(Donald A.
Hagner, Matthew 14–28 [Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995], 565). This should come as no surprise, since
Jesus states in the third eschatological beatitude that the meek will inherit the earth (Mt 5:5).
72 2 Peter 3:13 also refers to the new heavens and new earth. The ultimate goal remains the same — a
creation in which human beings live. However, the context of 2 Peter 3:7–12 leading up to this verse indicates
that the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire (3:7). The text has often been understood as saying
that the creation will be annihilated as it burned up (3:10, 12) and then a completely new and different creation will
arrive. This is not, however, the only viable reading. Bauckham argues strongly that 2 Peter describes a renewal
and not an annihilation of the present creation: “The cosmic dissolution described in vv 10, 12 was a return to the
primeval chaos, as in the Flood (3:6), so that a new creation may emerge (cf. Ezr 7:30–31). Such passages emphasize the radical discontinuity between the old and new, but it is nevertheless clear that they intend to describe a
renewal, not an abolition, of creation (cf. 1 Enoch 54:4–5; Rom 8:21)” (Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter [Waco:
Word Books, Publisher, 1983], 326; see his discussion on pgs. 303–21). 2 Peter 3 is a very challenging text on both
textual (at 3:10 there is disagreement in the manuscript tradition about what will happen to the earth and the works
in it; for a discussion of the textual issue, see: Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 636–37)
and interpretive grounds (the terms being discussed in 3:7, 10, 12 vary and there is the question of whether the
stoicei/a are “elements” or “celestial bodies”; for a discussion of the issues see: J.N.D. Kelly, A Commentary on
the Epistles of Peter and Jude [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969], 364; Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 315–16). When considering 2 Peter 3, there are two points to bear in mind. First, we should not lose sight of the fact that the picture
elsewhere in Scripture is one of the transformation and renewal of creation. Second, and just as important, is the
fact that 2 Peter is antilegomena (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.25.3). Within the Lutheran dogmatic tradition, it
therefore cannot be used to set forth a teaching that clearly contradicts Romans 8 (see Chemnitz’s statement of
the Lutheran position regarding antilegomena books in, Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, vol. 1
[trans. Fred Kramer; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971], 189; quoted by Pieper: Christian Dogmatics, vol.
1, 335). 2 Peter 3 should be interpreted within the framework of Romans 8 and the other Old and New Testament
texts that indicate a transformation and renewal of creation. If we wish to press the individual details, then 2 Peter
3 indicates that the transformation may be a violent event in which creation is burned out, melted, and the remainder (much like a decayed human body) becomes the basis for the transformation into the new creation.
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Getting Our Bearings
Wendell Berry and Christian Understanding
Joel Kurz
A few months after ordination and installation into parish ministry, as I struggled
to grow into the vocation I had seen my father wrestle with and carry out my whole
life, I penned a letter to the writer who has shaped me more than anyone else—
Wendell Berry. A prolific author, a humble and wise reader of scripture, and a careful
tender of creation, he promptly displayed a generosity that I have seen repeatedly from
him over the years. Through more letters than I should have troubled him with, he has
graced me in return with words beyond the bounds of his books—words by which he
has served as a spiritual director, or dare I even say, bishop, to me. That might be troubling to some, knowing that he is an occasionally-attending Baptist who has trouble
with the Church as institution, so let me focus on why Wendell Berry matters and how
he can help us orient ourselves to a fuller understanding of what it means to be and live
in this world as believers and followers of Christ.
I have come to see over the past number of years that Christian is an extremely
limited word precisely because of its expansiveness and easy application to practically
anything and everything. One only has to think of a Christian toothbrush or assault rifle
emblazoned with select words from the New Testament, or of visual art and music so
labeled because it was made by someone so defined, or of Christianity seen as inseparable from American identity. Commonly held definitions of what is Christian generally
have more in common with early heresies than with early Christianity. But the term
is not incapable of redemption or reinvestment. Here is Berry’s seminal contribution:
articulating and embodying an understanding of Christian existence that is creational,
vocational, and communal.
Flowing from the firmly grounded life in the rural Kentucky community he has
known since childhood, Berry’s written works challenge us to think and act in ways that
reflect what it means to be fellow creatures who share a realm established as “very good”
from the very beginning and what it means to exist as a wounded creation in light of
the creating and restoring Christ. Waiting to speak to Berry at a conference on the relation of people and nature a number of years ago, I heard him say to the person in front
of me, “Remember, we are a fallen people.” To the blunt response, “But I don’t believe
Joel Kurz is the pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Warrensburg,
Missouri, which is currently in the midst of its community herb and vegetable
gardens’ third growing season and has begun a nature trail through its patch of
woods; a summary of the project can be found at www.practicingourfaith.org.
263
that!” Berry spoke this simple, yet pointed, rejoinder: “Then where else does all of this
evil come from?” He gave an important reminder in the book he was completing at
that time, “Adam was the first, but not the last, to choose for the whole human race.” 1
In an essay which addresses “the culpability of Christianity in the destruction of
the natural world,” Berry asserts this necessary recognition from the outset: “Belief in
Christ is thus dependent on prior belief in the inherent goodness—the lovability—of
the world.” 2 Amidst a largely abstracted and emptied conception of Jesus’s statement in
John’s Gospel about God’s love for the world, Berry declares this creedal corrective:
I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable,
it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and
indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness,
which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.3
Of benefit, therefore, in approaching his body of work is a deliberate reading of
Psalm 104, as well as close consideration of Colossians 1:15–20. For, in those texts we
see the coherence of creation as comprehended in Christ. Once the obscuring beam of
belittled belief and thoughtless behavior is out of our eye, we can behold with clarified
sight, as a renewed Adam, our relation to the wider creation. As Berry put it:
… it dawns on him that his life is a fact, whole and firm, risen up from
the ground among other lives. And he feels a blessedness and a joyousness
in that. He begins to trust in his own existence. He is a creature among
other creatures, and if the world promises him pain and grief and death, it
also promises him health and joy and life… . Knowing nothing but what is
circumstantial, he begins to live by a sort of faith in circumstance—a faith
that his life and the lives of the other creatures all belong together and
sustain each other within the life of the creation which is their order and
their blessing.4
What is essential for human beings (and especially Christians) to ask when
approaching the natural world as stewards and healers instead of as the wounders we
too frequently have been, are these basic questions: “1. What is here? 2. What will
nature permit us to do here? 3. What will nature help us to do here?” 5 This is the start of
finding our bearings within the context of created life, knowing our rightful place and
existing mindfully within it.
While it is true that we know created existence in our experience as broken and
disunited, we dare not ignore or dismiss the inherent unity that yet remains. If we do,
we not only separate God from creation, but goodness from it as well. In turn, we
wind up with a Gnostic understanding of Christianity that diminishes all things physical in favor of pure spirit. In opposition to this corrosive view, Berry states, “I believe
that creation is one continuous fabric comprehending simultaneously what we mean by
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264
‘spirit’ and what we mean by ‘matter.’ ”6 Yet, he acknowledges that the “dominant
tendency of our age is the breaking of faith and the making of divisions among things
that once were joined.”7 Writing of the world as “the confluence of soul and body,
word and flesh,” he goes on to add:
The Bible’s aim, as I read it, is not the freeing of the spirit from the world.
It is the handbook of their interaction. It says that they cannot be divided;
that their mutuality, their unity, is inescapable; that they are not reconciled
in division, but in harmony. What else can be meant by the resurrection of the body? The body should be “filled with light,” perfected in understanding.8
Because of this, Berry disparages use of the term, “the environment” (which
posits the view that what is around us is separate from us), affirming instead that “the
real state of things, of course, is far more complex and intimate … we are made of it;
we eat, drink, and breath it; it is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. It is also a
creation, a holy mystery… .” 9
Failure to acknowledge this foundational reality that the creator is not excerpted
from creation, that the holy is not divided from the world, Berry identifies as the
“great disaster of human history” which has transpired within and affected religious
faith.10 Herein is Berry’s criticism of Christianity, not as the biblical faith rooted in the
divine link between Earth and her Lord, but as “the institution” which separates body
from soul and abdicates this world in favor of the next. The inheritance of much that the
church has perpetuated over generations has been this:
… the life of the spirit is reduced to a dull preoccupation with getting to
Heaven. At best, the world is no more than an embarrassment and a trial
to the spirit, which is otherwise radically separated from it. The true lover
of God must not be burdened with any care or respect for His works.
While the body goes about its business of destroying the earth, the soul
is supposed to lie back and wait for Sunday, keeping itself free of earthly
contaminants… . As far as this sort of “religion” is concerned, the body
is no more than the lusterless container of the soul, a mere “package”
that will nevertheless light up in eternity, forever cool and shiny as a neon
cross. This separation of the soul from the body and the body from the
world is no disease of the fringe, no aberration, but a fracture that runs
through the mentality of institutional religion like a geologic fault.11
Speaking through the voice of the pre-ministerial student turned small-town
barber, grave-digger, and church-janitor in his novel Jayber Crow, Berry sets it forth
this way:
Everything bad was laid on the body and everything good was credited to
the soul… . But these preachers I’m talking about all thought that the soul
could do no wrong, but always had its face washed and it pants on and
was in agony over having to associate with the flesh and the world. And
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yet these same people believed in the resurrection of the body… . They
learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His
works—although they could tell you that this world had been made by
God Himself. What they didn’t see was that it is beautiful, and the some
of the greatest beauties are the briefest. They had imagined the church,
which is an organization, but not the world, which is an order and a mystery… . They made me see how cut off I was. Even when I was sitting in
the church, I was a man outside.12
By the end of the novel, Jayber comes to see himself as perhaps “the ultimate
Protestant, the man at the end of the Protestant road,” convinced that Christ came not
to found an organized religion but an unorganized one, carrying it “out of the temples
into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of rivers, into the
houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here.”13
“Nobody who has actually read the gospels could believe,” Berry asserts, that
biblical Christianity advocates the wanton decimation of nature; such a caricature
“ignores the very point of the Incarnation. It ignores Christ’s unfailing compassion for
sufferers” and the Bible’s clear declaration that an “absolute intimacy” exists between
God and all creatures.14 While humbly admitting that Christianity, “as usually presented
by its organizations, is not earthly enough,” he affirms that God, the giver, requires people to make use of the land in a way that is “faithful, grateful, and humble”—a way that
is elaborately neighborly and charitable, and therefore exempt from selfish gain. What
have been traditionally called sins, Berry explains insightfully, are not wrong because
“they are forbidden but because they divide us from our neighbors, from the world,
and ultimately from God.” 15 The truth to be divined from our ecological predicament
is this:
… in losing stewardship we lose fellowship; we become outcasts from the
great neighborhood of Creation… . To live, we must daily break the body
and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly,
skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do this ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.16
Amidst the brokenness of Creation, Berry calls us to see that wholeness can be
found, echoing the three questions, by understanding and orienting ourselves to our
proper place within it. In being so attuned, one will find that the Lord ‘who created
all things for his pleasure’ (Rv 4:11) has left that delight as a continual gift waiting to
be found.17 Definite paragons of existence aware of creational propriety and pleasure,
Harlan and Anna Hubbard lived in the “elemental joys of human domesticity” and
confronted Berry with life that “was compounded of the gifts and blessings of needed
things that were at hand, and was in turn a gift given back to the earth and us.” 18
Commenting on Hubbard’s reflection relating Luke 18:18–23 to his days of berry-picking and his life outside the margins of society, Berry draws this summary: “The point is
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266
that if one follows this Christ, making necessary sacrifices, then one will see visions, not
of Heaven and the saints and angels, but of ‘this bountiful earth’ itself, and what one
sees will be there, within reach: the ripening berries ‘in the sun, black and red among
the green.’ ”19
Berry saw fully alive in Hubbard a consciousness of “the particularity of our
earthly whereabouts” that demonstrates the unity, goodness, and gift of creation that is
ultimately evident in any existence cognizant of creatureliness:
… he meant not just the physical earth itself, but also the sanctity and
blessedness of it, the everlasting goodness and harmony that is present in
it. He spoke of the light as a “blessing” and an “unaccountable blessing,”
“given to us every day,” though we receive it thoughtlessly. He refused the
dualism that dissociates eternal light from daily light, just as he refused to
divide the here from the hereafter… .” 20
Such recognition of particular place and ability is what leads deeper into a sense
of calling—an acknowledgment that our lives are to be lived in and as a response to
vocation. A common problem besets us all whether we are aware of it or not: dislocation within ourselves and from a wider community of belonging. Berry puts it this way,
“As a people, we have lost sight of the profound communion—even the union—of the
inner with the outer life,” which has resulted in “the growth of the idea that work is
beneath human dignity”—work has been debased until it is only worth escaping from,
and the products of such “work” wind up debasing us.21 This is where calling involves
moving from hearing and knowing to living and implementing.
How should one live in this world? To that question, Berry states that institutional Christianity usually has given a non-answer.22 The failure is not because
Christianity has no basis for an answer, but rather because it too often has opted for
a self-definition that leaves life out; because it has consented too readily to the false
god economy of luxury and consumption “that has made blasphemy of the truth.”…
because “we have made a shoddy merchandise of our souls” and want “a faith that
demands no return of good work.”23 As he articulated so pointedly in his essay against
the modern superstitions of science and technology, “To treat life as less than a miracle
is to give up on it;” therefore, necessity demands that we “make our work an answer to
despair.”24
We live according to a long lineage of deprecation in which we “have become
a kind of human trash, living our lives in the midst of a ubiquitous, damned mess of
which we are at once the victims and the perpetrators.”25 In light of that honest and
unflattering assessment, however, an answer can be ascertained about the particular
and all-encompassing vocation God has given to those made in his image and likeness.
When we view ourselves rightly, not only as fallen, but as created and restored in Christ
(whose vocation as carpenter, by the way, was not inconsequential to his larger one of
redeeming the world), we begin to recognize that human existence is to be “a great coauthorship in which we are collaborating with God and nature in making ourselves and
one another.”26
267
The disconnection of work from vocation generally centers on the abandonment
of the creational realm for an artificial realm which easily perpetuates the debasement
of work, the worker, and the work of one’s hands. Implicit in this economic reality is
the skewed vision of life which revolves around not necessity but desire and possibility. As Berry observes, the transformation of societies from agricultural entities into
industrially-based production systems was a giant leap in the destruction of the true
role, purpose, and receptivity of work. Consider this passage:
… the agent of our escape from our place and in the order of Creation,
and of our godlike ambition to make a Paradise, was the machine—not
only as instrument, but even more powerfully as metaphor… . Having
placed ourselves in charge of Creation, we began to mechanize both
the Creation itself and our conception of it. We began to see the whole
Creation merely as raw material, to be transformed by machines into a
manufactured Paradise… . The Modern World would respect the Creation
only insofar as it could be used by humans.27
As a result, he elaborates elsewhere, our consciousness no longer registers the
“ancient system of mutually defining and sustaining unities: of farmer and field, of
husband and wife, of the world and God”—lost sight of is the essential awareness that
“[a]s a husbandman, man is both the steward and the likeness of God, the greater husbandman.”28
Lest you think Berry’s assessment merely a spun-out defense for his preference
of old-fashioned, low-tech, agrarian community, wrestle at least with this contention:
When people are no longer useful to one another, then the centripetal
force of family and community fails, and people fall into dependence on
exterior economies and organizations… . where individual dependences
are so much exterior to both household and community, family members
often have no practical need or use for one another.29
If you are a parish pastor and have struggled, as I have, with the apparent uselessness or usefulness of your sacred calling, consider it in relation to the common
vocation we share as human beings, and yet more, as those who exist corporately as
the body of Christ. Since you are reading this journal, you likely have a strong familiarity with Luther’s developed theology of vocation.30 So add then Berry’s disdain for the
phrase “full-time Christian service,” when used exclusively in reference to ministry,
citing that it removes “the possibility of devotion from other callings” and goes on to
“excerpt sanctity from the human economy and its work… .”31
So, what kind of answers or lived examples does Berry give? The first is that
of the garden, where one encounters the original intent and role given to humans and
finds that healing and provision coexist in the practical act of cultivation. The value and
lesson of the garden is this:
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268
… one works with the body to feed the body. The work, if it is knowl-
edgeable, makes for excellent food. And it makes one hungry. The work
thus makes eating both nourishing and joyful, not consumptive, and keeps
the eater from getting fat and weak. This is health, wholeness, a source
of delight… . It is—in addition to being the appropriate fulfillment of
a practical need—a sacrament, as eating is also, by which we enact and
understand our oneness with Creation, the conviviality of one body with
all bodies.32
The other is that of Amish communities, which Berry notes “are, at their center, religious,” succeeding in their failure to secularize “their earthly life.” While we might note
the impossibility or unwillingness to order our lives and work in ways that involve limiting technology and placing priority on the community, he draws attention to their distinctively Christian approach to agriculture, which is “formed upon the understanding
that it is sinful for people to misuse or destroy what they did not make.” This leads to
an approach of creation and the call of living within it through the virtues of “humility,
respect, and skill.”33
This brings us to a reality which has permeated the discussion already: human
existence lived in connection to the incarnation of God among us is not only creational
and vocational, but communal—propelled toward comprehensive unity. Our conception of Christian life, personally and collectively, sadly, is marred by glaring exceptions;
exceptions in which Berry is a rare voice necessarily forcing us to address. While community does concern relations to and with our fellow human beings, even Christians
rooted in the biblical tradition have an extremely limited view which generally excludes
the natural world and animals, and even certain fellow-members of humanity. To know
this is essential: “Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness.
Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the
feast of Creation.”34
Remembering that Adam was so named because he was made of the clay of the
earth, we must take notice that all varieties of life comprise a community of the soil;
without it we have no sustenance, and without it, I might add, we would have no bread
or wine for Christ’s eucharistic feast. Berry importantly reminds us:
The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all.
It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into
health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can
have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no
life. It is alive itself. It is a grave, too, of course. Or a healthy soil is. It is
full of dead animals and plants, bodies that have passed through other
bodies.35
And while we often think of soil in general, Berry calls us to attend to the specific parcel of earth where we live to see whether it is subsisting or desisting as the
connector of community in light of our relation to and treatment of it. It is our human
history to have selfishly and mindlessly imposed upon place, to the detriment of all life
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there trying
to thrive, instead of learning to become native to the location we enter and
inhabit. He writes: “In order to desecrate, endanger, or destroy a place, after all, one
must be able to leave it and to forget it. One must never think of any place as one’s
home… .” 36 We are called, in the presence of persistent arrogance, to the practice of
consistent humility, to the acknowledgment that community entails “a common dependence on a common life and a common ground.”37
Responding to my words about an incident of extreme cruelty to a dog in his
novel Nathan Coulter, Berry recalled Wallace Stegner’s description of himself in childhood as “a bloodthirsty little savage” and added, “So was I.” Rather than excusing such
brutality as part of the growth of childhood, we must look at the ways we have perpetuated and defended it in the self-referential exceptionalism of assumed innocence. We
fail to live in the fullness of community—the feast of all creation—when we embrace
and endorse the ways of savagery which thrive on the excluding force of violence
instead of living in the little child’s peaceable interaction with animals and all of this
earthly life (Is 11:1–10). This is known by Christians as a prophecy become a reality in
the incarnate Christ.38
Apart from the soil and animals, Berry consistently addresses two socially
entrenched exemptions from the full realization of community which leave a scant
number of Christians unscathed—the unborn and the enemy. Berry asks this telling question: “If we cannot justify violence to unborn human beings, then how can
we justify violence to those who are born, or to the world that they are born into?” 39
Elsewhere he asks:
If the creature in the womb is a living human being, and so far also an
innocent one, then it is wrong to treat it as an enemy. If we are worried
about the effects of treating fellow humans as enemies or enemies of
society eligible to be killed, how do we justify treating an innocent fellow
human being as an enemy-in-the-womb? 40
If this scandalizes you, good; that is as Berry would have it, because that is the same
scandal we are confronted with in our sacred scriptures.
Regardless of which end of the spectrum one might claim, Christian pronouncements and positions have, for the most part, failed to wrestle honestly and emerge with
an ethic that derives from and aims for the divine community of gift and redemption.
In the face of our negligence of responsibility, consumptive greed, and unwillingness to
alter ways which are destructive of born and unborn—those of our nation and those of
our world—Berry beckons us to corrective vision:
Christian prayers are made to or in the name of Jesus, who loved, prayed
for, and forgave his enemies and who instructed his followers to do likewise. A Christian supplicant, therefore, who has resolved to kill those
whom he is enjoined to love, to bless, to do good to, to pray for, and
to forgive as he hopes to be forgiven is not conceivably in a situation in
which he can be at peace with himself. Anyone who has tried to apply
this doctrine to a merely personal enmity will be aware of the enormous
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270
anguish that it could cause a national leader in wartime. No wonder that
national leaders have ignored it for nearly two thousand years.41
For Berry, as for Christ himself, the approach is very simple: “our choice is not to win
or lose, but to love our enemies or die.” 42
In a world marked by division and dismemberment, the communal intention
and fulfillment of life is found in belonging, or membership, as Berry puts. Beholding his
village in all of its disappointments and division, ignorance and error, meanness and
goodwill, Jayber Crow’s clarified vision showed him a membership, “somehow perfected beyond time, by one another’s love, compassion, and forgiveness, as it is said we
may be perfected by grace.”43 We might even say that it is a reflection of the church
presented by Paul, where the bride is “the gathered members” of Christ’s body (Eph
5:29–32), or even John’s vision of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven as a
bride while God dwells among humankind (Rv 21:2–3).
Since creation and church are bride of the incarnate bridegroom, it should come
as no surprise that a bond both physical and spiritual unite the two as one being. Yet
for marriage and sexual union to image a perfected community of intimate completion
demands a recognition of the dismemberment to which it also is subject. “The sacrament of sexual union,” as Berry describes it, used to be “a communion of workmates”
but now has become “a kind of marketplace in which husband and wife represent each
other as sexual property.”44 In the context of marriage, he contends, it “unites each
of them with the community in a vow of sexual responsibility toward all others. The
whole community is married, realizes its essential unity, in each of its marriages.” 45
While the sexual bond is often perceived as a barrier of separation from everyone and
everything else, Berry demonstrates otherwise:
… sexual love is the heart of community life. Sexual love is the force that
in our bodily life connects us most intimately to the Creation, to the fertility of the world, to farming and the care of animals. It brings us into the
dance that holds the community together and joins it to its place.46
If this creation—this constantly renewing work of God’s hands—is indeed the
realm of Christ’s consummation, then we who have become so alienated from it, ourselves, and our fellow creatures, stand everything to gain by getting our bearings and
returning to it with the restored vision of understanding.
On a visit to the Sonora Desert, Berry encountered a “gentler” and “truer”
vision of Christianity more in harmony with its place than the form the native people
had imposed on them by their conquerors. Perhaps this example can be a template against which we can measure our own impositions upon and corruptions of
Christianity:
The cave, I saw, was a shrine. It held only a crucifix flanked by two rather
heavy wooden candelabras, and two kneeling benches in recesses on either
side. The crucifix and candelabra stood on fluted pedestals sawed from
saguaro cactus trunks. The body of Christ was born on the stem of a
cholla cactus whose branches had grown in a perfect cross.
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… Here was the crucifix, not decked in the trappings of power, but
tucked away in the darkness of the land itself, planted like a seed, to bear
what fruit it can or will. The cave was full of the clear, pealing songs of
cactus wrens feeding busily among the rocks outside. Beyond the opening, white throated swifts turned and glided and chattered in their feeding
flight, laying their intricate script on the air. And framed by the dark cave
mouth the silent, brilliant day stood on the desert. It all belonged together:
the dark and the light, inner and outer, joined; the body of Christ hung in
sacrifice in its open sepulcher, in its intended humble union with the earth
and with other bodies.47
A year after my ordination, I went on a Kentucky pilgrimage to Thomas
Merton’s Gethsemani Abbey, as well as to Wendell Berry’s farm to meet, talk, and
survey the place of his life for a couple of hours. That brief visit, returned to numerous times in personal reflection, has taught me much about divine gift and lived grace,
detachment from the ways of division and attachment to the way that marries all that exists.
If Berry teaches us anything, my prayer is that his thought infuses our pilgrimage of
faith with attentiveness and integrity, necessity and generosity, humility and peace,
gratitude and joy, so that we might work as members of Christ’s sacred community and
partake of the feast of creation. And maybe we might even find ourselves making his
prayer our own:
O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken,
Who in necessity and bounty wait,
Whose truth is light and dark, mute though spoken,
By Thy wide grace show me Thy narrow gate.48
Reading List
General introductions to the work of Wendell Berry can be found in The Art of
the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, ed. Norman Wirzba (Washington,
DC: Counterpoint, 2002) and Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life, ed. J. Matthew
Bonzo and Michael R. Stevens (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008). For consideration
within a pastoral context, I recommend Kyle Childress’s essay “Good Work: Learning
About Ministry from Wendell Berry,” The Christian Century (March 8, 2005), 28–33
and “Toward a Healthy Community: An Interview with Wendell Berry,” The Christian
Century (October 15, 1997), 912–16.
For those wanting a brief introduction to Berry’s assessment of Christianity,
church, and culture, I commend these essays to your attention: “The Gift of Good
Land,” “God and Country,” “Christianity and the Survival of Creation,” “Sex,
Economy, Freedom, and Community,” “Life is a Miracle,” and “The Burden of the
Gospels.”
And, not to be ignored by those wanting to delve further, I highly commend
his The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, Jayber Crow, and all of his poetry, but
especially Collected Poems, 1957–1982 and A Timbered Choir, The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997
(Washington, D. C.: Counterpoint, 1998).
Concordia Journal/Summer 2010
272
Endnotes
1
2
Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (Washington, D. C.: Counterpoint, 2000), 77.
“Christianity and the Survival of Creation” in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (New York: Pantheon,
1992), 97.
3
“Health is Membership” in Another Turn of the Crank (Washington, D. C.: Counterpoint, 1995), 89.
The Unforeseen Wilderness: An Essay on Kentucky’s Red River Gorge (Lexington: The University Press of
Kentucky, 1971), 85–86.
5 “Preserving Wildness” in Home Economics (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1987), 146; emphasis mine.
6 “Health is Membership,” 91.
7 Life is a Miracle, 133.
8 The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977), 109.
9 “Conservation is Good Work” in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, 34.
10 “A Secular Pilgrimage” in A Continuous Harmony (Washington, DC: Shoemaker & Hoard, 1972), 4.
11 The Unsettling of America, 108.
12 Jayber Crow (New York: Counterpoint, 2000), 49, 160–161.
13 Jayber Crow, 321.
14 Life is a Miracle, 101.
15 “The Conservation of Nature and the Preservation of Humanity” in Another Turn of the Crank, 75.
16 “The Gift of Good Land” in The Gift of Good Land (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1981), 267, 272,
281.
17 See Ecclesiastes 3:9–15 and Berry’s “Economy and Pleasure” in What Are People For? (New York: North
Point Press, 1990), especially 138–40.
18 Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990), 5,16.
19 Harlan Hubbard, 39.
20 Harlan Hubbard, 41.
21 The Unsettling of America, 11, 12.
22 “A Secular Pilgrimage,” 5.
23 “Discipline and Hope” in A Continuous Harmony; 116, 138. Helpful in this regard is the contrasting list
of differences between the linear and cyclic views of life on p. 137 of this essay.
24 Life is a Miracle, 10, 12.
25 “Waste” in What Are People For?, 127.
26 “Men and Women in Search of Common Ground” in Home Economics, 115.
27 The Unsettling of America, 56–57.
28 “Discipline and Hope,” 152–53.
29 “The Work of Local Culture” in What Are People For?, 164–165.
30 If not, I suggest Gustaf Wingren’s Luther on Vocation, trans. Carl S. Rasmussen (Philadelphia:
Muhlenberg Press, 1957).
31 “God and Country” in What Are People For?, 96.
32 The Unsettling of America, 138.
33 The Unsettling of America, 211–13.
34 The Unsettling of America, 104.
35 The Unsettling of America, 86.
36 “Higher Education and Home Defense” in Home Economics, 51. Of great help in this regard is the book
Becoming Native to This Place (Washington, D. C.: Counterpoint, 1996) by Berry’s good friend Wes Jackson.
37 “Does Community Have a Value?” in Home Economics, 192.
38 See his “An Argument for Diversity” in What Are People For?, especially 115–16.
39 “The Conservation of Nature and the Preservation of Humanity,” 85.
40 “The Failure of War” in Citizenship Papers (Washington, DC: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2003), 30.
41 “Peaceableness Toward Enemies” in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, 84–85.
42 “Property, Patriotism, and National Defense” in Home Economics, 111.
43 205.
44 The Unsettling of America, 118.
45 The Unsettling of America, 122.
46 “Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community” in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, 133.
47 “Three Ways of Farming in the Southwest” in The Gift of Good Land, 58–59.
48 “To the Holy Spirit” in Collected Poems, 1957–1982 (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984), 209.
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Homiletical Helps
COncordia
Journal
Homiletical
Helps on LSB Series C­—First Lesson
Proper 14 • Genesis 15:1–6 • August 8, 2010
Inseparable Righteousness and Faith Introduction
When someone promises you a special gift, you have faith in them and in their
promised word. You believe them, regardless of the nature of the promise. Your faith
in that person holds to that person and to the promise. This is unconditional, for you
know that the promise will be kept. The actuality of the promise becomes only a matter
of anticipation and time until it comes about. God made a covenant with Abram and
promised a son to him and his wife Sarai.
By God’s grace, this son coming from his body (including Sarai, as they are one
flesh) tells Abram that all who belong to him (i.e. the great numbered stars before the
eyes of Abram) are Abram’s offspring. This is a story that is about the righteousness
that is by faith in the triune God. Righteousness and faith are inseparable.
Suggested Outline
I.
II.
God’s word brings peace and comfort
A. God is your shield
God is our king. He is your refuge and strength in a world that is ruled by Satan and the old Adam. “Be not dismayed!”
B. God is gives us a very great reward: God’s grace is your greatest treasure; not your worldly possessions that will pass away. In a world that seeks to build bigger and better barns through greed and self-glory, God’s grace remains your shield and greatest treasure. God’s word gives promise and hope
A. God promises Abram (and Sarai) a son
God promises Abram that he will have a son through his body (which included Sarai through the one flesh union). A promise made and a promise kept. The old Adam (sinful flesh) would have you believe that God breaks promises, especially when you pray and the prayer isn’t answered the way that you would like it answered. God knows your needs.
B. God shows Abram that he will be the “father of all who believe in the Lord’s words and promises”
God promises Abram not only that he would have a son, but also, that as many as the stars are in the sky, so will be his descendants through the covenant of grace that God makes with Abram. From his descendants, the day star, the bright and morning star appears, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ.
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III. God’s word declares you righteous by faith alone
A. God responds to your grace-given faith Abram placed all of his trust in the promise of the Lord God. His faith held to the Lord God and his words and promises: Abram is declared righteous.
B. God responds to your grace-given faith by crediting his righteousness to you (Heb 11:7)
By this grace-faith of Abram, God declared him righteous in his sight. Only the righteousness of Christ is given by God’s grace to all believers (Rom 1:16–17)
Conclusion
Promises are made and broken on a daily basis. Promises have often become
like Olympic sports’ records: they are made to be broken. Only when you have undying
faith and trust in the one who makes a promise can you believe with absolute conviction that the promise will come about. The person who makes the promise must have a history of promises made and promises kept.
The Lord God promised Abram that he would bear a son, and he kept that
promise. The Lord God promised Abram that his descendants would be as many as the stars that he could see (and, of course many, many more), and he kept that promise.
The Lord God promised that from the seed of Abram would come one who would
save his people from sin, death and the devil, and he kept that promise. The Messiah,
Jesus Christ, Son of God, descendant of Abram, declares you righteous by faith alone.
God said that “the righteous live by faith” (Hb 2:4). This is Abram’s story; this is your story.
Robert W. Weise
Proper 15 • Jeremiah 23:16–29 • August 15, 2010
The crux of this text is the ongoing conflict in Jeremiah between true and false
prophets and Jeremiah’s own ongoing conflict with those whom he perceived to be
false prophets in Israel’s midst. “They speak visions of their own minds, not from the
mouth of the Lord” (v. 16). Their word is peace when there is no peace.
Into the middle of this conflict comes the storm theophany of God, the same
theophany that rang in the ears of Job (38) and the Psalms (29): “Look, the storm of
the Lord! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the
wicked” (v. 19). It is this storm of God that stops us all dead in our tracks. We dare
not move “until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind” (v. 20). We
pray that God’s intent does not include our destruction.
God will later ask, “Am I a God near by, says the Lord, and not a God far off?”
(v. 23). Of course, the truth is that he is both near by and far off, both immanent and
transcendent. It is this truth about God that often causes us to struggle. We want God
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near by when he is far off, and we want God far off when he is nearby. This is, perhaps, why we never fail to listen to prophets who fill our ears with dreams, and lies,
and the “deceit of their own heart” (v. 26). False prophets prey upon what we hope
God doesn’t see, while true prophets see reality for what it truly is.
“In many and various ways God spoke to his people of old by the prophets.
But now in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” The words of the liturgy,
echoing Hebrews, echo Jeremiah 23:20. The prophet who was God himself was yet
to come, and he too would contend with false dreams and deceit, with oppression
and lies. There is no question that Jesus in his role as prophet identified himself with
Jeremiah. Today’s gospel brings this into the fore. “I came to bring fire to the earth,”
Jesus will thunder, “and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Lk 17:49).
Of course, the storm theophany of the Gospel of Luke will happen on Calvary,
where Christ himself will be the lightning rod of the wrath of God. Only then, will we
indeed “understand it clearly” (v. 20).
Or rather, the clarity comes three days later, in the stillness of the morning after
the storm, when we find the tomb empty. Then disciples coming running back from
Emmaus. Then he himself stands among us: “Peace be with you,” true peace. Then the
Spirit descends to make of all of us true prophets.
Discerning the true prophets from the false is an ongoing dilemma. But for the
Christian, the sign of the true prophet is always one and the same: faith. “By faith …”
the writer to the Hebrews so eloquently writes. By faith, surrounded by “so great a
cloud of witnesses,” we “run with perseverance” and we look to “Jesus the pioneer and
perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:1–2).
Travis J. Scholl
Proper 16 • Isaiah 66:18–23 • August 22, 2010
The House Restored
It looked like something no one gave much thought to anymore. It was old and
worn, ugly, in fact. Yet, somehow, also beautiful, reflecting a former glory. Faded, splintered pieces of plywood replaced window panes. However, its form still stood brilliant.
Tall and majestic, red brick with white trim. This house had been someone’s home,
someone’s life. The sounds of children’s voices echoing through the hallways now gave
way to the sounds of the howling wind. Once filled with life, now abandoned, empty.
It looked like a place which had no hope. It probably didn’t. It was one of those kinds
of places about which people say, “I bet that place was magnificent in its day.” Now, it
probably conjured up more feelings of pity, if anyone noticed it at all.
I did notice it and wondered what brought it to this state, this end, this abandonment. Someone invested much time to construct a home so stately that it could still
reflect beauty through its decaying structure. Good for something at one time; I am
sure good for much. Today, good for nothing but that which inhabits hollow spaces.
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Abandoned, empty, desolate also describe the house of David. Its people
dragged off to a house not their own amongst a tongue not their own. Their rebellion
against God led them and their house to this place. When he called, no one answered.
When he spoke, no one listened. They did evil in his sight and chose what displeased
him (Is 66:4). The result? “Your holy cities have become a wilderness; Zion has become
a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation” (Is 64:10). Jerusalem—the city captured by David
from the Jebusites. A city which held David’s palace of stone and cedar. The city of the
mighty King David who grew more and more powerful because the Lord Almighty was
with him (1 Sm 5:10). The city with the Lord’s temple and all its detail and splendor. It
is this city, which now desolate, with the temple destroyed.
Although the city lay in this state of destruction with its breath sucked out, the
promise remained alive. The Lord fulfilled his promise of rescue and restoration: “But
be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a
joy and her people a to be a gladness” (Is 65:18).
It is here in this joy and gladness that we find Jerusalem in Isaiah 66:18–20.
Those who survive the desolation will go to the nations and proclaim that the Lord has
restored this great city, that salvation has come to the people of God. Distant people
and distant lands will hear of the salvation that comes only from the hand of the Lord.
He has punished them for their sins and, because of his mercy, he brings them back to
this city which will be his delight.
The nations will hear of the Lord’s glory and come to this city, but not empty
handed. Notice they will bring “your brothers (Is 66:20),” the people of Israel, back to
Jerusalem as “the Israelites bring their grain offering (Is 66:20).” Just as the grain offering is offered as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, how much more will the return of his
people be pleasing to him? Look who is doing the bringing: the nations, the Gentiles!
Look who the Lord will now make priests and Levites: the nations, the Gentiles! This
good news of salvation by God’s hand is for them, too, and to be delivered by them.
How beautiful are the feet!
It’s an interesting history, isn’t it? What God has done for his people! However,
you may be thinking, “Sure it’s all very interesting, but what does this story have to do
with me? This history is not my history.” Not so fast! This is more than history. You
share much in common with the children of Israel. How often have you not listened
when the Lord spoke by his word? How often did you follow after your own desires,
instead of the Lord’s? How often have you chosen what displeases the Lord? Can you
say with complete certainty that your life at all times and in all places pleases the Lord?
Is what you say, what you do, what you think, how you treat (or do not treat) your
neighbor, pleasing in the eyes of the Lord? So it is that you too deserve to be carried
off and away in punishment. This is not just history!
The Lord will certainly gather all nations and tongues, and they will see his glory,
but first they will see his cross. Jesus said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32). Certainly all will be drawn to this man dying
on the cross. Some will simply gawk. Some will weep. Some will ridicule. But for all,
salvation is at hand. Their debt is being paid. Your debt is being paid, on this cross. In
this Jerusalem, in this house restored you get Christ and him crucified and all that his279
offers, namely the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Just history?! No way!
sacrifice
He restored Jerusalem. He gathered all nations back to see his glory and what he could
do to this city laid desolate.
Now, the word will get out about what happened here. The word will certainly
get out about what God did on this hill outside the city of David. Here the word of this
cross will be delivered by those who survive death, the devil and sin because another
dies on their behalf. Yes, this word gets out. It got out even to you. The word got out
that this Jesus died for you to give you forgiveness for all of the times you did not listen to him. He died for you to offer you forgiveness for all of the times you did evil in
his sight. He died for you to offer you forgiveness for all of the things you have done
which displeased the Lord your God. Yes, the word has gotten out, even to you. And
look who brought it to you! A priest? A Levite? No, most likely your mom, your dad,
your pastor, and your teacher. These are the ones who brought you into the house
of the Lord “as the Israelites bring their grain offerings (Is 66:20),” and it is certainly
pleasing to the Lord that you would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
And how long will this house last? “‘As the new heavens and the new earth I make will
endure before me,’ declares the Lord, ‘so will your name and descendants endure’ (Is
66:22).”
You live restored just as those brought back to a city once destroyed and now
rebuilt. Certainly you will not die, but live, and you will proclaim what the Lord has
done (Ps 118:17). Your daily response and your daily prayer is, “Lord I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells” (Ps 119:89). Amen.
Kyle Castens
Proper 17 • Proverbs 25:2–10 • August 29, 2010
“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings to search things
out” (v. 2). The opening verse of today’s reading from Proverbs bears the haunt of the
deus absconditus, and the paradox of the hidden God and the human investigator.
Yet, even the human mind is unsearchable (v. 3), or at least unfathomable. This
wisdom even neuroscience bears out (see, for instance, the fascinating presentation
by Dr. Mario Beauregard from Concordia’s 2009 Theological Symposium on iTunes
U, itunes.csl.edu). Within the imago Dei, the paradox turns upon itself: he who would
search out the unsearchable is himself unsearchable.
When contemplating the deus absconditus, our thoughts often turn to Luther, at
which point it is perhaps in our best interest to hear a wise word from Dr. Robert
Kolb: “[I]t must be noted that the revealed God hides himself in order to show himself
to his human creatures. Luther observed that God is to be found precisely where theologians of glory are horrified to find him: as a kid in a crib, as a criminal on a cross, as
a corpse in a crypt. God reveals himself by hiding himself right in the middle of human
existence as it has been bent out of shape by the human fall. Thus, Luther’s theology of
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is a departure from the fuzziness of human attempts to focus on God apart
the cross
from God’s pointing out where he is to be found and who he really is.”1
This is, of course, much of the point of the wisdom literature: God is to be
found where we aren’t looking. “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence
or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here’, than to be
put lower in the presence of a noble” (v. 6–7). It is exactly these wise words that Jesus
has in mind when he’s eating a meal with the Pharisees in today’s gospel (Lk 14:1–14).
Jesus will turn the paradox even further: “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Lk 14:11). Then he honors his host
by exhorting those who would throw a party to “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame,
and the blind” (14:13). More paradox.
Of course, if we have learned anything about the deus absconditus and the theology
of the cross, if we have invited the poor, we have invited God to the party. For God
is hidden in the least of these, just as God’s wisdom is hidden in foolishness. It also
means that we’re invited to the party, because it means we can never be too low to be
left out of God’s banquet or too low to be where God hasn’t already been.
I find it incredibly interesting to track the wisdom themes percolating throughout
all the readings in today’s lectionary. The connection between Proverbs and the speaking of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke is one. The powerful paranesis of Hebrews 13:1–17 is
another: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers …” (13:2). The interconnections for preaching and teaching abound.
“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings to search things
out.” To search such things out in the Scriptures is the preacher’s glory as well.
Travis J. Scholl
Endnote
1
Robert Kolb, “Luther on the Theology of the Cross,” Lutheran Quarterly 16:4 (Winter 2002), 449–450.
Proper 18 • Deuteronomy 30:15–20 • September 5, 2010
Literary Context
Moses is coming to the conclusion of a long “sermon” of encouragement to
God’s people on the plains of Moab, of which chapters 5–28 is the major piece. It is
also his “farewell discourse” of sorts as he prepares the people to enter the promised
land without him, giving them all the support he can muster so that they will remain
faithful. The connection to the gospel, Luke 14:25–35, would seem to be around the
theme of counting the cost and knowing what lies ahead. Application to the beginning
of the fall season (though liturgically right in the middle of the Pentecost semester
ecclesiae) might engage the motif of a renewed stage of our life journey as the
people of God that simply continues and stays the course that is set.
Chapters 29–30 focus on the renewal of the covenant made at Sinai, now
brought forward to the present situation (29:1, Mt 28:69). The past is the basis of the
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present and future, even as the covenant is “made” today (29:12, Mt 11). Moses has
recapitulated the exodus event that has been the foundation of their faith for the past
40 years (29:2–5). The message is simple: Yahweh your God is the God of your salvation and life. His promises of grace extend into the future, so you will have no other
gods. Indeed, we do not need other gods!
Salvation is by grace alone. Even the “first commandment” follows the indicative
statement that precedes it (and is counted as the first “commandment” or “statement”
of the “ten words” in Jewish tradition), “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out
of Egypt-land, from a slave house (Ex 20:2).” So also in Deuteronomy 29–30, God
seals the covenant with an oath, to “establish you as his people,” literally “for him for
a people” (‫אְתָך ַהּיֹום לֹו ְלָעם‬
ֹ ‫ָהִקים‬, 29:13, MT 12). The covenant formula is really that
simple and that profound: “I am your God; you are my people.” With that relationship
come blessings; actions apart from it bring curses (27:14ff, 28:15ff).
In spite of the obvious preference for blessings, chapter 30, however, actually
foresees the worst for the future. Moses had good reason to be concerned. He had
witnessed the ease with which they had chosen death and turned blessing into cursing,
from the molten calf at Sinai to the apostasy at (and with!) Baal Peor (Nm 25, Dt 4:3).
He describes a time when the people would be dispersed among the nations. Yet even
there God’s promises are sure, and he would call his people back.
Verse 30:11 returns to the present time of Moses and his exhortation to stay
faithful. This is not works righteousness; they are already saved by grace. Simply being
and remaining God’s people would seem so obvious, and so simple. It is not difficult,
as though we need to ascend into the heavens or reach far beyond the sea. God’s grace,
God’s presence, his word of life, is already in us, in our mouths and hearts (v. 15). He
has come to us; we don’t need to search for him.
Thus, in conclusion, the pericope itself (vv. 15–20) presents a simple and obvious choice. This is not decision theology. They (we!) are already God’s people. But
we do make godly and spirit-led decisions, by grace through faith. We do so when
we get up every Sunday morning! In summary, verses 15–20 bring to focus all that
Deuteronomy (and the exodus) is about in very succinct terms; it’s a matter of life and
death. Life is God’s gift of grace. The “command” to love him and to walk in his ways
is an exhortation to do what should be obvious—and what God has given—in being
the people he has rescued, redeemed, ransomed, and formed for himself.
Translation Notes
Verse 15 The double accusatives link life and death to the simple summary of
“good and evil” (cf. Gn 2–3): “the life and the good” (‫ֶאת־ַהַח ִּיים ְוֶאת־ַהּטֹוב‬, i.e., all that is
good; ‫ ְוֶאת־ַהָּמ ֶות ְוֶאת־ָה ָרע‬, “death and the bad”).
Verse 16 The verse is an echo of 6:3 and the whole of Deuteronomy (“keeping
commandments, statutes, ‘judgments’ [‫ּקת ּוִמְׁשָּפִטים‬
ֹ ‫)”]ִמְצֹות ְוֻח‬.
Verse 17 ‫“ ְוֹלא ִתְׁשַמע‬if your heart turns, and you will not hear…” This is the real
issue, not just a bad, rational choice as much as turning away and not listening. The translation “obey” is almost always of the verb “to listen,” which keeps
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282
on the one who speaks and who would say, “my sheep hear my voice, and I
the focus
know them, and they follow me” (Jn 10:27).
‫ ְו ִנַּדְחָּת‬The verb (‫ )נדח‬means to “wander off” (cf 22:1, of sheep that go astray),
usually in the Niphal (with middle/intransitive sense of “wander off, allow to be led
astray”). The transitive use of the Hiphil describes the action of either a false prophet
(Dt 13:6, ET 5) or God in his judgment (30:1, cf. also Jer 8:3, 16:5, 23:2,3,8).
‫“ ְוִהְׁשַּתֲח ִויָת ֵלאל ִֹהים ֲאֵח ִרים ַוֲעַב ְדָּתם‬to worship other gods and serve them” uses
language related to the first commandment (Dt 5:9).
Verse 18 ‫ּתאֵבדּון‬
ֹ ‫בד‬
ֹ ‫“ ִּכי ָא‬that you shall certainly perish.” The infinitive absolute
intensifies. The results of falling away are already clear: the “choice” in the next verse
should be obvious!
Verse 19 ‫“ ֶאת־ַהָּׁשַמִים ְוֶאת־ָהָא ֶרץ‬The heavens and earth” are called as witnesses,
not the pantheon of gods as in other Ancient Near East treaties. (Cf. the appeal to
them in prophetic “covenant lawsuit” rhetoric such as Isaiah 1:2.)
‫“ ּוָבַח ְרָּת ַּבַחִּיים‬And you will choose life …” (‫ בחר‬marks the object with ‫)ב‬. The
verb is indicative (perfect “waw consecutive”), not imperative. It follows in contrast to
the “if” clause of verse 17 (which is followed by the dire consequences in verse 18) and
may be better translated, “but you will choose life!”
‫“ ַאָּתה ְוַז ְרֶעָך‬you and your ‘seed.’ ” Being God’s people has to do with the “next
generation” on through his holy history.
Verse 20 ‫קלֹו‬
ֹ ‫מַע ְּב‬
ֹ ‫ ִלְׁש‬The language recapitulates the substance of verse 16, again
with a positive sense of “hearing his voice.” The verse concludes by rehearsing the
promises of good life in a good land; the “BC” version of living the “first article” of
the creed as “second and third article” people, with God’s promises tied to the earthly
means of water, bread and wine. Once the messiah comes, the “land” expands to the
global stage on which God’s salvation is lived out and proclaimed to all nations.
Homiletical Thoughts
As noted initially, the fundamental theme is exhortation and encouragement to
continue to live as God’s holy people, faithful to the God of our salvation. It is a matter of life and death. And it is more a matter of the indicative than the imperative, first
by God’s great indicative that is the narrative of his salvation by grace.
But then, as God’s people, we live out God’s action in lives of thanksgiving,
praise, and yes, keeping his commandments and serving Him alone, with no other gods.
The Gospel (Lk 14:25–35) reminds us of the difficult “cost of discipleship;” and Moses
was well aware of the spiritual temptations to go astray.
But his encouragement is stated positively: “you will choose life.” It is an indicative sentence, a “life sentence.” The sermon might play with that theme, which would
otherwise ring negatively. And even given the choice between life and death (or, to
press the convicted criminal imagery, a “sentence” of punishment or freedom), the
choice is clear.
Of course, and remarkably so, our natural inclination for sin, “the evil,” and even
death, remains; and our culture is one increasingly “of death,” due, in large part, to the
loss of God’s vision for life. In our own lives of sin and grace, and in our influence on
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to hear the life-affirming and life-giving message of God’s salvation, we live
the world
every day as those who need to be—and are!—renewed daily in baptismal life.
Andy Bartelt
Editor’s Note: The following homiletical help is adapted from Concordia Journal, March 1984.
Please note that the homiletical help covers only verses 11–16 in detail.
Proper 19 • Ezekiel 34:11–24 • September 12, 2010
Introductory remarks
Chapters 33–48 of Ezekiel are dominated by the themes of restoration and
renewal. But the corruption of the recent past is always in the picture, as a foil to the
future restoration. That this is the case in Ezekiel 34:11–16 is most evident from the
context. Yahweh’s promise to tend his flock in justice (v. 16) comes in association with
a scathing denunciation of the “shepherds of Israel” (34:2–6) and, indeed, is given in
response to their faithlessness (vv. 7–9).
These shepherds, of course, signify the kings and princes of the people, an
Oriental figure of speech of Egyptian, Mesopotamian (Hammurabi), and Israelite (1
Kgs 22:17; Jer 23:1–6) provenance. Their sins are recounted (vv. 2–6): their self-serving
ways resulted in the scattering of the people. (The people themselves are not hereby
acquitted; but the leaders must bear a higher degree of responsibility.) The solution is
their utter rejection and replacement by God himself.
The preacher may go from this promise itself directly to its fulfillment in John 10
[or in the case of today’s gospel, Luke 15:1–10. —Ed.]. The royal and divine claims inherent
in Jesus’s “I am the Good Shepherd” will be at once evident. The loving attention of
the shepherd for the needs of the sheep (Ez 34:14–16) is expressed, ultimately, in “I lay
down my life for the sheep” [cf. Lk 15:5–6]. And the universal aspect of God’s gathering of his people is expressed in John 10:16 [again, cf. Lk 15:7].
But the preacher may also choose to wrestle with the subject of the divine and
the human leadership of God’s people. The Judaean princes held their authority only
as from God, the true, sole king of his people. They have been deposed and replaced
by the Good Shepherd, Jesus, true God. Jesus calls and appoints shepherds, pastors,
over his people, through whom he desires to accomplish his ministry to his people. As
“under-shepherds” of the Good Shepherd, the present-day human leaders of God’s
people have a responsibility to work in his service at his kind of care for his flock. If
they do not, they face the prospect of a more severe judgment.
Textual notes
Verse 11 begins with an eminently emphatic intrusion of God into the action.
Human faithlessness has frustrated his intentions; if it is going to get done, God will
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284
have to do it himself. wedarashti contrasts with we’er doresh of verse 6, but mevaqesh of that
verse is replaced by wuviqqartim here. C. F. Keil (Keil-Delitzsch Commentary, IX, vol. 2, p.
87) suggests baqar means “to seek and examine minutely,” and “involves the idea of
taking affectionate charge.”
Verse 12 refers again to this careful seeking (ba-qarah, verbal noun) of a shepherd
who finds himself “in the midst of” a “scattered flock.” Yahweh has a people. When
he comes to be with them, he discovers they are scattered. He must carefully seek them
out. “Rescue” (wehitstsalti) implies that they have fallen into danger or under oppression.
The “day” referred to is the day of judgment in the past when they were scattered. The
same imagery is used of the future day of judgment (Zep 1:15; see Joel 2:2).
Verse 13 speaks to exiles the promise of a geographical return and a prosperous
life, qavats is regularly used in the piel of God’s gathering his dispersed people (Mi 2:12;
4:6; Jer 31:10; Is 54:7). ‘aefiqim (RSV “fountains”) are channels = river beds, ravines (Is
8:7; Ps 126:4; Ez 31:12).
Verse 14 continues the picture; all that a Good Shepherd does for the welfare of
the flock Yahweh will see to.
Verse 15 reiterates the emphatic ‘ani (see v. 11) in a summary statement and
appends the formula designating this as an oracle of Yahweh.
Verse 16 elaborates upon the topic of Yahweh’s shepherding care; it does so
at some length and in apparent contrast to verse 4. Walther Eichrodt (Ezekiel, O.T.
Library, pp. 470–471) helpfully points out that Ezekiel 34:4 introduces six categories
of sheep: 1) weak, 2) sick, 3) crippled, 4) strayed, 5) lost, and (following a proposed
repointing based on the LXX) 6) strong. Of these the first five are related; the sixth is
another matter. Four of the first five are now dealt with again in verse 16, in reverse
order and omitting the first one (“weak”). Then comes a word about the (fat, robust—
omitted by LXX—and the) strong.
The Masoretic Text reads: “and the strong I will annihilate” (’ashmid). Many emend
this to ’eshmor, which equals the LXX’s phulaxo (see also poimena kai episkopon, 1 Pt 2:25,
if that is an allusion to this passage): “and the strong I will keep guard over in justice.”
This thought is an appropriate antithesis to the end of verse 4, and shamar can mean
“tend” a flock (Gn 30:31).
But C. F. Keil (Commentary, IX vol. 2, pp. 88–89) argues that the LXX corrections (also the kai boskeso auto) at the end of verse 16 are in error. In the following
verses (17–22) it is the fat and the strong sheep who spoil the pasture and water for
the rest. The Lord promises to judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. In this
context, it may not be incorrect to read in verse 16: “and the fat and the strong I will
annihilate.” The coming of the Lord in mercy for the weak and broken also means
judgment for those who have made themselves fat and strong at the expense of the
ones entrusted to their care.
Jonathan F. Grothe
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Proper 20 • Amos 8:4–7 • September 19, 2010
Introduction
Preachers who take up this text take up a daunting task, especially if they wish
to proclaim the gospel and not simply generate a diatribe based on the law. The parallels to our society are striking, but I suspect that in every time and place there are those
who lie, cheat, and steal in order to make a fast buck at the expense of the poor. In our
generation we see this kind of behavior in the glorification of vanity and greed that is
so typical and so endemic.
The Lord Jesus loves the poor. He does not consider poverty to be either a
crime or a sin, and yet in this passage we see that the plight of the poor may be the
result of the sin of others. Many act today as though poverty itself is a sin, a result of
laziness, or bad luck, or even bad genetics. But this is not what the Bible teaches. There
are plenty of well-off people that are lazy, and there are plenty of poor people who
have worked hard and diligently all their lives only to continue in poverty. Wealth is not
necessarily God’s blessing any more than poverty is his curse. This is an easy theology
of glory—not a position based on God’s word. And yet there is hope for all through
the work of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and what he has done for us. He can change our
hearts so that we love all men, in real, concrete ways, including the poor.
Verse by verse commentary
“Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land.”
Here the prophet declares the anger of a righteous God who has declared in his
law that all Israelites are brothers and that their debts are to be forgiven every seven
years and their land restored every fifty years (see Lv 25 and Dt 15). This had not happened, and the poor had suffered from endemic poverty, while the wealthy acted fat
and sassy, ignoring their plight. But God has not forgotten the cries of the poor (and
he does not forget us either.)
“‘When will the new moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be
ended that we may market wheat?’—skimping the measure, boosting the price and
cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of
sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.”
Here again, we see the tactics of liars and cheats. Our founding fathers in
America made one of their first priorities as part of the establishment of the union the
establishment of standardized weights and measures. Article 8 of the U. S. Constitution
gives Congress the authority, “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” For example, if you go to
a gas station and look at the pump (what else do you have to do while pumping gas?),
there is almost invariably a sticker attesting to both the octane content of the gas, and
the fact that the gas pump has been inspected to measure and vend gasoline accurately.
The latter sticker usually has a date on it of the last inspection as well. And yet people
have tried to get around such standards, so inspectors must come unannounced at
times. The point here is that honest measurement is a hallmark of good government.
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The idea of cheating and lying, of dishonesty in dealing with others, is the sin
here, not acquiring wealth in itself. Stingy and generous hearts are fundamentally antithetical, and Amos points this out through the words of this verse. Especially telling is
the matter of the sweepings with the wheat. Having animals in the area to beat out the
grain from the chaff, one can only imagine what was often in the “sweepings.”
“The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: ‘I will never forget anything they
have done.’ ”
Here we have a potential conversation by members of the Trinity and this constitutes a handle for proclaiming good news. The pride of Jacob, in a Christian reading
of the text, is a synonym for Christ. He is the one Jacob was promised so long ago. But
the issue of not forgetting seems cold comfort in the face of the amount of sin Amos
is bringing forward. And yet there might be some comfort in knowing that Christ does
not blot out this memory, but this iniquity. We are forgiven by the Christ who loves us,
but were we not in Christ and standing forgiven in him, all would be remembered. This
is good news for those who are on the receiving end of the lying, cheating, and poverty
of life. There is an advocate who will take up their cause on the last day and who will
not just let these things go. The law stands and destroys all who refuse God’s remedy
(not specifically stated in the text) in Christ. It is either God’s way of forgiveness or his
way of judgment—there is no third option—we do not stand autonomous.
Preceding and Following Context
The preceding verses demonstrate that God has been patient with Israel for a
long time, and that that time is almost up. This is why the basket contains ripe fruit.
God will spare his people no longer. There will be much death and destruction.
The verses that follow our text make possible some interesting gospel handles.
The following context begins with a description of the undoing of the land
(remember that the land was associated with paradise as well as with peace and justice
for the poor). Associating the land with the Nile and Egypt gives an idea of a shockingly out-of-kilter image of the state of things. Egypt represented everything Israel wanted
to escape, and the Nile was the life and wealth of Egypt.
The first potential gospel handle occurs in the next verse. Here there are parallels
to what happened to Christ at the cross. The darkness at noon, a darkening in broad
daylight. These are both described in the Gospels at the crucifixion of Jesus.
The next verse about mourning, weeping, and sackcloth could be used as a
handle to the account of Jesus being asked why his disciples did not fast. He said they
could not while the bridegroom was with them; but in the day he was taken they would
fast (Mt 9:15). The text of Amos makes this mourning more specific by indicating that
it is a mourning for “the only Son” (8:10). The idea of the famine of the word certainly
occurs even today. There are more Bibles than ever; the problem is that they are seldom read. And as more and more of our culture becomes pagan and un-christian, the
matter of Bibles and God’s word becomes more and more like being stranded at sea
with “water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink” (Coleridge, The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner). The same parallels can be made to people not coming out to hear the
spoken word or the Word as found in Baptism and Holy Communion. Even if people
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without the aid of the Holy Spirit and faith were to take up the Word, it just becomes
more salt, and one thirsts even more.
Synopsis
So this is a fairly tough passage to preach on, but it is highly relevant to the
materialistic, distracted, and narcissistic society of today. The idea here is to make sure
not to preach only the law or that wealth is intrinsically bad. Rather, effective preachers
will proclaim that believers are given generous and caring hearts by Christ and the
Spirit, allowing them to love their God and their neighbor by every means possible
through the new life they have been imparted through Christ’s death and resurrection
for all.
Tim Dost
Proper 21• Amos 6:1–7 • September 26, 2010
Where Are You Resting?
For exegetical details, see Lessing, Amos, Concordia Commentary (CPH, 2009),
388–409. His treatment of language-oriented matters, especially morphology and syntax—sorely lacking in most other commentaries—is important. Another decent choice
is Andersen and Freedman, Amos, Anchor Bible 24A (Doubleday, 1989), 544–569. This
commentary focuses on a possible poetic structure and offers solid arguments for the
unity of the text.
These helps are being prepared in early June, 2010. Will current events and situations, in the U.S. and around the world, change over the summer and, consequently,
render these helps obsolete by September? It’s possible, in certain details, but probably
not in terms of essentials.
Almost no reader of these helps is likely to think—actually think—that the United
States is “Zion.” And yet there are certain “zionisms” that prevail in our nation today.
In her essay on “Technophilia,” Karen Pärna reported on the religiosity of Internet
rhetoric, which contains, “characteristically religious notions: transcendence, salvation,
and a strong belief in the power of one’s object of admiration to transform one’s existence. Above all, the trust in the great potential of this technology fulfilled a basically
religious function: it presented a frame of reference for making sense of the world.”1
I don’t check polls, but I suspect the sitting American President is no longer
viewed so messianically as he once was; nevertheless, people are expressing frustration
and even outrage that he has not personally rescued the Gulf coast from the environmental catastrophe of Deepwater Horizon. That people actually think he should
be capable of such deliverance is, in my view, an example of American zionism and
American messianism, a contemporary application or illustration of the Amos 6 text.
“Mountains of Samaria” may be compared to corridors of Wall Street or American
military might—any locus of power in which Americans invest their trust.
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Amos warned the people of his time who lived cushy lives, who had on blinders, and who thought their nation was insulated or exempt from catastrophe. To shake
them out of their national complacency—and their theological or religious complacency—he told them to look around at others whose city-states had collapsed, probably
overrun by Assyrian conquest. Today’s invaders such as national bankruptcy seem more
internal. Yet, Israel’s susceptibility to external invasion belonged to its internal corruption; I doubt that our vulnerability is anything else.
The U.S. is not a new Israel. But the Church in America is thoroughly embedded, and we believers are always at risk of letting our national context and our political
and economic culture subordinate our identity as God’s “holy nation” and “the people
of his possession.”
There is no explicit gospel in this text. “Woe” governs the passage to its conclusion, the consummation or fruition of the woe. The preaching of judgment leads either
to recalcitrance or to contrition, and the prophet doesn’t appear to feel obliged, at this
point, to remind the contrite where to look for help—and the recalcitrant might also
hear and say, “See, I told you so.” Therefore, we have to reach for the gospel.
The theology of place was strong in Israel (and Judah), but in the time of Amos
it had become distorted. A different kind of economy, one that exploited the land and
its inhabitants, had replaced an understanding of the land as a gift.
America is our place. As Christians, we accept—at least cognitively—that we are
“strangers and sojourners” in it. But in large part we, as much as any, have lost track
of seeing it as a gift; rather, it is something that we (and our ancestors) acquired on our
own (cf. Dt 8:11ff.). Since we do not see it as a gift, we do not see that we can lose it.
Our place, wherever it is, has a kind of sacramental dimension. It is not a
sacrament: it does not forgive sins, give faith or bestow eternal life; nevertheless, it
signifies the promise of the place that our Lord is preparing for us (Jn 14) until we
actually receive it. The place we receive now is as much a gift as water and bread and
wine, a gift whose proper use is—or should be—important to us. Wendell Berry wrote
in 1983, “That those who affirm the divinity of the creator should come to the rescue
of his creature[s] is a logical consistency of great potential force.”2
How much more for those who affirm that the creator himself, in the person
of his Son, came to the rescue of his human creatures! We affirm that he did so, every
time we confess that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, “for us men and for our salvation came
down from heaven …” or, in the Apostles’ Creed, “was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary.”
Our attitudes and behavior toward the first creation (people and things) are to be
informed, therefore, by sensibilities and understandings that emerge from our new-creatureliness (2 Cor 5:17f.). But it needs to be noted that we are the only ones on whom
this transformation from old-to-new creation has been bestowed. The rest of the first
creation languishes, according to God’s purpose, until the redeemed are revealed (Rom
8:19ff.). It is interesting, now that I think about it, that Christians bear a kind of sacramental dimension toward the rest of creation: to treat it kindly, as its creator would,
until it is set free from its bondage to decay.
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In another 1983 essay, Berry began by describing a conversation between himself and Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute. They were trying to define an
economy that would be comprehensive enough to counteract exploitation of the land.
A money economy cannot because it tries to monetize everything; and whatever cannot
be monetized has no value in such an economy. Berry suggested an energy economy,
but Jackson rejected it as still not comprehensive enough. “‘Well,’ [Berry] said, ‘then
what kind of economy would be comprehensive enough?’ [Jackson] hesitated a moment,
and then, grinning, said, ‘The Kingdom of God.’ ”3
The prophet declared woe to a people who had forgotten their true heritage:
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth,” said the Lord (Am 3:2). They
had come to think of themselves and their nation as irrevocably bound to God—or,
perhaps more accurately, God bound to their nation. The same temptation comes to
us: to think of ourselves as Americans first and as Christians (God’s people in and
because of Christ) second. That’s wrong. We need to remember—we need to be
reminded—that we are God’s people twice: by creation and by re-creation. Our ease,
our security, is not in the Zions we imagine, but in the God who gives himself and his
gifts lavishly to us.
William Carr
Endnotes
1 Karen Pärna, “Technophilia” in Technology, Trust, and Religion, ed. Willem Drees (Leiden: Amsterdam
University Press, 2009), 58–59.
2 Wendell Berry, “The Gift of Good Land,” The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry,
ed. Norman Wirzba (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2002), 293.
3 Wendell Berry, “Two Economies,” The Art of the Commonplace, 219.
Proper 22 • Habakkuk 1:1–4, 2:1–4 • October 3, 2010
The prophet’s cry in the first chapter echoes with the laments of the Psalms and
Jeremiah. “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help?” (1:2).
Oil in the Gulf … O Lord, how long?
Handguns on the streets of Chicago … O Lord, how long?
The millions unborn … O Lord, how long?
“So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails” (1:4). The verb translated
“slack” connotes “cold,” frozen. The law becomes reified. Isn’t this often the case,
certainly in the civil realm? Laws are constructed to represent a certain state of affairs
and a week later, they are outmoded, cold, “slack.” Couldn’t we say this is exactly what
precipitated the crisis on Wall Street that we are only now crawling out from under, and
against which we are only now enacting new laws?
But another law is still at work, this one written on human hearts (Rom 2:14–15).
It is this law—living and active—that compels us to cry out “Violence!” It is this law
that brings us face to face with the judgment of God, even when that judgment has a
harsh word to say about our own actions and inaction.
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And so we wait. We cry out and we wait. “I will keep watch to see what he will
say to me” (2:1). Will God answer?
“Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks
of the end, and does not lie” (2:2–3). We cry out and God answers, because God
promises to answer. God’s answer is that the future is in his hands.
“Thus the provisional resolution to the issue of theodicy is eschatology, that is, the
future is secure in YHWH’s governance even if the present is unbearably out of control.” 1 Which means that God’s answer to human suffering is always hope! “If it seems
to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay” (2:3).
What is this vision? What is it but what we see with the eyes of faith? Indeed, it
is the prophet’s closing line in today’s reading that inspired Paul, and after him, Luther:
“[B]ut the righteous live by their faith” (2:4). And from today’s gospel: “The apostles
said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a
mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the
sea,” and it would obey you.’ ” (Lk 17:5–6). The apostles too cried out to the Lord, and
the Lord answered.
It takes faith to cry out to the Lord in times of distress and it takes faith to trust
that the Lord will answer.
It is faith that the Lord gives back to us as a gift when he does answer, faith to
hope in a future that is brighter than our best dreams. As a matter of fact, faith was the
Lord’s all along, a gift given to us in water and word, nourished by the Spirit.
It is faith to which the preacher speaks on the tablets of human hearts. The
Lord’s answer is a word to the preacher too. “Make it plain … so that a runner may
read it.” Indeed, make it plain, preacher, so that even faith the size of a mustard seed
can understand and believe.
Travis J. Scholl
Endnote
1
Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 241.
Proper 23 • Ruth 1:1–19a • October 10, 2010
Perhaps the first, obvious thing to say about this text from Ruth is that if we
read it in its context it is not exactly a wedding text. The best known part of this pericope is, no doubt, the climax of the story in the beautiful words of verse 16: “Where
you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and
your God my God.” These words certainly can be used to express the deep and abiding
love shared by a man and a woman in marriage, and they have a poetic beauty which
is well suited to promises of complete, lifelong faithfulness between husband and wife.
In fact, so many people have heard the words in that context of marriage that they are
surprised and confused when they realize that they are spoken by a woman to another
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Of course, in our culture’s contemporary climate of sexual confusion and diswoman.
order, promoters of homosexual “marriage” are happy enough to read this text as an
expression of sexual love, and then point to it as biblical “proof” in support of samesex, erotic relationships.
The text, of course, proves no such thing. As a culture, we are preoccupied
with sexual love, so we read that kind of human affection into this and any text which
expresses deep personal attachment to another person. Similarly, as a culture, we have
become uninterested in the sharp differences between religions, preferring to see common ground and converging values. In that light, we may be prone to miss the more
powerful meaning of Ruth’s words to Naomi. It is more accurate, and much more profound, to approach this text as a religious conversion text.
Ruth and Orpah were gentile women in Moab, raised in the worship of the
false god Chemosh (probably among other deities). They married two Israelite brothers (Naomi’s sons) who had come to Moab as what we might call economic refugees.
Tragedy befell the Israelite refugee family as first, Naomi’s husband Elimelech, and
then their two sons, died. The precarious situation faced by every widow in the ancient
world was thus compounded as Naomi lost her sons (who would have borne the
responsibility to care for the family), and found herself alone and unsupported far from
her own people. After the death of her sons, no one in Moab owed any obligation to
Naomi, a childless widow and a foreigner. Naturally she concluded that her only hope
of survival was to return to Judah.
In the world of the Old Testament, “religion was bound up with national identity” (John R. Wilch, Ruth in the Concordia Commentary series) and vice versa. To become
a worshipper of the God of Israel meant, in effect, to become an Israelite. Ruth’s commitment to stay with Naomi is thus far more than a profession of human affection; it
is a confession of faith in Israel’s God. Ruth equates this confession in the most unambiguous terms by adopting her identity as an Israelite: “Your people [=] my people,
your God [=] my God (Ru 1:16).” Here the contrast to Orpah is particularly sharp and
striking: Orpah “turned back”—and the word can sometimes mean “apostasize”—“to
her people and to her gods,” but Ruth renounces the identity of her country and its
religion. The fact that Naomi, herself now destitute and vulnerable, could offer Ruth no
physical or material security simply underlines the sincerity of Ruth’s religious loyalty.
Incidentally, many English translations, including the NIV and the ESV, actually soften
Ruth’s oath of loyalty in verse 17 by rendering the last phrase something like “if anything but death separates you and me.” In fact, as Wilch discusses in his commentary,
the force of the oath (and the profundity of Ruth’s faith in YHWH) is better captured
by a more literal translation: “if even death will separate you and me.”
William W. Schumacher
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Proper 24 • Genesis 32:22–33 • October 17, 2010
Textual Study
The lectionary unfortunately isolates this text from its literary context and thereby masks its climactic nature. As the climax of Jacob’s larger story, this text contains
surprising reversals:
•
Jacob, who has demonstrated his strength by deception, is now wounded in a deceptive struggle (the one who, at first, appears to be a man, is revealed to be more than that when wounding Jacob with a touch, 32:25);
•
Jacob, who has lied about his name in order to receive a blessing (“I am Esau,” 27:19), now speaks honestly about himself (“Jacob,” 32:27) and receives God’s blessing and a new name (“Israel,” 32:28); and
•
God, who has revealed himself to Jacob in a dream as Jacob slept at night (28:10–17) and in angels as Jacob journeyed during the day (32:1–2), now hides himself from Jacob in a night of sleepless struggle (32:24) and in an angel who disappears at dawn (32:26).
At the heart of these reversals lies a mystery: God works graciously in the
midst of struggle. On the one hand, though Jacob struggles with people and with God
(32:28), he receives God’s blessing freely by grace (32:29–30). On the other hand,
though Jacob receives God’s blessing, his life continues to be one of striving (e.g., later,
Jacob, the deceiver, is deceived by his children about his beloved son Joseph and then
discovers, in a struggle for food in a time of famine, not only Joseph but also the gracious blessing and provision of God).
In light of these climactic reversals, one could preach on this paradox in the text:
God’s blessing is known in the midst of gracious struggle.
Suggested Outline
Introduction
Offer an opening example revealing how people can believe that something is
wrong with their faith since they are undergoing a struggle. Then lead from that opening example to a statement of the paradox of the sermon.
“Something must be wrong with my faith. It’s just so difficult. If God loves
me so much, why is life so hard?” Perhaps you have heard these words from others.
Perhaps you have said them yourself, outside a hospital room or late into a sleepless
night.
Somewhere along the way, we have learned to associate grace with an experience of ease and faith with a life without struggle. When struggle does enter our life,
when things do not go as planned, when belief in God does not magically produce the
American dream, we begin to question whether or not we truly believe and, sometimes,
we wonder whether or not this God is one we want to believe in.
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This struggle is nothing new. Our Lord himself prepared his disciples for a lifetime of struggle. You see it in our gospel reading, as he encourages them to pray and
not lose heart (Lk 18:1). You hear it in his offer of rest to those who follow him (Mt
11:30). Faith involves living in a paradox. Following Christ means bearing an easy yoke,
carrying a light burden, dying to live, and living in a gracious struggle.
In our Old Testament reading, we catch a glimpse of this paradox, buried deep
within the history of God’s people. Here, we meet Jacob, soon to be named “Israel,”
because he strove with God. As we reflect on his experience, we will learn to live in the
tension of this paradox: faith means living in a gracious struggle.
Body of the Sermon
The body of the sermon will explore the tension of this paradox, by revealing
how we tend to emphasize one side of the paradox over the other. Each time, the story
of the text and the proclamation of the gospel bring the hearers back to the paradoxical
tension.
I. A Gracious Struggle:
A. Overemphasis upon Struggle: This world’s wisdom says, “Everything comes at a price.” Sometimes, we are tempted to believe that our efforts to follow the way of Jesus, our hours in prayer, our dollars in donation, our years of Bible study, and our lifetime of service somehow earn us the gracious favor of God. (Offer an example of such belief.)
B. Proclamation of a Gracious Struggle: In our text, Jacob’s struggle
with the angel does not earn him God’s blessing. In fact, Jacob has lost everything at this moment. He is left alone on this side of the river (32:24); God’s angels are gone (32:1–2); his possessions are gone (sent ahead as a way of earning his brother’s blessing); and his family is gone. Ultimately, the deceit with which he gained his father’s blessing is gone, as Jacob names himself before God and, in that moment of confession, receives God’s blessing and a new name. So, too, our salvation lies not in our works or our efforts but in the will of God and the work of his only Son, Jesus Christ, who died on our behalf (Jn 1:13). II. A Gracious Struggle:
A. Overemphasis upon Grace: Being saved by grace alone can some
times deceive people into believing that the life of faith is easy. To believe is to be delivered from suffering in this life and to have faith is to name and claim your blessing from God. (Offer an example, perhaps from televangelists, of such belief.)
B. Proclamation of a Gracious Struggle: Yet, such was not the life
our Lord envisioned as he called his disciples to take up their cross and follow him. Saved by Christ’s death and resurrection, his followers live not in glory now, but in suffering, carrying the cross.
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This life of gracious struggle is not new to God’s people. In fact, it lies at the
heart of their name, Israel. In our text, Jacob experiences God’s blessing, but only in
the midst of great struggle. His vision of God comes slowly, painfully, and mysteriously. After a long night’s struggle, the man who assaulted Jacob is slowly revealed to
be more than a man. With a dislocated hip, Jacob painfully holds on, crying out for
blessing. Even after God’s blessing, Jacob is named “Israel” and continues to live in a
gracious struggle with God. Though Jacob has seen God, God still remains a mystery
(Jacob’s request to know his name is never answered) and this God becomes known as
the God of Israel, as Jacob builds an altar to the God of those who struggle (33:20).
Conclusion
Return to the opening example and help the hearers see how the tension of a
gracious struggle is not evidence that something is wrong with our faith but rather the
manifestation of an active faith, a life of gracious struggle before God.
Here, contemporary stories of our gracious struggles in faith can be placed
alongside Jacob and other biblical figures (e.g., the Canaanite woman in Mt 15:21–28,
the apostle Paul in 2 Cor 12:7–10) so that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses
and “run with endurance” the life of faith (Heb 12:1–2).
David Schmitt
Proper 25 • Genesis 4:1–16 • October 24, 2010
Razing Cain and Raising Cains
Chapter 4 of Genesis is best seen as a continuation, an extension (and polyphonic echo) of the dynamic unleashed in chapter 3. Not only was child bearing painful, but
so was child rearing—for those first children “gotten … with the help of the Lord.”
Tragically, that first family lost both sons, one via fratricide. Adam and Eve’s attempt
to hide from the Lord became expulsion, and now the next generation was removed
from the presence of the Lord.
Like his parents, Cain took what was not his to take, namely control of his own
life, which resulted ultimately in his taking also the life of his brother—something
that also was not his to take and which he could not replace. The consequence was
also reminiscent of chapter 3—Cain lives under a curse and is expelled both from his
land and, more ominously, from the Lord’s presence (v. 11). As close as Cain came
to Immanuel was the “mark” the Lord gave him, which marked him both as a sinner
without home and a sinner under protection.
As tempting as it is to suggest greater value in Abel’s occupation or specific reason why the Lord “did not look with favor” on Cain and his offering, the text does not
focus there, but rather on the confrontations between Cain and the Lord. In the first
(vv. 6–7), the Lord warns Cain to “rule over” the sin crouching at his door—an ominous anticipation of Peter’s description of the devil (1 Pt 5:8). In the second, the Lord
confronts Cain about the murder of his brother. Reminiscent of Genesis 3, the Lord
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the “where” question; though, this “where” is not focused on Cain but on
first asks
Abel. Taken by itself, Cain’s initial answer, “I don’t know,” could be taken as bewilderment at a lifeless body. Linked with his second word, however, we see that ignorance
is not the problem. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Hebrew word for “keep” is rmv,
used often of the Lord’s gracious care reflected in the Aaronic benediction (Nm 6:24)
and in assurances like that of Psalm 121:5: “The Lord is your keeper.” Again reminiscent of Genesis 3, especially of Adam’s taunt that he ate the fruit only because “the
woman whom you gave to be with me…gave me fruit of the tree and I ate,” Cain
throws the onus back on the Lord. Where were you? Clearly, Cain refused to be both
keeper and brother to Abel, as well as child to the Lord. The anger Cain could not
master mastered him, and anger kills (cf. also Mt 5:21–22)—as it does to this day: marriages, families, peoples and nations, even churches.
The answer? Another son of Adam, sent from heaven, to be brother to not just
Abel but to Cain! And to all the Cains that populate the world, ourselves included.
Incredibly, the same thing happened to him as to Abel, and he knew it was coming.
The difference is that when his blood cries out to heaven, it cries not to seek vengeance
but for forgiveness and mercy, to make of us children of Cain children of the Father
and, therefore sisters and brothers again—razing Cain in order to raise Cain and the
children of Cain. As God touched Cain with a “mark,” so we are marked with the mark
of the cross (on forehead and breast and our entire life). Divinely marked, we are sent
into a Cainic world to bring what he has given us: love, grace, and reconciliation.
Henry Rowold
Reformation Day • Revelation 14:6–7 • October 31, 2010
The pericope is commonly appointed for the festival of the Reformation. The
assignment has less to do with the fact that Martin Luther was regarded by some of his
contemporaries as the first (or even third) angel of the apocalypse and more to do with
the Reformation’s emphasis on the good news of the person and work of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of sins and on the distinction between law and gospel. The interpretation of the text should not be limited to Luther or the Reformation; more important
than the reformer is the gospel message he proclaimed.
The text focuses on the appearance of the first angel and its message. Key to
understanding the context here is to recall John’s vision of the dragon’s two beasts
in chapter 13. The terrible beasts emerge from the sea and the earth respectively, and
having been given the authority and power of the dragon, they make the earth their
dwelling place. John’s vision continues in chapter 14 with the appearance of the lamb
standing on Mount Zion together with the 144,000 who had been purchased from the
earth. Then John sees the first angel flying in mid-heaven—between the sun and the
earth—“having the eternal gospel to proclaim to those dwelling on the earth, people of
every nation and tribe and language and people” (14:6).
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The “eternal gospel” to be proclaimed is the good news that the angel, as God’s
messenger, brings to all the inhabitants of the earth. But this good news is not limited
to Christ’s work of saving the world from sin and death; it is a message speaking both
law and gospel. In a mighty voice, the angel announces God’s imminent judgment, but
also calls for the reverence of God as God and for a response to him as judge of the
earth and as its creator. This preaching of the gospel to all nations is one of the signs
of the end of the age as prophesied by Christ himself (cf. Mk 13:10). In Revelation,
Christ’s work of salvation is completed, and now the work of judgment remains.
The content of the “eternal gospel” that the angel proclaims involves three aorist
imperatives, all of which relate to God’s final judgment. Those dwelling on the earth—
those of every nation, tribe, language, and people—are commanded to “fear God and
give him glory … and worship him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and
springs of water” (14:7). (The third imperative, proskunh,sate, can mean also “bow/
fall down and worship.”)
Several features of the angel’s proclamation are striking and may serve as themes
for the preacher to develop. First, through the angel God calls upon the inhabitants
of the earth to fear, glorify, and worship him. This message comes from outside the
earth—from above—and from God himself. God’s revelation to the world through
his word is in itself a gracious act, one that should not be overlooked. He does not
deal with his creation in silence and at a distance, but coming near he speaks words of
exhortation with authority. The fact that many on the earth have been deceived by the
false prophecies of the beasts and are under their control does not deter God’s gracious
actions. God, the creator of heaven and earth and everything under the earth is more
powerful than the beasts that come out of the earth and the seas; his authority far surpasses theirs, and they too will be judged (14:9–11).
Another key point of the text is the emphasis on the angel’s summons to repentance, centering on the command to “fear God … because the hour of his judgment
is come” (14:7). The dragon and his agents, the beasts, have exercised their power
and authority to great effect in the preceding chapters. They have waged war against
Christ’s church and have oppressed it (chapter 12). With their false prophecies and
signs, the dragon and his beasts have deceived many people and led them to forsake
the true God. During all this tribulation God has not forsaken his holy people. Yet
even as the hour of judgment approaches he still calls the unfaithful to turn to him and to confess their sin and guilt.
A final important feature of the text is found in the phrase, “eternal gospel”
(euagge,lion aiw,nion, 14:6). This good news is not to be disconnected from God
himself. God is an unchanging God (Mal 3:6), who is righteous and gracious. God’s
word is an unchanging word, one that announces judgment as well as mercy. Indeed,
God’s mercy does endure forever. He is faithful. He keeps his promises. This good
news is also proclaimed with reference to the victorious lamb surrounding by the saints
of God. The lamb, Jesus Christ, sent from God to the earth to redeem sinful humanity
and restore the fallen creation, is God’s ultimate and eternal good news to the world.
God redeems his fallen creatures through Christ so that he may restore them to himself. As his people they glorify and worship him as their God forever.
Gerhard Bode
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All Saints’ Day • Revelation 7:(2–8) 9–17 • November 7, 2010
Getting to Know the White-Clad Relatives
The central question of chapter 7 in John’s vision, “Who are these, clothed in
white robes, and from where have they come?” reminds me of the family gatherings of
my youth. Even with the name Burreson—a small Norwegian clan, few in number—at
the bi-annual reunion in Texas, relatives seemed to pop out of the woodwork. Who
are all these Burresons and from whence have they come? To ten-year old me, it was a
hopeful sign. This little family has a history, an ongoing life, and a future. So it is with
John’s comforting vision.
We see two family photos: one from the past and present (7:2–8), and one from
the future (7:9–17). The past and present photograph shows the church militant on
earth in the midst of the tribulations inflicted after the opening of the first six seals of
the lamb’s scroll. This ecclesial photo album is filled with the suffering of the saints
throughout time. The listing of the twelve tribes of Israel, beginning with the tribe of
the coming lion of Judah, manifests that this is God’s family, the full Israel of God.
The Abrahamic promises have been fulfilled. All those that belong to God from the
Old Testament through the New Testament have been and will be sealed. No one will
be left out of the photo album. The all-ruling one is in control of his creation and of
the tribulations and judgment coming upon the earth. These tribulations will not prevent God from sealing—marking as his own possession through the word and through
Baptism—his children. They are his personal property and God will care for and protect his own. In the midst of trial, suffering, and gruesome martyrdom, the Israel of
God can take comfort that those sealed by God with the sign of the victorious crucified and risen One will not be abandoned. They have a future.
A future. That’s what is depicted in the second family photo-op. The scene shifts
to the church triumphant, gathered before the throne of God and the lamb. Here those
sealed in the victory sign have been delivered to the father by the lamb who is their
shepherd. It is a preview of the family gathering to come. A sign that salvation belongs
to God alone will be this great multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-racial crowd gathered at God’s throne. This family of God has a future because God has conquered in
the fight and brought his people life and light. They have had their robes washed in the
word, and the great shepherd will lead them to the fountains of the waters of life. The
word they heard and that permeated their life in the waters of Baptism and the food
of the Lord’s Supper while part of the 144,000 on earth is now their eternal food and
drink under God’s heavenly tent. And the last photo in the album is that of the young
child, having suffered with loss and pain and hunger, and the hand of God wiping away
the final tear, forever, from her eyes. This photo album shows us the future of God’s
family.
Thus, All Saints’ Day ought to be the official feast day of scrapbookers, the
day in the Christian year where everyone revels in the family photos. The photos are
the names, lives, and memories of all the saints, especially those whose photos have
entered the ecclesial photo album in the past year. Assemblies would do well to take
time to open the verbal photo album of the congregation by naming aloud all the saints
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midst who have died in the past year (congregations with screens might confrom its
sider projecting photos of the faithful departed) and others in the living memory of the
assembly. Such a naming, preceding the prayers of the church, can serve as the creedal/
offertory rite of the day. It can include texts such as this:
Let us remember with thanksgiving those who have gone before us with
the sign of faith, for they were created by God to offer him praise and
thanksgiving forever, and he gave them new life through his Son in Holy
Baptism, and nourished them in the company of his people at his holy
table, and in his mercy has summoned them to his nearer presence so that
they may continue in joyful service of him forever.
The preaching of this Revelation text can lead the assembly to sit together
around the family photo album, rejoicing that God has a future for his family. It leads
us at the end of the rite of remembrance literally to cry, “Maranatha, Come Lord
Jesus,” and wipe every tear from your people’s eyes.
Kent Burreson
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book reviewS
COncordia
Journal
Getting Up to Speed
What Might I Read?
Charles P. Arand and Beth Hoeltke
So where might one begin reading on the topic of our creaturely care of creation? The following highlights certain works and thinkers that might give a person a
good, well-rounded orientation to the various questions raised by the ecological issues
of our day along with resources for developing an answer to them. Some of them will
be challenging, but it is important to read and understand those with whom we disagree
in order to enter into conversation with them and to provide thoughtful responses. The following resources, grouped by topic, are intended to be suggestive rather than
exhaustive.
Biblical Theology
More and more articles, dissertations, and books are being published each passing year that look at the biblical attitudes and practices regarding how we live with
creation and our fellow creatures. Some look at biblical attitudes toward the wilderness,
others at Israel’s treatment of the land and animals, and others at the new creation.
We might begin with Christopher Wright’s book, An Eye for an Eye. Initially, this
seems like an odd choice for inclusion, since on the face of it, Wright’s book does not
deal directly with environmental issues or our stewardship of creation. In some ways
it focuses primarily on economic issues. But in doing so, Wright provides us with a
helpful hermeneutical framework for appropriating much of the Old Testament material not only on economic issues, but also on environmental issues. This is important
because so many of our references to creation, other creatures, and life on the land are
found in the Old Testament. In addition, the Old Testament often frames salvation in
terms of a land flowing with milk and honey in addition to the restoration of creation.
To help us appropriate the Old Testament material, Wright develops a paradigmatic and typological approach for reading the Old Testament and understanding Old
Testament ethics today. The latter serves our reading the Old Testament material in
light of the New Testament. The former provides a way for appropriating the principles
and even practices of the Israelites in our day without making it incumbent or mandatory for Christians to do so as if there were no difference between Mosaic legislation
and the freedom in which Christians live today. To that end, Wright roots these two
paradigms or frameworks in creation and redemption.
Charles P. Arand, left, is the Waldemar A. and June Schuette
Chair in Systematic Theology and Chairman of the Department of
Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.
Beth Hoeltke, right, is a graduate student in the Ph.D.
program at Concordia Seminary. Her area of study is Theology
of Creation Ethics.
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302
From there we might consider Ellen Davis’s An Agrarian Reading of the Bible.
One need not read far into the Bible to note that it presents us with an agrarian way of
life. The land was important. Food was important. Feasts were important. Caring for
the land and for each other are intimately bound together. Both were related to God’s
blessing, whether in Eden or in the Promised Land. Much of that biblical world is
becoming increasingly alien to us, as the majority of the world’s population now lives
within urban centers, a phenomenon that has increased in pace over the last fifty years.
Davis helps us recover an appreciation for the agricultural world of the Old
Testament. She explores the agrarian life of the OT and shows how it shaped the
people of God in terms of their values and the way in which they lived on the land.
At times, she does this as a critique of our growing tendency to become disconnected
and isolated from creation. This is not to suggest that we all go back to subsistence
farming, but it does call us to ask about what we may have lost and to explore how we
might recover a sense of our dependence upon the land; to rediscover how it cares for
and nourishes us; and to understand the importance of preparing and eating food for
building community as families and churches within an urban society.
As we move into the New Testament, it is hard to avoid the work of N.T.
Wright. He has drawn our attention to the way in which the New Testament speaks
about the Christian hope in terms of the resurrection of the body and the new creation.
Wright brings the reader back to a better understanding of creation by pointing to the
new creation. The Christian hope provides an important context for (the other bookend to creation, one might say) our consideration of our life within creation. It provides
us with a realistic approach for thinking about our work in the care of creation and
guards against utopian visions of a new world this side of Christ’s return. The Christian
hope sustains us over and against gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic scenarios that are
often painted for us by alarmists. Christians can care for creation in the confidence that
Christ will restore and renew all things. Suggested books by N.T. Wright include Simply
Christian and Surprised by Hope.
Literary Writing on Nature and Our Place within It
Nature writing is something of a uniquely American genre and contribution
to literature, having originated in the nineteenth century with Henry David Thoreau,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Muir, and Henry Beston, among others. These writers
explore not only how we think of beauty in nature, but reflect on our human relationship to nature and nature’s importance for the human psyche. The best nature writers
open our eyes to see things that we may have seen but never noticed. For a helpful
introduction to the vast range of American nature writing, consider the anthology compiled by Bill McKibben, American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau. One
could also begin with Annie Dillard, who explores the present character of creation in
both its wonder and horror, and Wendell Berry, who writes elegantly about our place
and role within creation.
Annie Dillard, an essayist and naturalist, provides in her book, Pilgrim at Tinker
Creek, an honest and unvarnished approach to nature that is also profoundly theologi303
cal. As a naturalist, her observations are astute and insightful. She does not adopt a
view that is nostalgic or romantic as if she were writing as one who takes only occasional walks through nature in order to observe the “scenery.” Dillard does not shy
away from observing and describing the violence and seemingly senseless death within
the wider creation, even as she describes its wonder and beauty. As a theologian, she
struggles with the goodness of God in relation to the violence and suffering that she
sees. The first half of her book is an exercise in thinking about God by route of the via
positiva. In other words, she focuses on “the world’s goodness and God’s” (280). To
focus only on this could lead to a purely romantic view of nature. In the second half of
the book, she focuses on the via negativa, which she finds to be more helpful. It deals
with God’s basic unknowability and thus carries the caution about saying too much
about God based only upon what we see in creation. Thus, Dillard seeks to hold both
together by affirming on the one hand, that the world is “a grace wholly given” (9), and
at the same time that it is “tangled in a rapture with violence” (10).
Wendell Berry is another thoughtful and poetic writer who offers us an insightful
vision of our place within creation , which he does through the eyes of agrarian values.
He also helps to remind us that we are creatures, not the “author of ourselves or our
destinies,” but only co-authors, for God alone is the author and perfector of all creation. The book, The Art of the Commonplace, edited by Norman Wirzba, provides an
excellent introduction into the world of his thought, particularly with reference to our
place within creation. Indeed, the last few chapters of his book take a look specifically
at Christianity’s contributions and promises for dealing with the issues of our environment. Berry’s basic ecological principal, that “nothing lives in isolation,” finds congruence in his exposition of Christian values.
Much of Berry’s writing provides a critique of the values that have arisen as a
result of an industrial society, which Berry contrasts to the values of an agrarian society. Berry suggests that a more agrarian lifestyle not only reconnects a person to the
land, but leads a person to a better understanding of himself and his relationship to his
neighbor. For example, Berry points out how food and eating become a critical focal
point for binding us both to the earth and in community with one another. Food is
more than fuel. When we participate in food production as the gardener, we no longer
think of ourselves as just consumers, but as people who intimately know where the
food we receive comes from; we “eat with understanding and with gratitude” for the
true maker of all we receive.
Science and Ecology
Obviously, the literature here is going to be vast and voluminous. One can find
books on nearly every aspect of the creation: from trees to whales, from birds to butterflies, from issues of the climate, to issues ofsoil and water. Among the more helpful
books providing a broad overview for the non-specialist, one could consult the publication by Science Magazine, The State of the Planet. Another possibility is The State of the
Wild, which looks at the various issues related to animal life and its biodiversity around
the world. More recently, The Nature Conservancy published The Atlas of Global
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Conservation:
Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities to Make a Difference that provides a comprehensive view. If the reader is looking for an introduction to the science
of ecology, then Daniel Botkin and Edward Keller, Environmental Science: Earth as a
Living Planet, 4th edition is a good option. In addition to this, one could consult Eric
Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, eds., Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on
Biodiversity.
But if you are looking for something that is more than a scientific reporting of
data, and which both opens the wonder of creation and challenges our thinking, consider a couple of the works by E. O. Wilson. One might begin with his small volume
entitled, The Creation (2003). After spending a good portion of his career criticizing
and rejecting Christian views of creation, Wilson extends to Christians something of an
olive branch. The book is written as a series of letters to a hypothetical Baptist pastor
(Wilson was raised as a dispensationalist). He starts out by acknowledging that he and
the Baptist pastor disagree on the existence of God and the origin of the cosmos. Yet,
they do agree that science and religion are the two greatest forces for shaping hearts
and minds today and on the need to care for creation. What made this book somewhat
remarkable is Wilson’s attempt to go beyond old battles and open up new conversations in the hope of working together for the good of creation and to affect all life on
earth.
Wilson is a socio-biologist and has spent most of his career studying the social
life of ants around the world. Wilson has done much to draw people’s attention to the
diversity of life on earth and how it is being threatened through the loss of habitats,
space, food, and water. In this regard, his work in The Future of Life or Biodiversity is
most helpful and eminently readable. An eloquent writer, Wilson helps the reader to
discover the mystery of life on earth in a way that inspires awe and wonder. At times
he departs from his scientific observations in order to offer reflections on the human
attraction to life, for which he coined the term “biophilia.” He also explores why
humans find themselves drawn to certain habitats (for example, his savannah hypothesis). Certainly, when he moves in this philosophical direction the reader will at times
find him frustrating and disagreeable. That being said, he does lead the reader into a
greater appreciation for the diversity of life in creation.
Environmental Philosophy/Ethics
Rachel Carlson’s book, Silent Spring, brought the environment to the forefront of national issues for many Americans in the 1960s. By the mid-1970s, the field
of environmental ethics emerged as a specialized discipline and has grown by leaps
and bounds since then. In general, this discipline has addressed questions about how
we fit within creation, why we should care about it, and how we ought to carry out
our responsibility. Much of it has wrestled with anthropocentric views of creation (it
exists only for our use) and whether or not we can find an intrinsic value (nonanthropocentric approach) to creation apart from human use. For an overview of the field,
one might check out Louis J. Pojman, Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and
Application, 5th edition. Another more recent and helpful work by David R. Keller is,
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Environmental
Ethics: The Big Questions.
However, if the reader should have time for only one book on this topic, it
should be Aldo Leopold’s, Sand County Almanac. Written in 1949, few books have had
a greater impact upon the field of environmental ethics. Leopold worked at one point
for the National Forest Service during which time he began to move from a utilitarian
ethic to an ecological ethic that stressed the intrinsic value of creation and the land.
He developed his thoughts regarding the biotic relationships of the land in numerous
papers, which came to fruition in the Sand County Almanac.
The book is deceiving in its elegance and simplicity. Nearly two thirds of it reads
as something of a journal with reflections on the changes that take place with the passing of each season. Each month the reader encounters nature by sight, by sound, and
by touch, through Leopold’s poetic words; we the creatures become an intimate part of
creation. Leopold’s language encourages one to embrace creation in a new way; to hear
the silence of night broken by a robin giving voice to his mate, and in it, the praise of
the day to come. He opens our eyes to the beauty that exists all around us—one plant,
one bird, one mammal, one month, or one day at a time.
In the second half of his book, Leopold leads the reader into the depths of his
philosophical mind. To this end, he develops a land aesthetic to overcome the divide
that sets humans apart as external and objective observers of nature. He insists on a
unity between the individual who perceives and the object that she perceives. In addition, Leopold argues that we need to develop a mental eye (one might say an ecological
eye) that sees the beauty of nature not as isolated objects, but in terms of connectedness and relationships.
His land aesthetic gives rise to his land ethic in that it allows the reader to see
the land as a community of life that includes soil, water, plants, and animals. And so,
Leopold argues that human beings need to see themselves less as “conquerors of the
land” and more as “plain members and citizens” of it. Citizenship entails obligations
over and above self-interest. Simply put, his land ethic states: “A thing is right when it
tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong
when it tends otherwise.” (224-225).
Christian Writings on the Environment
Numerous books on a Christian understanding of our place within creation have
emerged from evangelical publishers in the last couple of decades, with more on the
way. The following provides suggestions that move from an easily accessible read to a
more deeply philosophical and theological approach.
Ed Brown writes Our Father’s House for those that have no specialized training in theology. Brown helps the reader think through two major issues. The first has
to do with the creature’s interconnectedness to all things. Brown offers solid insights
into the importance of relationships and how they are delicately interconnected. Each
broken relationship causes tensions in the next. So too each restored relationship makes
possible a restoration of the others. He states, “My relationship with God and how
I treat the world, might be a measure of my faith or spiritual health, and a negative
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relationship
might be a warning sign.” Brown also raises a point that deserves further
thought. He suggests that in the end, environmental problems are “sin” problems and
all, whether Christian or not, are responsible. Thus, the one best equipped to deal with
sin, new life, regeneration, and restoration is the church.
Second, Brown explores the relationship between taking care of creation and carrying out the work of proclaiming the gospel. He refuses to separate the two as if one
should be carried out to the exclusion of the other. He looks at creation and asks how
a Christian can fulfill her vocation to care for creation while at the same time fulfilling
her vocation to share the gospel. In the end, one of the most valuable parts of Brown’s
book is the way in which he develops insightful, practical strategies for living as that
created being within the church and in accomplishing the work of the church.
An introductory book that covers the full range of issues on the topic of creation
and the environment is Earth Keeping in the ‘90s: Stewardship of Creation, ed. Loren
Wilkenson. Do not let the title make you think that this book is antiquated. It isn’t. It
has been updated and remains quite relevant in many respects. It combines Christian,
scholarly insights in the areas of science, philosophy, economics, literature and theology.
Earth Keeping in the ‘90s provides an easily grasped overview that takes into
account not only Christian responses, but also the influences of Greek philosophy
such as Stoicism and movements such as the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth
century and the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century upon how we see
ourselves in relation to creation. So what is appealing about this book? It is written in
a readable style, and it is accessible and makes its central points clear. The book also
covers a waterfront of historical and theological issues in dealing with our stewardship
of creation. What are the book’s weaknesses? Its treatment of particular environmental
issues and the science underlying them will be somewhat dated. In addition, the book
does not develop a fully coherent and theological framework for answering the question, “How do we see ourselves in relation to the earth on which we live?” That being
said, it does provide a good, overall orientation from an evangelical perspective.
If you are looking for something into which you can sink your theological teeth,
consider the writings of Norman Wirzba. A professor at Duke University, he has written on agrarianism, ecology, philosophy, and theology. Wirzba’s, The Paradise of God is
a deeply thoughtful and challenging read. Readers will certainly not agree with how he
approaches every issue. That said, he does provide a number of insights that are worth
consideration and development. His Living the Sabbath provides a more devotional
and practical treatment for how the Christian can live gratefully and graciously in creation.
In both works, Wirzba explores at length the importance of the seventh day
Sabbath rest as the culmination of God’s creative work. God created the seventh day in
order to rest and to express delight in all that he had made. Here he develops, with help
from Jacob Heschel, the rabbinic understanding of menuha, a kind of delightful rest.
God invites us to delight in all the works of his hands. This has much to suggest about
how we view and live within creation. It also points us to the goal of God’s work of
reclaiming creation in Christ and ushering in the new creation. The book of Hebrews
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also develops
this when it speaks about entering into the rest of God. His smaller work,
Living the Sabbath, explores and brings out the practical ramifications of a theology of
the Sabbath grounded in creation.
Historical Perspective
The question of our relation to creation as humans is not unique to our age
or to Christianity for that matter. It is a question that theologians have addressed
down through the ages and it is a question that has implications for how we tell the
story today. The most thorough and substantive book to date on the topic is H. Paul
Santmire’s book, Nature in Travail. Santmire provides one with an introduction to the
history of how various theologians have spoken about humans and human destiny.
Santmire takes the reader on a tour through the thought world of various theologians
from Irenaeus to Augustine, from Aquinas to Luther, down to the present day.
Santmire frames his discussion around two story lines of the gospel. He calls
them the ascension motif and the migration motif. The former tells the story in such
a way that it directs the Christian’s attention to the goal of being rescued off the earth.
The latter tells that in a way we are migrating to a new land, namely, the new creation.
Santmire’s book is not the last word on the subject, yet it helps one realize more fully
how much Christian thinkers have sought to answer basic questions about the relation
to creation down through the ages. In that regard he provides a helpful resource or reference guide for more in-depth studies of individual theologians.
In another book, Ritualizing Nature, Santmire presents the Christian with a new
way to reflect on the liturgical life of the church and its connection to the first article of
the Creed, the creator, creation, and the eschatological promise of the future. Santmire
opens his book with a reflection on Thoreau and an invitation to “Come Walk with
Me.” Santmire helps the reader not only to see all that God has made, but to see how it
all bespeaks of God’s presence and his eschatological promises. He then returns us to
the church and finds in the Scriptures a celebration of the world. Santmire also asks us
to ponder the tough, yet pertinent questions in the face of a creation thoroughly broken
and pervasively polluted by man. Or quite simply, how can one “walk the walk” as well
as “talk the talk” as a Christian when it comes to caring for God’s creation? Although
we may not always agree with Santmire’s theology, he certainly offers us some food for
thought with regard to how the church incorporates creation theology within its worship life.
The Best for Last: Luther’s Theology
Obviously, Luther did not address environmental issues per se. But he did
explore the ramifications of the gospel throughout the 1520s, particularly as it helped
Christians to embrace God’s creation and their lives within it. In the end, he expressed
a deeper and richer theology of creation than anyone since Irenaeus (and perhaps Basil
the Great.) This is not to say that we can point to a single seminal treatise on creation
that provides a systematic treatment of his thought on the topic. Instead, his thinking
on the subject finds expression in a variety of writings. So where might one begin?
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There is perhaps no better place to begin than with Luther’s Small and Large
Catechisms. Luther’s theology of creation suffuses his explanations to the Ten
Commandments, Creed, Lord’s Prayer, and Sacraments. Then of course, one thinks
of Luther’s masterwork that he produced at the end of his life, namely, the Genesis
Commentary. Beyond that, one can see how Luther’s creation theology is operative
on issues such as his approach to the law and its application to all people. His treatises, “On How Christians Should Regard Moses” and “Against the Sabbatarians”
provide much food for thought. Beyond these, Luther’s thoughts on creation are scattered throughout his treatises, sermons, catechetical works, and his table talk. Lest we
become overwhelmed and discouraged, several Luther scholars can help point the way.
Beyond Luther himself, one of most important writers in helping us to understand the importance of first article theology has to be Gustaf Wingren. Although
his book, Luther on Vocation has become something of a classic in Lutheran circles,
his less well-known book, Creation and Law, is perhaps even more helpful. In it, he
opposes the epistemological approach of Karl Barth, and argues for a more creedal
approach, pointing one back to the creation and the importance of first article theology.
Creation precedes redemption just as Genesis precedes Exodus. Again, while he does
not address the specifics of current ecological issues, he does provide a framework for
thinking through such issues grounded in Luther’s thought.
More recently, Oswald Bayer has mined Luther’s works and pulled together
the reformer’s thinking on creation. His most recent book, Martin Luther’s Theology,
brings to light a number of statements from Luther regarding how God addresses us
through creation, as well as how the gospel opens our senses to embrace creation as
God’s gift and our home. He doesn’t deal in an extensive way with ecological issues,
but he does point the way.
And of course, Robert Kolb has been lifting up and highlighting Luther’s thinking on creation throughout his career. Kolb, however, takes more of an historical
approach.
Conclusion
Although we have only been able to offer a review of some of the books that
one could read on this topic, the hope is that these will provide you, the reader, with a
basic orientation to both issues and questions that arise in connection with our care of
creation. As Lutherans—but more importantly as Christians—we have a responsibility
in caring for God’s creation. Hopefully, if even in a small way, an interest in this topic
has been sparked.
309
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A Concordia Seminary, St. Louis presentation
LutherHostel
2010
October 2–5, 2010
(Optional Perry County tour on October 6)
Designed to provide growth in biblical knowledge and
understanding, fun, and fellowship, and a chance to gain
helpful insights for daily living for adults age 55 and above.
“Christ or Caricature?”
Dr. Paul L. Maier, presenter
Features:
•Reception and dinner with President and Mrs. Dale A. Meyer
•Presentations and class visitations
•Student-led evening devotions
•Opportunities for informal interaction with faculty
•Private demonstration of the organ in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus
•Tour of selected St. Louis area sites
To register, call 314-505-7486 or e-mail ce@csl.edu.
Visit the newly redesigned
www.concordiatheology.org
ConcordiaTheology.org is an online theological resource provided by
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. The newly redesigned website features:
The Quad ConcordiaTheology.org’s own blog of faculty contributors
commenting on anything and everything. In other words, the kind of
talk that happens on the campus quad.
The Commons Where ConcordiaTheology.org gathers posts from
other blogs connected with Concordia Seminary. In other words, the
kind of talk that happens in the campus commons.
The Library ConcordiaTheology.org’s ever-expanding collection of
multimedia resources (text, video, and audio), including but not
limited to podcasts, articles, preaching helps, archives of Concordia
Journal, and a lot of what would have been at the “old”
ConcordiaTheology.org. In other words, what you would find in
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Follow us on Facebook (Concordia Theology) and Twitter (CSLTheology).
Visitation events at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis
Contemplate…
October 7-9, 2010
College age or older
Events include:
campus tour,
class visits, welcome
reception and dinner,
sessions on financial aid,
life transitions, and housing
Green and Gold Day
October 15, 2010
College students
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deaconess
ministry
Events include:
class visits, worship,
faculty meet and greet,
Oktoberfest celebration
Both events are free. On-campus housing is available for a fee.
To register, call 1-800-822-9545 or e-mail admissions@csl.edu.
“A thoughtful,
sophisticated,
biblically-based,
theologicallyastute exploration
of the authentic
Christian life in
the midst of the
temptations of
abundance.”
–Robert Benne,
director, Roanoke
College Center for
Religion and Society
The American Mind Meets the Mind of Christ
Robert Kolb, editor
To order:
314-505-7117
sempress@csl.edu
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Online study guide for The American Mind Meets the Mind of Christ
coming soon to www.concordiatheology.org.