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The Incarnation: The Whole City is Honored

You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored…

– from Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God

…Like the presence of the Olympics honors a country.

In one sense, this is what the incarnation of Jesus Christ means for the world. In one moment, humanity is both affirmed and indicted. Indicted, because God took on flesh for man’s sin. But affirmed for the same reason – God took on flesh for man’s sin. He ‘took on flesh’ and ‘tabernacled among us’ (John 1:14).

In that great act, while not overlooking the ugliness of sin and its curse, God affirms that he has a purpose for his creation. He honors it by dwelling in its midst as a man. There is no higher theology, and there is no higher honor for this world than this: ‘

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see!
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as Man with men to dwell,
Jesus our Immanuel!’

We dishonor the incarnation by downplaying the honor of God’s creation – the world and all that dwells therein, for God Himself dwelled therein. And we dishonor the incarnation by overlooking sin, for sin necessitated it.

Light Before Sun, Idea Before Incarnation

In an essay on Charles Dickens, G.K. Chesterton picks up an interesting line of thought. He notes the fact that the Book of Genesis records the creation of light occurring before the creation of the sun (Gen. 1:3-19).

To many modern people it would sound like saying that foliage existed before the first leaf; it would sound like saying that childhood existed before a baby was born. The idea is, as I have said, alien to most modern thought, and like so many other ideas which are alien to most modern thought, it is a very subtle and very sound idea.

Chesterton then delivers this sound meditation on the creation narrative:

Whatever be the meaning of the passage in the actual primeval poem, there is a very real metaphysical meaning in the idea that light existed before the sun and stars. It is not barbaric; it is rather Platonic. The idea existed before any of the machinery which made manifest the idea. Justice existed when there was no need of judges, and mercy existed before any man was oppressed.

Like Dorothy Sayers in The Mind of the Maker, he relates the idea to literature:

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists, as a mother can love the unborn child. In creative art the essence of a book exists before the book or before even the details or main features of the book; the author enjoys it and lives in it with a kind of prophetic rapture. He wishes to write a comic story before he has thought of a single comic incident. He desires to write a sad story before he has thought of anything sad. He knows the atmosphere before he knows anything. There is a low priggish maxim sometimes uttered by men so frivolous as to take humour seriously – a maxim that a man should not laugh at his own jokes. But the great artist not only laughs at his own jokes; he laughs at his own jokes before he has made them.

He continues,

The last page comes before the first; before his romance has begun, he knows that it has ended well. He sees the wedding before the wooing; he sees the death before the dual. But most of all he sees the colour and character of the whole story prior to any possible events in it.

(G.K. Chesterton on The Pickwick Papers, from In Defense of Sanity, pp. 127-128)

I do not know if there is a better illustration for the foreknowledge of God than the mind of the writer, the mind of the maker. I saw an interview with J.K. Rowling a while back in which she discussed how she first created the Harry Potter character. As she rode in a train, he essentially just appeared in her imagination, and she knew his destiny right away. C.S. Lewis wrote of his recurring vision of a fawn with an umbrella carrying parcels in the snow. They knew their own characters before they ever set pen to paper. God did too.

  • For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…(Rom. 8:29).

Or as one translation puts it:

  • For those on whom he set his heart beforehand, he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Say ‘No’ to Mother Nature

Mistaken for our mother, she is terrifying and even abominable. But if she is only our sister – if she and we have a common Creator – if she is our sparring partner – then the situation is quite tolerable. Perhaps we are not here as prisoners but as colonists: only consider what we have done already to the dog, the horse, or the daffodil. She is indeed a rough playfellow. There are elements of evil in her. To explain that would carry us far back: I should have to speak of Powers and Principalities and all that would seem to a modern reader most mythological. This is not the place, nor do these questions come first. It is enough to say here that Nature, like us but in her different way, is much alienated from her Creator, though in her, as in us, gleams of the old beauty remain…She has nothing to teach us. It is our business to live by our own law not by hers: to follow, in private or in public life, the law of love and temperance even when they seem to be suicidal, and not the law of competition and grab, even when they seem to be necessary to our survival. For it is part of our spiritual law never to put survival first: not even the survival of our species. We must resolutely train ourselves to feel that the survival of Man on this Earth, much more of our own nation or culture or class, is not worth having unless it can be had by honourable and merciful means.

C.S. Lewis, On Living in an Atomic Age, from Present Concerns, p. 79

I get the whole ‘Mother Nature’ thing. Even from a Christian perspective, we believe that we were formed from the ‘dust of the earth.’ But there are obviously major problems with the whole ‘Mother Nature’ idea.

Lewis nails the main issue – if Nature is our mother, then she is our teacher of morality. We sit on Nature’s lap and learn her wisdom. Yet such learning leads down the road of ‘natural selection’ and such. It leads to hunger games in which we are fighting to survive at the expense of others, and others are doing the same to us (that pretty much summarizes the various ‘enmities’ of Genesis 3).

The gospel of Jesus Christ does not call upon us to survive but to loving sacrifice. And while there are glimmers of such in Nature, we must remember that all of creation has fallen with us. We take our cues from elsewhere.

Nature and science are not teachers of morality.

C.S. Lewis: Summary of the Character of the Planets in Medieval Thought

Introduction: In the Middle-Ages the study of the cosmos and mythology were blended:

They are planets as well as gods. Not that the Christian poet believe in the god because he believed in the planet; but all three things – the visible planet, the source of influence, and the god – generally acted as a unity upon his mind. I have not found evidence hat theologians were at all disquieted by this state of affairs.

The Seven Planets and their Character

1. Saturn

In the earth his influence produces lead; in men, the melancholy complexion; in history disastrous events…Our traditional picture of Father Time with the scythe is derived from earlier pictures of Saturn…He is the most terrible of the seven and is sometimes called The Greater Infortune, Infortuna Major.

2. Jupiter

Jupiter, the King, produces in the earth, rather disappointingly, tin; this shining metal said different things to the imagination before the canning industry came in. The character he produces in men would now be very imperfectly expressed by the word ‘jovial’, and is not very easy to grasp; it is no longer, like the saturnine character, one of our archetypes. We may say it is Kingly; but we must think of a King at peace, enthroned, taking his leisure, serene. The Jovial character is cheerful, festive yet temperate, tranquil, magnanimous…He is the best planet, and is called The Greater Fortune, Fortuna Major.

3. Mars

Mars makes iron. He gives men the martial temperament, ‘sturdy hardiness’…But he is a bad planet, Infortuna Minor. He causes wars.

4. The Sun

Sol produces the noblest metal, gold, and is the eye and mind of the whole universe. He makes men wise and liberal and his sphere is the Heaven of theologians and philosophers…Sol produces fortunate events.

5. Venus

In beneficence Venus stands second only to Jupiter; she is Fortuna Minor. Her metal is copper…In mortal she produces beauty and amorousness; in history, fortunate events.

6. Mercury

Mercury produces quicksilver. Dante gives his sphere to beneficent men of action. Isodore, on the other hand, says this planet is called Mercurius because he is the patron of profit…Gower says that the man born under Mercury will be ‘studious’ and ‘in [writing] curious’…It is difficult to see the unity in all these characteristics. ‘Skilled eagerness’ or ‘bright alacrity’ is the best I can do. But it is better just to take some real mercury in a saucer and play with it for a few minutes. That is what ‘Mercurial’ means.

7. The Moon

At Luna we cross in our descent the great frontier…from aether to air, from ‘heaven’ to ‘nature’, from the realm of gods (or angels) to that of daemons, from the realm of necessity to that of contingence, from the incorruptible to the corruptible….Her metal is silver. In men she produces wandering, and that in two senses. She may make them travellers…But she may also produce ‘wandering’ of the wits, especially that periodical insanity which was first meant by the word lunacy…

Conclusion:

It will be noticed that while we find no difficult in grasping the character of Saturn or Venus, Jove and Mercury almost evaded us. The truth which emerges from this is that the planetary characters need to be seized in an intuition rather than built up out of concepts; we need to know them, not to know about them…

– All quotes from C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image, pp. 105-109

Snippets: Creation Will Be Set Free From Its Bondage to Decay (Rom. 8:20-21)

*In these snippets posts I share some of the fruits of my study in a given week as I prepare to preach. These are brief outlines of main points. Think of it as a short commentary on a passage without the application that would be made in preaching.
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  • Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

1. ‘Creation’ refers to irrational and inanimate creation. Not rational humans, angels, or fallen angels.

2. Irrational and inanimate creation, as we saw in the previous post, is personified as  ‘on tiptoe’ and ‘groaning’ for the return of Christ and the resurrection and glorification of mankind.

3. The creation has been subjected to futility and decay because of man’s sin, yet, personified again, it has hope of renewal

4. Objection: Isn’t everything going to burn?

  • 2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 11 ¶ Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!

We must finish the passage:

  • 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

This ‘burning,’ then, must be the fire of purification and refinement rather than complete destruction. The ‘dissolved’ heavens and earth will become, or be replaced by, a ‘new heavens and a new earth.’

5. Jesus Christ speaks of this as ‘the regeneration’:

  • Matthew 19:28 Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world (regeneration), when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

The old heavens and earth will be regenerated, born again, and become new.

6. Biblical sketch of the regeneration:
A. The Heavens

  • At least four times in Scripture we read of ‘new heavens’ (Isaiah 65:17,22; 2Pet. 3:13, Rev. 21:1).
  • Four times in Revelation Christ is said to hold the ‘seven stars’ in his hand (Rev. 1:16, 20; 2:1; 3:1). These stars are explicitly said to be ‘the angels of the seven churches’ (1:20). Yet the symbolism involved is possibly that of the seven planets of ancient cosmology (C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy is built loosely on this concept. The important idea is that the image displays Christ closeness to, and care and concern for, the galaxy. Many other passages of Scripture could be quoted to describe God’s intimate knowledge of, and care for, the heavens.

B. The Earth

  • As above, a ‘new earth’ is spoken of multiple times in Scripture.

The earth is often personified as playing apart in the coming of that Day, for example:

  • Psalm 98:8 Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together 9 before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
  • Isaiah 55:12 “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

C. Things of the earth: Animals (for extended treatment see HERE)

1. Animals are included in the Covenant of Grace via the Noahic Covenant and are protected from the waters of wrath in the ark. The ‘bow in the clouds’ is just as much a sign for them as for us:

  • Genesis 9:12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations

2. In the new covenant, Jesus explicitly declares all animals ceremonially clean:

  • Mark 7:19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” ( Thus he declared all foods clean.)
  • Acts 10:15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

3. Language of animals in the new created order is repeatedly used in Scripture:

  • Isaiah 11:6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
  • Isaiah 65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.
  • Christ himself is depicted in the vision of Revelation as both a Lion and Lamb (Rev. 5:5-6), which would be nonsensical without the existence of the actual creatures. There continuing existence will point to his glory.

D. Things on the earth: Plants

  • We are invited to the future ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ which will, of course, entail food (Rev. 19:9), and specifically plants. Grapes and grain will surely be involved:
  • Luke 22:15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

Objection: What about death? Don’t plants have to die to become food? Answer: Biblically, death entails the shedding of blood:

  • Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood…

Plant death is in a different category than that spoken of so often in Scripture. It is considered natural rather than unnatural, since plants were eaten in pre-fall Paradise:

  • Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden…”

But the great hope: God and the Lamb will be in the midst:

  • Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

That is the day that all of creation is on its tiptoe, and groaning, to see. On that day all creation will experience the liberty of the sons of God. The gospel is for us, but it is much bigger than us – it is for all of creation in some sense. In our renewal, the creation will be renewed on account of the work of Christ.

If We Knew the History of Water

N.D. Wilson meditating upon a stream in connection with the God who created it and its history:

Does God shape each water molecule with the care He puts into His snowflakes? He needs no shortcuts to name them, no broad categories. He knows them each, every last one. He knows where they have been and where they are going. He knows their uniqueness and which of the holiest ancient drops are now in relationships that would appall any human sensibilities. If I could know the complete history of one cubic foot of this stream, then I could know the history of the world.

As for God, His Son turned water into wine. And so we end the story before He turned that wine into urine. (Should we deny that He did?) (Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, pp. 46-47).