The Gospel of Our King

Bible, Worldview, and the Mission of Every Christian

Ashford, Bruce Riley, Thomas, Heath A.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781493416714
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Ministère chrétien

This accessible overview shows how the Bible--with its 66 books, dozens of authors, and multiple genres--comes together to provide an overarching story about God the King and explains how the Christian gospel and mission address the totality of human life. Written by a biblical scholar and a theologian, The Gospel of Our King shows how any account of gospel and mission can only be understood in light of the whole biblical testimony. The authors help us understand the Bible's overarching narrative as the story that encompasses everything. This story, revealed by God and centered on Jesus the King, enables us to know and love God and to fulfill his purpose for our lives. It is the framework within which we come to understand the Christian worldview, the Christian gospel, and the Christian mission. When we understand how the whole Bible fits together to shape the totality of a Christian's life, we will be prepared to show the goodness of Christ and the gospel to others in our personal, social, cultural, and global contexts.

1
Creation

God the King and His Good Creation

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1

Introduction

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So begins Genesis 1, the starting point of the biblical narrative. That chapter, like this chapter, is about creation. But what is meant by creation? At least two things, both of which help us to frame the remainder of our discussion.

First, creation is an activity undertaken by none other than God himself. God’s creation of the heavens and earth provides the home environment for humans to live out our calling before God, and it composes the grand stage on which the rest of the Bible’s narrative plays out. As we will see, God’s creative activity could be compared to the labors of a skilled craftsperson. After a long day, the craftsperson looks at the work of his or her hands and declares, “Very nice. Exactly as I intended!” Similarly, the world in which we live is the work of God’s hands, the skillful work of the ultimate craftsperson.

Second, creation is the “stuff” of reality. When we talk about creation, we are talking about not only the divine activity of creating but also the finished product itself—all the created world in both its material and immaterial aspects. Of course, the meanings of the word are really two sides of one coin. If we are talking about one, we must always necessarily be talking about the other. The stuff of creation cannot exist without its Creator. Likewise, the Creator cannot be known except through his creation. Even as we observe the life of Christ and read the words of Scripture, we are learning about God in an embodied manner and through human language.

It is not uncommon in our world, however, for people to separate the two aspects of creation. On the one hand, some well-meaning Christians seem to believe that we ought to orient ourselves toward God by escaping from his good creation. They see salvation as something that takes us up and away from the world. But that picture is not right; as we will see, God’s salvation will renew the heavens and earth so that we can dwell with him forever in this context.

On the other hand, atheists and other types of naturalists speak about nature without reference to God. Take, for example, Richard Dawkins’s The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. In it Dawkins, a biologist, argues that the world as we know it is a result of impersonal forces that give the illusion that the world was designed by an intelligent mind (God). But in actual fact, he argues, the appearance of design is nothing more than a mirage. The world, as he sees it, created itself via natural processes. But something is deeply and profoundly wrong with this view of the world. As philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues in Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, it is impossible to sufficiently understand and explain reality (science) from within a worldview (naturalism) that has no recourse to a Divine Mind. The natural world is best understood and explained with reference to God, that God being none other than the divine craftsperson of Genesis 1.

Beginning at the Beginning

Thus we begin at the beginning. We shouldn’t take for granted that the Bible begins at the beginning. Other religious texts, such as the Islamic Qur’an, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, and the Analects of Confucius, do not begin at the beginning. These other works may speak of the creation of the world in one way or another, but they do not begin with the creation of the world.

Genesis was composed from within the context of a postfall world, looking back to the origin of the world. The book of Genesis is contemporary with ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Canaan, Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon, each of which had its own account of the world’s origins.1 Their accounts are in some ways similar to the creation account of Genesis but in many ways quite different. Note some of the general differences in table 1.1.

Table 1.1: Differences between Creation Stories

Pagan Myths	Genesis 1–2
many gods	God
grumpy gods	personal God
gods dependent on humanity for food	God utterly independent; humanity dependent on God
world is God’s body	God is distinct from his creation; world is ordered and good
humanity is gods’ slave	humanity is created in God’s image; humans as priest-kings

As we can see, there are significant and defining ways in which the biblical account goes against the pagan accounts. This is why some commentators think, to our minds rightly, that the Genesis creation account has an apologetic edge to it. The first chapter of Genesis reflects God’s view of the world, a view that he reveals to the people of Israel so that they will pass it along to the pagan nations, enlightening them and inviting them to worship the God of Israel rather than the false gods of the nations.

Significantly, the Genesis creation account is presented in a narratival manner, providing the point of departure for an extended story that develops throughout the canon of Christian Scripture. None of the other ancient Near Eastern creation stories function in this way. Leon Kass argues that Genesis’s opening is utterly unique in that it “is not an account of human life or even of human beginnings, but rather an account of the whole world and its creation.”2 So the Genesis creation narrative is ambitious—it aims to provide an explanatory framework for the whole of reality. Nothing falls outside the scope of the Genesis account.

As we will see, the story that begins in Genesis culminates in the final book of the Bible, the Revelation of John. In that last book, God reveals to the beloved disciple that Jesus will return one day to institute a new creation, which, as we will see, is this fallen creation renewed and restored. Thus creation and new creation serve as bookends to Scripture, beginning and ending the story and holding together everything in between.

In fact, creation is the stage on which the drama of salvation plays out.3 God provides salvation through a Savior who takes on created flesh and speaks human language. He inscripturates his word in a Bible that is composed of paper and communicated in human language. He redeems us—we who are created in his image and likeness, we who are part of his creation. He calls us to live out our salvation within the created order rather than trying to escape the physical and material nature of our existence. So if one does not understand creation, one does not understand what God has saved in Jesus Christ. Creation cannot be tossed aside. It cannot be passed over. It cannot be ignored.

God

We mentioned earlier the great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He opens his Creation and Fall by noting that the phrase “In the beginning God” is a striking way to cause the reader to reflect on God’s identity.4 It forces us to recognize that the God of creation is neither one whom we make for ourselves nor one who fits into our world. Rather, the God on display in Genesis is the uncreated Creator of the universe into whose world we fit. He is the King of it.

The psalmist describes God in this way: “The LORD has established his throne in heaven, / and his kingdom rules over all” (Ps. 103:19). The God of Genesis is none other than the King of the universe, who has created his kingdom, the world in which we live. “Scripture begins by declaring that God, as Creator and triune Lord, is the sovereign ruler and King of the universe. In this important sense, the entire universe is God’s kingdom since he is presently Lord and King.”5 So the Genesis account makes clear that the world is a kingdom with God as its King.

God the King is distinct, majestic, powerful, good, and personal. He is distinct from his creation in that he created the universe. The universe is not part of him and is not on par with him. It cannot exist without him and remains utterly dependent on him. He is majestic, and his majesty is reflected in the resplendent, ordered diversity of his magnificent creation. He is powerful, and his power is reflected in the fact that all the forces of the natural world find their starting point in his limitless authority—from the inescapable gravity of a black hole to the incomparable heat at the center of a star. He is good. When God the King looks at the world he has made in Genesis 1, he says that it is good no fewer than seven times. God creates a good world because he is good. In him, there is no evil. Finally, he is personal. In Genesis 3:8 we see him walking in the garden, conversing with the first couple. God the King is not an abstraction, a force of nature, or a one-world soul. He is a God who relates personally to his good creation.

An astute reader will notice that the first two chapters of Genesis provide different but complementary accounts of creation. Genesis 1:1–2:3 offers a grand and cosmic approach to the creation of all things in which everyone and everything finds its place and order before God. But Genesis 2:4–25 offers a specific and focused perspective on creation by zeroing in on the first man and woman and their special relationship with God and with each other. The God who made the heavens and the earth and created Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 gives them names, a home, and a job in Genesis 2. He even convenes their wedding (so to speak)! God’s majestic power in Genesis 1 is matched by his relational presence in Genesis 2. From the second creation account, we discover the personal and relational character of the Creator God.

Bonhoeffer rightly says that Genesis’s account presents God as utterly free in creating the world.6 It was his choice. He was not bound to do this work. It was not even necessary! After all, Christian theology reminds us that God is perfect in himself, apart from the world he has made. He does not need the world. He does not need us. But God, in his wonderful love and creative power, freely created everything that is and will be. And he made you and me. This means that all of creation is a free act of great love from a great God.

God’s Kingdom (...