Shalom Yesterday, Today, and Forever

Embracing All Three Dimensions of Creation and Redemption

Mark DeVine

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781532633225, 9781532633249
• eBook ISBN: 9781532633232
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

When we hear the word shalom we think first of the common Jewish greeting. Then, perhaps, we consider the promise Jesus, the Prince of Peace, gave to his followers to grant them a peace the world cannot provide. In the Bible, the word shalom means much more than the absence of hostility--it means harmony and prosperity. Shalom refers to life as it was meant to be, as it should be, where sin is gone and love reigns. In this book, theologian Mark DeVine employs the well-known but little-studied Hebrew word to illuminate the three dimensions of relationship God the Creator designed human beings to enjoy: (1) the relationship between God and his people, (2) the relationship between God's people as his children, and (3) the relationship between God and his people in the place, the home God made for them and made them for. DeVine gives special attention to the third dimension, the home God provides to his people.Shalom Yesterday, Today, and Forever offers a more fully evangelical and orthodox comprehension of redemption while avoiding the pitfalls that often jeopardize creation-friendly theologies.

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Introduction: What Is Shalom?

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

—Jesus of Nazareth (John 14:27)

In this book I shall employ the biblical word shalom1 in a special and fairly precise way. Shalom, for my purpose indicates the functioning and flourishing of the entire created order according to God’s revealed purposes for it. More particularly, shalom points to this divinely intended functioning and flourishing according to three relational dimensions that supplement and interpenetrate one another. Here they are: (1) the relationship between God’s human creatures and their creator God, (2) the relationship between human beings themselves before their heavenly Father (coram deo), and (3) the relationship of human beings with one another before God in the place which is the home God the creator made for them and into which God settled them. Disproportionate attention shall be given to this third relational dimension of shalom because I believe it suffers from neglect, misunderstanding, and distortion.

I am not claiming that any single occurrence of the word shalom in the Bible references the full scope of these three relational dimensions. I am making use of the word shalom to comprehend a larger reality than any one instance of its use denotes. But the word shalom commends itself for my purposes because its semantic range includes the meanings of “peace,” “harmony,” and “prosperity” within communal settings and very often with reference to the third relational dimension to which I wish to give special attention. These meanings variously conveyed by shalom are crucial to the divinely intended three-dimensioned relational functioning and flourishing I shall explore.

In this book’s title, “Shalom Yesterday” refers to the shalom established by the creator for his human creatures and into which he settled them in Eden. “Shalom Today” indicates that the consequences of the fall neither nullified nor altered the creator God’s original intention that his human creatures enjoy the three-dimensioned shalom. “Today” refers to the time-between-the-times in which we all live—between expulsion from Edenic paradise and the arrival of the new heaven and new earth and the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven. We shall have to explore the impact of the fall upon the creator’s original shalomic purposes and upon the life of humanity and the children of God in this “between time.” “Shalom forever” refers to the three-dimensioned shalom promised to the children of God in the new heaven and the new earth. We shall explore elements of shalomic continuity and discontinuity prevailing between the three differentiated periods of shalom: shalom yesterday, today, and forever; shalom in Eden, shalom east of Eden, and shalom in the world to come.

Creation and Redemption

The subtitle points to the relationship between shalom, creation, and redemption. I shall argue that God the creator made the universe as the home fit for his human creatures. This fitness includes especially the creation’s fitness for the functioning and flourishing of the three-dimensioned shalom I shall further define and explore. Redemption immediately signifies that the fall has occurred. Redemption is the creator’s response to the fall. Though the fall results in profound and even devastating consequences for human beings and every dimension of the created order, God the creator’s response to the fall ensures that sin, evil, and the consequences that flow in their wake shall not have the last word. God the creator shall have the last word by reveling himself as and by acting as not only creator but also as redeemer.

Especially important for my purposes is to insist that the entire creation is in the crosshairs of God’s redemptive purposes and activity. This is so not least, and perhaps mostly, because the entire created order is necessary to the full functioning and flourishing of the three-dimensioned shalom for which the universe was created. The creator’s claim upon all that he has made never attenuates whatsoever. Any suggestion that human sin or spiritual evil or anything else shall result in even the slightest divine relinquishment of the original shalomic purposes in creation is rejected. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does not dial back the full scope of his shalomic purposes and settle for something less, such as the salvation of disembodied human souls or even of bodily resurrected human beings apart from the home he made for them.

In the course of our exploration of shalom we shall note the assertion of divine interest in shalom, especially in its third relational dimension, throughout the Scriptures. We shall have to grapple with the proper role of shalomic interest given the fall in this between time in which we live. Should Christian believers pursue shalom in this life or must shalomic hopes rest entirely in the world to come? I shall argue that indeed, interest in shalom by the creator and redeemer persists east of Eden and should persist among the people of God as well.

Shalomic Settlement

I shall argue that the shalom for which the creator made human beings is characterized by settled community life as opposed to unsettled or isolated living. Thus, a whole range of states of being that are less than settled shall be seen variously as shalom-deprived, as punishment, and as the result of the fall. Biblical words indicating such unsettled states of being include “expelled,” “cast out,” “gathered,” “wandering,” “scattered,” “exiled,” “sojourning,” and “pilgrimage.”

All of these terms that involve movement rather than a settled state of affairs belong either to divine punishment or to the redemptive activity of God, or to both. What they share is their connection to the fall, as we shall see. God makes all things serve his redeeming purposes for his elect, including the less than fully and permanently settled conditions listed. But where these unsettled conditions serve the divine purposes, they do insofar as they facilitate and nurture shalom. They serve shalomic settlement, not unshalomic unsettlement. They must serve shalom—not shalom them.

Shalomic settlement is both an original purpose of God in creation, an essential and constitutive goal of redemption, and a continuing ideal notwithstanding the unsettlement brought on by the fall and made necessary by certain dimensions of redemption. The word “gathered” is especially useful to illustrate what I mean because to be gathered is to be rescued from wandering or from having been scattered or from exile. Our God as redeemer expels from Edenic shalom and scatters as punishment and prelude to gathering and resettling into shalomic flourishing. Sojourn and pilgrimage involve movement but both prize, seek, and long for the divinely intended and promised shalomic settlement I shall explore. Jesus leaves heaven in order to gather up the elect. He sends evangelists and church planters in order to gather and settle his elect into communities of faith.

Health and Wealth

I shall argue that the divinely intended shalom entails both physical health and material prosperity—not the exaltation of a simple lifestyle, much less any glamorization of poverty or of physical suffering. I shall reject the prosperity gospel and other forms of health and wealth theology as pernicious heresies, but shall argue that current evangelical critique of such heresy is weak and ineffective. The chief weakness of evangelical futility in its anti-prosperity stance is its failure to face with full seriousness the numerous passages in Holy Scripture that teach that physical health and material prosperity are indeed to be acknowledged and enjoyed as blessings of God. The result is that the prosperity and anti-prosperity factions double down on their canons-within-the-canon rather than engage seriously with the favorite passages of the other side. So they talk past one another.

I shall note that the loudest evangelical voices against the prosperity gospel emerge from affluent communities of faith. This reality results in a jarring disconnect and seeming contradiction between the prophetic rhetoric of anti-prosperity and the lifestyles of the would-be prophets. I shall explore possible reasons for this disconnect and failure on the part of the anti-prosperity side and offer suggestions for how to offer a more biblically faithful and comprehensive challenge to the prosperity gospel.

Shalom and Suffering

I shall explore the central place of suffering in the Bible. I shall explore suffering as punishment for sin, its central place in the redemptive activity of God in Jesus Christ, and its place in both common human experience and Christian experience in the time between the times east of Eden. I shall argue that suffering plays an essential role in redemption and as such in the revelation of God—thus our God is creator and redeemer from all eternity. The actual experience of suffering is restricted to “shalom today,” in the time between the times. The actual experience of suffering has no place in shalom yesterday and forever. I shall argue that suffering is to be chiefly associated with punishment for sin and the willingness to suffer in order to end suffering. This second role of suffering renders it a paradoxical element of human and Christian existence east of Eden. But the paradox does not suggest any equal place for suffering beside shalomic health and prosperity. Redemptive suffering aims at and eventually kills suffering. Nevertheless, I shall contend that redemptive suffering does secure and retain a permanent place in the new heaven and the new earth, not in experience but in memory.

I shall give attention to the rise of monasticism and shall consider whether Christian asceticism and shalom are compatible. In this connection, I shall not confine my considerations to monastic ascetism but also give attention to the biblical teaching that self-denial is an essential component of Christian discipleship.

Relational Worth and Inherent Worth

Let us recall that shalom refers to a three-dimensional relational reality the creator purposes in the act of creation. The relational character and dynamic shalom denies ascription of intrinsic worth or value to any part of creation and to creation as a whole. Shalom insists that intrinsic or inherent worth can be ascribed to God alone. Even there, in God, a relational dynamic inheres—the eternal relations between the three persons in the one Godhead.

This restriction of inherent worth to God alone does not deny all worth to creatures. Everything outside of God has worth (glory, value, meaning, good purpose, praiseworthiness) only in relation to the creator for whom it was made and before whom it exists (coram deo) It is not only noteworthy but theologically crucial that, though God is inherently worthy due to his perfection and sufficiency, the character of that perfection and sufficiency is relational from all eternity. That relationality includes dynamics of dependence, mutual self-giving, and especially and in a comprehensively illumining way—love. This eternal relational dynamic within the divine lies at the heart of the meaning of humanity’s unique creation imago dei.

Humanity is, through creation, uniquely fitted to and, according to the work of the Holy Spirit, capable of reflecting the worthiness for praise of the creator. Intratrinitarian relationality, dependence, and love potentially finds appropriate reflection, as in a mirror, in humanity’s shalomic three-dimensional interdependence and divinely enabled capacity for love. This potential reflection of unique intrinsic divine worthiness for praise becomes a witness to his glory. Human beings uniquely, and the rest of creation in its own mirror-like way, are made capable by the creator to become means to the glorification of God, which involves bearing witness to his worthiness for praise. And what is his worthiness for praise? Why is the triune God alone to be worshipped? To God be the glory for the things he has done. And what has he done for which he is to be worshipped? The church across the ages, when reduced to employment of the fewest words possible, has answered that question thus: he has created and redeemed. Thus the church worships God as creator and redeemer.

This derivative and inherently relational possibility of worth in the creature undermines any notion that divine employment as means or instrument implies non-essentiality. Unwarranted diminishment or marginalization of something employed as a means, or the suggestion of the limited, temporal, discardable nature of means, is often signaled by the prefix or modifier “mere” to the words “means” or “instrument.” Creation, the whole of it, is a means for, an instrument for the glorification of the creator. But to speak of it as a “just” an instrument or as a “mere” means is profoundly misleading.

It is true that the creation’s worth is entirely gratuitous, dependent, and utterly devoid of intrinsic value. But it’s relational, dependent worth as the creature of the one who alone is intrinsically valuable is both real and profound because of the worthin...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Introduction: What Is Shalom?
• Chapter 2: Creation First
• Chapter 3: God the Homemaker
• Chapter 4: Expulsion and Beyond
• Chapter 5: Shalom in the Psalms
• Chapter 6: Shalom in the Prophets and Beyond
• Chapter 7: Gathered and Scattered
• Chapter 8: The Place of Place
• Chapter 9: Shalom and Prosperity
• Chapter 10: Shalom and Asceticism
• Chapter 11: The Coming Shalom
• Bibliography