It appears to be a core theme of Tom Wright’s Simply Christian that the mission of God - and therefore of the people of God - is to rescue the world and put it to rights. The Bible, he says, tells the story of a ‘good creator longing to put the world back into the good order for which it was designed’; it is the story of what the ‘one creator God has been doing to rescue his beautiful world and to put it to rights’ (40, 41); it is the story of how the ‘creator God is rescuing the creation from its rebellion, brokenness, corruption and death’ (159). Following the thorough-going collapse of human society depicted in Genesis 1-11, Wright argues, God calls Abraham and his descendants, ‘somehow, to be the means of God putting things to rights, the spearhead of God’s rescue operation’ (64); and what Abraham sees in his mind’s eye is this world restored to peace and justice:
Shimmering like a mirage in the deserts through which Abraham wandered was the vision of a new world, a rescued world, a world blessed by the creator once more, a world of justice, where God and his people would live in harmony, where human relationships would flourish, where beauty would triumph over ugliness. (65)
But Israel failed to keep its side of the bargain with YHWH, so Wright asks, ‘what happens when the lifeboat which sets off to rescue the wrecked ship is itself trapped between the rocks and the waves, itself in need of rescue?’
My question is whether this metaphor of a ‘lifeboat’ properly captures the ‘missional’ purpose of the people of God as they have inherited, first by birth, then by faith, the promise to Abraham. Yes, the original creation, the macrocosm, is like a wrecked ship - or at least a ship whose wilful, belligerent crew has mutinied, thrown its captain overboard, and set off on some madcap and destructive venture of its own devising. And yes, the ship of Israel certainly runs into trouble, because it is subject to the same power of sin, and is in need of rescuing. But was the original missional intention that by means of the lifeboat of Israel the wrecked or wayward vessel of human society would be rescued and put back on course? It seems to me more accurate to say that God built the much smaller ship of Israel to be a ‘new creation’, a manageable microcosm, set apart from the world, which through obedience to the Law would hold fast to the purpose of the original creation.
There is nothing in the promise to Abraham that suggests that God intended to rescue or transform the world through him and his descendants. His family would potentially transmit the creational blessing to the nations, but does that entail the rescue of the nations? Or is it something more like a priestly function - the nations only experience the blessing of the creator indirectly, through the mediating role of the people of God? Isn’t this, after all, the implication of YHWH’s words to Moses, echoed in the New Testament by Peter, that Israel would be a ‘kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ (Ex. 19:6; cf. 1 Pet. 2:9)? We should not overlook the fact, moreover, that the family of Abraham may also mediate a curse to the nations.
What we have in the story of Abraham and his descendants is not a mission to rescue or transform the world or put it to rights but the creation of an alternative humanity in the midst of the nations of the earth, a people that will be for YHWH’s own possession when all the other nations have rejected him in favour of their own manufactured gods (cf. Ex. 19:5; Ps. 135:4-5). It becomes part of the story of that people that it is redeemed from the oppressive clutches of the world - that is the significance of the Exodus; and when the microcosm breaks down, it needs to be rescued or saved from destruction by nations that have become not the recipients of blessing but mortal enemies. That is the story of Jesus; and one of the more or less unforeseen consequences of this decisive rescue of the microcosm is that Gentiles are permitted on board the ship. It is in this sense that the seed of Abraham, as Paul maintains in Romans 4:13, inherits the whole earth - so that, as Wright likes to say, the whole world becomes God’s holy land.
The long-term outcome of all this, however, is not the eventual or progressive rescue of the world, as such - certainly not in the sense that Brian McLaren seems to envisage in Everything Must Change. There is no vision of the whole earth being brought under the kingship of God. Wright argues that the book of Daniel ‘emphasizes the undying hope that the whole world will somehow be brought to order under the kingship of the one creator God, YHWH, the God of Abraham’ (69). But I think this is mistaken. The message of Daniel is that YHWH will defeat, indeed destroy, the monstrous imperial powers that threaten Israel, will vindicate the righteous who remain true to the covenant even at the cost of their lives, and will establish an everlasting reign over his people in the place of their oppressors. But I don’t see that this amounts to the whole world being brought to order under the kingship of YHWH. The sovereignty of God is expressed not in the rescue of the nations so that they become havens of peace and justice but in his righteous action on behalf of his people.
This nuance is captured in a later statement: ‘The church exists… for what we sometimes call "mission": to announce to the world that Jesus is its Lord’ (emphasis added). But then Wright elaborates upon this:
This is the ‘good news’, and when it is announced it transforms people and societies. Mission, in its widest sense as well as its more focused senses, is what the church is there for. God intends to put the world to rights; he has dramatically launched this project through Jesus. Those who belong to Jesus are called, here and now, in the power of the Spirit, to be agents of that putting-to-rights purpose. (174)
In general terms I suppose one shouldn’t really quibble with this. If the world becomes a better place because the church announces that Jesus is its Lord, then who am I to complain? But as a matter of biblical interpretation and perhaps of missional orientation, this seems to me misleading. Neither in Judea nor in the Greek-Roman world did the announcement of that ‘good news’ transform people and societies’. Rather it lead to the formation of an alternative people and society that had a hard enough time preserving its own righteousness.
I went out today and bought my wife a big, red, heart-shaped, helium-filled balloon for Valentine’s Day. It says ‘Kiss Me!’ in big letters. (Hopefully she won’t read this before tomorrow, otherwise it won’t be much of a surprise!) The church has sometimes imagined that it is a big, red, heart-shaped balloon whose purpose is to get bigger and bigger until it fills all available space - and the whole world is put to rights. My argument would be that the purpose of the balloon is less ambitious than that - simply to float there in the middle of the room, well-inflated, shiny, true to itself, bearing a message of love, and visible to all as a blessing and as a benchmark of righteousness. Size is not really the issue: it is the quality and visibility of the balloon, this embodiment by grace of God’s creational purpose, that matters.
There is, of course, a lot more to take into consideration than can be covered in this post, but it seems to me that this way of thinking holds true pretty well for scripture as a whole. So for example, I would argue that what we find in Isaiah is not the ‘idea of God coming to the rescue, on the one hand, and of God completing creation and putting it to rights, on the other hand’ (40). It is the idea of God rescuing the microcosm of Israel and putting it to rights in a way that will have a profound impact on the nations, bringing judgment on Israel’s enemies, on the one hand, and eliciting amazement and tribute, on the other. But it is Israel, not the world, which is transformed, which is imagined as creation made new.
When Isaiah says that the messiah will judge the poor with righteousness, decide with equity for the meek of the land, strike the land with the rod of his mouth, and destroy the wicked (Is. 11:4), what he has in mind is not a universal reign which will ‘bring peace, justice and a completely new harmony to the whole creation’ (74) but the judgment and restoration of Israel. That act of justice, rescue and rule will make Israel a sign to the nations (11:10), or a light to the nations (42:6; 49:6; 60:3), in a way which I think is best captured in the idea of a ‘prophetic church’. In that sense the church embodies in itself, in its own life, a ‘vision of peace and hope’ for the world, but this does not entail the sort of worldwide transformation that Wright appears to have in mind.
The Bible on the whole is not especially sanguine about the fate of the macrocosm. There is always the possibility of people being redeemed from the corrupt, violent, unjust, immoral and idolatrous world and becoming part of the microcosm; but there is no prospect, as far as I can see, of the world as a whole being put to rights. In the end, the old creation must flee away before the throne of God’s final judgment on humanity, and a new heaven and new earth must be made before those deep biblical hopes for justice and peace are fulfilled. This cannot really be characterized as the rescue of the foundering ship of God’s creation. That ship has sunk without trace, and a completely new one has been made.
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
So how is it then that people have added themselves/been added to the people of God since Pentecost? If there was no announcement, then how did people come to know what was going on in the church and become part of whatever it was they had to offer?
Why is it that a phenomenon which was at first limited to Jerusalem spread so rapidly across Asia Minor, to the European mainland in one direction, and eastwards to Persia, India and China in the other direction, and today is the predominant religion in the world if there was nothing to tell anyone about?
If I were sitting on a belief which offered actual access to a holy God, who would accept me just as I am, and provided a means not only for forgiveness of everything in my life which represented participation in the mutiny aboard the ship which has been described, but would infuse into my life a power and a life which would change my character so that it was no longer dragged down by the gravitational pull of death, but would overcome death - both in all that it represents in this life, and in a life to come, in which I could participate in the fulfilment of creation’s purposes both now and in a life to come, and offer genuine change to a society and culture that is, in the end, locked in futility … wouldn’t it be considered gravely reprehensible if I told nobody about it?
Or is this a message which our jaded palates have grown tired of, and we would rather have something else - something - something more spicey, something new, something more novel?
Sorry Andrew - I’m not having a dig; I just had to get this out of my system so it wasn’t preying on me. It’s very injurious to one’s health to suppress things. I’m done! Also you are one better than me: I don’t yet have anything to give my wife for Valentine’s Day - I’ll have to think of something quick!
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
Peter, I think you’ve missed the point - you were clearly distracted by your lack of preparedness for tomorrow. I did not say there was no announcement:
The disciples told first Jews and then Gentiles what God had done for Israel in raising Jesus from the dead. First Jews then Gentiles believed that announcement and found that they were free to worship the God of Israel in Spirit and in truth. They became part of the covenant community that worshipped the creator God, and in that way, outside the Law, God demonstrated his righteousness and remained faithful to his promise to Abraham.
But this announcement about what God had done for Israel did not result in the transformation of either Jewish (hence AD 70) or Roman (hence the Visigoths!) society. It resulted in the regeneration of Israel as a viable and dynamic people for God’s possession, dispersed (in accordance with the creational mandate) throughout the world.
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
Maybe the mustard seed became a tree which was the largest of garden plants, so that birds could come and perch in its branches. Maybe the rock became a mountain that filled the whole earth.
The intention was not to change Roman or Jewish society (and why the Visigoths?). Something even more impressive than that was happening. The balloon which floated upwards and said: ‘Look at me!’ became a balloon that spread throughout societies and cultures as it spread throughout the world. It did this through being God’s alternative society, through being and proclaiming a Jesus who made that possible in the lives of each person who heard it.
The function of the priesthood was towards God and towards the people. We are that priesthood if we minister to both - to those who already believe and those who don’t believe. Our temple is now the whole world.
Yes I missed the point. All of life’s major advances and developments have come through people who missed the point. And now what am I going to do tomorrow to atone for my sin of omission? It can’t be a balloon. I could start by getting the early morning cup of tea. It could continue by a romantic evening out at the weekend - after all the 14 Feb hullabaloo has died down. Andrew - be my role model! Think of something!
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
A bouquet of spring flowers from M&S (red roses are so uninspiring) and a table for two (tonight), at the Queens Head, East Clandon. I think I got away with it.
The Queens Head was introduced to me by a friend who runs a pastoral ministry to gay Christian people up and down the country. It changed its name to The Wishing Well, but then changed back again when he started patronising it. Co-incidence?
Our midweek homegroup met on Thursday evening - all 12 of us - and were looking at The Five Languages of Love. It was very good,and we’ll talk about it tonight over our candlelit dinner - but I thought: rather sad that we are all here, and not enjoying candlelit dinners at some suitable romantic venue.
But then - Valentine’s Day? A commercial fraud perpetrated on us by the purveyors of cards and cut flowers?
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
Andrew,
Your point is well taken. I can’t help but wonder, though, what implications that understanding may have. I grew up in a church setting that used collective funds only to the benefit of “the church,” while personal giving to “the world” was occasionally mentioned. There is a certain coherent logic to that understanding; the new creation taking care of itself and showing a different way of living and caring would potentially draw others into that new creation.
Would you be willing to expound on what you think the implications are regarding a “new creation” understanding versus a “transforming” understanding, in terms of what the church should be doing and focusing on?
Thanks for your consideration and insight. Tony
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
OK, Tony, let’s make a start on that - with a few more theoretical observations, just for the sake of clarity.
It means that the church’s first task is to demonstrate righteousness (justice, compassion, love, integrity) internally, in its own communal life, as a global entity. That is what the Law was intended to do; it is what the Holy Spirit now does.
We then need to recognize that our righteousness is always imperfect, and that the good that we do is as much a sign of how things should be and eventually will be - and indeed of who God is - as it is a lived reality. That is what I mean by the prophetic function of the church - even in the good that we do we act out the greater goodness of God’s new creation.
That also applies, I think, for the good that we do to transform the world around us. We cannot help but want to do so - it should be an inescapable expression of God’s love within us. But again it is as much symbolic action as real transformation. In principle, at least, whatever we do to make the world a more just and peaceful place should always have that prophetic, signal character about it: it is an acted statement about the creator and his creation.
I see in that a marvellous invitation to the church now to re-imagine with all the inventive power of the Holy Spirit how the full scope of new creation can be brought to life in the world. I don’t think we’ve begun to scratch the surface of what that might entail, what it means to draw out the dramatic potential of our actions.
The other aspect of this whole thing is the ‘priestly’ function of the Christian community. How do we - no less imaginatively - mediate as communities the reality of the creator God to others? Not by meeting in cosy isolation behind closed doors every Sunday morning. How do we position ourselves socially in order to be a real channel of God’s original creational blessing to the world?
Any suggestions?
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
Interesting idea you have there.
While It doesn’t seem that the Bible ever pictures the whole earth as assumed within the Abrahamic Covenent, it is ubiquitous that Yhwh is indeed king over the Earth, and that in time, all nations will eventually acknowledge that dominion, and he will bring peace an justice to all (dare one call that ‘rescue’?). Isaiah 2:1-5 imagines this especially in terms of the nations streaming up to the temple. They themselves have not become the temple, but they receive the blessing, that I think can approriatly be called ‘rescue,’ via the Yhwh cult (or Jerusalem Temple, or Church, or whatever).
Furthermore, Wright’s idea of Daniel has some basis, particularly in connection with Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and the stone that becomes a whole mountian filling the earth (which particular sounds like an idea your post condems concerning the expansion of a red ballon). Though the latter part of Daniel does seem to place a greater emphasis on the vindication of the righteous, part of that vindication is dominion over the nations (7:28?).
Of course, you are not denying that God will eventually rule over the whole earth, as far as I can tell (which, you know better than I, would go against the implication of a good many scriptures).
The issue seems to me to be a matter of timing. When are the nations to be ‘rescued’ (or perhape compelled to submit) by God? You place this in the future, at the second coming I pressume. The Old Testament sometimes supports this view, showing the judgment of the nations, vindication of Israel, and the global rescue all in one fell swoop. This is particularly the message we see in the evangelistic sermons in Acts and is therefore an essential part of the picture. However, I would also argue that the Gospel and the church are seen not only as a prophetic symbol of God’s saving work (which they are), but that they are also effectual in that saving work (Rom. 1:16-17). It’s part of this ‘already/not yet’ stuff that G. E. Ladd was always blathering on about.
The Church functions both as a prophetic symbol, but also as an effectual and expanding reality. The message that Jesus is Lord doesn’t only point to the future, but is also the power of God in itself (1 Cor 1).
Luckly, we have guys like you, and guys like Wright who are sure to point out both halves of this to us, and make so much noise in the process of debate that one can hardly aviod running across your ‘mutually edifying’ veiwpoints ;-|
Wright is simply reacting against a strong isolationist/gnostic ideology that permiates large portions of the evangellical movement. I can dig that.
Aaron Christianson
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
Aaron, inasmuch as Wright is reacting against isolationism and gnostic tendencies, I can also dig it. But I’m still not sure about the rescuing creation argument.
Isaiah 2:2-4 envisages a time in the future when Israel will be raised up by YHWH above the nations with the effect that people will come to Jerusalem in search of justice in accordance with the righteous Law of God. When they come, God will decide between them, pass judgment in their disputes - quite possibly Isaiah has in mind specifically the sort of disputes between nations that lead to warfare. The outcome will be that these warring nations will no longer need their weapons and will convert them to agricultural instruments. This would certainly constitute a blessing of the nations, but does it amount to a rescue? In any case, the nations remain outside the covenant people, who appear to have the mediating role of being God’s people, holding true to the ‘law’, for the sake of justice amongst the nations.
Yes, the stone which becomes a mountain in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream fills the whole earth (Dan. 2:35), but not to the exclusion of other nations. The central theme of Daniel is that God will overthrow the nations, in particular the fourth beast with its arrogant little horn, which act aggressively towards Israel (and indeed towards other peoples), and will vindicate the righteous in Israel who refuse to forsake the covenant. Daniel 7:27 says that all dominions shall serve and obey the saints of the Most High, to whom the kingdom is eventually given. I’m not sure what to make of that. Are we to suppose that all nations will one day serve and obey Israel? The church? It seems more natural to me to take it as symbolic reinforcement of the basic point about the vindication of the saints against these oppressive powers.
On the question of timing, as you probably are aware, I am inclined to think that the New Testament uses these symbolic narratives of vindication to give shape to the immediate historical hope that the early church would likewise be vindicated against its enemies - first rebellious Judaism, secondly pagan, beast-like Rome. I would argue that the sermons in Acts should be understood within the same historical-eschatological framework. Does Acts really speak of a ‘global rescue’?
I think that Ladd’s ‘already/not yet’ is very misleading. But that requires a more considered response, already. Not yet.
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
Hi Andrew Perriman,
Appreciate your effort brother, but I have to challenge you concerning an assertion you make and then try to defend. You wrote in about the 5th paragraph,
I love you brother, and believe your heart is in the right place, but I just have to say, "HELLO! Have you never read Psalms 2 and 22? Here is the NIV rendering. please take full notice of such words as:
Thanks.
And then Andrew, Psalm 22, and I will simply present the ending:
If that is not a pronouncement of total victory over this EARTH, please brother, share with me what would be? These passages foreshadow the words of our Lord instructing us as to our perspective and proper focus, "Thy will be done, on EARTH, as it is in Heaven," and, "occupy until I come." And the ever expanding Kingdom (i.e., remember the mustard seed…) is bringing this to pass.
Consider these choice quotes:
A. A. Hodge
Charles Spurgeon
Warfield quotes, with approval, the words of William Temple who, in 1913, wrote: "The earth will in all probability be habitable for myriad’s of years yet. If Christianity is the final religion, the Church is still in its infancy. Two thousand years are as two days." The implication here is that in time the Church will cover the earth…
C. H. Spurgeon
R. J. Rushdoony
Hope these might offer you some new ways of thinking,
Blessings,
Richard Eric Gunby
Psalms 2 and 22
See ‘Psalms 2 and 22 and the conversion of the whole world’ for a response to this comment.
Re: NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon
Envoi, and a warning against playing with dangerous toys and dabbling in speculative theology
George, Who Played With a Dangerous Toy and Suffered a Catastrophe of Considerable Dimensions
by Hilaire Belloc
When George’s Grand Mama was told
that George had been as good as Gold
She promised in the Afternoon
to buy him an immense BALLOON;
And so she did, but when it came
It got into the candle flame
And being of a dangerous sort
Exploded! with a loud report
The lights went out! The windows broke!
The room was filled with reeking smoke
And in the darkness, shrieks and yells
Were mingled with electric bells
And falling masonry and groans
And crunching as of broken bones
And dreadful shrieks when, worst of all
The house itself began to fall!
It tottered, shuddering to and fro
Then crashed onto the street below -
Which happened to be Saville Row
When help arrived, among the dead
Were Cousin Mary, Little Fred,
The Footmen (both of them), the Groom,
The man that cleaned the billiard room,
The Chaplain and the Still-Room Maid
And I am dreadfully afraid
That Monsieur Champignon the Chef
May now be permanently deaf -
And both his aides are much the same
While George, who was in part to blame
Received, you will regret to hear
A nasty lump behind the ear.
Moral
The moral is that little boys
Should not be given dangerous toys