C4CC(14): The beginning of wisdom (4)
And this is the end of part one of the book (the first half)
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This brings us to how we can understand Jesus. At the heart of the Christian faith is a belief and trust that the living God is revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In Him we see the character of the God we worship revealed in all His fullness. In order to understand the first commandment correctly from a Christian point of view, we therefore need to understand who Jesus was, and how He shows us how to be human. How do Christians describe him? We say things like: Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the Son of the Most High God, “He is a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.” These are titles for the High Priests in the first temple. They were not created from scratch in order to respond to Jesus Himself. There was an existing theological vocabulary which was then applied to Christ for this is what Jesus is carrying through: Jesus is accomplishing the Day of Atonement once and for all. We often think of atonement as something that 'covers over' sin or 'puts away' our sin with regard to God. That is not the way in which it was understood in the first temple period. Atonement, rather, was mending something that was broken, or repairing something that was torn. It describes something being fixed.
Which is how we are to understand Jesus. In Adam humanity goes off the right path and disorder follows, whereas in Christ, humanity is put back on the right path. Jesus is the second Adam. In so far as we share in and participate in Christ's life, then we are on the right path, and we are taking part in the restoration of the world, we enter into our inheritance as fully human beings. What goes wrong is put right: “as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive”. This is the New Covenant: it is written on people's hearts, it is not simply about a passive obedience, it is about being wholly committed to it in such a way that all humanity is enabled to flourish. “God will take away the hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh”, in consequence people will have a right relationship with God and a right relationship with each other. What this process is about is aligning ourselves with Christ. Christ is the one through whom the world was created and in so far as we are aligned with Christ we thereby keep the law and we become fully human.
What is sometimes missed, especially in environmental conversations, is the further implication that the more we are aligned with Christ, the more we will be living at home in the creation. After all, if all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made, then conforming to Christ means being conformed to the creation. If in our worship we concentrate upon Christ alone then that in and of itself will make us more environmentally aware and responsible. If we pursue the New Covenant then we shall have right relationships with the creation and so the creation shall be mended.
This is the fuller meaning of the atonement: the renewal of creation. If we keep to God's commands then he will allow the land to flourish. God structured the world and it has certain characteristics and principles reflecting his creating of it. If we keep to those principles, if we abide by those strictures and rules then we will be in harmony with God's creation, we will be in harmony with the creator and there will be righteousness and peace. There will be Shalom. Shalom is a wonderful Hebrew word that describes being in right relationship with God, which then gives right relationships with the creation so that the creation flourishes. Shalom is not simply the absence of people fighting, it is a concept with much broader, richer sense – it is the whole creation flourishing.
Then what was Jesus doing? God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God – Jesus is the one enacting the atonement, this reconciliation between humanity and God, healing the creation and bringing an environment and a society, which are in disorder and corrupted by idolatry, back into the right relationship with God. Jesus is the answer to idolatry. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, so in him we see what these orders and strictures and laws and rules are all about, they are all tending and pointing towards Jesus, they are all teaching us about what it is to be human. This is what life is focused on, all things were created through him, so there is nothing in creation where Jesus is not present, where Jesus is not that which will heal and put creation right.
How do we do this? Let us return to the first and greatest commandment: the most important thing is to love God, love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength; that is the narrow way which leads to life. Only the living God gives life, and worshipping the living God allows all the different bits in our life to fit together. It is like being given the picture on the box for a jigsaw set – this is your jigsaw, this is the picture of your jigsaw, this is God’s vision for your life and as we look to God’s vision for our lives, these are how the bits fit together. If we keep God at the centre, then our lives gain meaning and integrity and purpose; we start to show that we are made in God's image; we become ever more fully human.