So Jesus cures the curses — all of them — through the cross. We who enter into Jesus through faith in/faithfulness to/trust in Jesus participate in redemption from the curses.
And there is this shift. Before the cross, the curses were against everyone and everything (Gen 3) or against the nation of Israel (Deu 27-28). These were national or group curses.
However, the hanging on a tree curse was highly individualized — and so Jesus suffered an individual curse for all people and the nation of Israel.
To participate in Jesus’ redemptive work is an individual choice. The spiritual Israel is those of the physical Israel with faith in Jesus, plus Gentiles who have faith in Jesus, added by grafting in (Rom 11). We choose whether to have faith individually — one at a time. We are baptized one at a time.
But we believe and are baptized into the Kingdom — a nation — which is blessed as a community. It’s the Kingdom that is elect. It is the Kingdom for whom the new covenant was made. (We greatly distort much of Paul by taking words he borrows from the OT regarding Israel as a nation — such as “election” — and apply these words individualistically.)
The Western mindset is highly individualistic. We have a “personal relationship” with Jesus. We attend the church of our choice. We see Christianity as being about our individual relationship with Jesus and God and the Spirit.
And, admittedly, there is certainly truth in this — but it’s a badly incomplete truth. We also are added to a community, a nation, a Kingdom that God has a relationship with in a community sense. The church isn’t just the set of all individually saved people. Rather, we are individually saved by being added to the saved community, nation, and Kingdom.
This is is one of many reasons that God so insists on Christian unity. His mission to redeem the world cannot be accomplished by individuals acting solely as individuals. There is power and strength in community. There are efficiencies and economies that can only be attained in groups — and these things matter very much to God.
Not only do we need each other to support and encourage each other, the work we’ve been given is too big, too important to take on individually.
This is why the NT refers to the church as a temple for the Holy Spirit. A temple can only exist if the stones are all very tightly joined together. In fact, the Temple in Jerusalem was built with stones carved with such precision that they fit together without mortar. And our walk on earth with Jesus is a time of being fitted for the temple, that is, being shaped by God to so precisely join with our brothers and sisters that no mortar is needed.
This is why the confession in liturgical churches says “we” and not “I.” It came right from the Yom Kippur confession which also uses “we” and not “I.”
The one time I heard a minister in the cofC say there was going to be confession one Sunday soon, it was nixed and never mentioned again. I never heard anyone else even suggest it.
Larry,
Man’s charge is to keep and to work the Garden — to preserve and to make it productive for the good of man.
It necessarily involves some balancing — and we don’t need an instruction book. Some common sense and the Spirit should be quite enough.
Man has the power to care for the earth or to destroy it. If we would just step outside of the politics and think about the planet as kings and queens called by God to rule this place for him, we would know better than to do much of what we do to our environment.
I’m no fan of the Sierra Club. I’m skeptical of much of what passes for the modern environmental movement. But I remember living in cities with smog so thick I couldn’t see across the street. I’m glad we learned better.
The river that flows less than a 1/2 mile from my house used to be unfishable due to the pollution. People are still scared to eat out of it. We were wrong to fill the river with poison.
Your church may not be able to reach consensus on global warming, but surely you can adopt a mile of interstate and clean it in the name of Jesus. Or volunteer to help clean up a local creek.
I tend to agree with you to this extent: much of the adulteration of the creation has come from man. On the other hand, I live in a town that’s been hit by both Katrina and a 1.5 mile-wide F5 tornado that went right through the middle of town. The creation is subjected to futility. It’s not perfection. And it certainly shouldn’t be worshiped.
But neither should we despise it or disassociate it from God and our service as Christians. I can think of nothing more essentially Christian than working to better the environment in the name of Jesus. After all, the world was made through Jesus. I’m sure he’d be pleased if we’d help clean up some of the mess we’ve made of it.
Larry,
The interpretation of Gen 8:21 is interesting.
Terence E. Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis,” in General Articles; Genesis-Leviticus (vol. 1 of NIB, Accordance electronic ed. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 393-394.
God says he’ll never again curse the earth. The traditional view is that he’ll destroy it with fire — which seems very curse-like. The view I’m teaching is that he’ll purify it with fire, returning it to its pristine state and even better — the very opposite of a curse. He’ll bless the earth.
“While the earth remains” is literally “as long as all the days of the earth.” When God comes to earth to reign, he’ll replace the sun himself. There will be no night. The world will be made new.
The fire consuming the earth, has been started on the day of Pentecost.
The purification is well under way in my thinking.
I agree that as saints we are a part of the congregation or the Kingdom, but even so we cannot see the borders of the congregation or kingdom as these are in heaven. We are joined to Christ who also is in heaven. There is no earthly form of the congregation or kingdom on earth, although there are to be associations that mimic who we are to be in heaven…unified.
But when it comes to work and worship we are individuals who man or may not come together to do these things, but we at least must do these things when we are not with others.
In I Cor. “For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.” Paul is telling the saints in Corinth what they are and as noted the “you are” is plural in form, but this only adds credence to the concept that Paul wasn’t talking to a collective, but to individual people. “You are God’s field and you are God’s building”, but they are not a field or a building in a collective sense, but rather in a ownership sense in that God owns the field and building.
When we read I Peter 2 “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
“you” singular, then “you” singular, then transition to “yourselves” – plural, then “living stones”-plural, “holy priesthood” – plural. A collective is never broached, but rather what they were as saints.
When we move to the Temple aspect
I Cor.3 “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
I Cor.6 “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”
II Cor.16 “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.”
The people themselves are related as the Temple themselves as God dwells in them. Elsewhere the people are called priest and a living sacrifice, so they are to be of service and worship. But these qualities are never related to a group or collective of people in a particular place/time as apart from the people individually. Even the Temple was within the realm of the Kingdom in the OT. And we are as well.
But was that temple that they served more of a physical temple with only a few chosen that were anointed with the Spirit? This is why Jesus glorification was necessary. Only after his resurrection was the promise of the indwelling / gift of God given. This gift is why when we read the words of the the old and new testament the mysteries are no longer veiled. We have the full measure of the Spirit because the veil has been torn by the perfect sacrifice accepted by Jahovah. So we are all chosen by God to accept his invitation. When we do we are individually added to the Kingdom of God and sealed with the Spirit internal dwelling and inherit sonship. Jesus dwells within this physical body temporary . But when we are assembled together in a group we still being many are one body or temple. We become living stones, just as Jesus became our corner stone. This not of our doing that anyone can boast, it is only the works of Christ who wills us to do the good works building up the collective body of Christ, bringing glory to God our Father.
There is a combining of concepts in the NT in regards to the saint/saints. We are a Temple and we are to be built together as a Temple. Both are reasonable and non-contradictory, even as we have a body and are part of the body of Christ. One concept is a little more concrete however than the other in what we can see. If God dwells in us, then we are a Temple in reality and function and we as saints can come together to build a Temple, but this Temple is not physical in nature, but heavenly in form. They are both real, but one is here and the other is heavenly in nature.
Jesus is the cornerstone, not of a physical structure, but of a heavenly one…the church or congregation. This is why Jesus says to Peter, “On this rock (confession) I will build my congregation.”
My fear and what I have seen is that we often focus on the building of the congregation, that is to say the local assembly, which is focused on very little in the scriptures, and we often leave the building up of the saint to the limitations of the assembly. We stop building ourselves up in Christ and depend upon the system or assembly to do it, which is a benefit, but not the day to day reality in which we live. Thus our work and our service and our worship become limited and tied to the assembly, when it really ought to be seen when we are not amongst others or our kind.
I know too many people that make assembly the focus of our Christianity, instead of living like Christ. They don’t worship God, but go to assembly to worship.
Our membership and fellowship is based on our being in Christ, which results or should result in us loving and building each other when we happen to be with each other. We should be unified even before we come together.
I have listened to many who believe that this earth will be renewed as Jay is proposing and that concept really presents a huge amount of questions for my understanding. As I observe the earth that I live on I see many thing that I really like, I am very glad to have electricity to power all the comforts that we have available, you know HVAC protects us from the cold and heat which has been here from the creation of the earth. Then sources of energy which allow us to travel in a fashion that is unique to the inhabitants of earth for less than 100 years. Communications beyond the wildest dreams of even the wisest man on earth. I could continue with many of the conveniences we have become accustomed to which have only been present within the last few centuries of this earth.
So to those individuals I would ask, what if God restored this earth back to its perfectness at creation, would you be happy here? I cannot remember anyone predicting the time period for the likeness of this earth to resemble, other than the comment that at creation everything was good. And it was because what was is all that man knew, but has this earth not constantly been improved by mans tending the garden? Imagine for a moment, what is the natural resemblance of the earth where man has not been working. In most cases it is either barren or it is a jungle. Neither is a suitable place for man to live. Would nature not return that man has groomed back into natures design?
Do you remember any account in the description of Heaven which identifies there will be any of the animals of this world there? No vegetation control from plant consuming animals. Oh on second thought what plants would be there, there will be no seasons, no darkness the plants of present earth would not exist either.
I could go on, but instead I believe that God, Jesus, and His Angels exist in an environment that is free from the heart aches and pain of the different seasons and catastrophes attached to this world. I believe that I would be like Heaven to live within their environment.