I have been receiving the brilliant magazine First Things. This month's edition has an absolutely brilliant piece by Wheaton scholar Alan Jacobs reviewing the freshly minted (sorry) Green Bible. Yes, it's true... contemporary piety has even come to the point of producing a Bible with creation passages printed in green. What a relief, says Jacobs, to discover that God is green, because we know that green must be good. Even the ubiquitous NT Wright has penned an essay for this tome.
But Jacobs makes some terrific theological observations, not the least of which involves the issue of continuity/discontinuity.
Some will argue that the Book of Revelation promises the complete destruction of this world and its replacement by 'a new heaven and a new earth'. I am not inclined to that view; I tend to agree with NT Wright that the vision points to a moment when the new creation is made 'not ex nihilo, but ex vetere, not out of nothing, but out of the old one, the existing one,' just as the resurrected body of Jesus is not a brand-new body but his old one glorified.
Even so, we must face the fact that God's interaction with his creation is not always constructive and restorative but is often shockingly destructive. It is true that the destruction always precedes some kind of renewal, but it is destruction all the same, and while we can come up with comforting scenarios in which we do the same kind of thing - controlled burns in forest management and farming, for instance - it would be best not to allegorize too readily. God loves his creation, but he deals with in ways that, to us, are sometimes indistinguishable from hatred. As he deals with us....
A great rejoinder to the environmental ideology which is coming pretty close to idolatrous... (I am no green-sceptic, by the way!)
6 comments:
There was a copy on the New Arrivals shelf at Moore Books when I looked a few weeks back. It has an earthy, natural fibre vibe in the hand.
nice.
There's an entertaining tongue-in-cheek review of the green bible over at http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/ as well.
I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to Revelation, so please bear with me here.
What do people who argue for an ex vetere new creation do with Revelation 21:1?
21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (ESV)
So, how do proponents of an ex veterate New Earth read down the phrase 'passed away' ?
I guess one approach to that passage is to rule out what it can't mean, and it surely can't mean anything that would contradict earlier passages speaking about the renewal of creation. Key passages for that would be Gen 9 and Rom 8. God promises in the former not to "uncreate" the world again; in the latter creation itself is longing for it's renewal and liberation when the sons of God are revealed - a longing that would make little sense if it was all going to become toast.
If you keep on reading, you will find that it is the old order of things that has passed away (21.4). I take it that this is what is gone: the order in which creation was still groaning in bondage to decay.
BTW, I think new creation is neither ex nihilo nor ex vetere, but ex sephulchro - out of the tomb.
As for God's attitude to his creation; which episodes do you think that Jacobs has in mind? The fig tree? The flood?
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